“I tried to lighten the mood early in our friendship by showing him the Tire Nutz juxtaposition, Lichen, which he didn’t know about despite being local too. You’d be proud of me that day. Two big tractor tires on top of an auto repairs shop just down the street from my dealership, with a phallic water tower in back if you look at it straight on. Obviously done on purpose. Can you picture it in your mind’s eye, Lichen my partner? Do you even remember what those things look like, how they’re configured and such?”
“The tires are nuts, right,” says Lichen, serious in the moment while trying to figure all this out with her lesser brain power. “And the Blue Balls were nearby?”
“The Kentucky sculpture, yes, with three balls instead of 2, so: moons. Made by Tennessee. This was the fulfillment of her unfinished Mars project, poked through into another dimension. But Asylum was behind all of this still.”
“So we’re beyond… the Black Wall?”
“I’m not ready to go that far, my blonde buddy. It’s beyond me right now. And you know how I don’t like limitations of the mind.”
“Dangerous,” responds Lichen to this. “Keep ’em at bay with jokes.”
“Hmm.”
—–
One sector over, Clara Bellissaria is keeping tabs on tobacco selling Redd back at her station, noting that she is a 2n1 now and that the new left is different from the old right. The white horse leads, the black horse steers. Hasn’t gone off the rails yet. But soon she knew there would have to be a decision made, and Fern through her.
Sunklands 