Reiser Silly
March 8, 2003
by David E. Reiser, MD.
 ©2003 KATRINA REISER |
THE RESTRAINTORATOR, IV.
The Continuing Saga of Men’s Movement Freedom
Fighters, Jeb and Zeke
by,
John Connors*Â
Introduction
This series chronicles the adventures of Jeb and Zeke, courageous masculist freedom fighters of the mid-twenty-first century. That’s right, fifty years from now. Hey, man! Don’t glare at me. I don’t like it either. And I know fifty years is a long time. But I didn’t make the rules. I mean—tell it to the judge, man! Nobody said this movement was going to be a cake walk, pal. When the going gets tough, the tough get going….(Remember when we all used to believe that? Now it’s more like, “When the going gets twisted, the….Oh, never mind!)
Future installments to be published erratically ( if at all). Generally will depend on how badly my insomnia acts up.
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In the years that followed The Big OOPs!.....OH SHIT!, machines took over the world. It wasn't hard. There were only a few thousand human beings left and they put up no resistance to speak of. Initially, some enclaves had been irascible, but their will was finally broken after the bloody The Game-Boy Massacre of 2027. In that tragedy, seventy-five unemployed deadbeats were killed after occupying a 7-11 in Tarzana, California to protest a world wide shortage of alkaline energizers. The battery famine had silenced Game-Boys world-wide. Gates Tenth Generation NerdORator-XP-Professionals were deployed to the scene and tricked the protesters into surrendering. It was subsequently learned that they had promised each of the rebels seventeen virgins and a Palm Pilot if they came out with their hands up. The fools fell for it and the NerdORators opened fire. As they flew off, citizens as far away as Oxnard heard them taunt over the choppers’ PA systems: “Oh, Thank Heaven for 7-11!” The morale of the citizenry collapsed and folks just sat around yawning and not bothering to bathe. A few listlessly drank case after case of Zima and pitched horseshoes until they were good and drunk. That sport did enjoy a brief resurgence in popularity. Pitching horseshoes also enjoyed a brief renaissance. Beef Jerky sales remained flat.
The only unsecured sectors were those with survivors from the Great Gender Face-off of 2036. Within these encampments, resistance fighters fought back with determination. Formerly the freedom fighters had been bitter enemies, but now, faced with a common enemy, they had put aside their differences and mounted a united front against the NerdORator-XPs ( Home Edition) Cyborgs. Many brave men and women fought and died, side-by-side in the trenches, so that others would live to see a brighter tomorrow. A tomorrow in which everybody would be able to get back to his workout routine and folks would find the time to bash each other’s brains in again. The guerillas had no sophisticated weaponry left and had to make do with very primitive implements. Some used skeletal thigh bones as weapons, increasing their kill-power by attaching them to the knee bones. These would then be connected to the leg bone, and…you get the idea.
The Home Edition Cyborgs, sometimes referred to as Home-ies, were doing a marvelous job of picking them all off. It’s tempting to say that it was about as easy as shooting ducks in a barrel. Unfortunately, ducks became extinct in 2007 or 2008. And why bother to put out barrels? So you can catch some Acid Rain? Duhhhh!..I don’t think so, at least if you like eating with teeth.
Survivors were ultimately forced to hide in the day and venture forth only at night. This seemed like a good idea at the time, but it back-fired. Initially the rebels couldn’t understand why the casualty count started climbing. Then they figured out the problem. Even three decades after The Big OOPs!.....OH SHIT! their serum plutonium levels remained astronomically high. This caused them to glow in the dark like cheap Timex watches. When a Cyborg would spot one, it would simply punch the victim’s clock out. Still, a few people somehow managed to take a licking and keep on ticking. Thus, the nights still sputtered with automatic weapons fire. On some nights, the concrete canyons of the city chattered with spent shell casings cascading chaotically.Ô It sounded like twenty-seven thousand prize fighters spitting out broken teeth. Then, of course, there were lot of people who were spitting out broken teeth around that time. It was sometimes difficult to tell.
Guttural cries of “You Do the Dishes!” and “911, Hurry! The SOB’s Violating His Restraining Order Again!” could be heard coming from the smoke and rubble. (Yes, war is hell). Guerilla fighters on the move created an eerie tableaux—eidetic phantasms threading a pathway through the pfog. They looked like phosphorescent coat hangerså doing the Funky Chicken. Courageous lawyers tried to help. They filed motions, requested delays, litigated, and spoke in pig-Latin, but all to no avail.
The whole situation really sucked.
Only one person could save them. Legend had it that a sandy haired lad lived amongst them. He had boyish good looks and a gruesome imagination. Maybe he could save the warring factions in time. Maybe, God willing, they yet might live to butcher each other another day. His name was Jay Cameron, and he definitely had the cajones and good luck to get the job done. It would be just in the nick of time. Unfortunately for the shy impish lad—who often introduced himself by going up to complete strangers and screaming, “I’m King of the World!”—his luck had recently run out. Jay had been dead for four weeks. Officially, the death had been ruled “Supernatural,” a waste-basket category introduced by the coroner’s office in 2010 for all late-onset fatalities from The Big OOPs!.....OH SHIT! Officially the death certificate read that he’d died from phosgene gas toxicity. There was a lot of it going around, too. Insiders, however, including moi—your indefatigable newshound—knew the real story. Cameron had been beaten to death bare-fisted by his talented and intimidatingly buff ex-wife, actress Sarah Connors (body fat= 0.000057%). The mishap occurred during a bitter custody battle. The District Attorney declined to file charges, however, saying, “Shit sometimes happens.” He added, “Was it her fault that the guy had a glass jaw?”
Still, all people feel a deep yearning for a hero, and everyone agreed that the modest and self-effacing Cameron best fit the bill. Somehow they had to find a way in the time remaining to resurrect Cameron’s remains. They knew it would be a titanic undertaking so Celine Dion volunteered to perform a haunting and evocative theme song, and Sony Corporation scheduled Aliens for re-release in most major markets.
It is difficult to explain Cameron’s charisma. Some spoke of his stoicism. Others volunteered that he was a really good listener. It does seem clear that his cadaver, naturally laconic, used rigor mortis to win a person’s confidence, eventually persuading someone that he actually agreed with him. He would not be the first politician to go far by keeping his yap shut. Still, not everyone was fooled. A few demanded that he come forth with a position statement. But the minute such objections were raised, Cameron’s supporters would surround them and begin shouting, “Actions speak louder than words.”
It seemed clear. Without Cameron, the ship was sinking. And that was only the tip of the iceberg. Cameron alone could pull them all out of the abyss. And it looked like he was sunk. Optimism ebbed. People waved their futures goodbye. Nobody could fathom what was happening. Couldn’t anyone turn the tide? Then, the answer thundered like a tsunami coming ashore. Cameron had to be resurrected! Yes! But how?!!!!!
How could they bring about this miracle? At first, scientists had trouble getting their Berings. Then they worked day and night, until they couldn’t sea Strait. Their big break came when they found records of recombinant DNA research dating back in the late twentieth century. There’d been a sheep, they discovered, named Dolly. Now, the tide finally began to turn. Even the problem of figuring out how to go back in time didn’t take the wind out of their sails now. Yes, their ship had finally come in.
Some courageous individuals would be needed to go back in time and obtain the key research protocols.
But who?
On April 17, at 3:00 PM, two brave commandos volunteered to go back in time, using Go Back.Ò Their names were Jeb and Zeke. Then, on April 17 at 4:45 PM, having undergone exhaustive and rigorous training for all aspects of the mission, the Masculist Muppets bravely morphed back to 1985 from an undisclosed location along the Russian River. Big mistake. Unbeknownst to the Chronological Crusaders, the launch site was under heavy surveillance by a neofeminist terror cell named S.A.G. (Sisters Against Gender). And thus it came to pass that two EVIL AND WAR-LIKE NEOFEMINISTS set off with their cauterizing equipment in hot pursuit. Just moments after Jeb and Zeke had crossed the boundaries of space and time, Warrior Sisters, Lotta CRP and Payne NTHS, also morphed, borderlines as it were crossing the border. Actually, everybody streaked across. There was some kind of stupid rule in effect that said you had to be naked or something like that whenever you went across time. Really dumb, if you ask me.
Jeb and Zeke flummoxed down first in a parking lot of the Griffith Observatory in LA. The night was chilly and dank. They felt like plucked chickens and looked a lot worse. They had to get warm! Fortunately, a bunch of really geeky kids from the Astronomy Club of a nearby high school were hanging around just minding their own business. Jeb and Zeke went over, introduced themselves as aluminum siding salesmen, and broke their necks. Amazingly, the nerds’ clothes fit them perfectly and the windbreakers were really awesome, though neither of them knew what Crenshaw High meant. They were ravenous by that time, so after they hastily buried the teens in a shallow grave and hot-wired their Yugo, they set off in search of a sports bar where they could grab a burger and maybe a couple of cold ones.
Lotta and Payne had a rougher entry, crashing into a Big Sur Waterbeds warehouse in Reseda.
Here we pan to the action:
Jeb: Bitches
Zeke: Ball-breakers!
Jeb: Neofeminists man-hating dogs
Zeke: Devils with a blue dress on!
Jeb: So—what now?
Zeke: Dunno. Wait for the Force, I guess. Can you grab me one of those pickled eggs there?
Jeb: They aren’t eggs, Zeke.
Zeke: Bullshit they aren't!
Jeb: Zeke! Little pitchers, remember? Lots of tykes surf the Net.ª
Zeke: Piss off…So what are they, if they aren't eggs?
Jeb: You don't want to know.
Zeke: Yes I do!
Jeb: Do not!
Zeke: Do too!
Jeb: Do not!
Zeke: Do too!
Jeb: They’re called Rocky Mountain Oysters.
Zeke: What are those?
Jeb: Bulls’ balls.
Zeke: I knew that!
Jeb: Did not!
Zeke: Did too!
Jeb: Did not!
Zeke: Did too!
(To be continued. Maybe)
 As told to David E. Reiser, MD
ä Totally over the top
å Even in the global famine that followed The Big OOPS…OH SHIT! Most Americans remained psychotically fixated on maintaining anorexic weight-levels, and subsisted primarily on a diet of yogurt, radioactive sushi, and Ramen soup.
ª However else one may feel about Ned as a freedom fighter, one must commend his staunch sense of morality. For a period in the late 2050’s Ned grew increasingly mystical and pacifistic and began sporting his own bumper sticker: Better Ned than Dead
*Â As told to David E. Reiser, M.D.
Ô For the reader who slept through English Composition, the deliberate repetition of a sound through multiple syllables is called alliteration. Or maybe that was allusion. Or oxymoron (not the drug, fool). Forget it! We’re talking about Armageddon here, for crying out loud!
å Even after Armageddon, people remained highly weight conscious and survived primarily on yogurt and Ramen soup.
ª Ned’s sense of morality inspired me to sport a bumper sticker for a while—“Better Ned Than Red.” This was back in the 1950’s, however, when I was still a frisky octogenarian. Youth emboldens.
David E. Reiser is a writer and physician. His books and articles in the 1980s addressed medicine's urgent need to make education and patient care more humane. Along with others, he quietly changed the way students are taught throughout the world. The New York Times described his book, Medicine as a Human Experience, as a textbook that revived "a long-lost skill" in physicians--"compassion."
In 2000, David lost his only son to Parental Alienation Syndrome. "Before my divorce in 2000," he says, "I had never been charged with anything worse than a speeding ticket...They threw me in jail and dragged me into a courtroom handcuffed, weeping, and manacled to a chain. The proceeding required less than ten minutes. I never saw my son again... I'm no 'expert.' I'm just one more broken man. I hope to do something positive with what is left of me. My resume is one line long--I am a father who lost the most beloved person in his life--my son. I do what I can now, not because I'm noble, but because I have no choice. I try to do the right thing because I sense that this is my only hope. My ideals are all that, in the end, they couldn't take from me. I refuse to accept a world where hatred routinely prevails over love, and where the destruction of our children is viewed as simply the cost of doing business. I'm no saint. I'm dazed and terrified. I'm not sure what "God" even means, and I'm sure as hell no hero. But I will stand up to any legal system, hateful mob, or totalitarian regime whose code of ethics is built around cruelty, power, and lying; and whose only god is money."
