“The Sanatoga Fire Massacre of 2003”

 by John Gotheborg

COVER LETTER

Hello, God’s True Patriot here, John Gotheborg.

I am trying something new with this story.  I have invented a completely

fictional character who is nothing like myself.  In fact, only small

portions of this story are based on my true life tomfoolery shenanigans.

This is a story about a character named William Cahill -- an investigative

reporter for the Sanatoga Courier who is also an amateur pool champ and

sometimes private eye.  I should also mention that he is a veteran and a

firm supporter of home schooling.  I do not know if I will write a full

series of adventure stories featuring this character, but I do think he is a

daring and intriguing man.

Suu Ni doesn't like this story, because there is no romance.  Maybe it needs

romance.  There is one character I think Cahill could have a tragic romantic

moment with, but I just couldn't work it out.  I'm talking about Heather

Donahue here -- I know what you sick people are thinking. William Cahill

isn't like that.

Enjoy and please share your comments.

SANATOGA -- December 14, 2003

Protest erupted outside Patriot Hall yesterday as the Sanatoga Fire defended against the Quad City Steamrollers. A large congregation of Native Americans protested the home team’s use of what they characterized a “racist Tomahawk symbol.” Meanwhile, several quadriplegics also gathered to protest the Quad City team’s “discriminatory and insulting mockery of the disabled.”

The Indians arrived early in the morning, pitching teepees and lighting bonfires, which they danced around in full war paint, singing “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” This drew immediate media attention, with this reporter arriving first on the scene.

The noble spirit of the Native Americans struck me. Their red leather faces beamed with pride, and a healthy glow that comes only from repeat visits to Tiki Tan, “Where the sun is always shining!” Tiki Tan offers first-class service and the latest in modern self-tanning solutions. Located at 768 Wilshire, Tiki Tan is your one stop tanning solution.

I spoke with Heather Donahue, 23, a resident of the Highlands district who did not appear to be an Indian, though she did state loudly that she is a vegetarian. “This is totally offensive,” she hollered. “The U.S. government committed an act of genocide against the Native American people, and here they are rubbing it in with crap like this Fire logo -- depicting the tomahawk in a totally racist type fashion.”

When asked if she was aware that the Sanatoga Fire logo is actually a fireman’s axe, and that the semi-professional football team is not endorsed by the U.S. government, the woman appeared confused. “That’s totally racist,” she said. “I see what you’re insinuating. Sanatoga Fire Water?”

With the arrival of the quadriplegic protestors, it seemed as though things may get out of hand. They arrived with bullhorns blaring, the Superman theme song oddly reminiscent of “Flight of the Valkyries” from the helicopter attack scene in Apocalypse Now. The crowds parted before them and they proceeded directly to the center of the Indian encampment.

They chanted, “Quad City! Quadriplegics are people. Quad City! Your racist minds are feeble. Quad City...” The leader of the group, identifying himself only as Kal-El, whom I interviewed at the hospital after he’d received a concussion in a freak hair drier accident, stated that his people came to this planet to escape the prejudice they faced on Krypton. They were in fact completely paralyzed on Krypton, but the red sun of our world gives them the power to move their bodies above the neck.

With Kal-El at the lead, the quadriplegics steamrolled through the Indian encampment, setting fire to teepees, trampling women and children.

“This is the problem with protest marches,” Police Chief Danny Thomas stated in a press conference days after the terrifying events, during which several officers were awarded gold medals for bravery in the line of duty. “It starts out peace and goodwill, holding hands. Then a pack of anarchists like those radical quadriplegics comes in and people get hurt.”

It was then that the police moved in, wearing full riot gear and firing tear gas canisters. It was an awful scene. The police fired indiscriminately, wounding protestors and innocent bystanders alike. The ceramic plates in their body armor made them look oddly like gorillas, which prompted some environmentalists to draw up new signs: “STOP MONKEY VIOLENCE.”

This reporter watched in shock and awe as an unidentified officer sprayed tear gas directly in the face of Heather Donahue. Then, a group of officers smashed in the windshield of my car with their batons, claiming it was illegally parked.

Forest Walker, 29, also of the Highlands, chained himself to the doors of Patriot Hall. As police closed in he shouted, “I lived in a tree for seven months. You pigs don’t intimidate me!”

Then all hell broke loose. The victorious Sanatoga Fire football team emerged from Patriot Hall, trampling Forest Walker underfoot, having trounced the Quad City Steamrollers 60-0 in what semi-professional sports experts have called, “The worst beating since 1970 when the Harlem Globetrotters appeared in Hanna-Barbera Studios’ ‘Football Zeros.’”

Unbeknownst to the rioting protestors, the Quad City team actually was comprised wholly of quadriplegics. It was a charity benefit for the promotion of stem cell research. Oh, the humanity...

The Sanatoga Fire tore through the crowd like a stampede of buffalo, crushing all who stood, rain danced or wheeled in their path. I watched in horror as several linemen lifted my battered car and flipped it. Then it exploded.

I could hear the wounded cries of the dying everywhere as the sky turned black and I crawled over the piled bodies in a desperate attempt to find safe passage out of the killing field. By some twisted act of fate, the blood stained my lips and the ash completely covered my face. Between that and the tuxedo, I looked like a minstrel show performer.

The police certainly had their hands full as this morning of protest turned into a night of riots and fires. Those brave officers were fighting on two fronts. A call on my cell phone from a colleague at the Courier confirmed it.

“In front of the Sanatoga Science Center downtown, the Brotherhood of Aryan Knights, a radical rightwing militia group, has been protesting the presence of dinosaur fossils since well before noon,” my colleague shouted over the hysteric din.

They had shouted “sieg heil” several times and raised their hands in the Nazi salute. Then, according to several eyewitness reports, they hauled a caveman mannequin out of a white cargo van and forced their way into the building.

That protest became violent as one of the Nazis forcibly attempted to place the caveman mannequin in with the dinosaurs. When Science Center security attempted to stop him, he took the caveman club and brained one of the guards with it. I sympathize strongly with the man’s act of Christian patriotism in standing up for the presence of cavemen alongside dinosaurs, but those militants go too far sometimes. The rioting spread all the way to the Hilton, ruining the evening for many wealthy tourists.

Meanwhile, back at Patriot Hall, Harvey Dowd, the 6’ 3-1/2” quarterback from UT Austin, managed to snatch a tear gas canister from one of the officers. He lobbed it with such force that it exploded on impact, permanently blinding innocent teen Lemonjello Jefferson in one eye.

My instincts as a veteran compelled me to drag the wounded young man to cover.

“Why did this happen to me?” Lemonjello moaned. “I was just here because I hate black people.”

“Perhaps you attended the wrong protest,” I said. “The Brotherhood of Aryan Knights is protesting downtown in front of the Science Center.” I held the boy in my arms, fearing that at any moment he may die from his wound.

“I know that,” he said. “It’s just that I wanted to see the game first. Then I went to the restroom and I saw a black man in the mirror. When I turned around, he was gone. So, I figured he must have ran out here.”

“Lemonjello, I hate to tell you this, but...”

“Wait a minute. You kinda look like him.”

It was then that I realized how the blood and ash made my face look so ridiculous. I untucked my tuxedo shirt and wiped my face clean. Lemonjello was visibly relieved to see that I was a white man beneath the black face.

“What were you going to do when you caught him?” I asked the boy.

“I was gonna hang him!”

I helped Emergency Medical Transport personnel (EMTs) lift the troubled young man onto a gurney and rode with them towards the University of Sanatoga School of Medicine, where I am told the underprivileged often receive cheap medical treatment at the hands of student nurses.

“It’s going to be okay,” the EMT shouted. “We’re going to get you a new eye. You’ll see clearer than ever before. You won’t be able to see in color, and may suffer double vision, but dog eyes are very sensitive on levels that human eyes are not. You may be able to see ghosts, and you will definitely be able to predict the weather...”

I have always been fascinated by medical and technical jargon of all kinds. I took lengthy notes as the EMT soothed the boy. However, University Hospital administrators asked that I not publish my findings. I had to fight tooth and nail for the one quote.

“That man is no longer employed by the University,” said spokesperson Ray Goldberg. “I am not at liberty to disclose the exact substance at this time, but a mind-altering chemical normally extracted from cactus stalks was found in his blood stream. In fact, that entire EMT crew has been dismissed. They are sick, deviant, psychotic individuals who do not in any way represent the School of Medicine.”

As the siren blared and the driver ran over several pedestrians, I saw that the riots had spread with alarming speed. The entire city was engulfed in raging chaos. Quadriplegics zoomed alongside the ambulance in rocket-powered wheelchairs, pursued by vengeful Indians on horseback; and in the distance, I could see fires left in the wake of the rampaging Nazis.

Then the ambulance rammed into an oncoming Greyhound bus and overturned. Tumbling within the confines of the careening vehicle, everything seemed to go in slow motion. For a moment, I felt completely weightless, as though the EMTs, Lemonjello and myself were astronauts aboard the space shuttle. It was a miracle I escaped serious injury, but we were all banged up pretty good and I lost consciousness.

Imagine my surprise when I was awakened by Fred “Curly” Neal of the Harlem Globetrotters. “As you may know,” he said. “I received my Globetrotter ‘Legends’ ring in 1993 and have since traveled the country as an Ambassador of Goodwill. It just rips my heart out to see people riot like this.”

And so it was that the Harlem Globetrotters -- whose tour bus seemed fated to cross our path -- came up with an ingenuous plan to stop the quadriplegics. Curly Neal and Meadowlark dressed up like barbers and painted a crude sign which read: “FREE HAIRCUTS FOR QUADRIPLEGICS.”

I could not believe the beautiful simplicity of it all as the wheelchair-bound anarchists lined up in front of the makeshift barber shop. Then, when they wheeled themselves under the “hair driers,” the Globetrotters clamped the lids down over their heads and the quadriplegics were trapped. However, the danger had not yet passed.

Things had become hectic as the rioting mobs clashed in front of Try Angles, a popular gay bar/nightclub in downtown Sanatoga. While I was unconscious in that ambulance, the Nazis and Indians had faced off in a Battle Royale.

It was a massacre. The Indian braves on horseback used their tomahawks and fired flaming arrows. Some of the Nazis cleverly changed into leopard print caveman costumes and fled into Try Angles. Most, however, were not so lucky. By the time I arrived on the scene, there were scalped Nazi corpses everywhere and the Indians were kneeling over them, wishing them safe passage to the Happy Hunting Grounds where they might dwell for all time with spirits of Moose and Squirrel.

Danny Beaucoup, 26, approached this reporter and offered a limp handshake. The fancy lad said,

“Hi, my name is Danny Beaucoup; how do you do?”

“What can you tell me about this conflagration?” I asked, wiping my hand on the tuxedo shirt.

“Oh, it’s like this every Friday.”

“What are you talking about? There was a riot here. Indians just massacred a party of Nazis.”

“Oh, that... I thought you meant Roman Toga Night.”

“No, damn you! I’m talking about the riot -- the riot that’s been raging across Sanatoga all night.”

“Hmm... Those cuties in the leopard print togas were kinda rough. I don’t know if I’d call it a riot, though. Maybe a laugh riot!”

“Damnit, I’m serious. Now give me a straight answer, you fruitcake. There are important social issues with which the community must grapple.”

I watched in bewilderment as a Nazi in a caveman costume, still wearing his SS helmet, peeked around the doorjamb of the nightclub entrance and muttered, in a thick German accent, “Very...interesting.”

Then huge pieces of the wall rotated outward, revealing that the building itself was made of cardboard, and then minor celebrities such as Jim J. Bullock and Bruce Vilanch appeared, making extremely odd and inappropriate quips which I unfortunately could not hear over the Indian chanting and the explosions that rocked the city. I am told they were quite disturbing, however.

I felt like I was losing my mind, when I realized Danny Beaucoup was still talking.

He said, “Well, I did get a rock thrown at me earlier. You see, one of those Indians saw my ‘Pride Not Prejudice’ tattoo and mistook me for a Nazi. I said, ‘Jesus! Please! Can’t you see the rainbow flag? It’s a rainbow flag, not a frigging Confederate flag!’ Those Indians are savages!”

Then I heard a voice yell in halted English, “I heard that, stupid white man!”

Suddenly another fight broke out, this time between the gays and the Indians. Ironically, one of the gays was dressed like an Indian. If I were him, I would have played it smart and blended in. The gays had superior numbers, but the Indians are a warrior people with fierce fighting spirits who will show their enemy no quarter.

As the Indians charged, a spunky short-haired blonde transvestite shouted, “Sock it to me, baby!” Then the gays, Indians and Nazi cavemen all broke into a song and dance routine reminiscent of MGM musicals.

And so it was that the constant bloodshed and sycophantic protestations of the rioting mob came to a close and I staggered across the street to Side Pocket Billiards.

It was Friday night and I knew the place would be packed. Even when all hell breaks loose and the streets are on fire, some things never change in this town. My town. Sanatoga.