ChaPTER TWO (12) Mitzi's dream continued...

They drifted through the crumbling buildings. Every now and then Mitzi would spot a trashcan full of flames that glowed showing only hands warming themselves. He felt the time nearing when he would meet the awesome Mr. Katz… they couldn’t be more than a few miles away…

He was beginning to feel his eyelids slowly set towards their lowly partners against his cheeks, when out of the corner of his eyes waved a white man full of vigor and liveliness in front of a semi-developed building. There were electric lights within, the only mark of civilization besides his monotonous headlights, that illuminated this charismatic figure and cast his shadow clear across the street onto the chaos beyond.

“This must be it,” announced a weary Mitzi.

Many of the crew members had long since fallen asleep, except for Dogbert and Virgil. The rest awakened with a start and began to rub their eyes and focus on the scene outside.

The white man was dressed in a home-made get up consisting of intricately sewn parts that resembled a quilt. He motioned for the van to come nearer and to park in a spot clear of rubble, which Mitzi presumed was a faux-parking space. The travelers descended from their battered Mark III one by one, exhausted from their mini battle. Mitzi was the last to exit from the driver’s seat, turning the engine off and placing the key in his pocket; this shouldn’t take long, he thought.

“Welcome!” said the white man dressed in his fitted quilt.

“Where is Katz?” asked Mitzi bluntly; this was not the time for a formal greeting. His mission was clearer than ever: Get Katz and get the hell out of this god-forsaken place.

“Ah. You wish to speak to Katz. He resides within…”

The quilted man beckoned Mitzi come nearer to him so that he could see his face. The electric lights, a blessing and a curse, dilated Matt’s pupils and blinded him for a moment. Shading his face, he asked:

“How far?”

The man’s face showed that of a young man’s; no wrinkles, barely a scruffy fledgling beard. But he was gaunt and white. The sun couldn’t reach far into this place the buildings had so toppled on one another. But that fluorescent fake, man-made light again! How it does no pigment good, from the deepest of ebony, to the most chocolate Mexican, to the whitest of ivory of Europe. God, forsake this place, Mitzi thought.

“A twenty minute walk.” Deeper into the disarray he would have to go…

They began their walk, with Dogbert and Virgil trailing behind, and behind those two fools were the pilgrims. They clutched their books so tightly it seemed they might meld with the holy Word, but it was artificial – only a bunch of nouns those books were without verbal association. In fact, all the buildings, the near-dead, dead, and dying homeless men, their metal trash cans full of fire, the fluorescent lights, Dogbert and Virgil, the pilgrims themselves – all were just a disassociated bunch of nouns cramped into the same space at the same time. None of them really knew each other. The homeless man strayed far behind in search of food. He would doubtless find a morsel in this wasteland. 

CHAPTER TWO (11) Mitzi's dream continued...

But there was simply no need to shoot the man, because he took his final few breaths – strange, animalistic, heavy breaths – and his eyes rolled back to his head and he died. His only surviving cohort stood up from his corner of the van and looked deeply into the eyes of his deceased friend. He delivered his black and dingy hands to the man’s face and slowly closed his eyes while muttering something in audibly. There was a moment of silence, and the doctor forgot his austerity, and Mitzi forgot his loathing at the man who seemed so pitiless only moments before, and the van floated down the darkening street with not a homeless man to be spoken of except the mourning one inside that moving shell.

It was night now and they drove in silence. The corpse still lay on the stretcher because no one dared open the sliding doors. And if they did, no one would know what to do with the body anyways. The sweet smell of blood ran thick in the air, though Mitzi’s shoes had become crusty as the blood was beginning to coagulate. Outside, the  night was darker than any Mitzi had ever seen: the buildings contained nooks which could hide the most abominable creatures in their depths. The pilgrims began to talk of Katz and weed again, always under their breath. The whispering made even more eerie this horrible mission. 

Dogbert and Virgil, who remained hidden during the catastrophe under some fire-retardant blankets procured from the first aid kits, eyes wide open and stuffed with fear, were silent. They looked around them with brutish instinctive eyes. None of them, including the pilgrims, had been this deep into the District. The motor hummed above all else, as Mitzi steadily waned on the gas. They were almost to where Katz had been last located. A sinister mood had arisen in the van: no one spoke unless to utter something about their destination and the communal focus was on finally meeting Katz for the first time. An eerie, eerie silence ran deep through the vehicle. Even the last homeless man felt it, and showed his curiosity with tiny beads of sweat.

His remaining beef was starting to rot. Nevertheless, he chewed it every once and a while with slow drawn out bites. The rest of the van was sickened, but too tired to make a point of the nauseating ritual. For once, Mitzi thought of him as a man with carnal hunger, a man who hadn’t eaten a good meal for months. He was showing signs of serious anemia, but it didn’t jade him. He might make it through Katz’s recovery, but his being alive past that would be a miracle. 

CHAPTER TWO (10) Mitzi's dream continued...

They howled and howled at the van, something so primitive and beast-like, yet filled with human reaction and base anxiety. It was as if they were howling as a device to let the intruders know that they wanted nothing to do with them, but if necessary they might take up the means to do away with the whole damnable vehicle.

Flat tire or not, Mitzi jammed his foot onto the gas and sped down Broadway. As they were gaining speed, with sparks flowing from the rear wheel hub-cap, a small rock found its way through the passenger-side window into the head of his accomplice and instantly killed him. Right to the temple. Blood splattered like house paint onto Mitzi’s cheek and arm and caused the steering wheel to become slick. He swerved the van nearly hitting the militia coating the street but soon regained control. During the whole fiasco, the man – the corpse – fell to Mitzi’s lap limp and cumbersome. A man seemed to weigh a thousand pounds when he was dead.

Mitzi began again to speed up and out of this mess. His foot squished against the shoe as he pounded on the gas, and a warm sensation filled in his toes. Disgusting, blood gushed out of his right shoe. The driving became difficult. He felt no pain and realized that the man’s head on his lap was losing blood somewhat rapidly and draining into his socks.

While maintaining his speed, Mitzi reached over and pried loose the passenger door, propped up the dead man, and kicked him out. His body tumbled to the street and briskly somersaulted out of view. A whimpered was produced from the back of the van somewhere, probably from the man’s comrades. The howling had stopped as had the bullets, and the commotion now seemed to cease, leaving an intense silence. The injured man on the stretcher had half of his face blown off by a rock, “probably propelled by a sling of some sort,” conjectured one of the pilgrims. They had stabilized him, but for what? The man layed groaning on the stretcher, gutteral groans for part of his throat had been mamed. His groaning was growing intolerable.

“Don’t you have morphine? Why don’t you give him an overdose of morphine?” asked Mitzi, unable any longer to bear this man’s pain.

“Do you think that is the only use I have for morphine? Would you like me to have to operate without morphine? You have a revolver, shoot him yourself.” Said the apparent doctor.

“He’s been hit already. If you’d been hit, I am sure you’d think differently.” Mitzi was beginning to sweat.

“I will shoot the poor thing. I am a humane man. I will not let him suffer…” announced one of the other pilgrims reaching for his pistol.

“Shoot him then!” yelled the doctor, raising his bloody forceps in the air, “Shoot him. Assume the responsibility!”

“You are not a human being!” Yelled Mitze still driving, raising his voice as loud as he could to drown out the man’s groans. Cold this man understand the velocity of this conversation? About hi own life hanging in the balance of a few men who could never understand his world?

“I’m not killing anyone here. I care for the wounded, I don’t kill them.”

“Why don’t you care for him then?”

“I have done so. I have done all that can be done.”

            “Fuck yourself!” Mitzi aimed the revolver at the wounded man’s head. The man’s eyes grew big and he shook what was left of his face back and forth violently. Oh yes, he could understand what was going on.

CHAPTER TWO (9) Mitzi's dream continued...

They had been reduced to animal existence, which is why they were threatening to Mitzi.

They had been driving now for about three hours, right into the nucleus of the District, which is supposedly where Katz had been holding up. The street was appallingly disheveled with pot-holes that sunk into the soft earth beneath the asphalt sometimes more than two or three feet, and it was getting considerably worse. Many times, one of the natives had to cautiously exit the vehicle and change a tire, or fill one, while the rabid animals in the form of human bodies screamed and yelled and hollered from within the mess of buildings. Often, a bit of concrete was thrown or a sharpened piece of re-barb, but not once was one of the men injured.    

As they stopped, Mitzi eyed one of the forms in a dark chasm of what used to be a convenience store.

“You know that they are the growers for the distributors,” announced Dogbert, “and the distributors have to reel them in like their catching tuna with nets. The distributors go out into this madness,” he pointed to the decrepit ramshackle mess of buildings, “and take them in so that they can teach them the civilized way to live. They teach ‘em structure and discipline and all that. Good for a man, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” Replied Mitzi, half listening.

“Out there, they are just spics and niggers running wild. Lawlessness, utter lawlessness.”

“Yeah – lawlessness.” Virgil sickened Mitzi.

One of the homeless men had moved into the passenger seat next to Mitzi, which caused an issue. Mitzi voiced nothing, but felt he was too close to the help. They belonged in the back of the van pointing their firearms out the peepholes. Suddenly, the bum changing the tire outside screamed with terror which made the atmosphere inside the van quiet and concentrated. For a few moments, nothing happened. All Mitzi could here was the heavy breathing of the pilgrims. He looked into his rearview mirror and found panic on everyone of their faces, all of them clutching miserably to their blue leather bibles. Some had begun to pray under their breath.

The injured man swung into the van and one of his fellows helped him to the floor. One of the pilgrims went to work with bandages, screaming for various utensils and CCs of this and that. Everything had become out of control, and the natives outside had begun to close in on the lone Mark III.

The homeless man next to Mitzi was on extreme alert, but Mitzi could tell he had little if no training whatsoever. The man constantly oscillated the shaft of his gun every which way, resembling a sprinkler connected to a thin brown water hose. A rock or a piece of concrete (it came too fast to identify) struck the front window in the upper left corner, causing a heavy line to protrude towards the middle.

“We’s got us a rumble,” announced the bum sitting next to him, still swinging his gun every which way, “They’s gots quite an arsnul out there.”

Mitzi grabbed revolver from under the front seat and cocked it. Shots were coming from the back of the van’s peepholes beside the chaos that was ensuing with the injured man. The pilgrims had swarmed around him and loaded him onto a stretcher at this point, while one of the men obviously trained in emergency medicine stuck a long tube down the bum’s throat and attached the end to a machine. Pandamonium insued: everyone was yelling.

“I need fifty CCs of epiponephrine!”

“Duck!”

“I thinks I gotstheem!”

“Forty-five over one-eighty!”

            Matt could see a swarm of natives outside the van lining the street: they had no weapons except what they could gather from the debris of the buildings. Very few of them if any seemed to be throwing these weapons, rather most of the noise was from guns exploding into their assembly. Three or four were picked off by the man sitting in the passenger seat, and Mitzi watched them drop to the ground while another native was brought forward to fill his place. They screamed a most horrible chant, which by Mitzi’s standard were quite foreign and daunting.

CHAPTER TWO (8) Mitzi's dream continued...

The accountant got up again and ushered him to the door. He was tinier than Matt had imagined, but nonetheless intimidating. His suit made up for it, and his manner. As they made their way toward the door, Mitzi heard the ghastly moaning of the person in the back room and winced.

“I do wish he would shut up already!” cried the accountant. “I can never get anything done around here with that incessant groaning. Here are your keys.”

Mitzi poured onto the street into the hell again. It was dark although the sun was out: the buildings towered menacingly. He expected rain, but the clouds didn’t look all that promising. He wished it might rain to wash out all of this agony.

This is it? Matt thought. He put the keys into a black Mark III and tested the engine. It will suffice. He looked into the rear view mirror –

“Holy fucking shit!”

“You didn’t think you’d be going alone, did you?” said Dogbert. There was Virgil next to him, his yellow teeth emerging from his lips in that ever-present smile. Behind the two in the back of the van were the pilgrims – those who would be bringing the word of God to the mob within the heart of District 11. A little perturbed, Mitzi took his foot off the breaks. He had known that NORML would be sending pilgrims to the most difficult of areas, but he hadn’t been notified that they’d be on his mission.

Next to the pilgrims stood the weapons and ammunition. Next to the ammunition stood the first aid kits and oxygen tanks. A defibrillator stood nearby those. The van was pretty cramped, but adequate. Essentially, the van was an ambulance equipped for a mass casualty incident in the form of a ‘96 Mark III with armored sidewalls.

But what most amazed Matt were the three men cramped in the farthest regions of the van: the natives of District 11. Their clothing was torn and shabby and irrefutably soiled. Their faces were all gaunt and expressionless, and they held close to them a good three pounds of beef wrapped in an oily newspaper. They seemed to Matt to be excessively underweight, but their eyes, their eyes bulged out of their cheek bones so intensely! It seemed as if those eyes were watching Mitzi’s every turn of the wheel, every shift in gear, every transition from clutch to break. They were menacing and dangerous, and Mitzi kept one eye on the road and one eye in his rear-view mirror fixed on them. They might cause problems. They began their journey into the heart of District 11 via Broadway boulevard in this situation: a stupidly contented Dogbert and Virgil, a few missionaries not at ease but spreading the word of The Good Book, three shifty native homeless men, and a leery Mitzi on a mission hanging on the notion of either a great man or a very, very bad man.

The mysterious Katz had now begun to be blown out of proportion in Mitzi’s mind: he was god gone horribly wrong, but he was in awe nevertheless. Before, Katz had never seemed a bona fide being; a being full of flesh and feasible. The pilgrims, the homeless men, all of these things made the entire mission more real for Mitzi, and his heart began to sprint ten feet before the van, even though they were moving at a steady 55 miles per hour. The homeless men were ghosts, but still served as some threat: the whole environment was unearthly and the men were – no, they were not inhuman. Well, that was the worst of it – the suspicion of their not being human. The suspicion wreaked in Mitzi head the worst scenarios: they might mutiny, they might do away with the wonderful pilgrims on their wonderful charge. Who knows? But no, they clung to their parcel of beef with their colossal eyeballs in their undersized sockets in their ghostly faces atop emaciated bodies. It didn’t seem they had energy to do much else, but somehow they located it somewhere in their bony frames and did the work. It was Virgil and Dogbert who didn’t seem to do much – instead, the homeless men clung to their beef and stuck the nozzles of their AK-47s out tiny peepholes of the Mark III in case one of the men on the outside decided to do anything tricky.

Yes, it was a motley squad in that van: a juxtaposition of Christianity and firepower, the thin faces of the homeless men and the plump ones of Virgil and Dogbert. But all had in common their missions, whether it be to retrieve Katz or to spread their religion. But it was the smell of weed that resounded in the air most of all. Even in the pilgrims holy air floated heavily subtle talk of marijuana – a hint here and there. The homeless men were the only ones who’d had a enough of it, they had spent their livelihoods (or what little there was of it) on drugs and alcohol and now they were forced to cling to something only of necessity. 

CHAPTER TWO (7) Mitzi's dream continued...

“…A man who has changed District 11 and indeed the whole institution of NORML. When I met the man – no! the God – I became a follower. He could sell a flat tire to a bike, a dick to a dyke –“

“A dick to a dyke.”

“And he has indeniably gained the most marijuana for the mission. In all of the regional districts, he has reported much of the gregariate total of pot. Indeniably the best!” Dogbert raised his index finger to the sky.

“Indeniably.”

“But of course, he has soured. Ah – the greed of man! He has stopped reporting what he acquires and hordes it for himself. A perfect case of a man gone horribly awry.”

“Well that’s why I am here.” Mitzi said.

They had been walking for quite some time now and the streets became denser and denser with dilapidated buildings. Their shadows hung luminously on the ever-narrowing street below as if there was a battle between street and edifice. The buildings seemed to materialize and swell while the streets cowered in their midst with no escape. The natives below had no prayer. Some were dead, their bodies decayed and in the air hung the stench of death. Who was in charge of human clean up? Wondered Matt.

“Don’t worry about them,” Virgil said as he pointed to the grove of dead and dying, “Time will take its course.”

“Well, this is our post. You will remain here until your transportation is obcured.” Announced Dogbert. Dogbert and his disciple lead him into a makeshift settlement building, which was kempt and fit. It was a functioning office; a refreshing sight from the revolting and shadowing landscape outside. Everything was in its place – there was in an inbox and an outbox and everything was white and sterile, much like the backroom of the doctor’s office. Beside the inbox sat the name plate:

 

Mr. Donald Scheffield

Chief Accountant

 

He was very neatly dressed. His impeccable habit of “looking professional” rejuvenated Mitzi’s soul and brought him back to a world that functioned with certain dignity. His lapel was white and starched with a white collared button-down poking out beneath it. His tie was even white and he seemed to dress in accordance with his office. Mitzi was mystified by this important man, who so contradicted the dirtiness emitted from Dogbert and Virgil. How could a man keep his esteem so unimpeachable in a such a foul and detestable place? This man defied everything that Mitzi had so far encountered on this mission, and his aim was to keep his respectability in0line with this man.

“Good morning,” said the accountant. He resumed typing on the neat little computer before him. Continuing to do so, but without looking up, he said, “I trust Dogbert and Virgil haven’t ruined you yet? They can often be exasperating. But – one learns to deal.”

“They were entertaining.” Mitzi could tell this man was all business, so he hastily got down to the point. “They informed me that my transportation would be arriving soon.”

“Ah yes.” The accountant looked up. “You must be Matt.” He abandoned his position at the desk with the computer and made his way with an outstretched arm to shake Mitzi’s hand. After the formalism, he politely asked him to tae a seat.

“I am sure you have heard of Mr. Katz, then. Very troubling case. We are glad to have you, I have heard great things from the headquarters in L.A. Coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

“Then we shall begin. Your car will be here in a few minutes. You are to swiftly enter into the more populated part of District 11 by following Broadway. We haven’t actually made it into the heart of the District yet – a bit dodgy, if you know what I mean. Men have gone in and never come out.”

Mitzi looked straight into the man’s eyes. They seemed unattached and distant, like they were staring right through Mitzi. Suddenly, a moan seeped in from a back room. The moaning continued throughout the pause in conversation, and had it not been for the accountant’s typing that had begun again, Mitzi might have inquired. He didn’t need to, however, because the account addressed the moan complacently:

“Oh don’t mind him. His time is almost here. I wish he’d get on with it already.”

Mitzi was too stunned to ask any questions.

“Anyway, you are then to find Katz and bring him back to the settlement. We would like to detain him for the time being, but if he is not alive, at least bring the body back.”

“Absolutely.”

“Your ride is here.”

“Excellent.”

CHAPTER TWO (6) Mitzi's dream continued...

Dogbert and Virgil (codenames, Mitzi had suspected), greeted him grimly. They both were wearing suits and ties and sunglasses standing on the sidewalk. Dogbert motioned for Mitzi to follow with the wave of his hand, while Virgil took up the rear. Virgil was looking around, as if the watch. Every few steps he might turn his head back to make sure that no one was following them with their feet or their eyes.

It was certainly the ghetto, as he had been warned about District 11. The buildings were decaying; falling to pieces so much so that their innards were thrust out towards the passerby as they were bursting. But a slow burst. Cars lined the small alleyway that Dogberry lead him to, each car it seemed from a different decade, but every single one regardless of age was in a state of decomposition. Their interiors seemed rotted out and those parts that were no shaded by their frames were dry and cracked. The whole sick scene was dismal. Mitzi wished he could jump through one of the broken windows in order to escape from this festering shit-hole. To be off the street would be a blessing right now.

“Are you wearing protective gear?” Asked Dogberry objectively.

Matt felt for his under-armor. “Check.”

“What have you eaten for breakfast?”

“Oatmeal, sir.”

“Let’s keep it inside, mkay?”

Mitzi became more aware of his surroundings.

“We want to warn you that this is District 11, and that everything you have heard about it is a hackneyed crock of horse manure.” Virgil concurred, nodding his head and smiling viciously showing his tiny teeth that seemed oddly filed-down.

To his right, ragged men were laying on the ground, some covered in their own feces, others piled on top of each other to keep warm. They were decrepit installations in their concrete landscape; it was a proverbial no man’s land with limbs of every color, but mostly black and brown. Black arms and legs, brown arms and legs, black emotionless faces… faces without eyes and noses and mouths. They all seemed blank and shadowed. Above them were the towering buildings, all decayed and falling on one another whose re-barb within shown like their skeletons. Mitzi was reminded of the Mile, but he’d never seen a place quite this horrifying. There were makeshift bridges connecting the concrete structures that seemed made of plywood, but perhaps even thick cardboard. On them hung clotheslines.

The two men leading Mitzi seemed unaffected. Mitzi concluded that they had been here much too long; they had become immune to any compassion for the sick and dying homeless men, to the filth and grime of it all. Mitzi was sickened however, and nearly lost his stomach over the whole landscape and its inhabitance.

Dogbert continued, as did Verges with his affirmation:

“You may have heard that this place has gone a bit sour since early NORML days. Well, as you can obviously see, it is true. The situation is insatiable. Our processors came here about fifteen years ago – “

“Yeah, fifteen years ago…” interjected Vergil.

“To clean this place up. You should have seen it before we got here, all these men and their fathers were running lose around the whole vicintity. District 11 – “

“Before it was District 11… - “

“Right. Before it was District 11, was a filthy cesspool of ingrates and Philistines who were put together to form what we know as gangs.”

“Yeah – gangs.” Said a wickedly smiling Virgil drawing out the word gangs as if Mitzi didn’t understand the English language.

“Right. And these gangs” – Dogbert also drew out the word – “became fashions of what we call a druglord. And so this area of the city was ruled by micarrients and drugs, where commerce relied solely on the sale of pot, ganja, weed –“

“Diablito, mary jane – “ interjected Verges, still smiling.

“Bud, kind bud, mersh, Hydro, Green –“

“Chronic, dank, Dro, grass, peace tobacco, Texas Tea, Four-twenty, Marley, Barley – “

“Rasta Fasta, Herb, skunk, sticky-icky – “

“Mota, haze, reefer, India, Jamaica Gold, THC – “

“Cecil, Hippie Lettuce, Maoi Wowie – “

“Just to name a few.” Ended Dogbert.