A little light-hearted post-Christmas gift idea.
Many years ago, Adam-Troy Castro put together what he called the world’s smallest shared word horror anthology. He called it “Crazy Akbar’s House Of Pain” and allowed us each around a dozen lines for our contributions. His “About the authors” segment read simply “They’re weird.” You were one of the contributors, Dave. This time I‘ve added the backstory.
At the time I wrote the original, I was younger and not in a wheelchair. More than that, we weren’t doing battle over a so-called healthcare bill. Now, it all seems so much more appropriate.
It all began at Denver airport. My plane was delayed because of a major snowstorm. Fortunately, I was in good company, drinking Irish coffee with Ed Bryant and Michael Moorcock. The place was jammed with nice, normal people. As time moved along, we became less nice and normal and became silly—a tendency not unusual for the three of us. Why the subject came up I’ll never know, but we decided to solve the problem of the elderly. We were not quiet, but not so loud that we realized we were being overheard by the people around us. Even if we were, so what, when clearly our tongues were firmly lodged in our cheeks.
After some discussion, we came up with the idea of placing ads in a variety of catalogs. The ads would read as follows:
STAPELTON .45 CALIBER WHEELCHAIR. Self-protection and fun for the handicapped and the elderly. No reason to feel deprived. Our fully automatic wheelchairs come with swivel base, knives on the spokes, one-touch guns, and poisoned blow-darts. Have some fun. Take to the highways and enjoy road rage like everyone else. ORDER B#-OO45.
It took a while for us to become aware of the deathly silence at the tables around us, not that it mattered. We filled the silence by getting noisier
Until—and this is true—security arrived, three men in uniform, inviting us to join them in a march out of the room. Well, it wasn’t so much an invitation as an order.
Were we disturbing the peace? No. We were apparently inciting violence.
Are we on a List? Will there be a knock at the door in the middle of the night? Should I start building my chair? Bet I could sell a few and with the economy the way it is, it may be a good idea. Bet I could sell a bunch of them.
Go ahead. Report me. I could use the excitement.
Wow…haven’t thought about Akbar for a while, though I did see one of my copies recently. Sometimes people have no sense of humor…sounds like a memorable moment. How many people have been kicked out by security with Michael Moorcock.
-DNW
A lot. And Ed was pretty funny in those days, too.
Doesn’t sound like too much of an extrapolation from one of those bad-ass wheelchairs in the Murderball documentary. You were ahead of your time!
I’ll be sure to spend a moment or two in silent commemoration of this incident while I’m at the Denver airport tomorrow night.
Although it’s a different airport now, and I’m sure the security staff is much more light-hearted these days.
Ha. Good luck. I suspect today’s terrorist attempt has them all mighty nervous.
Yeah, a paranoid atmosphere casts a wide net. Coming back from the Virgin Isles soon after the Cuban missile crisis I was picked up by the Miami Harbor Patrol, platinum blond hair and all, under suspicion of being a Cuban refugee. A few years ago hit a similar barrier (terrorist watch list) while trying to fly to the Bahamas. Makes you want to re-read your Orwell and chant “Loose lips sink ships.”
– Sully
That was precisely when we came to the USA–the Cuban Missile Crisis. YOU a Cuban. How ridiculous is that!
>Good luck. I suspect today’s terrorist attempt has them all mighty nervous.
Yeah, that was my first thought when I read that story in the news yesterday morning: “Oh, great. Some Nigerian just tried to detonate his underwear … I suppose now we’ll have to take those off along with our shoes.”