CARLOS & KATRINA

A Novel by Charles Adrian Trevino
Copyright 2006, 2021
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Chapter 40

Carlos exhaled heavily, leaning back into the soft chair in his hotel room. His clothes, the silky black embroidered jacket and pants that he had worn onstage during the concert, were still soaked in sweat. He was feeling exhilarated, but exhausted. And he still had to give a full interview to a news reporter, one that he had met through Frank Fortune; a young, idealistic kid who wrote for a promising new magazine that Carlos had come to enjoy, called Rock City.

He smiled as he closed his eyes and relaxed. When it came to good rock and roll music, this young reporter, one Nat Patrick, was about as assiduously zealous as they came. He particularly liked Nat's bold and brash style when he criticized the new trending corporate-rock bands Carlos so despised. He had written favorably about The Cool Banditos several times now, and from his reviews of other bands both good and bad, Carlos had gained enough confidence in his integrity to permit him a full-length interview for Rock City Magazine, which was starting to amass an extremely large readership. He seemed like the appropriate person to cover this very special concert, which had opened the tour.

Carlos sighed, and smiled again. The show had gone wonderfully... better than anything he could have ever imagined. Sheer magic. They had played their part well, prepping the audience for the bigger, established artists with a carefully chosen set of songs that conveyed a theme of hopeful beginnings, troubled times, and the triumph of the spirit over sadness, despair and death at the ending. The crowd seemed to appreciate the set order and had responded enthusiastically, and the band had all breathed a sigh of relief that they had survived this trial by fire. Then it was time to sit back and enjoy the rest of the show.

Carlos opened his eyes again, and whistled through his teeth. It had been an awesome spectacle; live renditions of their favorite songs, performed flawlessly, with inspired instrumental improvisation coming from all quarters, but sounding better than the studio versions the radio played! It was a thrilling thing to behold, and everyone in the building knew that it had been a special night. The show had been filmed and recorded, and would be featured in an upcoming movie of the tour that Frank Fortune was working on with some friends. It seemed that things couldn't possibly get better... but they would! He wasn't even rich yet! And at this point, Carlos could see no reason why he and his cohorts could not repeat the process, again and again, year in and year out, until their popularity waned... if it waned. Some classic rock bands lasted for decades, he hopefully reminded himself.

A knock on the door brought Carlos fully back to reality. That would be Nat Patrick, coming to party, relate, and celebrate the night's triumph with his willing interviewee. As he rose up from his chair, Carlos felt a certain happiness that he had only really started to feel strongly after he met Katrina; a feeling of relishing the company of kindred souls, good friends and allies. He was dead tired, yet still felt some kind of spiritual energy holding him up as he opened the door.

"Hey there, Nathan old boy... oh, excuse me..." Carlos looked at the man standing in the hall outside, wondering who he was and what he wanted; it wasn't Nat Patrick, that was for sure.

"Heaaaaay there, Carlos! What's the haps, man?" He spoke in a slightly sarcastic, almost mean tone of voice. He looked to be in his mid-30's, and was dressed casually, but fashionably and elegantly. His eyes somehow matched his voice; his entire ambience immediately put Carlos off. In a split-second he had crossed-off in his mind any reason why he would want to talk to this guy about anything at all.

"Uh, yeah, what can I do for you?" Carlos asked, with his signature politeness... but there was a slight edge to his tone now.

"It's me, man!" the stranger spread out his arms, palms upraised, as if he expected Carlos to suddenly remember who he was. "You know, dude... from The City!"

Carlos felt his irritation coming on fast. "Oh... is that Rock City, man?" he asked. "Where's Nat Patrick? I was going to talk with Nat..."

"Yeah, man! The City sent me instead! So what's the diff? It'll still get published," said the still unnamed intruder. His mouth cracked open into an obnoxious-looking grin. "Besides, Nat would want you to talk with me, and not anybody who might... not understand you! He told me so himself!"

Carlos eyed the stranger suspiciously; his initial impulse was to shut the door right then and there on the pest. But he had promised Rock City an interview with Nat, and if Nat couldn't make it, Carlos supposed that he should give this guy a few minutes of his time, answer a few quick questions, and then show him to the door.

"Ok buddy, what's your name? I've got to get moving, but I can answer a few quick questions, real quick. Come on in...," Carlos swung open the door, and the pest sauntered arrogantly into the room. Immediately Carlos got a bad vibe from his presence; this was looking suspiciously like some kind of Usher setup. Carlos had a sixth sense about that type of thing -- he felt something like deja vu coming over him as the man sat himself down in one of the chairs... and did nothing.

"The outlet is over there, if you've got equipment to charge..." Carlos motioned with his hand to an electrical outlet on the floor, as he sat himself back down in his own chair. "Uh... where's your voice recorder?"

"Don't need one, dude!" He leaned forward in his chair, grinned at Carlos wickedly... then burst into a wild fit of giggling laughter.

"Oh I see... photographic memory, huh?" Carlos suppressed a yawn. "Well, you won't need much memory, cuz I've gotta' meet someone in ten minutes, haven't even showered yet... what do ya' want to know, ace? Ask me anything, quick!"

"Ok, first question... how come you and Nat like to listen to music by dead guys so much? I mean, gets kind of old, doesn't it?" The pest resumed his sick grin.

Carlos had been expecting something obnoxious, but now he was certain... this was a Usher set-up. This guy might even be dangerous, not just another pest. He considered what to do next, and decided to go along with the "interview" for a while... and see what he could find. Nonchalantly reaching into his jacket pocket, he switched on his own mini-voice recorder; it would record the pest's words through the thin cloth. Then, taking a handkerchief out of his pocket, he pretended to blow his nose. But Carlos had made it clear that he would never give an interview without having his own copy of it, and the stranger seemed to know that well.

"That wasn't necessary, Carlos... I know you put a little voice recorder in your pocket before I got here! You just turned it on!" The strange man just couldn't stop grinning.

Carlos clenched his teeth together and spread his lips apart, in a mock smile that was clearly a signal for his unwanted guest to leave. "Oh, I see!" Carlos said pleasantly. "And what happened to Nat, Mister... uh, I didn't get your name?"

"Master! Mister Master! But you can just call me Master, Carlos... since we're friends!" His grin was turning into an outright mean sneer.

"Oh! Yes! I see! And what about Nat?"

"Oh... we had to let Nat go, Carlos. The new management didn't like his comments on the new talent... Nat was mean, Carlos! He had to go! Rock City is taking a new direction now, they're going with the future! They needed someone to tell the truth about the meanness of the old guard, how they're always putting down the new talent, and how bad they really suck... These guys are dinosaurs, Carlos! They're old and they've got to go extinct now! You don't want to go extinct with them, before your time, now do you Carlos?"

"You know, massa, since you mentioned time, that reminds me... are you athletic?" Carlos asked politely.

The man stopped grinning and stiffened up in his chair. Regarding Carlos with a baleful expression, he sat quietly for a few seconds, before replying.

"Why do you ask that, Carlos?" he said, in an expressionless tone.

"No, I was just curious... I mean, do you enjoy athletics, exercise? You know, like jogging, running, things like that?" Carlos' mild demeanor was disarming, yet still disconcerting; his guest continued to stare back at him ominously. Then he finally spoke.

"Why the hell would I want to go jogging and running, things like that, Carlos?" he mimicked Carlos's words icily.

Carlos stood up from his chair. "Because I'm about to run your silly ass out of here jerk, and I'm not joking. You can still get up and leave of your own volition, of course, if you like..." he said, standing perfectly still, but at readiness.

The man stared at Carlos for another couple of seconds, then broke into another sick grin. "You're pretty sure of yourself, aren't you Carlos?" he sneered haughtily. "Have you ever stopped to think about what might happen to you, if you crossed the wrong guy one day? I mean, with all your writings, your pamphlets... your song lyrics... don't you think somebody big might want to step on somebody small one of these days? Somebody whom they regard as an annoying little pest?"

Carlos reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his voice recorder. "Keep going, asshole, I'm getting every word you're saying." Giving the pest/guest a quick going-over with his eyes, he breathed an indiscernable sigh of relief; if the man was packing a gun, its outline would have been visible through his thin, tight fitting clothes; there was virtually nowhere he could have hidden a weapon on him.

"I see we're not understanding each other, Carlos... and that's making me very upset!" The man's mean, green eyes tried to bore into Carlos's soul. Carlos let out a truncated giggle, then quickly recovered himself.

"Oh, are you some kind of assassin dude, massa? Somehow I just can't picture you doing anything like..."

"Don't insult me, Carlos," the man snapped. "I'm well above that level. I'd watch your common little tongue if I were you... and your little voice recorder means nothing to me, or mine." Master's expression had gone serious again. "We don't even have to steal it from you... our judges simply wouldn't allow it to be admitted as evidence, if something happened to you. If something... unfortunate... were to happen to you."

"Oh, I get it! You're not some insignificant, spoiled little milksop pussywillow son of a corporate-rock mogul! Let's see now ace, what dynasty did you descend from? Aren't you the illegitimate son of Simon Warburger, or was it Victor Rothman IV? Let me say, I am very honored to have such an accomplished and no doubt aristocratic nobleman in my cheesy little hotel room; I'm afraid this must appear very squalid to you, what with all those grand palaces and noble old castles you and yours live in..." Carlos nodded his head towards the door. "Like I said, jerk, you can make a dignified exit right now if you want... otherwise..."

He took one step forward, as the massa leapt to his feet and scampered to the door. Opening it, he turned and gave Carlos one last defiant look. "Do you know who bought Rock City, Carlos? Are you wondering who got your little disciple fired? It was A to Z, dude! So now you know, ok? Bye, Carlos!" With that, the intruder scuttled out the door and was gone.

Carlos cursed under his breath. A to Z Corporation... Geeken's friends. Schidtberger people. It didn't surprise him at all; in fact he probably should have expected it, knowing his enemies. The all-encompassing corporation had either made Rock City an offer it couldn't refuse, or else it had been a hostile acquisition, in which the owners had been forced into selling out by the unstoppable juggernaut. Someone with a lot of money had resented the hell out of the magazine's pro-classic rock stance, and the negative effect its growing influence must have been having on the lackluster newer bands' record sales. So Nat had lost his job because of Carlos... and Geeken wanted him to know it, to make him feel guilty and rattle his confidence. But the takeover had happened so fast, it was astounding.

A to Z Corporation's name had been born of a private joke amongst the Ushers; it literally meant that they owned every major corporation worth owning, from A to Z. It had originally started life as a seemingly harmless, very useful telecommunications "search engine," but had become so popular with its users that it had spawned a monopolistic monster corporation. Its two irresponsible young owners (who had become instant "overnight" billionnaires) were Ushers, and displayed the same low-class insensitivity, complete abandonment of moral integrity, and feeding frenzy mentality most Ushers displayed when they caught scent of a big buck. These youngsters had been born into the new, Usher-shaped, plastic commercial world, not a world that had developed in a more natural way; as a result, they had a frighteningly skewed vision of what was socially acceptable and what wasn't outrageously unacceptable.

And like most Ushers, and now many UFS citizens as well, they did not think of themselves as being insane, repugnant, or even slightly maladjusted in the least as they disgustingly invaded millions of hapless people's privacy, selling them useful appliances that actually spied on them, audibly and visually, in their own homes. It was all part of the Usher creed: crawl as low as you have to, in order to win. Do anything, but get control; get the buck, buy the bankers, the government, the military, the judiciary, the infrastructure, the women, the future. It was win at any cost -- even the cost of your soul.

Which mattered little to the Ushers, since they obviously didn't believe in a judgmental God, or any kind of hellish afterlife; if God existed, why did he just sit back and watch the Usher torture and debase humanity, the humanity He supposedly created out of incredibly complex combinations of molecules, supposedly in his own image, to enjoy and maintain an incredibly beautiful world? And besides, the scientists whom the Ushers employed to tell the people that "God" could not possibly exist (judging by the information available to them), had assured the Usher of this truth as well; their truth was absolute. Therefore, the shallow, simple-minded Usher thought he could just do any foul, evil thing, and just die and get away with it.

Exactly what it was these people thought they were winning had always remained a mystery to Carlos; what good was it to gain the world and lose your self-respect, so you couldn't enjoy yourself anymore? What he was finally coming to realize and accept was that these strange people's philosophy of life was diametrically opposed to what Carlos loved, and aligned completely with everything he hated: the sick, sociopathic surveillance, the mean, disgusting sit-coms, the violent video games, the idiot "rock" music, the not-worth-watching movies and sensationalist television shows custom designed to appeal to an ape-level intelligence. This was the world the "alphabet" billionnaires had inherited. They saw absolutely nothing wrong with this new world; in fact, it appealed to their true inner selves tremendously, and they had just picked up the ball and ran with it.

The Ushers seemed intent on giving new meaning to that embarrassingly accurate term, "rat race." Eventually, they would create a society in which no one possessing even the smallest inkling of class or intelligence could ever be happy; only the lowest-class media-addicted dullards would feel at home in this new, soul-dead Usher world... but that type of dummy would conform to any situation he found himself in anyway, thought Carlos, no matter how absurd or ridiculous. Carlos had experienced first-hand the kind of cretin that the Ushers wanted to populate "their" country with; he had heard their obnoxious bantering, suffered their moronic music and television in stores, restaurants, and even government buildings; he had seen how they believed everything they heard and saw, if it came from the major media news stations; and he had experienced first-hand how easily their unseen Usher masters could manipulate these gullible morons to bond with them, and to hate someone like himself. In short, Carlos wasn't too fond of people that embraced the Usher's obnoxious ways, especially the entertainment industry addicts... his main problem had always been that most UFS citizens were entertainment industry addicts. In Carlos' opinion, asanine and sleazy Usher movies and music had become the opiate of the masses, necessary to kill the imperceptible psychic pain brought on by a steady dose of asinine and sleazy Usher movies and music. It was a vicious and extremely profitable cycle.

And now Nat Patrick had fallen victim to the foul juggernaut behemoth, his fatal mistake having been his courageous honesty in writing, and his excellent taste in music -- just like the music journalists of old were required to have. And Carlos couldn't help but imagine that it was Nat's support of his band that had done him in as well. In his dealings with the Usher, it seemed as if Carlos could never stop feeling guilty about something or other; whether it was someone who had backed and supported him and paid a high price for it, or else someone whom he had hurt by castigating his mogul enemies and their celebrity "artists," the ones who had taken control and completely changed the face of the rock music he had once loved, turning it into something no true rock musician could recognize any longer. And things were just getting worse, every day.

And the cancer wasn't just limited to the entertainment industry... the entire world was falling into the hands of abject corruption, as the Ushers started to go after all the dissidents who had opposed them. Judges, politicians, military officers, journalists, even celebrities were all being forced to either join the juggernaut, or "disappear" from the life they once knew. Huge lawsuits were the Usher's primary tactic; start an exorbitantly expensive, legal "paper" war so that their victims were forced into bankruptcy trying to respond to an endless river of mundane legal documents. Or they could easily get the Federal Police to lean on anybody they wanted, if lawsuits failed.

But the one thing the Ushers enjoyed above all, and in fact lived for, was to break the people that stood up for what was right, and humiliate them by making them publicly stating their support for their... madness. There was no other word to describe what was happening around the country and, accordingly, the world, because the founders of the UFS had granted the Usher free admittance to the country. It this wasn't the work of Satan, Carlos thought, then he was Jesus Christ himself.

The thought of Jesus on the cross brought Carlos back to reality; he was still standing looking at the open door. He walked over and pushed it shut, then went over to the bed. Kneeling down, he crossed himself, rested his elbows on the mattress, and began to silently pray.

"Lord, if I really do strike it rich... and it looks like I might," he began, then thought for a few seconds about what he was going to say next. Carlos really believed that he'd been punished before for being angry and insolent, almost blasphemous, when he had prayed; he had learned not to let his own silly little ego get him into trouble anymore, and now worded his prayers carefully, whether or not he actually spoke them out. He knew that God could read his thoughts, anyway.

"I promise to help Nat... since he got fired because of me," Carlos whispered to his clasped hands. "But also because he wasn't one of them... he stood up and spoke the truth, about what the creeps were doing to our music..." Carlos paused. He was starting to get negative again, a little bit; if he continued in this vein, he would soon be boring God with an endless stream of complaints and judgments. He decided to switch his train of thought away from the Ushers, and just pray for the souls and well-being of everybody that he loved.

Carlos realized that he was falling asleep on his knees, so worn out was he from the night's excitement; he quickly scanned his memory for the people most worthy of his prayers, the people that had stuck with him and helped him out in tough times -- then suddenly realized that he had lost nearly every acquaintance he had, after the ugly Usher rumor mill had turned them all against him. He called them acquaintances now... true friends would never have bailed on him; this he knew. But there still were a few noble souls that he remembered as friends; though he saw them very little these days, he held their memories dear. They were the hard rocks, the pillars that had held him up. It seemed sad, though, that they were all male friends; before he met Katrina, Carlos had avoided a relationship as if it were the proverbial plague. Try as he might, he couldn't remember a female that had meant much to him, before Katrina...

Then suddenly Carlos thought of a pretty little girl from his high school days, who had told a friend that she liked him. When word had gotten back to Carlos, he had been overjoyed -- a miracle! Uuntil he realized that she was in tight with a group of Ushers that hated him, Ushers whom he detested himself, and with good reason. After deciding not to go for it, he had puzzled over the thing for a long time; how could such an angelic looking creature not be disgusted by these horrible people and their poisonous fruits, he wondered? Was her beauty merely skin-deep? Or had they gained the confidence of a good girl, and seduced her with their money?

That was the most likely explanation, Carlos thought; they had seduced her into joining their pathetic crew. After all, money is what makes things happen, and Ushers always had plenty of that. She was probably just another sad victim of the Usher's soul-corrupting conquest today, he thought; poor little thing.

Carlos sighed to himself; there was nothing he could have done anyway... the Usher's evil pull was strong, very strong... almost irresistable. Just let it go, he thought; she'd probably been materially better off for it anyway, and that was what mattered most in this world, it seemed. Still, there was something so sad about it all...

He looked down at his clasped hands again, as a stream of profound thoughts and feelings flooded through his tired mind. He remembered how happy he had been, when his friend had told him about this girl and what she had said about him; then to have his hopes dashed like that, because of a choice he had forced himself to make -- it had been... painful. Extremely painful, he remembered.

Carlos remained there on his knees for a long while, thinking about life and love... and how the Ushers seemed to represent the number one threat to both of these things, at least in his now-hardened opinion. But if he started thinking about the Ushers again, he would soon become angry and depressed. He had to get up, crawl into bed and crash out for the night. The concert had been a success; tomorrow he would feel good again, after a good night's sleep. But something was keeping him from rising... something was nagging at him again. It was her, that girl from the past, haunting him. He had hated her for not hating the repulsive Ushers; but they hadn't attacked her the way they had him. Instead they had feted her, since she had been very pretty; she probably hadn't seen much of a reason for even disliking them, much less hating them. Another ignorant victim...

Carlos started to get up... then dropped back to his knees. Crossing himself again, he put his hands together once more.

"I'll pray for her soul, too," he thought to himself.

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Copyright 2006, 2021 by Charles Adrian Trevino.