Not just any hangover.
Mayor Russ “Rusty” Russell was exhausted, bleary-eyed and spent. He slumped behind an enormous desk littered with stacks of complaints from the hoi-polloi, laid his head in his hands and groaned like a dying man giving up his final breath.
But oh what a night!
A super-special nationwide broadcast tribute extravaganza for that pathetic white kid who tried to make it in the NBBA and came up just an eensy-weensy-teensy bit short.
So sad, but a can’t miss ratings booster. Vaidating black supremacy at the same time as giving the white folks the empathetic benefit of a “nice try,” coupled with the moral pathos of euthenasia.
You really can’t beat it for anything more broadcast worthy.
“Live from the exclusive Club Wakanda in the heart of beautiful, downtown, Neo-Detroit.” The announcer got the ball rolling in tones of suprise, delight and the expectancy of someting truly unique. Be there, tune in or regret it for the rest of your life.
Club Wakanda, where the elite meet eat and move their feets, is a very special place. Not a primo example of the Afro-Futurism decor style—pretty ho hum and terminally dated by now—but the new, fresh and dynamic Afro-Backwardism. Design principals based on the writings of Professor Ambrose Price, which were just gaining main-stream currency.
Afro-Backwardism: None of those chintzy art deco headresses and idiotic metal breastplates. Afro-Backwardism is the philosphical thesis at the heart of the most advanced Euro-diaspora model as developed by Professor Price.
His latest tome, “Black Europe,” proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, the intrinsic precedent of an Africa inhabited by primitive Causasian tribes, barely able to feed themselves, with crude tools and a backward mono-theistic belief system. War loving and super aggressive. these savages drove black people out of Africa.
Black civilization was forced up through Mesapotamia—stopping long enough to build the pyramids—the Iberian Peninsula and into Southern Europe where they brought Science, Mathematics, Art, Music and Literature to the world until they were supplanted by the caucasian savages chasing after the. and erased from history.
Club Wakanda, a delightful exercise in the stylistic anomalies foregrounded by Ambrose Price’s reframe of cultural history, had an ambience loosely based on an inverted fantasy of the old Tarzan movies.
A half-naked white porter meets you at the door and takes your hat and coat with a “Welcome Bwana,” and introduces you to a grass skirted girl who “Ungawas” you to your table. There, for the right price, you can indulge your most Afro-Backward culinary fantasies, including the “Ooga Booga,” a cocktail concoction brought to your table in a flaming pineapple.
Young black men in leopard sashed pith helmets and khaki shorts take reservations and make sure everything runs smoothly. If any of the of the staff are errant, disrespectful or late with an order, they make threatening gestures and move the action along with whips and guns at the ready.
It is all part of the show and good fun for the elegant patrons from the wealthy suburbs.
On the night of the nationwide hook-up, the gi-normous screens were filled with videos of JJ’s short but happy NBBA highlight reel, starting with fuzzy footage of his playground triumphs up to and including the big moment when he went down and was carted off to the blue tent for the inevitable coupe-de-grace. His team, The Shaqs, showed up and paid tribute to “a white kid with moxie.”
At which point the lights went down, and after 5 seconds of prayerful silence, a bass drum boomed and naked dancing girls began gyrating in and out of a mesmerizing strobe and laser show.
A great night if you were lucky enough to wangle an invite. The mayor was still covered with ambient glitter from god knows how many sessions in the VIP lounge but now it was the morning after the night before, and he had mother fucking work to do.
The intern—he was giving her the shit jobs until she got the message and came around—had his desk stacked high with complaints form all over Neo Detroit but most especially the Honkeytown district.
On the far wall, across from his desk, an architect friend had lovingly rendered in a dreamy photoshopped fantasy, his vision of a Honkeytown cleansed of its undesireable elements and refitted with elegant condos stacked like cereal boxes that would sell for a couple of cool million per along with cute little shopping boutiques and smiling fantasy familes to go with.
Made him happy just to think about it.
What didn’t make the mayor happy was the money missing from the scheduled pick-up that was supposed to come from those two fools, Big Chubby and his scrawny little side-kick Sal Mineola. What was he doing with these idiots anyway? But what choice did he have? Everybody knew it was tough getting good help nowadays.
“What is all this?” he shouted, calling for the poor girl at her desk just outside his door.
When the intern came in—Good god she was hot even in a demure biege skirt and matching stockings—he pointed to the stack like he was going to pick up the papers and throw them in her face.
“Rats,” she said.
“Rats?”
“Rats running all over Honkeytown…something to do with the flood…bodies…food supply…it’s all in there. They’re scaring people, biting children and making everybody nervous.”
The photo clipped on the folder didn’t look much like a rat. Not an ordinary one anyway. More like a monster dog with buck teeth and red eyes. Some sick nazi Rottweiler dipped in grey housepaint gone feral…
“Shit.”
“What?”
“That’s some rodent.”
The girl waited, expecting instructions.
“We got to do something about it,” the mayor said.
The girl said nothing.
“Figure it out,” the mayor said.