By Fiore Amore
We were in the worst alley behind the worst bar in the worst town in the worst state when we made the most important decision of our lives.
“COMRADES!” boomed Lennie, standing wobbly with a fifth of Stoli in his hand. “Tonight we make the most important decision of our lives!”
See? I told you it was the most important decision of our lives. Lennie said so himself, and Lennie’s never been wrong.
“Tonight we choose between life and death!” he continued, keeping an unusual amount of poise in his swaying back and forth, “Those rat bastards at McDonald’s fired me and our good friend Felix this morning for no good reason.” Lennie pointed a drunken finger at Felix, who gave a quiet nod and kept rolling his joint. We gave that scrawny kid the title of “Iron Felix” in honor of his liver, which surely by that point had been to hell and back several times over without a scratch. “We’ve intensively studied the Cold War unit in 4th period history and come to the dire conclusion that the wrong side won. We must act now and act decisively. This town needs a Red Scare, bright and big! There’s no Communist Party out here, but I hear they’re squares anyway. That’s why Felix and I are founding the Yellow Brick Road Communist Organization as of today. Are you in or out?”
A quiet murmur and a few laughs went through our gaggle of vagabonds. Lennie was just about the s—tiest student in our whole, very small high school, and I mean classically s—ty. Poorly-produced teen drama levels of s—ty. He was always a bit of an eccentric, but there was a certain glimmer in his eye as he stood there in anticipation of our responses. Is it too kitschy to write that a famed rebel had finally picked up a cause? It was cute.
I stood up, raising whatever I’d been drinking. “I’m with ya, Lennie! We’ll make those pigs pay!”
Then up with a stumble came Jacob, who shouted “DEATH TO MCDONALD’S!” before falling back to the ground.
“Follow the Yellow Brick Road!” declared Rose with a smile and a drag.
Last but not least was Leo, solemnly getting up and grabbing the Stoli from Lennie’s hand and taking a swig. “I guess this makes you the Wizard, comrade!” he exclaimed as he christened Lennie with the water of life.
. . .
That was April 2nd of 200X. The first order of business for the YBRCO and our dear leader The Wizard was a public demonstration on May Day, International Workers Day, where we’d gather our forces at City Hall and march over to the wretched hole known as McDonald’s for a rally. Rose and I put the fliers together with the assistance of our town’s few punks, who agreed to come and help put them around town. Jacob and Leo were on sign duty, painting slogans in black paint on placard after placard. Most of them exclaimed about the need for death to this that or the other, one said “Free Weed,” and all the rest said “Rehire Lennie and Felix NOW!”
Felix and The Wizard did the banner, and what a work of beauty it was. Felix, being a shy kid in a small town, had figured his way around a paint brush and our dear friend The Wizard had finally found a reason to focus. Gold on crimson, our proletarian banner proclaimed “Long Live the First of May! MAKE THE PIGS PAY! For a Soviet Union in America!” alongside a hammer and sickle and the proud and unsullied name of our small vanguard.
Then came May Day. We had about 30 people at City Hall and cameras from the local news all around. The Wizard looked giddy with excitement, holding an end of the banner in one hand and a megaphone in the other. After some corralling, the march began, and we chanted slogan after slogan while making our way through the blocks.
“May Day’s what we celebrate, bosses and pigs are what we hate!”
“What do we want? Rehire the workers! When do we want it? NOW!”
“Messing with the working class? We’ll shove you on your ass!”
As our throng of energetic youths made their way to the parking lot of the downtown McDonald’s, The Wizard sounded the megaphone alarm and indicated everyone should gather around, and so they did.
“Thank all of you for coming out today. Make some noise!” instructed The Wizard to his obliging crowd. After the whoops and cheers ended, he continued, “I tend to talk a little bit too much, so before I say anything I wanna turn the mic over to fellow worker Felix.”
Felix nodded and took the megaphone to light applause. “Thanks for comin’ out, guys. I’m gonna be to the point. F— McDonald’s, f— talking, I hope this place burns down.” He then reached into his bag, pulled out a brick, and tossed it through the window. This caused the Sunday patrons to exit the building as soon as possible.
The Wizard quickly realized he’d lost control of the situation, and being our ineffable and infallible leader followed the age-old logic of “go with the flow” by grabbing the nearest rock, also throwing it at McDonald’s, and yelling “You heard him, comrades!”
What followed was a moment of joyful destruction words hardly grasp. Almost instantaneously this crowd of juveniles descended in a frenzy upon this hated symbol, this Moloch of small town life. I still remember how the broken glass sparkled in the sunlight and the glee that swept over everyone’s faces. What had we gotten ourselves into? I’m not sure we knew.
One thing led to another and McDonald’s lobby ended up on fire. Things died down a little as the flames began to spread through the building. After some commotion inside, out burst the manager, drenched in sweat. The crowd began to boo and jeer, one even threw an egg (where did she get that?), until they caught a glimpse of his face.
Good god, this man’s face.
Parts of him seemed to be melting to give way to something different, something horrible. What lied beneath was feral, swinish, beyond this world. I couldn’t quite believe my eyes: it seemed our talk of pigs wasn’t just rhetoric.
