Wackos to Obliterate: Book Three (Chapter 2)
Regardless the source of the attacks, both the magnitude and intensity made it obvious that something beyond the angst of private citizens was driving it. One afternoon, the TRinkets’ guitarist, Diamond, spent several hours reading entries in the comment section following an article about his group. It wasn’t an article from a major news website and it hadn’t been online longer than twelve hours, but there were more than 500 comments. Of course, the vast majority were vitriolic rants covering the gamut of negativity that started to appear as his group began their climb up the music charts, but which escalated prodigiously after the wastebasket in a park in Waikiki exploded just minutes before they were to play an outdoor concert there. The first couple of comments posted were about the article itself and were mostly positive; no doubt, written by fans. Looking at the time stamps of the postings, it was clear that within ten minutes, the positive-toned writings were beginning to be superseded by a virtual deluge of negativity; little of which, vaguely if at all, pertained to the original article.
“This one fits the same pattern,” he said as Emily was busy doing stretches on a yoga mat lying in front of the sliding door that opened out to the balcony of their apartment.
She turned her head to see him staring at the laptop perched on the dining table. “What’re you mumbling about?”
“459 of the more than 500 comments to this article are written by six people.”
“Are any of the names the same as ones you have seen elsewhere?” she asked, looking back up at the ceiling as she resumed her Pilates workout.
“Not that I’ve noticed. They appear to be registered users of this website. I must admit I haven’t looked at any other article about us posted on this site.”
“Is there one posted in their archive? If you make a search, you might be able to find some of the same names.”
He took her suggestion and did find the same six names were used in the comments section of the other two articles this online newspaper had published about the TRinkets. He made a search of their archive for marijuana-related articles and discovered several of these had comments by the same users. These were all articles from the past five or six months, anything earlier did not contain these names.
“It looks like these people started posting comments shortly after we played the legalization rally. Basically about the same time the first song started to climb the charts.”
“That’s true about most of the comments on many of the other news websites …”
“And the music videos,” he added. As she joined him at the table and took her seat, he noticed the droplets of sweat trickling down the sides of her cute but pale face, which had begun to lose its slight puffiness. No doubt, the Pilate workouts she started a month or two ago were effective. It was hard to tell, looking at her dressed in her pink sweat suit. “You know, I’m getting a little sleepy. Maybe we should take a little nap,” he said, reaching out to touch her.
She noticed the grin on his face. “When have I heard that before? You should look in the mirror and see that horny smirk. Take a nap, my ass.”
“Aren’t you tired after your workout? A nap would do you good,” he said with the grin getting wider.
“It’s written across your face,” she said, grinning as well.
Even if there was an all-out campaign to counter the rising popularity of the TRinkets and the legalization movement in general, it didn’t appear to be very effective. In fact, the more negativity heaped upon them seemed to bring more popularity. Having a reputation of being a little infamous or against-the-grain is helpful to increase your popularity with fans who feel a little angst-ridden themselves. Perhaps, since one-quarter or more of the U.S. population has been considered by the government to be committing felonies daily by using controlled substances, there is strong potential for an enormous fan base; like-minded outsiders who feel paranoid that their lives could be trampled on and destroyed by the “good folks” just because they consume “illegal” substances; an infamous cohort who feels sympathetic towards others demonized by the mainstream. James Dean, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Rolling Stones: the rebel; devil’s music; rock-n-roll. Trolls or no trolls, the TRinkets had three songs in the Top-10.
“What’re the dates being bounced around?” Trink asked, tapping his wife on the shoulder to get her attention. The TRinkets were in their weekly meeting, sitting around a conference table at Summit Records with Brad hooked up by video phone.
Madelyn turned her gaze from Ryuji (sitting on her right) to Trink. “The filming should start the early part of next month, but the pay-for-view stream would be accessible 24-7 until the end of the month.”
Across the table sat Sophie and the Dogs: Diamond and Bowen. The boys exchanged sarcastic eye rolls. Light reflected off Bowen’s nose ring as he faced Madelyn. “Hell, the album is breaking sales records just a few weeks after its release! Is a concert tour really out of the question?”
“I agree it’s pretty amazing when you consider the high return to be expected from a tour; so far, not one promoter is willing to take us up on it,” Brad said from his wheelchair. Everyone turned to look at the wall-mounted TV from which they could view the old man sitting in his living room at Neverland.
“It’s fucked up! People willingly gather at the Super Bowl like sitting ducks in a huge stadium, but they’re chicken shits just because some garbage blew up near our first big gig?” Bowen shook his pale, balding head covered in tattoos.
Sophie held on to Bowen for support as she stood up. “Oh you’re just pissed off you can’t bang your skins on stage in front of thousands of cute chicks.” Once standing, she let go of his arm and limped toward the door. “I’ve got to trip out in the ladies room.”
“It looks like you’re still in pain,” Madelyn said as everyone’s eyes followed the singer - dressed in a silky, black jump suit - move slowly to the door. Ryuji was sitting the closest to it, so he got up and opened it for her. He was moving a little stiffly too due to the traffic accident the two of them had a week earlier. He was driving but suddenly lost control and the pickup slammed into a tree. They weren’t injured too badly, but she sustained a little more damage than him since she wasn’t wearing her seat belt.
As he sat back down, Ryuji said: “I’m still confused about what happened. It was the middle of the afternoon. We weren’t high or anything. The curve wasn’t sharp, but the bloody truck wouldn’t turn. Before I knew it, we banged head on into that tree.”
“Did you hear anything yet?” Trink asked.
“About the investigation?” Trink nodded to Ryuji’s response. “Not yet, but they better find something wrong with the steering. Otherwise, it makes no sense.”
“Do you think we should hold off the filming until she’s better?” Madelyn asked the group.
“Maybe it’ll add a little to the mystique.” Everyone turned to the TV monitor. “Once more people are aware a couple of band members were involved in a mysterious accident …”
“Rumors may spread that it wasn’t an accident,” Trink said, interrupting Brad.
Brad smiled and said, “There are a lot of powerful people who feel threatened by legalization and may stop at nothing to slow up the inevitable.”
“So, you’re saying we should encourage conspiracy theorists to conclude that the Illuminati, drug cartels or both consider us a threat?” Madelyn asked.
Bowen jumped in and said, “It’s true that the accident happened not too long after the attack in Hawaii.”
“Well, quite a few people are out there spending a lot of time spreading hate speech about us. Yesterday, I wasted a good part of the day looking at websites and counting the number of negative comments written about us. As Sophie’s son said before, there must be someone who’s paying people to troll,” Diamond said. “Tie that effort together with this other shit and it’s not too hard to believe …”
“Shapeshifting alien lizards are after us,” Ryuji joked.
“I don’t know if they’re lizards, but there were six somebodies who wrote 90% of the 500 plus comments to an article about us.”
“No shit,” Trink said as he squeezed his wife’s hand. Just then, the door opened and Sophie was back.
“Not only that,” Diamond continued, “I dug a little deeper and found the same six lizards, or whatever, had written comments to the other two articles posted about us on the same site and they wrote comments on a couple of articles related to legalization. Also, I found they started writing comments about a half year ago.”
Sophie once again used Bowen’s shoulder for support while she lowered herself back into her chair. “As Karl told us before, trolls are out to get us. What’s Summit been doing about it?” she asked, looking at Brad sitting in his wheelchair at Neverland.
“They’re probably the ones behind the trolling: the ‘Summit Way’ of band promotion,” Ryuji said, smiling.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Madelyn added, but she wasn’t smiling. Trink watched her profile and saw the same worried look on her face that she had when they first learned the owner of the financial firm controlling their investment fund was arrested. He rubbed her hand and squeezed it again. She looked down at his hand covering hers, then looked at his concerned face and smiled.
Links to the previous chapter of Book Three
(https://steemit.com/fiction/@keniza/wackos-to-obliterate-book-three-chapter-1)
Copyright (©) by Kenneth Wayne