Untitled by Unknown Author Read Free Book Online Page B

okay? We're about to open for business."
        Already, outside the door, the frst morning diners are amassing. I can see Ambassador Spang and Enchantra; the twelve blond winkie children and their mannequin nanny; Squinko the boot-salesman; Bing the extra-smart hamster; and some other characters I don't know. I gesture through the window to them, uno momento, por fa vor; they nod and go back to curiously watching, or talking amongs t themselves.
        And so, at last, the moment has come. Despite the pulse-pounding pressure, I make my way to my bag. The CD player is there, along with a folio containing ffty CDs that for some reason were on my mind. I take out the player, set the folio down beside it. "Where should I set up?" I call across the room to Mikio.
        "How should I know?" he says. He's right.
        "So it doesn't matter where I put it?"
        "Only to you. It's your CDs. I'll tell you when I'm all set up."
        There's a counter just inside the kitchen door, to the right of the service bay. It's a place where we mostly keep cook books and stuff. I move through the swinging doors and set up there.
        And as I peruse, Mikio comes to me, ready. He's got one end of his miracle cable in hand, with a language bush tip carved like an audio jack. "Plug it in," he says, and I do.
        At that moment, the only possible selection leaps into my head.
        Grinning, I say to Mikio, "Tell Pinky to open the doors."
        He leaves the room. I open the player, take out The Plimsouls and slip it back in the folio. The song that I want is the very frst track on the gleaming gold CD I then take in my hand.
        The name of the song is "Never Been To Spain."
        The artist is the immortal El Vez.
        I put the disc in the machine. I close the little lid. I crank the volume to eight and pray. Then I quick kiss the sky and press Play.
        I leave the kitchen, just as the frst customers enter, and the frst susseration of sonic wave whispers out from those beautiful speakers. It's the sound of the ocean, and it is loud, but not as loud as it's going to get. I think about pinning it back just a little, but then I see the mounting confusion on all those magick faces.
         Why cheat them on their frst time?, I fgure.
         Then I just stand back and enjoy.
        Out from the sound of crashing waves comes a single distorted guitar. It's buzzing around one note, like a wiggly bee, and then it starts a steep slow crazy tension-building climb.
        When the frst clipped power chord in the history of Oz rings out, loud and clear, I watch the crowd lift off the foor.
        And by the time they land, one split-second later, the greatest Mexican Elvis of them all is crooning his way into their sweet virgin hearts.

    "Well, I've never been to Spain
But I've heard about Columbus.
Well, they say the man's insane
    Cuz he thinks he discovered us.
In fourteen-nine-two,
Who discovered who?
Here's how it happened:"

        Words struggle to fail me, but I can't allow it. All I can say is: you shoulda seen their eyes. You shoulda seen their eyes: all thos e munchkins and gillikins, tourists and traders and bigshots and locals, suddenly lost in astounding sonic places they'd never known before.
        You should have seen the way they moved, so totally instinctively. Freezing up. Or letting go. Intensely moved.
        Or scared to death.

    "Well, I've never been to Tikal
But I've been to Chichen-Itza.
The Mayan culture: man, it thrived, boy
Before Columbus had a teacher…"

        Remember: these are people who never heard rock 'n' roll. Who had no nostalgia. No connection to its history. Not a trace of the stuff in their genes. They weren't responding ironically, from some post-modern dreary ground zero of contempt or knowing mockembrace.
        They were responding to the music, purely on its own terms. And it was fascinating to witness the actual nature of their response.