The Newtown Pentacle

Tuesday, inevitably.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

All of this walking is a drag. What a humble narrator wants, nay needs, is a set of wheels. I don’t want one of your Camry’s or Buick’s either, what I want is a truly onerous vehicle. The sort of thing George Peppard and Ernest Borgnine would roll around with after a nuclear apocalypse in a 1970’s movie of the week. A vehicle with a dashboard switch for electrifying the fenders, puncture and bullet proof tires, and some sort of sonic deterrent anti-crowd mechanism mounted on the roof. I’d call it my “mobile oppression platform” or “MOP.” It would be a mighty vehicle, armored enough to drive through schools, and the entire thing would be outfitted with cameras to record the indignation of those unlucky enough to exist outside of it.

Within, I’d recreate a 1960’s American split level ranch house. Decor wise, it would look a great deal like Mike and Carol Brady’s place on the old tv show about their bunch, but with odd panels of knobs and blinking lights which control the external defensive mechanisms – flame throwers, barbed wire whips, steam jets.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Me and the MOP would be constantly moving, mainly to avoid answering the NYPD’s questions about the puddles of scarlet viscera we’d be scattering. Hull armor notwithstanding, personal security is no joke. “Van Life” has become a “thing” and particularly so during the pandemic. I’m seeing literally hundreds of RV’s and specially kitted out cargo vans that people are living in all over Brooklyn and Queens these days. Go to YouTube and type “van life” into the search bar and you’ll soon discover that this is a “thing.”

Obviously, none of these people are from Brooklyn, where certain habits acquired during the 1980’s saw people like me breaking glass bottles and cementing them to the window’s outside sills to keep the crackheads out. Inside, you’d keep a collection of hollow metal things which would make a clattering sound should someone knock them over while climbing through your window – allowing you enough time to grab one of the many weapons you had hidden around the apartment for easy use. What? You don’t have a pipe dressed up in electrical tape sticking out from under your mattress? What are you, some kind of hippie?

Nobody, and I mean nobody, will make it into the Mobile Oppression Platform uninvited. I’ll have trained guard Ferrets with fricking lasers mounted on their heads inside. Moe, Larry, Curly – three of them.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I’d really like the MOP to have some sort of anti-gravity plate mounted on the bottom, as such kit would allow me to float about Damnation Alley with nary a care. Wheeled vehicles are stuck to the ground, after all, which means they consume a lot of fuel. Despite the fantastic amount of energy a nuclear reactor would offer, you still need a considerable amount of ancillary equipment to convert that energy into available electric or mechanical energy and that would impede the MOP’s mid century modern decor within. I’d like to install an engine thereby which spews as much pollution as possible, and burns bricks of sulphur just for effect.

I imagine the MOP as being about the length of three city buses, and about twenty five feet in height. There would be antennae as well, but you can always rig those back. This wouldn’t be a vehicle, this would be an Iron Man suit you sit inside of, my Mobile Oppression Platform.

I’m waiting for my stimulus check from the Patriarchy to arrive, then heading over to Northern Blvd. to go MOP shopping.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

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