70.
   “So you see, Oliver,”, continued Boris “everything is falling into place. What part of the Third World you don’t own, your armies and banks occupy, or soon will. Your own citizens are bled dry to support your imperial war machine while your masters grow ever richer. China is waved over your heads as an emerging menace, but the vast majority of its people are no better off than people in Bangladesh. Everything your citizens wear from high couture to low, everything in their daily lives from coffee machines to watches to cell phones to computers, their toothbrushes, their soap, their medicine, their hammers, their nails, their pet food, their baby food, everything is made by slaves standing for twelve hours a day, six days a week doing the same thing over and over again until they stagger back to a cot in a room with two dozen others to hide their despair in fitful sleep only to wake up the next day to face an interminably empty existence with no way out but suicide.”

   Claudia interrupted him. “Boris, enough of this. I have been overloading Oliver with even more gruesome facts and I brought him here to drink and relax. Even if there is no time to relax, we must make time.”
   Boris looked into my eyes and stopped himself. He placed a fat finger and a fat thumb on each end of his mustache and twirled them. He placed a broad hand on his forehead and smoothed back his hair. He stood up from the table and took Pat and Nanette in his arms. “You have heard a litany of crimes, abuses and abominations and you will hear many more, my friend.” He looked around the table. “Why don’t we give Oliver a break for a while? What do all civilized people do when life weighs heavily upon their shoulders? They dance.” He offered a hand to Claudia. She stood up and took it. She turned to me and offered me her other hand. The music on the jukebox swelled.

71.
   So we danced and we danced and we danced. I hardly knew Boris or Pat or Nanette, or Claudia for that matter. Boris’s great, ungainly shape drifted in effortless rhythm across the floor. Claudia was a little clumsy which belied her graceful body. I smiled. I could ask her who raised her. I could ask her how she came to know Boris. I could ask her a hundred questions yet when we looked into each other’s eyes as we danced there was no need. Our souls opened. Warm smiles invited each other in. Shared rhythm and movement created bonds instantly. The world seems good. This world seemed good and it was a wonderful, wonderful relief.

   Then Boris caught Pat looking over his shoulder at the second-floor balcony. He followed his gaze and noticed the fronds of the potted plants on the balcony move slightly. Pat and Nanette flattened their ears and growled.

72.

   Boris stopped in mid step. His eyes darted around the room. He focused on the balcony. The fronds of the potted plants moved again. Boris stared intensely at the balcony, clutching the dogs tightly to him as though they were about to be ripped from his grip. Claudia and I froze. Our eyes were riveted to him. “I smell politicians!”, he growled. “We are about to be attacked!” He pulled open his shirt to reveal a belt around his chest hanging with sheathed knives. “Arm yourselves!”
   Pat’s ears shot up into the air then flattened on his head. Claudia and I grabbed stilettos. Boris spun around, letting the dogs fall to the floor and, shielding us with his bulk raised his arms to his waist like a man about to be charged. Our eyes were glued to the balcony.
   Slowly the fronds parted. Withered, shrunken green creatures no more than three feet tall peered at out at us. They stood upright and looked almost human. They had beady red eyes and were naked save for red bow ties tied around their scrawny necks. They twitched and shivered. They hummed and tweeted. They slowly climbed over the plants and balanced themselves on the railing. There was an agonizing, interminable silence.

73.
   The swarm of nasty little green things poured over the balcony and onto the floor. Their manicured nails clicked on the wood as they flitted toward us mewing and squeaking. They circled us in a slow-motion dance, smiling through their teeth. Their foul breath threatened to overwhelm us. Their red eyes glowed with insatiable craving. We were back to back waiting for their onslaught.   “Get angry!”, ordered Boris. He glared at the creatures. “You dirty little pieces of shit! There is nothing worse in all creation than a parasite!”

   They threw themselves on us in a crazed fury. They pulled a hood over Boris’ head and ripped at our skin and clothing. Boris flailed his arms blindly. “Kill them!”, they rasped. “Cut them up and sell them!”
   Nanette flew at the politicians holding the hood over Boris. She snapped at their limbs and bit at their heads. Pat was knocked off his feet and into the arms of three of them. I struggled to get to him as he tore at their arms and faces.
   Claudia and I and stabbed and cut with our knives. I grabbed one by the neck and sunk a stiletto into its eye. I felt my shirt being ripped and fingernails scratching my back. I turned to see Claudia stab my attacker in the back of the neck as her own clothes were ripped from her. Our knives sunk into their bodies like wet clay. If we hit them right, they let loose a high-pitched scream and crumpled into shapeless blobs. But there were so many of them.

74.
   I stumbled and fell under a table. They came at me like starving rats. I kicked at them as they crawled up my legs. I opened up their faces with the stiletto and pulled myself up again. They had handfuls of our hair in their fists. Claudia fell to her knees as they swarmed over her. The dogs tore them off her. We fought our way through overturned chairs and tables toward an open window.

   Boris ripped off the hood and filled the air with a cloud of the creatures. “Get out of the city as fast as you can!”, he bellowed. “I’ll take care of these insects!” His heavy boots smashed them. His hands crumpled them, but they were all over him biting at his ears and pulling at his face. One of them balanced on his head. It threw its arms in the air and screamed in delirious ecstasy. “It’s my money! It’s my money!”
   More and more tumbled over us. Their eyes spun in their sockets. Their tongues flapped in their mouths. “Mine! Mine! Mine!”, they squawked. “Bite the tits off that bitch! Cut the head off that worm!”
   We were overwhelmed. Claudia and I were on the windowsill. I had one by the throat while another one pulled at my hair. Their bites and scratches drew blood. They went for our ankles and wrists and necks. The dogs spun in every direction biting off limbs and heads and they still came at us.

75.
   All four of us fell out the window and into the street. Claudia landed on her back. She reached for Boris but the politicians were rolling out after us, snarling at us, gnashing their teeth. “We’ll never get two like this again!”, they hissed. “They must be worth a fortune!”

   Claudia called out Boris’s name.
    “Leave me!”, he commanded over the din of scrambling monsters.
    “Tie him up!”, they screeched. “Tie his hands and feet!”
    I grabbed her hand as the brokers landed all around us. “He told us to get out of Buenos Aires! We have to leave him!”
    Three went for her as she tried to get up. I snapped one’s head off. Pat and Nanette bit the others in half. Eight more slammed to the ground.
    “For God's sake, run!”, yelled Pat.
    One had Nanette by the tail, another by her ears. “Get these things off me!”, she screamed.
    Claudia slashed the hands off one of them. I broke the back of the other with my heel. We picked ourselves up and ran for our lives. The green freaks followed us snapping and grabbing at our ankles. People in the streets screamed in fear and disgust. We tore through alleys and spun around corners and gradually one by one they fell off gasping for breath and clutching their chests until we were alone, running through the streets and across the city to the balloon we knew would be waiting for us.

76.
   When we jumped into the balloon, it shot into the air and carried us out of the city. Claudia was beside herself. She wept. She covered her face and sobbed. “When you came into our world, I didn’t know the horror of your world would follow you!”

   Pat stood on the rim of the basket gripping one of the swaying ropes. “The horror of both of our worlds is following him and he has to keep going because both of our worlds depend on it.”
   Claudia looked away. “I don’t know whether Boris is alive or dead. He is a father to me!”
   I stood next to her letting her hurl her fury at me. “I’ve been through enough and now this! Now I bring it to those I love! Why have you people come back? You have sucked us dry and now your return to feed on our bones!”
   “This wasn’t my idea.”, I muttered seeing Boris’s big ruddy face and feeling the crush of despair.
   “We have to go on!”, pleaded Nanette. “For so many who have died, we have to go on! For Boris!”
   Claudia raised her face from her hands. She looked down at Nanette and stroked her head. She stared into the distance. She took my hand in hers. “I will suffer this pain, but you must promise me something, Oliver. Only your promise will make all of this worthwhile. If anything happens to me, you must continue. Promise me this.”

77.
   “I promise.”, I whispered. I held her close as Buenos Aires slowly disappeared beneath us. The dogs leaned over the rail of the basket and held each other as they gazed downward. The balloon fluttered and flapped. The banker skins brushed against the socialite’s as the balloon folded against itself. The thought of anything happening to Claudia didn’t even register. How could it? She put her cheek to my chest. I must use this respite to take stock, I thought. What the hell am I doing here? What else is following us, waiting for us? Is there anything at all I can do about all this besides listen and survive? I thought of Boris and felt a wrenching in my gut. He told us to go to the Giant of the Atacama and that is what we will do. I felt Claudia’s breath on my chest and closed my eyes. She began to cry again. I buried my face in her hair. I kissed her on the cheek. I can help Claudia, I thought.

   The balloon swelled into its full shape growing taught as a drum as if taking in a chest full of air before rushing into the clouds.

78.
   We drifted west over the Argentine pampas and north over the Andes to the coast of Chile and the Atacama Desert. The desolation took my breath away.
    “This is the driest place on earth.”, said Claudia as we sailed toward a fog bank. “The fog from the sea is its only source of water. It is called the Camanchaca. Plants collect their water from it and insects climb to the top of a dune and hold their legs up to catch a drop of dew.”

   With that metaphor of desperation in mind I thought of Claudia. “What happened to you during the Dirty War? Who raised you?”
   She frowned and looked into the distance. “My aunt joined the resistance, and I was raised by them. Have you ever heard of Anne Frank? We were like her family, holed up in squalid little rooms with the knowledge that we could be killed at any time hanging over our heads, only we had guns. I was their eyes and ears. A little girl was less suspect. It was a lonely childhood. There were no other children to play with. I don’t blame my aunt or the others. Sometimes one of them would be captured and tortured. They never gave us away. Boris took me into his heart and saved me. One day my aunt disappeared. Then Boris disappeared. The others tried to support me but I was alone. When the generals went down in defeat after the Malvinas war, the long nightmare was over for Argentina. But it will always be with us. It will always be with me.”
   The fog parted briefly and a huge geoglyph appeared below us. “The Giant of the Atacama!”, Claudia announced. “Four hundred feet long and two thousand years old.”

 

79.

   We landed at the giant’s feet with Claudia’s story weighing heavily on me. I gazed at the giant. What civilization could have made such a thing? How could it disappear without a trace and leave only this one enigma as proof of its existence? What would we leave for future generations to marvel at, to admire, to hide the petty vindictiveness, the violence and greed behind ours and all societies? Is there really any hope for us? We think of ourselves as being at the top of the tree of life but maybe we are its biggest joke.
   Pat looked at Claudia warmly. “Why didn’t you make your balloon of general’s skins?”
   “The generals are still very much with us.”, said Claudia. “They never go away. They are out of power now, but they stand on the sidelines waiting.”
   Claudia took my hand. “Life can turn on a dime, Oliver. One minute you are free, relishing life and what it will offer you. You think what you want to think, say what you want to say, go whereever you wish. The next minute you are alone in a tiny cell with a hood over your head trembling in fear for what is coming. If you think you are immune from these horrors in America, you are very much mistaken. Your freedom is ebbing away.”
   I turned from Claudia and stared at the geoglyph that stretched out before us and climbed the hill above us. It was other worldly, alone in the middle of the desert, silent, brooding, waiting. Boris had sent us to this giant, but it lay before us mute. I looked at the map. It told us of a cave in the hills.

80.
   By the time we got to the cave, the night shift was just coming on. Hordes of creeping, slithering, scuttling, flitting hungry animals raced out and past us into the night. Insects and bats, spiders and snakes, rats and frogs, scorpions and things I’d never seen before streamed over our feet and rushed over our heads.

   Claudia shut her eyes and clenched her fists. “Tell me there are no roaches!”, she grimaced.
   I put my arm around her waist. “There are no roaches. They don’t live in caves.”, I lied as the largest, hairiest roaches I had ever seen washed over us.  I closed my own eyes and tried not to scream.
   When the deluge had abated, we opened our eyes. The dogs climbed down from a tree. “Wasn’t that special.”, sneered Nanette. “I feel like I just dodged the denizens of hell.” 
   “Hell has people in it.”, tisked Pat. “Not bugs.”    
   “Bugs, bats, snakes, frogs but no roaches!”, I said a little too loudly.
    “There were always roaches in our hiding places in the Dirty War.”, Claudia muttered through stretched lips. “Everything had to be kept spotless or thousands of them would appear out of nowhere. They could get in your bed at night.”
   I blanked that image out of my head before it grabbed hold. I consulted the map. It said that there was a story to be told inside the cave. “The cave is empty now.”, I said, thinking the opposite. “If we’re going to do this thing, let’s do it.”
   We assembled a couple of makeshift torches, took a deep breath and stepped inside. A glint of color on a far wall caught our eyes. We moved toward it.

  

81.
   We found a tragic tale scrawled on the wall. Claudia read it out loud. “Bolivia was the next country to descend into hell. The Argentine generals had made a fortune selling the land and property of the disappeared. When the money started to run out, they turned to cocaine. Bolivia was the largest producer of cocaine in the world but a civilian government had just been sworn in and the drug lords were out. The new left of center government caught the attention of the CIA which, with the aid of the generals and the drug lords planned a coup. In 1980, Klaus Barbie, the Nazi Butcher of Lyon along with an international band of fascists who had escaped Europe on the South American rat lines that America and the Vatican had set up after World War II were enlisted to lead the coup. Barbie and his thugs were all too happy to employ the tactics of torture and mayhem they had perfected during the war. When it was over, the drug lords were in power and Bolivia became the first narco state supplying most of the cocaine to the United States. The money began to flow, the generals were happy and the CIA was bankrolled to do anything it wanted. It had dealt in drugs before of course. Southeast Asia was particularly lucrative but the heroine trade was small change compared to cocaine. When congress shut off the money that the CIA needed to overthrow the government of Nicaragua, the CIA had a solution. A new drug had miraculously appeared, a new drug that addicted its victims immediately. The CIA shipped it from Latin America to the ghettos of the United States. The crack epidemic was born and the CIA sat back while the local gangs raked in the money for them.”

82.
   As we tried to absorb this latest chapter, mournful calls caught our ears. We followed them deeper into the cave where we stumbled upon an ungodly sight of wide-eyed bodies floating in a dark, slow-moving stream. “I know who these people are!”, whispered Claudia. “These are the passive souls floating in their own ignorance, neither dead nor alive, doomed to drift in a river of waste.”

  They drifted slowly past us. Their bovine eyes stared up at us opening and closing in unnerving marionette snaps. They turned to and fro in the current like bloated corpses. Every once in a while one would catch my eye and focus on me. A vapid smile expanded across its face, its eyes warming with dim affection.
   “I live in the greatest country in the world.”, it said reverently.
    “All we can hope for is the best.”, moaned another.
    “God and country.”, one proclaimed. “God and country.” called the others in unison. 
   Another one looked at me. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, for which it stands, under one nation, uh, under one god, uh, with liberty and ...” It trailed off as it slipped past.
   “These are the people who believe what they are told, eat what they are fed.”, said Claudia. “The liberty of millions has been smashed in their name and when their own liberty is taken away, all they have to offer are feckless stares.”
   “I feel something else is watching us.”, said Pat nervously.   
   “These things make me sick!”, snapped Nanette. “Let’s get moving.” 
   As we turned away, quiet singing in the darkness lured us even deeper.

83.
  “That sounds like La Marseillaise!”, exclaimed Claudia. We cautiously worked our way through the darkness until we found a hell of a sight, three giant mummies singing the French national anthem. Their heads were so out of proportion with the rest of their bodies, they could have been forty-foot infants. They were propped up against a wall in a fetal position with their arms and legs clasped close to their bodies. They fell silent when we approached. 

   Then one of them spoke. “What are you seeking, children?”
   “The truth.”, I answered.
   Another let loose an arm from its body. It clattered down at our feet. Its hand opened. “Welcome, travelers. We have been alone for a long time.”
   The third turned towards us. Its skull balanced precariously on its withered neck. “We are wise men who have been seeking the truth throughout the ages. Time and time again we have found it and brought it forth into the world, but we have been defeated.” Lies keep us here, lies that hide torture and death, lies that grow stronger every day, lies that may overcome the truth everywhere forever. You must see for yourself what kills the truth in the world.”
   “I see something moving over there I don’t like!”, Pat warned.
   Claudia squinted into the darkness. “There is something moving over there.”, she whispered. 

   The mummies raised their arms all at once. A haunting purple light rose out of the rocks and crawled up the walls of the cave.

84.
   A mob of pulsating forms rose up in front of us. They looked like hanging tripe with teeth, like worn out neon signs over a liquor store in a ghetto, like the jittery forms in a drop of swamp water under a microscope. “Behold the Mighty Wurlitzer!”, said a mummy, its voice thick with fear. “With this, The CIA and its corporate masters poison the world.”
   Another mummy joined in. “When the CIA wants to overthrow a government, the Mighty Wurlitzer is the beginning, the middle and the end. The airwaves are taken over, the newspapers bought and the Mighty Wurlitzer spreads its lies. The population is divided and turned against itself, rightists against leftists, communists against the military and the oligarchy. The CIA assassinates a general and the organs of the Mighty Wurlitzer report that he has been castrated and cannibalized by communists. Lists of thousands of the innocents to be sacrificed are provided and the bloodlust begins.”

   The dancing images moved closer as if they could see us in the shimmering light. A humming sound, quiet at first grew louder. The forms within forms spun faster. The lights within lights winked and sputtered and smoked.
   The mummies spoke together now, chanting like a Greek chorus. “You have seen what the Mighty Wurlitzer has done to the people of South America, but the main target of this poisonous machine is you, Oliver, you and the American people. The boisterous dialogue of your people has been turned into a petty cat fight, right against left, blue collar against white, black against brown against white against yellow, gay against straight, catholic against protestant against Muslim against Jew. While you bicker and squabble -”

85.
   The mummies were interrupted by a rustling sound coming from the darkness behind us. It grew louder. We turned around to see an enormous centipede shaking with fury rising over us. Its antennae coiled around its jaws. Its dozens of legs flailed wildly. “What in the hell are you punks doing down here? Do you know what I do with nosey little twits like you? I eat them for lunch. If you’re so interested in what these carcasses have to say about torture and death, then maybe it’s time for a little demonstration!”

   Pat and Nanette froze with fear. Claudia grabbed my arm. Christ, no magic dogs, no magic balloon. It looked like this was it. “Aren’t you in the least bit interested in why we are here?”, I asked in desperation. “Do you think we are the only ones looking under rocks to find the real face of history?”
   It worked, at least for a moment. The centipede paused. A sadistic grin expanded across its round head. “So Nancy Drew has uncovered a mystery, has she? You’ve uncovered a couple of banana republic coups. So what? What are you going to do, tell everyone?” A sharp cackle escaped its jaws. “Do you really think anyone gives a shit about a couple of coups in South America? Do you think anyone gives a flying fuck about a hundred coups in a hundred countries? Even if they’re not as fat and sassy as they used to be, even if they’re not fat and sassy at all, they’re either too proud or too ignorant or too scared to care about anybody but themselves. What will you do when you turn over the rock that hides the real face of history, the rock that covers the pathway to hell? Even when you or a million others like you find that rock, nothing will change. What is justice? What is freedom? What is democracy? Tiny candles on the shit cake of humanity, there for distraction, there for decoration, nothing more. But enough of this. I’m hungry.”

86.
  The centipede’s eyes flashed with arrogance. “I want to savor this.”, it drooled. “Four heroic creatures who’ve lived a good life and just wanted to give something to the world, four little centurions who marched off to war to make might right and evil good are tragically cut down and swallowed into the belly of the beast. No one will know what happened to them. No one will ever know their hopes, their dreams, their loves. No one will ever know of their horrible deaths. The world will go on in its stone cold, arbitrary way without them. Goodbye cruel world.”

   Suddenly a piercing light shot into the cave. The pulsing, quivering machine above us shrunk away into the darkness. A huge yellow hand grabbed hold of the four of us. It held us tight but did not hurt us. I put my hands on one of the fingers wrapped around my waist and they sunk into it as if it were made of the light that emanated from it. The light filled the cave and lit up its endless stalactites. It lit up the eyes of the mummies who were almost smiling.
   “Crawl back into the darkness where you belong, insect!”, a thunderous voice boomed.
   The centipede was knocked on its back snarling and cursing. It rolled to the feet of the mummies. One of the mummies hands fell away from its body and onto the centipede. The centipede swung around and angrily bit at it. Another hand fell on it then another. Hands clutched. Limbs straightened. Feet stomped. For an instant the centipede looked up at the mummies. Then they tore it to pieces.
   “Come back into the light where you belong, children.”, rumbled the voice. We were pulled from the cave through the darkness and into the starlight.

87.
   The Giant of the Atacama glowed like a lava pit in the night. He held us in his hand high above the desert floor. “What we have here, a handful of bugs? So whataya got?”

   “We’re friends of Boris!”, I stammered desperately. 
   “He sent us here to see you!”, Claudia exclaimed. 
   “Well, whatcha doin’ down that hole?”
   “We had a map!”, I blurted.
   “Sounds like as good of an excuse as any.”, boomed the giant. “Did ya get lost?” 
   “We saw the Mighty Wurlitzer!”, proclaimed Nanette.
   “We saw a bunch of morons floating in a river of shit!”, shouted Pat.
   “And giant mummies.”, I added looking at the giant skeptically.
   “And a giant centipede.”, Claudia finished quietly.
   “Giants to the right of ya, giants to the left of ya.”, smiled the giant.
   “We saw agony scrawled on the walls.”, I murmured.
   “And heard it echoing in the sounds of silence, no doubt.”, chuckled the giant. “And by the way, that river of shit those morons were floating in is a river of lies, kids and you’re floatin’ in it too. That stinkin’ tinker box, the Mighty Wurlitzer is drownin’ ya in bullshit, bullshit like 'We live in the greatest country in the world.’? The greatest country in the world ranks 38th in life expectancy, 33rd in child mortality, 21st in secondary education, 9th in freedom of the press and # 1 in people behind bars.”
   “We learned that the CIA bankrolled itself selling drugs.”, I offered.

88.
   The giant playfully tossed us from hand to hand. “And most guests in the gray bar hotel are there on drug charges. All you idiots swallow the War On Drugs horseshit like the pabulum it is. There’s too much gold in keeping drugs illegal. Ask Al Capone, or better yet, ask the major bankers of the world who do very well for themselves launderin’ all that dirty money and if any of them are stupid enough to get caught, do any of them ever go to jail? Of course not. They just pay a fine that’s already factored into the cost of doin’ business. Oh, and by the way, now that you’re privatizing your prisons, money can be made comin’ an goin’. With private prison labor at twenty-five cents an hour, why do you think the prison industry is lobbyin’ congress for longer prison sentences? Hell, at that price they can compete with China. What’s not patriotic about bringin’ American manufacturing home again?” He paused and looked down at us. “What did ya think of those three anorexic bimbos? Did they tell ya their sad story?”   

   “They told us that their wisdom has been shut away.”, I frowned.

   “Yadda, yadda, yadda.”, scoffed the giant. “What’s wisdom gonna do for a bunch of retards? When some of your less dimmer bulbs worried that the invasion of Iraq would be a repeat of Viet Nam, the rest of ya couldn’t even find Iraq on the map. The greatest country in the world marches off to war all hot and bothered without even knowing where the hell it’s goin’.” The giant sighed. “Ya know, I don’t have anythin’ against morons who let themselves be run over. It’s the morons who run them over I worry about. They always make such a mess of things and they're havin’ the time of their lives right now.

89.
   The giant looked down at the four of us shaking with fear in the palm of his hand. He suddenly dropped us next to the balloon, leapt on to the nearby hills and raised himself to his full height. The light flickered and crawled and danced around his body. He lifted his arms to the sky. “This makes me so damned mad I could scream!!”, he screamed. “The Mighty Wurlitzer was just a cog in the Red Menace propaganda machine that worked for decades. The McCarthy witch hunts took your country to the edge of tyranny. The whole damned opera of Evil Communism was a cruel joke. The communist countries that threatened you were dictatorships. Dictators threatened you, not Communism. Where did the idea of Communism come from in the first place? It was an attempt to answer the horrors of capitalism run amuck and the only time it threatened the great seat of capitalism in the good ol’ USA was during the great depression which was brought on by capitalism run amuck. Then your masters had the fear of God rammed up their asses. It was enough for them to allow real unions and a real living wage and a real middle class and for a few years you had a decent life, retirement, education, healthcare and the fantasy of the American Dream. Do you remember that time? It’s gone now, back to where it belongs as far as your masters are concerned, nothing more than a pipe dream in the mind of some long-gone troublemaker.”

   I had had enough. I was sick of all this bullying. “Just candles on the shit cake of humanity? You’re no better than that God damned centipede!”