Chapter One
5 April
Where middle-class, American housewives stare idly out windows, daydreaming about the lives their neighbors might be living; where those neighbors sit in front of florescent daytime soaps, burning into their synapses, jealousy cocooning within them; where teenagers masturbate ferociously and try every type of drug or video game to find meaning, or a means to pass the time; where small children play, eat and dream blissfully unaware; where fathers and husbands and those who are both rush off to work, just to get away from it all; where the adult entertainment complex, Jake’s Palace, prepares to open its doors, despite the protests, in the small town of Randolph, Massachusetts, David Fenton stands first in line.
Fenton believes he is his own man. He doesn’t know any other man who can claim him. He knows two things of the illusive ghost he calls his father. He was a military man. He rode a Harley.
Fenton’s dream is to be just like his hero, Arty-The-One-Man-Party, social critic and famed talking head of pop radio.
Arty-The-One-Man-Party…
His being is composed of a logical system of thought, which is “in a state of constant evolution and free-spirited invention” he’d say. If he has time, he might elaborate, “My truths rest in the proof of feeling good. You can twist that in as fruitful a way as you will. I must be God if God is love, for I am love. Plus, I freak disco!”
There is another Arty. Arty-The-One-Man-Downer. If you catch him then, he might mumble, “All we are is dust in the wind I’m breaking, which is more meaningful than the wind blowing out of my pipes, so you can swim around in that sewer-infested pond of wisdom, wearing your thong of theology, blinded by your little fog of faith, sipping margaritas, you freak-cake.”
Those closest to him never know how to take him. They never will. The-One-Man-Party is dying of everything.
Untrained in the art of writing and ignorant of the entertainment industry, Fenton wants to be there to fill the void when The-One-Man-Party kicks. He does know one thing. Sex sells. When he hears about the grand opening of a strip joint in his hometown, Fenton decides it is now or never. He will cover the grand opening, write a review, begin his rise. The sight of the protestors excites Fenton. This is going to be great, he thinks to himself. He begins scribbling what he hears.