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Clem
Tillion and Batum Schragg were hanging around The Wordless booth at the
Sunday Street Market. People of several stripes were coming by and
asking questions like, "What is The Wordless?"
Clem Tillion would tell them, "I can't say." Batum Schragg would shrug.
Some other stripe would come by and ask, "What does it mean?" Tillion
might titter while Schragg shrugged.
"What's this stick?" asked one young fellow. "I can answer that one,"
Tillion told him, "That's a RockWacker. And don't ask me the next
question, 'cause I'll tell you, it's for Wacking Rocks."
"Why Wack Rocks?"
"Wrong question," Tillion told him. Batum threw up his hands and turned
his back in disgust.
"Why?" asked the kid.
"Here," said Clem, "shut up and Wack that Rock. We brought one along
for just that purpose."
This kid was probably about eight years old. His hair was fiery red but
his expression was shy. Schragg suspected a mother of the doting type,
in which case she would be nearby. Sure enough, a redhead hovered.
Batum blinked at her, she blushed.
The RockWacker was taller than her son. But he hefted it like a
seasoned warrior, whipped it up behind him and brought it down with a
resounding crack. Then he looked at the rock as if he was expecting it
to yelp, looked at the RockWacker thinking it might be broken. "Now
what?" he asked.
"Now you pay a buck," claimed Clem.
"You never told me that," came back the kid. Because of the doting-type
redhead, he was closer to tears than temper.
"I just did," calmly countered Clem. Shragg nodded sagely.
"I ain't payin no buck," the kid answered hotly. The redhead wanted to
intervene, but Batum backed her off with a wave.
"If you do," Tillion said placatingly, "I'll let you Wack it again.
That's two for one!"
You could tell the boy wanted to; by now he had it in for that rock. He
turned to his momma, who was finally smiling. Without a word, she
handed her son a dollar.
"Here you go, mister," said the kid. He was holding the money toward
Tillion but his malevolent gaze was on the rock.
"Don't give it to me!" Tillion exclaimed. Schragg was making
pushing-away motions toward the boy, who wasn't looking. The boy
wrenched his eyes from the rock and stared at Tillion in perplexity,
then at the dollar dangling from his hand.
"Give it to her," Clem directed, and gestured to a three year old girl
who had stopped to watch. She was the smartest one around, giving that
RockWacking kid wide berth and staring at Tillion like he was crazy.
But she took the buck.
After the kid took another mighty swipe and was bewildering that he
hadn't produced better results, and wondering what better results might
look like, Tillion asked the little girl if she wanted to Wack the
Rock. She nodded.
"Got a buck?" he asked.
She waved the one she had just received.
"OK," said Clem, "Give it to that guy." By then there was a new kid
watching.
The little girl's style was truly an inspiration. The RockWacker was
twice as big as her, so she grasped it in the middle and held it like a
tighrope walker's balance pole. Then she turned sideways and gave that
rock the gentlest of little love taps.
The crowd went wild. Schragg was dancing. You could tell that she, too,
was pleased, grinning hugely as Tillion took back the RockWacker. As it
happened, there was another young stripe standing there with somebody's
buck in his hand, and he wanted a little RockWacking action himself.
This went on for quite awhile, until one kid decided he'd rather keep
the buck than Wack the Rock. Schragg smiled at the boy, Clem
congratulated him and seamlessly returned to the parent pool for the
next boy's buck.
It turned out some grownup stripes wanted to do a little RockWacking of
their own, and this was allowed, but sometimes they had to pay more
than a buck, which also got distributed into the crowd.
An astonishing array of RockWacking styles were displayed, the crowd of
stripes cheering and jeering, oohing and booing.
While there was this backlog of wannabe Wackers, one of them asked
about the big metal Wordless hanging from a stand. "Why, that's The
Wordless Gong," Tillion told him, "and there just happens to be a
GongWacker around here somewhere. Wanna give The Gong a go?"
So soon The Gong was going great guns, The RockWacking cracking, and
all the stripes having a good old time. Batum Schragg was
surreptitiously sliding money into his till, dishing out t-shirts,
calendars, posters and such with The Wordless on them. There was a
screen in the background, flashing a series of the most fascinating
images, all of them featuring The Wordless in some fashion.
At one point a pin type stripe had wandered into the wrong
neighborhood, and found himself requesting a go at The Gong. "That'll
be a hundred bucks," Tillion told him. "Give it to them over there,"
and gestured to the Special Olympics booth next door. The deed was done
and damned if it wasn't the finest, mellowest, lingeringest dong of the
day.
"Got any idea how much money we lost today?" Clem queried Batum after
the shooting was over.
Shragg shook his head.
"I lost track, too," lamented Clem, "But I figure we contributed
several hundred dollars to the GDP without producing a damned thing and
never touching a dime of it. Ain't modern economics a marvel?"
Batum's noggin bobbed enthusiastically.
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