From: caz@owlnet.rice.edu (HWRNMNBSOL)
Subject: America the Beautiful II (REPOST)
Organization: Rice University
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 07:48:19 GMT

WARNING: This is a repost.  I will now rut noisily with an armadillo.
Killfile me now.

*****************************************************************************

TUESDAY MORNING
SOMEWHERE IN AMERICA

First stop, the local landfill.  Ronald has to see for himself the damage
that his own cause has wreaked upon America.  The Restaurant, according to
the figures, generates millions of tons of non-biodegradeable trash yearly.
Where does it all go?  Landfills.  Ronald wants to translate cold, cerebral
numbers into tangibles.  One spring of his floppy shoes, plus a dash of
magic, and Ronald clears the chain-link fence.  He's getting good at this.

And there it all is.  The clear morning light reflects off the mound of 
trash, almost one hundred feet high, awaiting disposal in long, concrete-
lined trenches.  Ronald picks his way forward, gingerly avoiding shattered
glass, jagged metal, splintered wood.  A nest of wasps buzzes solemnly from
an old tire.  There's a clatter as something tired and plastic falls from
a great height.  

And there's a voice.

COME TO ME it calls.  Ronald listens.  COME TO ME

"Where are you?"  ALL AROUND YOU
"...What are you?"  I AM AMERICA
"...Show yourself!"  I WILL

In front of Ronald, the pile of trash rears itself skyward.  A hump the
size of a largish automobile thrusts upward and forms itself into a crude
image of a face.  Gleaming white toilet seats make its eyes; its nose is
a tattered lampshade; the cavern of its mouth is the trunk of a '73 Plymouth
Reliant.  "HELLO RONALD.  GLAD YOU COULD MAKE IT." it rasps from vocal chords
formed from the bag from an old Hoover.

Ronald stares up at the monstrosity, unafraid.  "What are you?  Why do you
exist?"

"I AM AN ICON, LIKE YOU.  WHEN METAPHOR MATCHES REALITY CLOSELY, THE TWO
TEND TO CONVERGE.  WELL -- HERE I AM!"

Ronald's eyes narrow.  "You said you were America.  Do you claim that America
is trash?"

"YES!! DO YOU DOUBT IT?"

"I do."

"HA!! THEN LOOK CLOSER.  LOOK CLOSELY AT *ME*.  I AM COMPOSED OF AMERICA.
ALL OF AMERICA IS ENCODED IN MY VERY BEING.  DILLIGENT ARCHAEOLOGISTS OF
THE FUTURE COULD RECONSTRUCT AMERICA, DOWN TO THE LAST MOBILE HOME AND
CONVENIENCE STORE, FROM MY COMPONENT PARTS.  LOOK CLOSER! CAN'T YOU SEE
AMERICA?"

Ronald, horrified, peers closer.  That broken TV screen -- it's not just
an old wreck, it's evidence of the time Jacob N. of Dupres, OK threw a
trophy at his wife for failing to keep the house neat.  The old newspaper
fragments tell the bleak tale of the arrest of a certain inside trader in
New York.  Ronald SEES the bloody diaper and KNOWS that here is more than
a simple meaningless relic -- there is a morbid story, a telling clue, in
every scrap in the landfill.  It's all right here.

"YOU DO SEE!! THEN YOU CAN SEE YOURSELF HERE, TOO, CAN'T YOU?  JOIN ME!!
QUIT STRUGGLING, AND GIVE UP.  CAN'T YOU UNDERSTAND -- YOU'LL WIND UP HERE
SOON ENOUGH ANYWAY.  EVERYTHING DOES.

"JOIN ME!!!"

Ronald looks up into the gazing eyes of the Trash.  Tears roll off his
fiberglass cheeks.

"No."

"WHAT?!"

"I said No.  You aren't what you say you are."

"ARRGHHH!!"

"It's true!  You claim that you are ALL of America.  It's not true -- you're
just the icon of the throwaways -- the Lost Stuff.  You don't represent
anything that's true, or good, or noble, or anything else worthwhile."

"You are what nobody else wanted.  And I don't belong with you."

"I pity you."

The Trash roars its rage, but it knows it is defeated.  Its form subsides
back into the landfill.  Ronald has seen all he needs to see; he turns to
leave.  The Trash, spiteful, tries one last trap:

"THEN WHAT ARE *YOU*, EH?  NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOU ANYMORE!! THAT'S WHY 
YOU'RE HERE, ISN'T IT, MR. IDENTITY CRISIS!  WHO ARE YOU TO ABANDON ME?"

Ronald does not turn: "I'm me.  I stand for something.  That's all."
He marches up out of the landfill.

On the way out, somebody calls out: "Ronald!  Hey!  Over here!"

Ronald turns.  There's a fiberglass form, dirty and scratched up, under a
pile of sheet metal.  It waves a plastic arm feebly.  Ronald walks over and,
crouching, brushes some of the garbage off the being's face.  "Who are you?"

"You don't recognize me, eh?  I used to be your opposite number.  Ring a
bell?"

Ronald frowns, then brightens up.  "Is it you?  Burger King?"

"One and the same!  Heh heh...."

"What are you doing in this scrap heap, Burg?  No place for royalty."

Burger King scratches his head with his free hand.  "Well, old buddy, you
and your pals squeezed me out, quite frankly.  Only room for one mythos
of commercial pop icons, way I see it...."

"Hey!  C'mon, Burg!  Remember those great cardboard crowns you did?  We
were green with envy, there!  Great stuff!"

Burger King laughs.  "Yeah, those were pretty good, I guess.  But I couldn't
make it.  Ronald, America had you, and they didn't need me.  They don't need
me.  I'm garbage now, Ronald."

Ronald steps back.  "The Trash got to you, didn't it."

"You're fooling yourself if you don't believe."

"No way, Burg.  I still got a message to give.  I just gotta figure out the
right delivery."

Burger King waves amiably.  "Always the idealist.  Keep on pulling, no matter
what, that's Ronald for you.  Ron, you're going to wind up looking ridiculous.
Look at Woodsy.  They still run his tired old commercials on some stations.
He looks like a goddamn corpse."

Ronald shakes his head.  "I'm not quitting.  Sorry to disappoint you, Burg,
but it's not my time to go.  Well, gotta run.  I've got a lot to see."

"Ron...Ronald, I got a confession.  We stole your Special Sauce."

"I know, Burg.  Take it easy."

Ronald leaps the fence and heads off down the highway.  He needs to find
some consumers.  Hmmmm.....perhaps hitchhiking.....

****************************************************************************

INTERMISSION

".....I can't believe he's really gone."

<mournful three-part harmony> "Ronald/Ronald/Ronald!"

"He just packed it up and left.  Buzzed without us."

"Quiet, McCheese.  He had to go.  It was important."

"Oh, sure, brown-nose like you always did.  Fat-Ass."

"Why, you....."

"BOYS! BOYS! No fighting!  We can't let this get to us.  We've still got a
job to do, Ronald or no.  And then there's our more immediate trouble."

"Yeah!  What're we gonna do?  Only Ronald could keep him in line!  Now he's
run off too!  Who knows what kind of trouble he'll cause!"

"Well, he was always YOUR responsibility, Big Mac...."

"Hey! I..."

"SHHHHH!!! PEOPLE COMING!"


<footsteps>

"....yeah, this is car 98 out by the Restaurant on the freeway.  Looks like
we got a couple statues missing from the playland...."

***************************************************************************

Reg and Julie Mansard of Stamford, CO crouch in the back of their own station
wagon and stare in fear.  "P-please don't hurt my baby...." Julie whimpers.

In the front seat, the Carjacker grins evilly and holds the broken bottle to
the bawling tot's neck with his right hand.  With his left he steers the car
and taps his hand to the rhythm of "Life Is A Highway."  Life is good, and
it's only getting better.

Julie is crying again.  "I d-don't know what you want, mister," stutters
Reg, "b-but please don't kill us."

The Carjacker looks over his shoulder and squints through his little black
mask.  

"Rabble Rabble," he sneers.


TO BE CONTINUED

-- 
HWRNMNBSOL