East Tangiers

A scrap of paper pinned to the new memorial column outside of old city hall

2005-07-26T00:52:00.000-04:00

“… let me down gently; tell me it’s not quite over; tell me we can still change something, anything…”

East Tangiers: A Beginner’s Guide. Part One.

2005-07-25T00:56:00.000-04:00

What is East Tangiers?

East Tangiers is a small town in the count of Tangiers located somewhere in the continental United States. It is on a river and in a valley. Founded in the 18th century by a group of fugitive French Huguenots as Maratland, the name was eventually changed to East Tangiers for unknown reasons, in the late 19th century.

What is East Tangiers East of?

Just over the river lies West Tangiers, a substantially larger city that was founded much later than East Tangiers. There are currently no direct routes between East and West Tangiers, though the cities have long been attempting to create a bridge to link them. The powers of East Tangiers hope this will help rejuvenate their failing economy by bringing increased business and tourism to their historic areas.

Who runs the government of East Tangiers?

Mayor Kip Zirkel has been the town’s mayor for 30 of his 70 years. Along with the ever noble Zirkel, the town maintains a lively city council filled with such firebrands as Tom Apping and April Chthon.

Samantha Tungston Dreams

2005-07-24T18:21:00.000-04:00

of a fiery heart with hawk wings trapped in the bowels of a building buried beneath East Tangiers. She dreams of her city, mutated by a piss yellow sun, overrun with men who are not like men, all in search of that mystery buried under somewhere, under some street.

She dreams of a carriage driver with no horses and no carriage. He wears a deep purple top hat and a motorcar’s engine around his neck and he licks his teeth like they were candy. The carriage driver has brought her here to this other East Tangiers. He moves slowly, weighed down by the device around his neck, but his arms are free and they undulate in ways that make Samantha think more of sex than she’d like.

He takes her hand and tells her that he can’t show her to the buried building, though he knows exactly where it is, has the map in fact. Then he leans in and licks her teeth, his top hat sliding down his smooth and powdered hair. The smell is horrible, a baked and rancid sweetness. “I will awake from this” Samantha thinks as she swoons in the dream, her dream consciousness floating somwhere above her dream body, and she sees her dream body being strapped to the carriage drivers back, her legs dangling loose and free from his now more hunched form. “And when I do awaken I will be home.” And Samantha watches in a dream, as the sun beats down upon her limp form, slouching backwards away down the streets of a city she thought she knew, her head lulls left then right, left then right.

One day at dusk on the trash heap playground.

2005-07-17T13:45:00.000-04:00

The sky is a dull red. It looks bored and unwilling to be magnificent. On a bench made from old steam engine parts sit three figures. One is in rags, one holds a cane and one is a child, they are all male. The child speaks first, his hair is black but not as black as his eyes.

“There will be a missing girl.”

“There is always a missing girl.”

“She is almost always dead, but either way she will never be found, not really.”

“She will always be missed. There will always be tears.”

“Some will always question whether you can ever understand ‘she.’ Any ‘she’ at all”

“Even if her body is found, the sight of her face will only deepen the mystery.”

“Her last moments will be lost, a puzzle with no pieces left.”

“The idea of a puzzle. A puzzle that was a body, a body that was a life, a life that was a mirror.”

“There will be a missing girl.”

“There is always a missing girl.”

Laughter Haunts the River Banks

2005-07-16T11:42:00.000-04:00

A deep boiling laughter has been heard eminating from the banks of the river. It was first heard by the crews working to erect the new bridge linking East and West Tangiers. "At first it was a slow, almost whispered laughter," Foreman Carlos Wilhelm said "but it's gotten consistently stronger and louder."

"We hear it every night now, just before the sun goes down," crane operator Jim Jones added, "It's like the river is laughing at us." Another bridge worker, who wished not to be named, said that the laughter now haunted his dreams, that he could see the river when he slept and it was inky black.

Authorities have refused to comment, but this reporter has been there at dusk and heard the sounds with the workers. You could almost mistake it for the natural noises of the river but I swear it is something more. It is a strong laugh now, almost triumphant. The Gazette and the Observer, in the interest of public safety, will be calling in experts from the DNR to further investigate the sounds.

Today's weather TODAY

2005-03-17T14:19:00.000-05:00

Today the weather in our fair city will not reflect the genuine good nature of our citizens. Although partly sunny and about 42 degrees Celsius this morning, the latter half of the day will not be so pleasant. From what I’ve received on radar motorcycling marauders will raid our town later on this afternoon. The temperature will drop down to about 13 degrees right before our bad blood starts to wash away into our darkened sewage system at about 6 pm. If I had to guess, I would say that the 13-degree weather is more a sign of the end, rather than just an incontinent chill. A freezing rain will desend upon our streets and homes, so don’t even dare try to disappear because the eyes are always on you. After the clouds form sky-based whirlwinds that resemble your favorite colors blurred into one divine helix, we should have a nice full moon to gaze at as we gently sail away to forget today and dream tomorrow.

Reverend Neville Joins Staff

2005-03-13T15:26:00.000-05:00

Dear Reverend Neville,

The East Tangiers Gazette and Observer welcomes you to its staff. You've certainly been a boon to our town's spiritual life and we hope you will bring that same fervor to our humble publication as well. And nevermind all that bollocks concering you lurking about the Catholic graveyard at night with a shovel, a fly swatter and a hot pink dildo. We here at the Gazette and Observer don't abide by such nasty rumors. Welcome to the staff and here's to a long a fruitful collaboration.

All the best.

Samantha Tungston's to do list

2005-02-22T22:41:00.000-05:00

Monday

Drop J. Jr. at school
Pick up dry cleaning (4 shirts, 2 blouses)
Drive Ginny to piano
Grocery shopping (separate list)
Pick up Ginny
Make list of bills
Call J. to see what he wants for dinner
Browse obituaries
Stare at bedroom wall and catalogue disaster scenarios
Play with Ginny (Hungry Hungry Hippo or Trouble)
Fix dinner (pending J.’s answer)
Make list of letters to write
Watch hour of PBS with J. Jr. (Nova special on bird migration)
Put Ginny to bed (begin Wrinkle in Time)
Be sure J. Jr. is doing homework
Sex with J. (think about death as he cums)
Mandatory post-coital money talk
Prayers
Sleep the sleep of the righteous

Found tacked to the giant oak tree on Samson Boulevard

2005-02-19T12:02:00.000-05:00

Each one of these leaves is a life and a puzzle left here for a reason. This is the tree of mystery and these branches its many roads to truth. She who dares to count its leaves, she who dares to contemplate its fearful design, shall understand mystery.

This tree will survive, of what else might that be said?

From the Monad management

2005-02-19T11:32:00.000-05:00

Dear residents,

While we do realize, even without your consistent reminders, that it you and your families who pay our bills and allow this place to stay open, you must realize that the rules here exist to help you. They were not writen to "pander to some sickening fascist revivalist spirit" or "help us get our underaged cocks up" as some of you have asserted. While we're on the topic of false claims: Mr. Ragnor, it must be noted that it is not by your will alone that each member of the staff is allowed to awaken and draw breath every morning.

Every night for the past two weeks members of the staff have caught resident out of their beds past lights out. Further, these residents were violating noise quotas and some had even left the building to wander about the garden and pond like it was recreation hour. 3 am is not recreation hour. You all know that.

On noise violations, it has occured no less than 5 times in the last month that when an orderly leaves the rec-room unattended, the residents there-in participate in what I can only call a group wailing. On each occasion the orderly has returned, only to find the residents quiet and otherwise docile.

Other recurring transgressions include: willful destruction of establishment property including but not limited to expensive kitchen equipment and valuable statuaries, rampant graffiti in the public bathrooms, increased distribution of radical political tracts and what can only be described as a disturbing increase in public sexual activity.

Finally, despite Councilman Apping's sensible pleas, his office informs me that he continues to receive harassment from unknown persons in residence here.

Warmest,

Your Caring Staff

Danning's first song.

2005-02-18T09:56:00.000-05:00

I was drinking in the 'Ole Skratte, sixteen sheets past the wind
Drunk dreaming of my dead baby, left back on the tracks
on the tracks of the Mississippi.

I met a man, called himself Empty Barrels, "I'm an honest man,
when my pistols are dry, and my pistols'a been dry
since the night she spit in my eye, since the night she spit in my eye"

They say there's a place, west of the rockies, east of the sea
a place they keep people like him and me, keep us under lock and key
I say I been to that place, and I shot myself free
Yeah, I shot myself free.

Answer to the extra credit question on a fourth grade math pop quiz

2005-02-16T22:02:00.000-05:00

Extra Credit: Two trains are traveling towards each other on the same track. The first train is accelerates at a rate of 10 miles per hour per minute, the second train accelerates at a rate of 15 miles per hour per minute. If the trains begin 68 miles apart, how long will it take the trains to collide?

[Handwritten] One day I’ll multiply 13 by 13 and get 171. One day I’ll look up into the sky and see a color with no name. One day I’ll step off the curb and there’ll be nothing there to catch me. One day someone will say my name and I won’t recognize it (I shall only answer to the name Eleutheria). One day straight lines will raise their hands and admit defeat. One day I’ll look in the mirror and see parts, not a whole. One day I’ll walk out of this classroom and forget I was ever in it.

Recent study shows drifter traffic on the rise in east Tangiers.

2005-02-15T15:05:00.000-05:00

A study conducted by the National Society for Homeless Prevention shows that the number of vagrants passing through the east Tangiers area has grown, despite national trends showing drops in the number of homeless. This statistic is further anomalous as the number of trains transporting goods through east Tangiers has dropped substantially and the rail yard lies almost entirely dormant. What this excess of homeless population is doing east Tangiers or where they are going from here was beyond the realm of the study. Crime rates within the city limits have not shown oddities given recent trends and there does not seem to be any reason for the populace to be concerned.

When local vagrant legend Danning Flaminco was approached for comment he just smiled and tipped his reeking top hat, refusing to add any exact statement.

There Were Gods Here.

2005-02-13T20:13:00.000-05:00

A prospectus.
by James King

Recent archaeological research in the woods to the east and south of Tangiers has revealed a startling wealth of anthropological information. Foremost of interest is evidence that a previously unknown indigenous religion flourished in the area prior to the arrival of the first Europeans in the mid 16th century.

And, more startling, the evidence yields, and this paper will seek to prove, that this native religion reversed the era’s trend of Christian proselytizing and the Europeans that came to this land found their own brand of Christianity mutated, infected, and ultimately erased by the strength of this rare set of believes and tenets.

This land was home to a highly specialized pantheon of gods and spirits, heretofore unknown to historians and anthropologists of the area. Many questions regarding this period of colonial Tangiers still remain, this paper will seek to posit answers to these many questions as well as relaying a wealth of information on the gods that once roamed these woods and their followers.

An open letter from a city councilman to the residents at the Monad establishment.

2005-02-10T17:01:00.000-05:00

To east Tangier's fine elderly citizens,

I do not have a monster living in my bunker. Claims that recently appeared in this space are quite obviusly bogus. Though claims were made by an anonymous dissident, I do hope that you will take it upon yourselves as concerned members of your community to locate the errant scribe and see that he understands the absurdity of his claims.

Your help is appreciated and I look forward to your votes in the upcoming season.

Your concerned civil servant,

Tom Apping

dbnr.

A note found drifting in the breeze blowing through the Fulsom street playground.

2005-02-10T16:41:00.000-05:00

...The scientific community has identified four possible end scenarios for the cosmos: the big rip, the big crunch, the slow fade and the mysterious quintessence. They have yet to recognize the potential fervor of a neglected God’s wrath...

Letter from a mother to her 17 year old son's principal.

2005-02-09T01:17:00.000-05:00

Dear Mr. Garduno,

Teach death in your schools. It is more important than sex. Make death, violence and labor relations your core curriculum. They are the most important things that each of us have to undersatnd in live. I read that once and I challenge you to disagree. My son barely has a grasp on sex, let alone the reality of sudden violence, the imminence of death or the complications of labor relations. And you claim that "sex ed" is a key part of our children's educations.

Speaking of Franklin, he tells me that you have been hosting special seminars for the college bound seniors. How very nice of you.

Till graduation then...

Warmest,

Samantha Tungston
[signed]

General notice to the residents of east Tangiers districts 4, 5, and 10

2005-02-09T00:59:00.000-05:00

As many of you I’m sure are aware, construction resumed today on the bridge linking east Tangiers with the rest of the muncipality of Tangiers. Rumors have been circulating since last Spring that the project would forever remain aborted. This is categorically untrue and was never even an option.

The project was halted due to a complex of circumstances including sudden disappearance of key project staff, an unexpected budgetary drop and the accidental collapse of a central support column.

The project resumes today, with the funds needed to finish the bridge pledged by the government and various philanthropic locals. Missing members of the key staff have all been rounded up or replaced. And soon you shall all see that collapsed support column rise like a reborn tower of Babel.

We do apologize for the return of the construction noises, but I’m sure you all understand: these sleepless nights and early mornings you suffer are for all of us.

Here’s to a grand and connected future for Tangiers.

Posted on the commmunity billboard outside the game room of the Monad Assisted Living/Intensive Care Establishment.

2005-02-08T01:27:00.000-05:00

The five best things about east Tangiers:

By an anonymous life-long resident of Tangiers and 6 month resident of this establisment (against his will).

1. The smell of the river in the morning: Somewhere between the smell of animal rot and the perfume of crisp dew. Take a nostril full as the sun cracks the sky, you won’t regret it.

2. The Tangy-Tangiers sandwich at Frank Benny’s Burger Banger. I have been trying to learn the ingredient of the secret sacue since my eyes barely cleared the bar stools at Benny’s, a restaurant that truly levels class distinctions.

3. The mysterious biography of Danning Flaminco. Local legend Danning Flaminco left the bar room stages East Tangiers at the age of 21, to seek his fortune on the train tracks, highways and interstates of the land. 21 more years later, he stumbled back into town, his eyes sunken, his arms bone thin, scars crisscrossing his back, and his mouth full of bizarre stories, his fingers deft and able. Danning lives somewhere in town to this day, with careful eyes and ears, you can spot him, strumming his worn guitar, singing of weird America in a raspy, grated voice to the willing of east Tangiers.

4. City Councilman Tomas Apping has a monster living in the bunker in his backyard. The last thing I saw before I was interred alive in this ramshackle excuse of a living grave, was a glistening wet tentacle, whipping frantically into the dark recesses of the Cold War era bunker in elected official Tom Apping’s backyard.

5. The trash heap playground on Fulsom street. A socially beneficial relic from Tangiers flirtation with progressive ("Communist!" they screamed) government. Before my imprisonment in this white-washed pit of reptilian ineptitude, I used to sit on the worn spindle swings, letting my swollen joints unwind in the wind flowing off of the abandoned Model A.

Note: A week after appearing, the crumbled sheet of clumsily typed paper was removed for containing political thought, contentious ideas and subversive social sentiment. The damage, however, may well already have been done.

A Fourth Grader's Final Writing Project

2005-02-05T19:40:00.000-05:00

Jimmy Dixon
Fourth Grade
Mrs. Glockenspiel

A Vision of the Apocalypse

After the skies have melted and the men in business suits have stabbed their wives to death with baby spoons, after the rivers have started flowing with red reeking detritus and alien flesh-spores rule the wind, after every capital has turned into a mutli-ringed flesh auction, lorded over by bloated steam-powered biotech monstrosities, after the sun has given up and the moon has danced away forcing mankind to cling to the last vestiges of electricity for light, after the prognositcators, the card readers and the will-writers have turned the key and locked up shop, a small child carries his stuffed bear out into the ruined and pock-marked street of his small town. He looks left and he looks right, his young mind numbed already to the idea of rabid red-cloaked cultists wielding meat cleavers, to the reality of predatory house cats with batwings, to the idea of death jumping from body to body, spread by look and breath, and the boy finds the perfect spot and he sits and sucks his thumb, clutching his bear. Its name is Frankie, together they ignore the growing roar (a roar that has been buliding for a millenium, longer, a roar that snuck in through the grates, through the sewers, down from the sky and out from just behind you, a roar that deafens even as you ignore it). And as the liquid sky opens up again with fire, together they sit and dream a new beginning.

Proof read by: Mary-Jane Dixon [signed]

The torn contents of scrap of paper found in the shadow of the new east Tangiers' bridge construction site:

2005-02-05T03:51:00.000-05:00

"... Surely life itself is the greatest abberation of all..."

An Interview with Rick Anything, part one

2005-02-03T18:35:00.000-05:00

I had often heard tales of the mysterious Rick Machete and his legendary adventures. Mostly I had heard that he was a bigoted narcissist, that his adventures were largely throwbacks to an era when colonialism was considered God's holy work, and that he habitually munched his cuticles. When I finally met Mr. Machete, I found two of these things to be true. He never munched a cuticle, though, and for that at least, I can be glad.

The opportunity to interview this atavistic elephant came round when Machette returned from his most recent raping of Africa to promote his second memoir (MACHETE IN THE CONGO: A NEW HERO FOR A NEW WAR). I caught up with him in a small coffee shop on the edges of downtown east Tangiers. After waiting for him to show for about 20 minutes, he burst into the place reeking of khat and musty body odor, his legendary mane of dirty brown hair tied back into an obscenely greesy pony tail. After shaking hands, Mr. Machete whipped his chair around backwards, squatting over it, letting his worn leather jacket hang open, exposing what can only be called an vast array of ridiculous trinkets and accessories hanging from his vest.

What follows is a short excerpt from the interview:

SL: People, myself included, have accused you of treating Africa like it was still the land of boundless adventure that we find in the tales of H. Rider Haggard and others. How do you think of Africa?

Rick Machette: She's like a big beautiful woman, eager to engage you, undeniably sexual but complicated, violent. And black. She's a black woman, definitely. And for a man as potent and virile as myself, her darkest corners are irresistible.

SL: I see. Don't you think that's a somewhat overplayed metaphor? That something is like a woman?

RM: Not if it is true.

SL: True or false: You have killed Zulus?

RM: True. Zulu sorcerers actually. This will make it into my third memoir, tentatively entitled MACHETE HACKS: ANECDOTES FROM THE DARK CONTINENT, but I'll give you a little taste. I was running vital medicines to the native inhabitants of deepest Congo, when I beset by a small party of Zulu sorcerers, hired by a rival medicinal supplier. Do to an unfortunate sexual encounter the previous night, I was without any weapons to speak of, save a long straight razor and even that wasn't particularly sharp.

SL: You killed Zulu sorcerers with nothing but a dull straight blade?

RM: I'm here telling you the story now, aren't I? It ain't easy killing Zulu with anything, let alone when they have summoned up spirit armor to protect their black hearts. The secret is knowing how to swing the blade so it hits the ghostly shell in a particularly senstive area. The balls of the ghost armor, that's where you cut.

SL: Nevermind the ghost balls, Zulus have black hearts?

RM: If a sorcerer chooses to sell his abilities for profit? Hell yeah, I'd say that's black hearted. But I'll tell you what: some of the survivors of the massacre that ensued are among my best drinking buddies now. Real men, man's men, man's men who desire man deaths, and men who have killed man's men for simply looking too masculine. Something you'll never be. I abhor you snivelling journalists...

SL: You don't find us like a lithe and sultry woman, nosey but eager in our inquiries?

RM: No, I find you to be filled with weakness and eager only to spew platitudes like so much Taco Bell-induced shit. What do you know of blood and tears? Of the chants of the natives as they summon their dark creatures from beyond the...

The full interview, which I barely survived, is available in the January 17th issue of the East Tangiers Gazette Magazine.

The best thing a stranger has ever said to me:

2005-02-02T01:16:00.000-05:00

"You'll die happy."

Said by a particularly angry Columbia undergrad student, wearing bermuda-style shorts in the dead of winter, on the bottom floor of a frat party neither of us should have been attending, after spending 15 minutes slagging off his ex-girlfriend for dumping him because of personality traits she learned from Vogue and Cosmo.

I'm not a huge believer in divination, but if an angry student of English literature, hell-bent on defying the whim of nature, has had a drunken premontion of my happy expiration, I think that's enough to get me to sleep soundly maybe 7 out of 10 nights.

The kid loved Spanish literature I had never heard of and probably just really wanted that ex-girlfriend back. But I can't help but think back on him with fondness.

McDonald's Breakfast is better than Burger King's

1991-05-05T09:55:00.000-04:00

My eye hasn’t acted up this badly in years. I mean, it’s never been all that good, but it had always at least had some life in it. Lately, my left eye has just been killing me. Its like a burning sensation whenever I fucking blink. How cruel is that? What did I do to deserve a fucking freakish eye?
THE eye really hadn't been this bad in a long time.
Maybe it was something I did to make it act like this. Maybe I should’ve have looked at the light for so long. Maybe I got shampoo in it in the fucking shower today. Maybe it was all that salt water. Maybe I should just get out into natural light and stop staring in the mirror.
Today was worse than yesterday; the eye was completely crusted over. I couldn’t even blink it when I tried. I had to sit all day picking at it with a toothpick and a pair of old pliers. I hadn’t used pliers since my mother used to pull out wooden splinters from my feet and hands. I wish I had a nail file; it would make the removal of this crusted puss much easier.
Ican’tbelievethatyesterdayisnottodayandthattommorowmyeyewillbeworseagain.

I can remember having perfect vision. Sometimes I wonder if I really do remember though. It seems so long ago that I can’t imagine it as a reality, only a chimera.
People in town say that my eye deserved to turn me into a walking freak show. Lots think that I’ve done or seen things in my life that no god could let a man partake in without some kind of cosmic justice.
My eye hadn’t been this bad in so long.
I’ve decided that I have to leave my room if it’s ever going to get better.
For now I’ll just sleep and hope its better tomorrow.