shine on america
the story of fenton moses wayne (a.k.a. johnny a-bomb)

chapter one

introduction:
fenton moses wayne was born in a small fishing village outside of los angeles california in may of 1957. when he was 14 he picked up a guitar, and never put it down again. this caused quiet a stir at school where he was on both the football and hockey teams. he went through quite a few guitars in the first few years. fenton started a rock band when he was 20 called "the sensual stare". they released several albums, culminating in their historic live album "120 minutes of stoned silence, LIVE". the album was recorded in Iran during the Ayatollah Khomeini's rein. as many of you may remember (and an equal number probably won't) the Ayatollah had banned western music from Iran citing it's well known "bad influence". fenton, not being aware of this, or much else at this point in his life, thought he had a lot of fans in Iran. his manager had told him as much, but was only joking. fenton, unfortunately, didn't get it (the joke). so after arriving in Tehran, he was informed that the band would not be allowed to play. since the recording equipment had already been set up, they decided to pull a john cage. the album went on to be their biggest selling album. it sold over 20,000 copies worldwide in it's first 6 months! the band were so elated, they decided to quit while they were on top of the music world. it was at this point that fenton turned his attention toward writing technical novels on computer animation and time travel.

the plan
in the beginning there was a plan of sorts. it was a pretty stupid plan, but stupidity and fenton moses wayne have always been good friends. the plan was to travel back in time and change history. the reason for this was simple. many years ago, when fenton was still in high school, a teacher told him that although time travel was questionable, if you could go back in time and change history, the entire world fabric as we know it would alter. consequently, if you could change time, there was also a good chance that you would cease to exist as soon as you changed history. his (the teacher) theory was based on the idea that if you move point A to point B, point C has to change as well. fenton didn't believe this, and set out to prove it.

the first step was to design and build a time machine. no small feat! but luckily, this had already been done quite well in several movies that fenton had seen. so, recreating the time machine, for example, in "back to the future" was not that hard. since it's been available on video tape for many years, fenton and his girlfriend, bedby, studied it day and night. they also studied "the purple rose of cairo" a woody allen film that has time traveling of a different sort in it as well. but purple rose had a scenario that proved difficult to reenact.

a few weeks passed and fenton and a few of his brighter pals, helped to build a proto type for the machine. never mind the impossibilities of the whole thing. this is science fiction, reality was nothing to do with anything!

the plan was simple. go back in time, kidnap the daughter of the mayor of new york city and over time convince her to become a right wing republican and run against her father as an anti-abortion christian coalition gun tooting conservative. thereby causing the mayor (her father) to have a heart attack and resign from office. something that has never happened in the history of the city of mirrors. an awesome plan.

similar to the problems that plagued christopher lloyd in back to the future, fenton also had to try and figure out how far back to go. but fenton had other problems as well. for example, back to the future was a fictional movie with fictional characters. clearly, this had never been done before, and fenton didn't have the broad range of technical ability and pure genius that lloyd had (nor did he gave a good script writer or special effects wizard). so fenton had to try a lot harder. a lot harder! he also had to find a mayor who had a daughter who was old enough to be able to pull this off, and who was a left wing liberal. a trip to the library was clearly in order. or a trip to the internet to go surfing. fenton had a very cool (and colorful) surfboard!

history as an ever evolving moment of confusion and chaos
the last thing i remember was falling asleep in the library. it was snowing outside, and i had decided to stay until the storm let up. i woke up to find the surroundings had changed. outside it was a clear sunny day. no snow, in fact, by the look of the people walking on the streets it must have been summer. i walked outside into the sunlight. i could hear a horse carriage up the street. clop, clop, clop, and then another. where was i? i walked to the corner to get a newspaper. remembering the trick from time traveling films of the past, or future, or something. i pulled out some papers from my pocket, and there was a note that said "make your move!". i turned it over and there was another note that said "i've been watching you. you'll never figure it out. i had to intercede. congratulations, you're a time traveler. finish the mission."

confused, dazed, hungry, in need of a shave (and aren't we all), i walked along the streets of manhattan island. i passed a store with a big fat guy standing outside yelling at some workers carrying huge blocks of ice into the store. "first we have to heat it, then cool it, then heat it, then cool it. that's how we make sour cream". no one seemed to be paying any attention to him except for the small dog nipping at his pants leg. i ignored him as well and kept walking. huge blocks of ice? maybe there are no refrigerators here. i decide to find a pub and pretend to be somewhat drunk in the hopes that someone will tell me where i am and what year it is. since this little trick has worked for me in the past, or future, i'm comfortable with it.

walking along the streets for hours. all the bars are closed. i finally see a clock and realize it's still early in the morning. i've obviously gone back pretty far because in new york city, the bars open pretty early. at least they did yesterday. after sitting on the sidewalk and day dreaming for a few hours, it dawns on me that the pain i'm feeling in my stomach is hunger. time to find some food. one advantage to going back in time is that what little money i had yesterday, is worth a lot more here (or so i have to assume). i had a measly $200 in my pocket when i went to the library. i walk into a bakery and buy a dozen jelly donuts for $1.00. what a deal! i walk around the city some more, trying to get a grip on the situation. one thing i realize, is that by a bit of luck, i fit right in here. i'm wearing my duster, a pair of jeans and boots. that's what half the people i pass are wearing. dusk settles in and standing by battery park, i can see the bay. i can also see that there is no statue of liberty out there. so, not being big on herstory, i now know that it must be a the 19th century. just a guess on my part. now i wonder who the president is. could lincoln be president? could i get to washington and save his life? that would change history pretty drastically.

"fenton, wake up you ditz". laying on a park bench, i turn over and there is bedby, my soul mate from the future, my past, whatever. "what are you doing here", "i was lying in bed this morning, wondering where you were and why you hadn't come back from the library when i heard a voice say 'he can't do it alone. go' and here i am. how did you get here?" blah, blah, blah. and she's caught up on things. she tells me we're in danbury, connecticut. "there's no way. i was standing by battery park just a few hours ago." no, she tells me, that was candlewood lake. that can't be, because I know candlewood lake is man made, and it's too early. she insists, "we are in danbury. look around you. everyone is wearing a hat. it's hat city. you used to live here when you a kid you spud, remember?" remember everyone wearing a hat? no, i remember i looked lousy in hats, and no one in my family ever wore one. that's what i remember. we argue about where we are for another three hours before someone passes us in the street and says "let it go for christ sake. do what you came to do". he walks into a shop, never to be seen again. by us anyway.

we decide to go through with the original plan, or a variation of it. what we have to do is change something about history. that means we have to find out something that happened in this time period. preferably something that happened this week. since history cannot be changed, we decide that changing it will do one of two things. it will either alter the course of history and leave us stranded, or bolt us back to where we came from. we have plenty of money between the two of us, so we rent a horse or two and head for the city of mirrors. which, by the way, has very few of 'em at this stage of the game. not really a game, but if you've lived in new york city in the late 20th century, a game is what it feels like. did i get sidetracked?

night falls again. we need weapons. the easiest way to alter history is to shoot something. i may not be a history buff, but i play one on tv. we ride along what will someday be the hutchison river parkway. after hours of riding we stop and rest and do some other human bean type things. in the early light of dawn we continue heading for manhattan island (yea, the city of mirrors, so what). picking up vital bits of information along the way from other travelers. we approach a house and decide to steal some guns and maybe some more money. we sneak in and find a rifle and a few pistols. we quietly take them and on the way out discover a man standing by our horses. "what the hell kind of haircut is that? did ben do that?" i'd forgotten that i had a small snippet of hair that had been colored blue. very popular where i came from, but probably not here. "yea, we want to buy these guns from you. and do you have a paid of scissors?" "a pair, no i have one. what do you need a pair for?" ok, let's not get into semantics here. i cut off the blue hair, give him five bucks for the guns and ride off into sunset. well, not the sunset, more like dawn, but a few hours later. you get the idea. "we should have killed him". WHAT? "change history. murder, you know. he's just going about his business, and we kill him and alter history". no way. i don't believe in it. we don't have the right to do that. "we can hold up a bank or something, but murder is not cool". "neither is ignorance of your own culture. but tell that to the 10 million americans who don't even know who the vice president is". we discuss this for several hours until we pass a farm and a cow (i swear this really happened) says "give it a rest already". we both look at each other in disbelief. the cow takes a dump. we keep riding, in visible silence.

we decided to kidnap the mayor of new york city. we don't know who he was, much less if he has a daughter. and convincing her to be a right wing gun toting anti-abortionist seemed a bit silly considering the era we've landed up in. we find a newspaper and search for information on speeches or marches or something where the mayor might appear. there's nothing in the paper. all of the pages are blank. ok, they're not really blank. but there really is nothing about the mayors schedule for the day. so bedby, using her cellPhone which hadn't been invented yet, called the mayors press office and asked for his schedule for the day. she posed as the political reporter for trouser press. she was told that the major would be in central park in the late afternoon to attend the opening of the laskar pool. we were off. but first lunch at the stage deli.

we arrived at central park about a half hour before the ceremony. the location was perfect. the pool is surrounded by hills in the park. we can hide here and ride by (guns shooting up into the air) as the mayor leaves, scoop him up and throw him onto the back of one the horses and ride off (again, guns shooting into the air, creating a scene of total bedlam and confusion, for everyone, including us). the major shows up, stinking of gin. and proceeds to lie on the table. the ceremony begins, and goes on and on and on. this guy really knows how to talk. we couldn't hear anything from where we were, but we could see his mouth moving, the crowd cheering (every few minutes) and his arms waving around. finally, he bowed down and turned to leave the stage. just as this happened several shots rang out. the mayor slumped to the ground. two men on horses appeared leaving the area, guns drawn, shooting into the late afternoon sky. we aimed and fired, hitting both of them. they fell to the ground, the mayor, still motionless, lay on the stage, still stinking of gin. we decided not to wait around for the doctor to come in. and it didn't take us long to realize that we weren't going anywhere. bedby looked at me, i looked at her. "how's your history? i don't remember a mayor of of new york ever being shot." ,"we gotta get outta here. this isn't right" we bolted!

kenn lowy
the city of mirrors
winter 1995 - 96