Eulogy for a Supernova
AS
concerns the Affairs of my partner in crime, Fergie Coates, may the
Spirit resolve your struggles.
May
the Spirit permit his passage. May the Spirit accord him his right luggage. May
the Spirit lift and the Spirit descend with safety for all passengers. May his
oxygen mask go unused. May the winds and rains not mar his journey. May he be
together with All Who Have Passed.
Fergie
was a foodshaft worker. He worked the shalemoss mines and fungal pits of the
protein complex. He was a prominent Arclight Wrestler, a Purple Crest Champion
at Fizzball, and a poet of incredible depth. I first met Fergie when I was
seven and barefoot, and collecting pretty bottles that people left behind in
the parking lot near the Liquor Control Board Store. We used to hang out there
when we were teenagers, getting high and singing for pennies and selling jokes
for a quarter per hook and a penny per punchline.
May
the coins multiply inside his bowls. May the USAngels bring many goods. May
Uncle Sam prevail. We make formation, and we fly with our wings outstretched,
grander and more magnificent than the most awesome of birds.
Draw
the Angels to us, we beg of the Sky. May they bring many goods!
We
shared dreams, him and me. We used to dream of the same little Grey People. But
then the memories faded and other memories, more brutal, intruded on us in our
frailer moments. I suppose there were times we both blacked out, together, in
the parking lot behind the State Store, or in the woods. Maybe something
happened. It would explain…
We
are Infants, oh Great Ones. We offer ourselves to your service. Let us fight
for you. Let us die for you. We ask only that you multiply the coins in our
bowls. May your Invisible Hand prevail. May we die last and best fed.
He
disappeared on his own sometimes and didn’t have any explanations and he
figured he was high and we got high together and nothing happened except we
were hungry. But alcohol has carbs so we used our fake IDs and we bought Jack
Daniels with our allowance and then in the basement nothing happened either.
Except we were no longer virgins and I had never expected it that my first time
would be with a guy. But it just happened that way.
Sometimes,
Fergie would joke that we were an odd pair. He was tall and bronze and made of
meat and I was short and fat and made of pale dough. But it was like yin-yangs
and all because we evened each other out. So really we were an even pair. He
was at least as tall as I was fat.
And
then we met Nanzo and Havartha and our twosome became a foursome. Nanzo was a
bored genius and Havartha was witty and wrote poetry – on walls. When I met her
she was on GPS. They did that with kids back in the twenty-first century, if we
were habitually truant or committed minor crimes. Our religion embraced
technology and we used to worship at His Banded Ankle. So, we had to keep
Havartha out of some of our schemes, but other times, she proved an excellent
distracter.
We
had adopted the Cargo Cult. It was our idea. We wanted to prove to the Philadelphia
UrbCommune that we could think for ourselves. The UrbCommone appreciated our
experiment and encouraged us to practice Cargo Cultism. So we decided to pray
not to God but to the Spirit with the Invisible Hand and the USAngels and Uncle
Sam, who basically looked like a really thin Santa Claus.
We
gave ourselves code names: I was Stalker. Nanzo was Ol’ Hickory. Havartha was Royal
TannenBomb, and Fergie, Fergie was Jesus Santiago Coriander McGorskovich, AKA
Gorski. Because he heard that like a long time ago when they first landed on
the moon, Armin Legstrong, the who invented the Moon Walk, said “Good luck, Mr.
Gorski.” And the reason, Fergie AKA Gorski said this happened was because a
young Armin Legstrong walked by his neighbor’s house one day to hear Mr. and
Mrs. Gorski arguing. Mr. Gorski wanted oral sex and Mrs. Gorski said, “Oral
sex, oral sex? I’ll give you oral sex when the boy next door walks on the
moon!”
Fergie
used to tell stories like this. He was obsessed with the twentieth century.
I
think Fergie would appreciate this service.
It’s
very twentieth century. The cars. The procession. Both fell out of practice
with the Ascendancy of the Cyclers’ Movement.
This
is eulogy but’s also a tone poem for a supernova. Havartha helped me write it.
It’s my gift to all who loved Fergie.
Fergie,
inventor of the word “lugcake” and the protosonic ascendancy cannon.
Fergie,
friend, lover, yin-yang.
But
as Fergie would have said, “Go tell it to the moon. Go tell it to the Gorskis.”