The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Read online

  He did have pluck; I had to give him that. It required more courage than I possess to wear such garb on a public street, and he did it with an undeniable style. What else could be said about a man who in addition to the items of wardrobe I have already mentioned carried a large stereophonic portable radio and wore a wampum belt around his middle. Clearly, events in his life had led him to a fork in the road, and he, like the rest of us, had chosen the diverging path.

  At the very least, he gave us all a needed respite. Buckaroo peered out my window and flinched at his friend’s gross breach of good taste, ordering our driver Louie and the rest of us not to open the door, so that when Sidney took several steps toward the bus it quickly became apparent that no one was going to step out to meet him. For an awkward second, Sidney’s long shadow seemed to quiver, unsure whether to go forward or retreat in this humiliating condition. It was, I suspect, both a joke and a little test, for B. Banzai has a way of getting the whole sum out of his men. In all events, Sidney responded gallantly, overcoming whatever misgivings he must have had and knocking on the bus door. Needless to say, this time Buckaroo ordered it opened, and we all shared a laugh.

  “Fellows, this is Sid Zwibel,” said Buckaroo. “He’ll be riding with us as an observer for a few days, so give him the treatment.”

  “Don’t worry. We will,” said Tommy.

  “The treatment?” asked Sid, quailing.

  “Where do you hail from, Doc?” I asked.

  “Fort Lee,” he said. “New Jersey.” And from that moment he was “New Jersey” to us. “You’d be Pecos,” he said, extending a hand toward me. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Nope. Reno,” I replied. “Where’s your spurs, New Jersey?”

  He knitted his brow. “You making fun of me?” He grinned, and in that approximate instant I knew we were friends. There followed the usual flourishes of boisterous banter, although compared to other occasions, it was relatively artificial for reasons I have cited. Having no way of knowing it, Sidney had joined us at a troubled hour, a fact he may have divined when halfway through his offer of congratulations to Buckaroo Banzai for accomplishing the apparently impossible, i.e., traveling through solid matter, B. Banzai excused himself suddenly as if a precipitant pain were felt and walked toward the police station with Perfect Tommy.

  For what occurred within the building before I belatedly arrived, I have to rely upon the recollection of Perfect Tommy, who accompanied Buckaroo and a female jailer to the cell where the pitiable girl sat with her back turned to all who might enter, her indescribable solitude seeming less a function of the steel and mortar that enclosed her than the anticipated futility of life. She was certainly not the proverbial little bird in a gilded cage. She was not so congenial as that.

  Even when the jailer announced to her that she had a visitor, her head did not turn. There was, however, a humble vanity mirror in one corner of the chamber, and it was this that B. Banzai ingeniously used to step into her line of sight. Positioning himself so that she might see him in the glass, he began to talk as to an old friend, of subjects ranging from the commonplace to the recent coronation of a Nepalese monarch at which he had been in attendance. By dint of persistence, he succeeded in irritating her to such a degree that she sprang up full and shouted with a sneer on her face, “What are you doing here? Whadda you want?”

  It was his first unencumbered look at her, and it staggered him. He flushed to the temples. True to Rawhide’s words she was inexplicably the very reincarnation of Peggy—a perfect stranger, and yet someone he had loved and loved again the moment he saw her. Those were the irreconcilable facts. Perfect Tommy, like the rest of us, a doubting Thomas who wished not even to consider the existence of such a girl, lest she might somehow supplant the memory of our Peggy, had managed indifference to this point. But now . . . he stood gazing on her as in a profound sleep, unable to utter a sound. In those first seconds of close quarters with her, he later told me, he felt a recurrence of the same arctic frigidity he had experienced the night of the final seance when Mrs. Johnson had charaded as Peggy’s ghost. But the woman standing before him now was no mechanical contrivance of hooks and wires illuminated by the moon. She was—how else to put it?—the reincarnation of our slain sister, the same creature, the same particulars down to the minutest corner of her face. If it were a guise, some trick of surgery that had transformed her thus, the shadowy supposition was that the Creator, Himself, must have been in envy of the hand that had wielded the scalpel. It was no wonder Perfect Tommy thrilled in silence.

  Of Buckaroo, himself, what words of this or any writer could give a fair accounting of the exquisite agony he must have felt? His feelings beyond register, his doubts at once long passed and only beginning, he was in too sorry a state to speak. Noting their extreme reaction for as long as she lingered upon their vision, Penny Priddy must have been moved to curiosity herself and at some length asked: “Will somebody tell me what the hell’s going on?”

  “Suppose you tell us,” said Tommy. “Who are you?”

  “Penny Priddy. You’re Perfect Tommy.”

  “That’s right.”

  “In the company of Buckaroo Banzai,” she said, moving closer to the steel bars which separated them. Buckaroo withdrew slightly as she advanced, a small triumph she did not fail to notice and which in an ironic way rather raised her spirits. She threw her head back fancifully, and Perfect Tommy viewed her aslant from a new perspective, as if examining a fetching but unfathomable work of sculpture. Up close she was even more beautiful—no, beautiful is not the word. There was about her something wayward and dangerous. Lips slightly parted, tawny hair uncombed as if she had not attended to her toilette for days, she held that remarkable power common to certain Gypsy women I have known: the ability to arouse both repulsion and desire with a single look. Her hypnotic eyes fastened on our chief, who already adored her. I am convinced she could have asked him to go in search of the gold of El Dorado or the vineyards of the North Pole, and he would at the very least have called a council to discuss whether the notion appeared practicable.

  Thankfully, she did not ask. No doubt contented with the surprising discovery that he found her attractive, she was of a mind to be generous.

  “Getting an eyeful?” she said, the line eliciting screams of delight from various of the other female prisoners whom I have not had occasion to mention, but who at intervals made public their riotous feelings.

  “Remove your coat, please,” said Buckaroo, outwardly calm once again.

  “My coat?”

  “Yes.”

  “How much will you give me?”

  “Five dollars,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “Do you want more?”

  She looked steadily at him, unpenitent. “No, five will do.” she said and began to remove her coat.

  “Who were you trying to shoot last night?” he asked.

  “You,” she said. “I wanted to make the papers, and I did, didn’t I?”

  “To be from Wyoming, you’re not much of a shot.”

  She shrugged, at first making no remark, and then, “I’m glad I missed.”

  “Are you?” He believed she had tried to take her own life, and he now was intent on knowing the aftermath.

  “Yes, I’m glad. Otherwise, one of us wouldn’t be here, would he?”

  Buckaroo did not at once respond, as she threw aside the coat to reveal her splendid form and, what was more, a scar on her upper arm that disappeared beneath her shirt. He bade Tommy and me to look away (I having just arrived) and asked her, “Would you do me the favor of taking off your shirt?”

  It was clear early on that no request could shock her, and she took no exception to this, merely offering wearily, “For five dollars more, I’ll show you my secrets.”

  “The shirt will be enough,” he returned. “A woman should always guard her secrets.”

  “Even from her doctor?” She gave a light laugh like chimes.

  “Turn around,” he said. “Let me se
e your back.”

  Although curiosity seized me, I continued to avert my eyes from the girl, even as a visible shudder ran down B. Banzai’s frame. “Where did you get such a terrible scar?” he asked.

  “In a fire when I was little,” she said.

  “A fire? Was anyone with you?”

  “My sister.”

  “Your sister, was she your twin?”

  “How did you know?” she asked, slumping on her bunk, once again the vision of hopelessness borne down with sorrows as she pulled her clothes around her in a gesture intended to shut out the world. “You’ve had your fun. Why don’t you be the gentleman you’re supposed to be and go now?”

  The sulky indifference upon her face led Buckaroo to play his trump card. “I promised to pay you,” he said. “Here’s a shiny gold sovereign.”

  Trembling, she gazed at the coin in his hand. By the glow in her eyes I knew the riddle was solved and her aching ordeal, if not over, would soon be, all being quiet and hush as she came forward to claim the sovereign.

  “My coin!” she said breathlessly. “Where did you get it?”

  “Your coin?” Buckaroo said. “Your father gave it to you?” She nodded vigorously. “And one to your sister?” Again she assented, as he pressed the coin into her eager palm.

  “Thank you!” she rejoiced. “I lost it. Where did you get it?”

  “From your sister,” he replied. “The one they told you died in the fire with your parents.”

  Wiping away tears, she did not comprehend a word he was saying. It flew in the face of a lifetime of belief, but there would be time later for protracted explanations. What was plain was that B. Banzai had once again carried all before him and, not to rhapsodize unduly, had saved her life as he had rescued untold others. Under one pretense or another, her release from the authorities was won by him, and she clambered aboard our bus with wide-eyed exuberance, neither knowing nor bothering to ask into what vortex she might be heading.

  17

  Before moving on to the press conference where it is well known B. Banzai glimpsed the extraterrestrials for the first time, I would be remiss if I did not resume the account of Whorfin. Having begun his work with a phone call to Yoyodyne, it fell fittingly upon a company wrecking truck to transport him to the company site outside Grover’s Mills, where he found his worst suspicions confirmed. The morale of his troops was lamentable, and far from receiving a hero’s welcome, Whorfin was met with disbelief and even a certain scorn, as though his Lectroids blamed him for their condition of exile instead of being grateful for their survival. There was every kind of wailing and woe imaginable; and although a few of the heartier fellows (officers, in the main) greeted him with their usual tremendous shrieks, the compound as a whole had become a den of debauchery, given over freely to every sort of Earthly vice and idleness.

  His face contracting with rage and eyes narrowing ominously everywhere he looked, Whorfin sallied forth among them, bringing home his rash message of impending doom unless the Panther ship was finished and the OVERTHRUSTER obtained from the Banzai project. Only the state of emergency, “the anxiety of the hour” as he put it, imposed upon him certain restraints and prevented him from ordering indiscriminate executions. Still, certain offenders cried out to be punished in what can only be characterized as a flagellantic ritual peculiar to that race of warriors. Whatever their motive, whether to prove their slavish devotion to their master Whorfin or to demonstrate their capacity to endure torture, these Lectroids would one after the other step forward to recite litanies of self-accusations and to pronounce themselves deserving of the most inhuman cruelties for their crimes. That they did so of their own volition (it was confirmed by the Nova Police and the captured grimy documents at hand) is in no way explained by the simplistic dictum, “They weren’t human,” for in combat it was later seen, and I can attest to the fact, that they felt pain as fully as our own kind. But, apparently their fanaticism overrode what little reason dwelt behind their bulging foreheads, and in repeated displays of this abject worship of power they would, after prostrating themselves before John Whorfin, readily suggest specific tortures appropriate to their misdeeds—unfailingly such exquisite methods of slow and agonizing destruction that the mind is moved to anguish to think of any living thing subjected to them, much less wittingly volunteer.

  At the head of their list of transgressions was not, as we humans might expect it to be, bloodshed; bloodshed, even murder, was of no consequence to them one way or the other unless it imperiled the group as a whole. Numerous recorded cases of homicide and assault against humans have since been found in the Yoyodyne archives. Highway robbery, especially in the early fledgling days of the company, was even encouraged as a means of garnering precious working capital. Frolicsome violence—instances whereby the Lectroids’ presence on this planet might be made known—were judged more harshly, but even in this, the passage of decades without discovery had lulled the creatures into a sense of security. It would delight me to add the qualifier “false,” but the facts of the matter are otherwise. Had two certain events not happened, the Nova Police would not have undertaken to alert us as they did, and in all likelihood the aliens would be among us still, living unnoticed. I refer of course to the momentous experiment in Texas and the subsequent escape of the scourge Whorfin from the mental asylum.

  So what were these crimes for which several of the self-confessed perpetrators paid by being beheaded in reverse order, i.e., from the feet up? Foremost among their fatal offenses were those activities which fell loosely into the category of decadent living. Vegetarianism, art collecting, bathing, consorting with the “daughters of men”—all were forbidden and equally odious in Whorfin’s eyes because they sapped the fighting spirit of his minions and made their habitation on this planet more palatable, which in turn could only detract from his stated goal of returning to Planet 10 and seizing power. Besides this practical consideration, there was old-fashioned bigotry at work as well, to which he appealed at every opportunity. Earth has, it irks me to say, an apparent reputation throughout the universe as a planet of devils, and the impotence of human knowledge is much derided. Whorfin often spoke pointedly to this prejudice among his followers when condemning the “unnatural” practices I have noted above.

  I have before me a collection of Whorfin’s speeches and writings from prison which were delivered faithfully in his name to John Bigbooté over the years of his leader’s absence. They provided an illuminating look at the Lectroid mind, the most significant aspects of which I shall attempt to summarize before moving on.

  The typical Lectroid is above all in awe of power. Power for its own sake in his raison d’etre, and he is obsessed with its attainment and exercise. To his underlings he is devoid of mercy, indeed has no sense of such a concept, whereas to his superiors, i.e., those holding power over him, he is obeisant and servile to the point of eagerly sacrificing his own life, as we have seen. The Lectroid does not thirst for knowledge or beauty, has no record of intellectual attainment, has never produced a single notable figure in any area of endeavour, save one: the field of battle. His attitude toward such things as history and culture, even his own, which he does not bother chronicling, is one of the utmost indifference. All that matters in his scheme is lust for power, his single-minded will to possess a thing by destroying it.

  Insofar as his personal habits, the Lectroid is filthy by preference, it being common for him to bathe but twice in a lifetime, (viz.) at birth and after his wedding night. It is evidently a belief of theirs that washing shortens one’s life and is “unmanly,” and having encountered many of them in close combat, I can vouch from firsthand experience that both as a tenet of faith and as a practical matter there is much to be said in favor of their squalid appearance. With a heavy coat of decorative grease paint on top of layer upon layer of encrusted dirt thick enough to be spooned out of their palms, added to their already thick hides, they are able to withstand all but the most powerful blows and projectiles.


  They have apparently but a single fear, and that is the fear of ridicule. They lack the most elementary sense of humor and are, unless of a mood to fight, quite reserved, even somnolent. For this latter trait, I am most grateful; otherwise, having not caught many of them napping, the scales of our engagement might not have tipped so propitiously in our favor.

  By and large carnivorous, they are wont to supplement their intake of smoked meat with large doses of electrical current, although the years on our planet has seen them grow to rely increasingly on what is called “junk food,” many of them foregoing their traditional diet entirely in favor of sweet cakes and candy bars in bright cellophane. As a result, they were by this time mired in lethargy which, compounded by the gravity problem, had caused their normally robust physiques to deteriorate to an appalling degree. Although, in this also we were fortunate.

  For physiologic reasons I will avoid harrowing the reader with, sexual coupling with beings other than their own kind is an impossibility for them. But that is not to say that they do not enter into a kind of sexual frenzy in the presence of pain and death, whether it be their own or another’s. To the Lectroid, sex derives its value merely from its relation to power, and cases of them abducting human “brides,” both male and female, for sado-masochistic purposes are now known to abound, as the ever-growing cache of hacked bones exumed from the damp tunnels of Yoyodyne amply bears out. It is as if within these creatures’ extraordinary propensity for inflicting and suffering cruelty there had to be developed the whole range of our emotions. Within the bounds of their cruelty is both pain and pleasure, love and hate, and even something hideously resembling art.