Zika
“Fire in the sky” by April Reppucci. July 2, 2016, El Segundo. A LAX flight soars into the smoke from the Santa Clarita Sand Fire, 45 miles away. Canon T5i.
Honorable mention
July 1, 2016, MANHATTAN BEACH MARRIOTT, Room 431
Special Agent-in-Charge, Roy Starky reviewed the profile of suspect Jacob Sage with Special Agent Francis Darling.
“You know why you were selected?” Starky didn’t look up.
“Because I was lead singer in my high school band, sir,” Darling replied.
“Correct. What we want from you is swagger. You’re a barfly. You sing karaoke with attitude, but you sing badly.” Starky looked up and smiled.
“How bad, sir?” She was amused.
“Fingernails on chalkboard bad. You will butcher every note. Special Agents Scott White and Daniel Dorsey have established cover as lounge lizards. You will be fawned over. You will mooch off everyone. Sage hates karaoke. He complains because his band has to endure it while they set up their equipment at the Starboard. Sage hates barflies. He especially hates people who can’t sing but think they can. Special Agent Thomas Dufay has been living undercover in the same El Segundo flop house as Sage for six months and the only thing he learned was by accident last night when Sage got his hand sliced open by a junkie who tried to steal Sage’s Gibson Les Paul. Dufay drove Sage’s van to the emergency room. Sage didn’t say a word. No ‘thank you.’ Sage takes off without giving Dufay a ride home. What’s your take, Agent Darling?”
“My impression, sir, is maybe Sage didn’t say much because he has nothing to say. He’s a loser. His roommate may have hacked into the CDC during their dorm days but Gabriel Tyler’s skills did not rub off on Sage. With all due respect, sir, if Jacob Sage had been paired with a different roommate, I don’t believe he’d be on the watch list today. He flunks out of Harvard. He alienates his rich parents. He can’t maintain a relationship. His band has different members every week. I’m amazed he can complete the task of performing an entire song. He’s a drug addict, just end-stage-Elvis-damaged-goods, sir,” Darling gave her opinion.
“Well then, it might surprise you that he drove to his gig right after they sewed up his hand last night and played a hell of a set. What might surprise you even is more what Agent Dufay did find.” Starky pushed away his lunch, took a swig of cold coffee and grimaced. “We got a blood sample. I wish my blood was so pristine,” Starky shook his head, “All the footage of Sage shooting up under the pier, all the meetings with his dealer, all the squalor…. staged. Find out what he’s up to,” Starky tossed the coffee in the trash.
“Yes, Sir,” Darling ate the pickle from Starky’s plate.
“I was going to eat that,” Starky grumbled.
July 2, 2016, STARBOARD ATTITUDE, REDONDO BEACH PIER
Agent Darling roller skated around the pier at King Harbor all afternoon. She climbed the stairs to the Starboard Attitude Cocktail Bar when her partners signaled that Sage’s van had pulled into the pier parking lot. As Sage and his band were setting up their equipment, Darling sang the worst ever rendition of Patsy Cline’s “Walkin’ after midnight.” Agents White and Dorsey clapped and whistled. Darling beamed with pride. Dorsey demanded an encore. Not to be outdone, White gave Darling a standing ovation.
Sage was not afraid to deliver a mean comment to anyone who earned it but bit his tongue when he got a good look at Darling. He trusted his instinct to keep his disgust to himself.
Dorsey bought Darling drinks and left with her just before Sage’s gig was up. Sage didn’t bat an eye.
July 2, 2016 CROWNE PLAZA HOTEL, REDONDO BEACH
Darling waited in Dorsey’s hotel room until Agent Scotty White finally ambled in.
“It’s about time,” Dorsey blurted.
“You two are a sight. Why so glum?”
“When you sober up you might realize we didn’t exactly make an impression tonight,” Darling sighed.
“I wouldn’t say that. After you left Sage said some pretty nasty things about ‘Patsy Cline’” White smiled.
“Really….” Darling leaned in. “Tell me every word he said.”
July 3, 2016 STARBOARD ATTITUDE, REDONDO BEACH PIER
Darling sat on Scotty White’s lap while she sang Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” as off key as possible. Once again Jacob Sage ignored her.
Darling’s rear was jutting out of her daisy dukes. She leaned on the bar, shifting her weight from one foot to the other so that her see-sawing butt cheeks hypnotized every man in the bar except Sage.
“This is the martini James Bond really drinks,” Darling rudely shouted over Sage’s rendition of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Tightrope.” Darling dragged White to the dance floor and upstaged Sage so seductively that Agent White blushed in spite of himself.
Sage made his Gibson squeal like a pig and transitioned from “Tightrope” to a jacked up rendition of the opening riffs of “Immigrant Song.” He nearly ripped the strings off his guitar. His normally deep, buttery voice gave way to an earsplitting falsetto as he called out at the top of his lungs: “Ahhhhhh ah Ahhhhhh Ah!”
“Mother of God!” a startled drunk fell off his stool.
Sage looked at his frozen band as if they were stupid.
“What the f…?” The new drummer was pissed.
“Roll with it. It usually works out,” the bass player said, kicking the drummer’s foot.
Sage just kept ripping the opening riff from of his Les Paul until his band caught up with him. When everyone was on the same page, Sage tore into the body of “Immigrant Song” like a jackhammer. Sage’s guitar was so terrifying that everyone stopped dancing. Sage jumped off the stage and spun in circles on the empty dance floor, screaming in the incredible high octave. His guitar made sounds no one had heard before. He used his teeth as a slide. He blew on the strings so that his breath caused magical sounds. His grip on the neck tightened and the stitches on the palm of his hand burst open. Blood gushed down his arm.
Sage stomped out of the bar. He abandoned his band and drove off without them.
Agent Darling heard Sage mumbling under his breath, back in his sweet and low buttery voice, “Dance to that, bitch!”
The bartender mopped the blood off the dance floor before anyone could slip and break their neck.
July 4, 2016 STARBOARD ATTITUDE, REDONDO BEACH PIER
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re early tonight so you can enjoy the fireworks,” Sage purred in his deepest, sexy voice as if nothing insane happened the night before.
Agents White and Dorsey were called away suddenly. Darling was on her own. She sipped her trademark James Bondish martini that the waitress gave her before she could even order it. The waitress nodded towards the band. Sage bought her a drink. Sage never bought anyone anything. Darling was excited. She wished White and Dorsey could see this.
Sage’s band kept repeating the opening riffs of “Zombie” by the Cranberries for a long while to create more tension in the crowd.
“Alas, no karaoke tonight,” Sage grinned. “Ya’ll know what karaoke means to me. But hey, I’m not mean. I won’t deprive you of your darling. Darling, don’t disappoint your fans. Come up here and help me sing this song.” Sage stared over the crowd into Darling’s bewildered face.
Darling fought to stay in character. Did Sage call her “darling” or did he say her name, Darling? The crowd squished together to clear a narrow path for Darling. Mercifully the loop ended. The song began.
Sage was under Darling’s skin. It wasn’t supposed to go down this way, but Sage was in control, completely. Without warning he handed Darling the mic. She picked up the next line. It did not come out bad. It felt good. It felt like when she was young and the world was hers. She belted out “Zombie” with the force of a volcanic eruption. Sage chuckled and nodded to the band. “Let’s see what she does to Adele.”
Sage yanked a chair from a customer and put it on stage because Agent Darling was soon going to fall on her ass from what Sage put in her drink. He didn’t hate her enough to let her suffer that indignity.
Darling’s rendition of “Rolling in the Deep” had the crowd bouncing in place like a single organism. The new drummer stopped bitching and let all hell break loose. The old timber of the Starboard Attitude creaked. Drinks bounced off the bar like lemmings leaping into the sea. Young girls wept. Outside the crowd completely blocked all passage surrounding the bar.
Sage glanced up at the police station across the way and saw White and Dorsey waving their arms in the air, shouting. They were trying to fathom what happened to the East Coast and the Midwest. All the information was coming from drones and automated feeds. There was not one person left who could answer any of the questions White and Dorsey were frantically screaming. Sage knew they must be watching the Times Square loop of Sage performing “Purple Rain.” Yep, they saw it. They both looked up and glared at him with hatred in their eyes. They would never make it through the crowd in time.
“Ok, Darling, let’s try some hellacious harmony, ‘Don’t Call Me Up,’ Mick Jagger”, Sage purred.
Sage pulled Darling to her feet and kicked the chair into the crowd. Sage and Darling sang “Don’t Call Me Up,” as if they had practiced it together a million times. The crying girls began blubbering when Sage and Darling crushed the lines, “I will hold my head high and just gaze at the sky. I was under your spell! Ya took me to hell!”
“We’ll be back after a short break,” Sage dragged Darling to the bar’s tiny restroom. The band played an extended all instrumental version of “Purple Rain.” Sage and Darling made mad love. Afterwards their lips softly brushed for a moment. Darling couldn’t help herself. She pressed in for a deep kiss. Sage stabbed her in the neck.
He plopped her outside on the narrow balcony.
“White! Dorsey!” Darling cried out, panting into her no longer hidden microphone.
“Two thirds of the country is down.” Were the crackling last words she heard from Dorsey.
“I made you when you showed up with that ridiculous sunburn trying to pass yourself off as a wharf rat. You people put the wrong guy in prison. Gabriel Tyler took the fall for me in exchange for immunity. I just gave you immunity.” He pulled the syringe out of her neck and flicked it into the ocean.
“Thar she blows!” Sage pointed to the purple fireworks in the sky. The crowd suddenly started milling about aimlessly. “I call it ‘Purple rain,’ but marketed it as “Purple mountain majesties’ to be patriotic. I undersold competitors and gave away the firecracker and sparkler forms in every neighborhood across the country. The coastal eddy and fog make a nice extended delivery.”
“What does it do?” Darling cried.
“It’s a weaponized version of the Zika virus. It doesn’t kill. It doesn’t pass on to the next generation. It only affects those exposed and reduces them permanently to a two year old mentality.”
The next firework launched directly through the crowd and into the parking structure where it caused cars to explode.
“Ok, it doesn’t directly kill but if you are driving a car when you inhale it, it’s probably not going to end well for you,” Sage corrected himself.
“I’ll be back, Darling,” Sage went back into the Starboard. Everyone had wandered off to find their ma-ma. The new drummer was sitting on the floor playing with a tub of maraschino cherries. Sage took up his Les Paul and played “Purple rain” while civilization fell all around him.