The Quest for the Mini-Bottles of Cinnamon Fireball Liquor

The Quest for the Mini-Bottles of Cinnamon Fireball Liquor

(Part One)

by Steve Gearhart

There are many ways to get to Edgewater, Maryland...not that anyone would willingly want to actually go there.

Edgewater started as a small fishing village. Everyone knew each other and went to one of the two churches every Sunday. There were no stop lights but plenty of white, picket fences. This was a place where people were called folks and they were so friendly and lovely. Just a hamlet of nice neighbors who woke up every morning to an achingly beautiful Chesapeake Bay universe.

Edgewater is one of those Bay locales where it almost became one of those quaint waterway towns. Edgewater almost became a home to multiple bed and breakfasts where the pancakes had fruit in them, the fish and crabs were fresh and the bread was always home-made. Edgewater almost became one of those clean, tourist towns that the rich seem to find and make their own.

However...the rich never made it there; the rednecks found it first. 

Now, the once, white-washed piers are packed with grimy fishing boats. Piloted by hairy, pot-bellied men who max the volume out when that one country song about the stripper who worked a pole in a bar off the highway exit died due to a meth overdose comes on the radio. 

Their loud boats slowly cruising out into the oil-polluted waters. Hard-working men who are already drunk by eight in the morning, resplendent in their filthy caps and wife-beater shirts with ketchup and Lord-only-knows-what-else stains, trying to make sure they don't crash their boats onto the tiny beaches.  

The beachfront itself is about three feet wide and littered with cigarette butts, condoms and a syringe every twenty feet or so. Garbage from the piers wash up on the tiny shores. Only the brave, heroin heroes of Edgewater will lay down their towels on the crusty sand to sunbathe.

There are many ways into the dead-end town of Edgewater. Most of the sad sacks who decided to live in this redneck paradise often find themselves coming into town via one of the two major roads. Roads that actually have asphalt on them. The potholes even get repaired.

However...sometimes, a person can get lost. Sometimes, some poor schmuck from outside of Washington DC takes a wrong turn and gets confused. Trying to use a side-road to turn off of, certain that it will take them back to the highway and civilization. 

That person will drive down a back road very slowly. A road like Mill Swamp Road. The road itself is only partially paved. A lot of potholes. But there is a lot of green on either side. It's breathtaking. For a moment, the driver forgets being frustrated at having made a wrong turn.

The lost driver gets distracted in the verdant beauty of the green surrounding the road. Huge trunks packed together, stretching high into the sky. The branches are lush with the leaves of so many different types of trees. They creep out over the road, creating interesting shadows in the wind, playing with the light of the warm sun.

And these thick forests will suddenly give way to great, open fields. The grass is emerald and grows high. At certain points of the day, the driver may get a glimpse of deer grazing. Or perhaps spot a hawk flying with the blue sky and perfectly white clouds above it. 

These awe-inspiring views are suddenly ripped away as the lost driver comes across a pocket of the redneck apocalypse. 

Dead lands of hatred for nature thrust themselves out in scenes of angry, rusted metal. Fields of discarded, hateful, half-assed and petty dreams. Trucks and cars that will never enjoy being driven at full-throttle up on concrete blocks. So many unremembered metal shards hiding in the brown and chemically changed dirt ready to give a deadly dose of tetanus and lockjaw to the unwary traveler.

And as the lost driver recoils from the sight of mangled and diseased land, he or she may come across something odd. An oddity off to the side of Mill Swamp Road. An oddity that triggers an automatic response within the lost driver that is as old as mankind.

The most basic of instincts will suddenly appear in the lost driver's brain, a warning of do NOT stop, keep moving, this thing you are seeing is odd, curious and somehow odious, keep moving, keep moving, KEEP MOVING!!!

That odd thing will be a man.

A man who calls himself...Car. 

(AUTHOR'S NOTE: this story is NOT entirely fictional. You have been warned.)

LCD Music by Stephen Gearhart

A whir. A hum. And a click.

A squat box-frame on the table makes a very slight, swishing noise. The fan inside the frame quickly ramps up the speed. More clicking noises as the circuits come alive as small, red lights blink from behind belt-ribbons and wires. The lights and clicks synchronize after five minutes, becoming one, the internal fan increasing its speed, causing a barely audible whine.

A small, black box glides upwards on the pneumatic shaft. Smooth and sure, extending upwards until it can't. Silent, graceful and satisfying against the backdrop of the frame's pulsing lights and metronome clicks.

From the small box, two LCD-green lights flicker, become solid and pulse into intensity. A solid, almost death-like glow inside the dim room.

The small box, from its mount on the shaft, angles smoothly downwards, the dull and bright green lights scanning the wooden artifact. The pallid lights pulse once and then return to their nominal status.

Shadows of gears from inside of the frame start to move. Well-oiled, almost no noise, movement happens. A stick of dull metal pushes out from either side of the frame. The sticks start to telescope smoothly, joints from recessed points appearing to create articulation.

At the end of each stick, much smaller slats, connected to each other by black-diamond filaments slide out and dangle before they stabilize and become webs of structure and fine movements. A sub-routine allows the webs to go through a test series of movements.

In an odd jerky movement, the sticks and webs move to the object on the table but still nimbly pick it up. There is a long pause: the next movement carefully plotted.

The right stick and its web gently and slowly moves to cradle the body of the acoustic guitar. The left stick and its web gingerly hold the neck, not touching the strings. The right stick makes an adjustment and its web hovers over the strings. Another pause as the internal application uses a random algorithm to make a choice.

It's not known where the Martin D-18 1947 instrument came from. The dull wood shows the guitar's age. It's fragile as it's held by the sticks and web, looking as if it is about to be destroyed in a violent and crushing action by the webs.

The algorithm makes its random choices.

The web over the body starts to pick and strum at the six strings in perfect time. The web on the neck glides over the frets, the right pressure to make the notes happen. Pressing down to make the single notes, squeezing with predetermined strength for the bar chords when called for. The web strumming causing the right string vibrations.

The webs move fluidly, playing Victor Young's “Beautiful Love”. Pausing at the end to allow the algorithm to upload the next song to play...Vivald's “Concerto for Guitar in D minor”.

Perfect movement. Perfect articulation on the strings. Perfect timing. Perfect notes.

Once done, the sticks and webs placed the instrument down. Gently. The webs slipping back inside of the metal sticks. The sticks move back to within the frame. Small swish noises as the parts glide back into their housing.

The dull lights flicker off. The shaft glides downwards, taking the small box with it into the frame. The clicks and blinking lights slowly move out of syncopation until they stop. The fan shuts off. The almost inaudible whine fading away.

A whir. A hum. And a click.

The experiment was a failure.