The Wild Boys Read Online Free PDF Page B

sergeant is reading
Amazing Stories
. He flicks a switch … Audrey and Hamlin on screen. Wind ruffles Audrey’s hair as the Dusenberg gathers speed.
    “Light Years calling Bicarbonate … Operation Little Audrey on target … eight seconds to count down … tracking …”
    A thin dyspeptic technician mixes a bicarbonate of soda.
    “URP calling Fox Trot … six seconds to count down …”
    English computer programer is rolling a joint.
    “Spot Light calling Accent … four seconds to count down …”
    Computers hum, lights flash, lines converge.
    Red-haired boy chews gum and looks at a muscle magazine.
    “Red Dot calling Pin Point … two seconds to count down …“.
    The Dusenberg zooms over a rise and leaves the ground. Just ahead is a wooden barrier, steamroller, piles of gravel, phantom tents. DETOUR sign points sharp left to a red clay road where pieces of flint glitter in the sunlight.
    “OLD SARGE IS TAKING OVER.”
    He looks around and the crockery flies off every table spattering the conferents with Martinis, bourbon, whipped cream, maraschino cherries, gravy and vichysoisse frozen forever in a 1920 slapstick.
    “COUNT DOWN.”
    End over end a flaming pin wheel of jagged metal slices through the conferents. The Green Nun is decapitated by a twisted fender. The Texas billionaire is sloshed with gasoline like a burning nigger. The broken spotlight trailing white-hot wires like a jellyfish hits the British delegate in the face. The Dusenberg explodes throwing white-hot chunks of jagged metal, boiling acid, burning gasoline in all directions.
    Wearing the uniforms of World War I Audrey and Old Sarge lean out of a battered Moon in the morning sky and smile. Old Sarge is at the wheel.

The Penny Arcade Peep Show
    Unexpected rising of the curtain can begin with a Dusenberg moving slowly along a 1920 detour. Just ahead Audrey sees booths and fountains and ferris wheels against a yellow sky. A boy steps in front of the car and holds up his hand. He is naked except for a rainbow colored jock strap and sandals. Under one arm he carries a Mauser pistol clipped onto a rifle stock. He steps to the side of the car. Audrey has never seen anyone so cool and disengaged. He looks at Audrey and he looks at John. He nods.
    “We leave the car here,” John says. Audrey gets out. Six boys now stand there watching him serenely. They carry long knives sheathed at their belts which are studded with amethyst crystals. They all wear rainbow-colored jock straps like souvenir post cards of NiagaraFalls. Audrey follows John through a square where acts are in progress surrounded by circles of adolescent onlookers eating colored ices and chewing gum. Most of the boys wear the rainbow jock straps and a few of them seem to be completely naked. Audrey can’t be sure trying to keep up with John. The fair reminds Audrey of 1890 prints. Sepia ferris wheels turn in yellow light. Gliders launched from a wooden ramp soar over the fair ground legs of the pilots dangling in air. A colored hot-air balloon is released to applause of the onlookers. Around the fair ground are boardwalks, lodging houses, restaurants and baths. Boys lounge in doorways. Audrey glimpses scenes that quicken his breath and send the blood pounding to his groin. He catches sight of John far ahead outlined in the dying sunlight. Audrey calls after him but his voice is blurred and muffled. Then darkness falls as if someone has turned out the sky. Some distance ahead and to the left he sees PENNY ARCADE spelled out in light globes. Perhaps John has gone in there. Audrey pushes aside a red curtain and enters the arcade. Chandeliers, gilt walls, red curtains, mirrors, windows stretch away into the distance. He cannot see the end of it in either direction from the entrance. It is a long narrow building like a ship cabin or a train. Boys are standing in front of peep shows some wearing the rainbow jock straps others in prep school clothes loincloths and jellabas. He notices shows