CARLOS & KATRINA

A Novel by Charles Adrian Trevino
Copyright 2006, 2020

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Chapter 37

Sitting alone in his tiny, uncomfortable dressing room, Carlos nervously ran his finger down the neck of his excellent new electric guitar. He was about to depart to the main waiting room situated just off of the large grand stage he and his band would soon be occupying; there they would await the word to come out and take the stage... in terror.

Carlos closed his eyes and exhaled steadily, then slowly inhaled again. He had taken to doing deep breathing exercises in the past few days to calm his nerves, and had found that taking a few moments to do so helped him to deal with what was promising to be a formidable task; opening for three legendary, powerhouse classic-rock acts. This was to be no jokingly easy, hostile takeover of some inept geek rockers' concert; this was the real deal... the proving ground.

As the day of reckoning began to draw closer and closer, the full brunt of what he had to do had started hitting him very hard. This was to be the acid test, the ultimate trial of his band's mettle. Their set would be followed first by the much-revered singer/songwriter Steven the Cat, whose beautiful soft pop/rock music would resonate with the hip, older aficionadoes in the audience. Next up would be the terrifyingly tight Santa Ana Band, which would no doubt work the audience up into a frenzy, presenting the headliner, Van Norrisman, with an extremely hard act to follow. But Van "The Man" had faced these kind of worrisome situations many times before -- like the other opening acts, he had been one of the pioneers of the hot, creative rock and blues explosion that had occurred when Carlos was still very young. Carlos, however, had not been too young to grasp the social and cultural import of that beautiful but all too brief window in time, the last remnants of which were fading fast... leaving in its wake something that was a shameful, cruel mockery of that awesome soundtrack to the "peace and love" days, the cultural revolution that had been so very good to Carlos; an amazing phenomenon he had been fortunate enough to witness and live firsthand, and which might not ever happen again, given the hollow and empty direction in which the world was now heading.

But tonight that depressing eventuality was the last thing the buzzing crowd was concerned about. An ambience of joy and happiness was emanating from the rows of anxious hot-music lovers, and their enthusiasm was contagious; it was buoying Carlos up, making him feel happier and less nervous about going on. He cultivated the feeling, giving it full and free reign over his worried mind; it was the only thing holding him up tonight.

A knock on his door brought him quickly to his feet; the comforting sound of his band's bantering voices grew louder as he pulled the door open and stepped out into the hall, holding his guitar. To his surprise Frank Fortune was in the lead, accompanying the anxious and nervous group to the stage.  Flashing his confident smile, Frank reached out and patted Carlos on the shoulder.

"Time to go out there and shine, Ace! I hope we're all in tune, yes?"

"All set, Frankie." Carlos replied with a grin. "I'm as in-tune as I'm ever gonna' be. So... let's do it!"

Frank turned and addressed the musicians. "You heard the man, boys! You're as ready as you're ever gonna' be... so let's go!" Raising his hand in the air, he snapped his fingers twice, then turned and began to stride down the wide hall with the little entourage close on his heels.

Bringing up the rear, Carlos watched the small band moving along ahead of him, and suddenly he became aware that this was a defining moment in his life, one that he would always remember; a moment he would surely never forget. It was very similar to the first time he had dared to venture out into the ocean to challenge the biggest swell of the winter, after standing on the beach gazing in awe and wonder for fifteen minutes as the waves exploded in perfect form. This was what he lived for, this feeling; this was peak experience. And he knew that this feeling would become an indelibly ingrained memory, one that he would cherish forever, as long as he lived.

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Stephen Schidtberger stood motionless in his spacious t.v. room, staring out of the large ornate window which overlooked the northeast corner of his immense backyard, as his enormous wall-sized television blathered away. His olympic-sized swimming pool shimmered far below him, decorated by the various multi-colored rose bushes which surrounded it, their fragrant flowers standing proudly at attention. But Schidtberger was blind to the beauty of the idyllic setting; his mind was a million miles away, seething torturously in some kind of ugly, paranoid hell.

His health had been gradually but steadily failing over the past few months, and he was slowly beginning to resign himself to this new scenario. After all, he was now in his late 70's; this kind of decrepitude was to be expected, especially with the ever-present and sordid business matters that he loved to constantly enmesh himself in. But even so, Schidtberger couldn't help but feel that the unpleasantness he was now feeling had been mostly brought on by the unfair, uncalled-for vengeful actions of the loathsome animal whom he now hated more than anything else in the world; that despicable, rabble-rousing Mayinkan dog named Carlos Fontana.

In the beginning, it had all been so incredibly easy to understand and deal with. The little mongrel had flown across the Usher's radar after his mother had had the effrontery to enroll him in a Usher high school that should have been off-limits to him; later on a talent in art had allowed the little animal to gain access to another upper-middle class institution. That these outrages could even occur was shocking enough, but Fontana had opened up his high school gambit by immediately arguing, then getting into a fight with a superior Usher who had merely made a small, albeit insulting remark about his nationality. When the quite understandable retribution began to rightfully flow from his Usher schoolmates, instead of meekly accepting it and apologizing for his transgression he had taken extreme umbrage, and had revealed himself to be an ugly, unreasonably defensive monster with an acid tongue which could and did hurt the sensitive, non-violent young people who had been forced to tolerate his presence.

Then things had started getting even nastier. Some of his teachers had taken it upon themselves to correct his insolence, doing things like marking down his test scores which were consistently and alarmingly high, and allowing his classmates to exchange loud and blatantly insulting racial remarks without remonstrating them; he had had the effrontery to complain to the school principal about this, causing an embarrassing scene. Then, after saving up his pathetic pennies, he had purchased a beautiful new 10-speed bicycle which he proceeded to vainly show off, proudly riding it to school everyday; accordingly, his bicycle had been repeatedly vandalized, and finally stolen by his understandably vexed schoolmates. These and a few other very minor incidents had seemingly pushed the little dog over the edge of rationality.

He had begun to seek out and read literature about the history of the Ushers, and not in an attempt to better understand their problems -- he was simply looking for ammunition to use against them, anything negative he could find. Upon beginning cursory surveillance, the all-seeing Usher Eyes discovered that he had checked out questionable books which were on the Usher's black list from various libraries; books that explained the history and workings of the Central Reserve, International Bank and World Monetary Fund, among other things. Accordingly, the surveillance had increased, quickly getting to a point where his every movement and word was being recorded. This was a fate he had brought on himself, with his unreasonable resentment and delusions of equality, but Fontana hadn't see it that way. In his twisted mind, he had cast himself as a victim of a corrupt and insane cult that had grown all-powerful by dint of its complete lack of morals, character and self-restraint, and he had embarked on a delusional, quixotic campaign against his imagined tormentors.

At this point, Schidtberger had entered the picture. Although he was only a scarcely-educated college drop-out, Schidtberger had been elevated in the press to the level of an artistic filmmaking wunderkind whose every production was praised as an astounding work of genius. In spite of the fact that almost all of his movies were contrived to titillate pre-teen children and viewers who possessed the same level of intelligence, he had become a nationwide household name amongst the pathetically brainwashed citizens of the UFS, who flocked to movie theaters to experience his magic. When the Usher Eyes had informed him that a troublemaking Mayinkan named Carlos Fontana had lambasted one of his movies while riding in a friend's car, Schidtberger had grown livid, and had enthusiastically accepted an "invitation" from his Usher masters to give this weak, powerless big-mouth his just deserts in the media. Along with several other prominent Usher media titans, he had started inserting Carlos Fontana "moments" into his rank but extremely popular movies; Fontana had unwittingly taken the bait and paid to see several of these movies, before realizing what was happening and abstaining from Schidtberger's works altogether, as well as most other movies in general. He had eventually also completely stopped listening to his once-beloved rock and roll radio stations, since the same type of demoralizing innuendoes were broadcasted there as well.

This kind of "retribution" had continued on, however; Schidtberger joined forces with the absurdly declasse but very shrewd and wealthy music mogul David Geeken to punish Fontana mercilessly for his crimes against Ushers. Together they had built an entertainment empire which they ruled with an iron-fisted arrogance, with no resistance whatsoever coming from any quarter, and the two moguls relished every minute of their complete dominance. Then something terrible had happened.

Fontana's fortunes had begun to change for the better. He had always possessed some strange, inexplicable influence over ignorant people, but suddenly he was more influential than ever before. He had become extremely popular after breaking through the Usher entertainment industry barrier, with the help of a goik small-time upstart manager/promoter named Frank Fortune who had taken Fontana's band under his wing. Now these cocky upstarts were about to release a monstrous expose song about Usher manipulation in general, and about Schidtberger and his partner David Geeken in particular. All attempts to halt this affront had failed, and the song had been released and had been immediately praised highly by some of the less tractable music media outlets, before they could be "persuaded" not to do so.

But the two Usher moguls were determined not to take this affront lying down. Fontana needed to be taught a hard lesson, and he was going to learn from that lesson.

Picking up his remote t.v. controller, Schidtberger clicked a button and the huge television fizzled to silence. Walking over to his favorite leather reclining chair, he sat down and picked up a telephone sitting on the table beside it. Punching another button, he held the receiver to his mouth and waited for his ever-ready assistant to answer; as usual, he didn't have to wait very long.

"Ennis, get David Geeken on the line for me," Schidtberger barked into the phone.

"Right away, Mr. Schidtberger," responded his fat, obedient little flunky. In less than fifteen seconds Geeken's voice was coming over the line.

"Yeah, Schidt? Whadja' want, I'm kinda' busy right now..." Schidtberger could hear loud, raucous laughter in the background; Geeken was obviously in the middle of one of his celebrity-packed parties.

"Well, get yourself unbusy right now. We have to work out a plan. Fortune and Fontana already released their new song... I assume you know the one I'm talking about. Geek, we can't let this go unpunished. It's too late to stop it, but if we just stand by and take this it's going to make us look weak... and foolish." Schidtberger leaned back, and his recliner tilted down to accomodate his mood.

"Yeah, sooo... whadja' got in mind, Schidt old boy?" said Geeken. "I've already got some plans in the can for that scumbag sack of shit, if you want to know..."

"Well, don't do anything rash now, David... not without consulting me first. He has to be punished, he's gone too far this time. But this could backfire on us, and get us in some trouble. Just remember that. I want to see you first thing tomorrow, to start planning out a definite course of action... time is of the essence now old boy, I hope you understand that."

"Whadda' ya' think we should do with them? I already talked to some of our mob friends, Meyer Lunksky and Bugseye Seagull and those guys... they got some goons lined up, some real good ones. They're all ready to.."

"Wrong!" Schidtberger interrupted Geeken abruptly. "This is a delicate matter, and it has to be handled carefully, so that absolutely nothing can be traced back to us by anyone. Call off the dogs for now... we may need them later, but not now, Dave."

"Alright, alright man. I'll call you tomorrow afternoon... after I recover from tonight!" Geeken let out a loud, shrill laugh.

"You do that, Geek." Schidtberger closed his eyes, grimacing. "You do that. Goodnight, pal." Putting down the phone, he lay still for a few moments. Then, opening his eyes and smiling, he picked it up once more.

"Ennis!" he yelled.

The response came immediately. "Yes, Mr. Schidtberger?"

"I'm ready to retire now. Tell Cappy to meet me in the master bedroom in five minutes."

"Oh, umm..." Schidtberger's lackey hesitated, terrified to go on.

"What is it now, Ennis?"

"Mrs. Schidtberger says she has a terrible migraine headache tonight again, sir. She told me to..."

"Never mind!" Schidtberger snapped into the receiver. He closed his eyes again, frowning. "Never mind, Ennis. Just tell the other one to get up there instead. And no excuses from her... do you understand, Ennis?"

"Yes sir! Right away, sir. Right away."

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Copyright 2020 by Charles Adrian Trevino.