Chicanonautica: A Scene From My Novel-In-Progress

by Ernest Hogan

Just in case you were curious about the novel-in-progress I keep talking about—it's called Zyx; Or, Bring Me the Brain of Victor Theremin—here's a chapter:

"You dumb fucking white man! Are you trying to kill yourself or something?" screamed the driver of the pickup as he leaped out, sending his long braids flying.

"Who you calling a white man?" said Victor.

That stopped the guy for a couple of seconds.

"You!"

"Me? I’m a Chicano, dammit!" Victor noticed the dirt covering his hand, rubbed it on his cheek, tasted it on his lips. Then spat it out. "I guess it’s kinda hard to sort people out in all this dust. What are you?"

The guy boggled.

"What do ya mean, what am I? I’m an Indian!"

Victor squinted .

"I guess you look like an Indian. Either that or a long-haired Mexican."

"Hey, don’t call me no Mexican!"

"Hey, what’s wrong with being a Mexican?"

"You don’t sound like no Chicano."

"You don’t sound like no Indian."

"What’s a Indian supposed to sound like?"

"What’s a Chicano supposed to sound like?"

There was more boggling.

"Y’know, like that Cheech guy from Cheech and Chong."

"Shit! Not even Cheech Marin really sounds like that!"

There was another fit of boggling.

The passenger door of the pickup burst open, and another young Native American male jumped out. He wore a cowboy hat and waved around a sparking stun gun. Screaming, he ran at Victor.

"What the fuck are you doing jumping in front of us like that! You coulda gotten killed! I nearly had a heart attack!"

Victor held up his hands, gave a goofy smile, and said, sounding just like Cheech Marin in character, "Wazza matter? Don’t you like Chicanos? We’re just undocumented natives."

"Hey, documentation is everything."

"But who does the documenting? Under what authority? We don’t need no stinking documents!" said Victor.

"Shouldn’t that be badges?"

"They’re the same thing, actually."

The guy with the braids intensified his boggle-fit.

The one in the cowboy hat stopped, and stood there, staring at Victor. The stun gun sparked and rattled, aimlessly.

That was the only sound for a while.

Finally, Victor asked, "Is that a space capsule you guys are hauling?"

"Oh shit!" said the one with the braids. "He’s a Chicano! And he knows!"

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" said the other one. "He’s probably in on it!"

"In on what?"

The Indian in the cowboy hat waved the sparking stun gun at Victor.

"Are we supposed to believe that a guy like you doesn’t know about the Secret Chicano Space Program?"

© Ernest Hogan 2019

I've also posted the first chapter over in Mondo Ernesto, and then the tweaked opening paragraph. Now to get back to work on it, and see how far I can get before 2020 comes crashing down upon us.

Ernest Hogan wrote High Aztech, Smoking Mirror Blues, Cortez on Jupiter,and a lot of other things, some of it has even been published.