Fat Riker

Fat Riker Plays During Lunch

By: Emily Roseguard
Grade 5

Last Thursday our teacher Mrs. Mullins told our class that we would have a special band during lunchtime. Kids in 4th grade might remember this happened last year, too. Kids in 3rd grade won’t remember because they weren’t allowed to come. But it did happen. I don’t remember the name of last year’s band, but this year’s band was called “Fat Riker”.

I expected somebody fat and a boy in my class said we’d better eat fast or the fat band would eat our lunch but that wasn’t true. Actually, none of the members were fat! But I’ll get to that later.

At lunchtime we all lined up like usual but instead of a hot lunch in the cafeteria we went to the multipurpose room instead and the lunch ladies handed out a special bag lunch instead, like when we go on field trips. I guess kids that brought their lunch got to eat two lunches? I don’t know. Maybe that’s what Fat Riker was going to eat.

But like I said, none of the band was actually fat! I thought they looked pretty weird though: there was a girl that wore a really fancy dress like a princess might wear but it was all cut up with what looked like sword cuts. Also she carried a sword. There was also a guy that kind of dressed like a cowboy. Plus, two guys that were like, twins, I guess, but one wore his clothes backwards and one wore his clothes forwards and they would never face the same way at one time. It kind of made me dizzy to look at them because they would turn around so often.

I thought they were going to be on the stage, but they were just standing in the floor along with us. Mr. Ballantine, the principal, was arguing with the princess lady about having a sword but she seemed really mad and started cutting her hair with it and Mr. Ballantine made a weird face and went away.

I was sitting next to Tommy Adams, whose dad is a policeman, and he said that the reason the band was playing today was because they had to do “community service” because his dad and his cop friends had arrested them last week and this was their punishment for getting in trouble. Tommy said that Fat Riker had broken into the Food Country and locked themselves in the room with the PA system microphone. Then they started playing a bunch of weird songs about hats and wouldn’t come out even when the manager of the store knocked and told them to come out. Then the band told the manager they wouldn’t come out until he gave them all the Cheetos in the store, and the manager asked if off-brand Cheetos would work and they said no. Then the cops showed up and told the manager to tell the band he had all the Cheetos for them even though he didn’t and when the band opened the door to get them the policemen arrested them. They didn’t even let them finish their song about berets!

Then Tommy said that the judge wanted to teach Fat Riker a lesson about authority and also he didn’t want them staying in jail because the other inmates kept complaining that the cowboy guy smelled really weird like old sandwiches and they thought that maybe he was hiding poison gasses in his cowboy hat. Plus Fat Riker’s goat had escaped from their van in the impound lot and was going crazy and none of the police could stop him.

The band agreed to stop being too smelly in the jail and catch the goat if they were let go but they had to do community service by playing a concert for the kids. That’s why they came to our school.

Tommy said his dad said they caught the goat by opening up the doors to their van and making goat noises on an old oboe until the goat got sleepy and fell asleep. Then they picked up the goat and threw it in the van.

Everyone was expecting that they would drive away and leave but they just got in the van and stayed. The policemen asked them why they weren’t going anywhere and the band said they had to write some new songs to play for the schools and the impound lot had good acoustics or something. None of the police saw the goat when they opened the van door but Tommy’s dad thought they were probably keeping it in a big suitcase he saw in there.

The band stayed there for a week and sometimes people would see the sword princess going to the store for Cheetos or Kid Cuisines and stuff and sometimes other people would hear weird noises kind of like upside down songs being played in the impound lot and it scared them.

After a week the band said they had all of their songs ready and that they needed to play them within three days before they went stale whatever that means. The police said okay but mostly they just wanted them to leave the impound. So that’s when they came to our school.

So all of the kids had to come and listen. Our teachers told us to probably expect to hear some songs about not doing drugs and how math was really neat. Derek asked if there would be any songs about robots but the teacher said probably not and I think Derek was mad because he likes robots a lot. He has that robot shirt he wears sometimes and sometimes he says “Beep boop now consuming fuel.” in a robot voice whenever he eats lunch.

Fat Riker started making noises like they were tuning up their instruments so all the kids kept eating and talking. After a couple of minutes they stopped that and then the princess yelled “That was ‘Tune Up Song!’ Don’t talk during the next one!” and all the kids stopped talking. The teachers looked mad but Fat Riker started playing again really quick.

The next song was called “Grover Cleveland Has a Stupid Face” and it was supposed to be educational about Grover Cleveland. The band sounded really angry about Grover Cleveland being president and I think our history teacher, Mr. Price, tried to tell them that Grover Cleveland wasn’t the president anymore but the weird twin guys surrounded him and started spinning around and Mr. Price kind of slowly walked away. Then the band made up a lyric at the end of the song about Mr. Price that said that he “was a Grover Cleveland lover, and no one loves him but his mother.” That was pretty mean.

Then the Fat Riker stopped for about five minutes and stood perfectly still.

Everyone was beginning to wonder if they were okay or if they had passed out or something. Just as the guidance counselor started to go over there, the cowboy guy yelled “This next song is about robots!” and Derek jumped up and yelled “Yeah!” and they started playing.

I think the song was basically how to build a working robot and when Derek realized that he stopped dancing and started writing down the stuff they were saying really fast. There was a bunch of weird math stuff and somehow they rhymed “quadratic equation” with “siliconic sensation” but I don’t know how. The backward twins played dueling tambourines during this song and it kind of sounded like a hundred thousand tiny robots destroying humanity if you thought about it. This song went on for about twenty minutes and everyone’s ears started hurting but I think Derek got some good ideas. Afterward he told me he was going to build a robot with what he had learned and call it the Fat Riker Bot. He said it would have nine feet and sixteen eyes and a tape player.

I think Fat Riker was getting tired because the cowboy guy laid down on the ground and fell asleep after that and Sword Princess yelled they were about to do their last song. It started smelling like old sandwiches then and I wondered if it really was old sandwiches or if maybe the smell was coming from the cowboy hat like in Tommy’s story.

The last song was a little weirder and the twins brought the goat in from their van when it started. The goat heard it and started freaking out, running around in circles and a lot of the kids got scared. I tried really hard to figure out what the song was about, but sometimes they sang too fast and sometimes they sang too slow to tell. It was maybe about all the parts of a goat, like legs and teeth and stuff but maybe it wasn’t about that at all. It was probably very educational but I couldn’t figure out about what.

Then the goat got tired and laid down next to the sleeping cowboy guy and the rest of the band just suddenly stopped playing and went to sleep on the floor too. After a minute, the teachers decided that the show was over and they took all of us out of the multipurpose room and back to class.

Mrs. Mullins acted like it was really good and asked us questions about what we had learned, but no one had really learned anything except maybe how to build a robot. There was a PTA meeting that was held the next day and my parents said everybody was mad over the band. They asked if it had upset me. I told them it was probably a better lunch period than Taco Tuesdays.

Knoxville News-Journal – June 20, 1979

The Fastest Band on the Planet

Jeffery Allen

Everyone already knows what happened last weekend at the Atomic Speedway. It was too big of a spectacle, too crazy of a story for the tale to have not been traded around over dinner tables and telephone wires.

“Were you there on Saturday?” Is how it starts – the asker always hoping for a “No” response so that they can enjoy the thrill of relating the tale.

Well, I was there, and I know what happened. The news version of this story ran on Sunday morning, on the top of the front page. We had to stop the presses to manage that one. But that was just the facts, and the facts hardly do this thing justice. Facts might as well be talking about how many beans are in a jar, or the radius of a circle.

No, this deserves to be remembered like the kings and heroes of old are remembered; with time and telling smoothing the edges until what is left resonates with the human soul on the most primal of levels. At the end of the tale, the listener’s heart should be filled with the pure, napalm-like desire to do great and awesome deeds. We, as a people, need these kinds of stories.

Lucky for us, Fat Riker has given us one.

As you might remember, word had gotten around about an event at the speedway. “Fastest band on the planet – Saturday only at the Atomic Speedway!” the ubiquitous fliers read. They were everywhere. On telephone poles, in mailboxes, stuffed under the windshield wipers of cars parked at Food City. There was talk. Radio DJs mused about it. You just did not not hear about this thing. I would wager there are still some flyers posted up out there, not yet grabbed by ruthless souvenir collectors.

The Atomic Speedway, for those unfamiliar with our local color, is a dirt track raceway a stone’s throw from Interstate 40. It sits like some kind of gross counterpoint to the bland consumer traffic of the highway; garish mechanical monsters rip through the valley, belching smoke and fire. These cars, if they can be called that, are cobbled together in basement garages. They are wrecked and rebuilt a hundred times a year. Spray painted bright green and orange and purple, they sometimes sport a number or crude slogan. You think that maybe, just maybe, they’re racing to win. The alternative, that they’re out there for the pure reckless thrill of it, is probably more true.

The News-Journal sent me down to cover this event, whatever it was going to be. My press credentials let me scoot on into the Speedway grounds, and I asked around for the band. A helpful concession vendor pointed me in the right direction after I bought a corndog. I needed to talk to these guys.

I found them tuning up next to a strange, cage-like contraption with wheels. I introduced myself as being from the newspaper. They introduced themselves as Fat Riker.

These four guys could not help but dominate the conversation. The mind focused on them in fear, as they spoke and moved erratically. Fast gestures like a rattlesnake striking. A yelp of approval. A slow shift in position until they’re next to you and you don’t even know it. Like a predator on the vast fields of ancient Earth, their actions caused one’s brain to bubble with chemicals that made us mere humans consider fight or flight.

These were wild, southern men that smell of cheap beer and car exhaust. They’re excited to be here, excited to talk to me, excited to play music and blow minds. Their plan was simple really; they’re going to become the world’s fastest band. They’re going to play music out there, racing around the track at 140 miles an hour. I didn’t know how they were going to do it. They wouldn’t tell me. It seemed like it had to have something to do with the cage device, but we would see.

They told me, over the cacophony of the race behind us and through drags of cigarettes, that they have been on tour. They told me that one night in Alabama, after a show, some drunk guy attacked them with a shovel outside a bar. They told me they killed him and dumped him in the swamp. I was inclined to believe them.

They told me, in not so many words, but definitely in a round-about way, that the society was boring and they didn’t fit into it. They told me a lot of things, and I listened to them. They had hidden wisdom, and I could not help but be enraptured.

A gaggle of girls in tiny cut-off shorts showed up and distracted the guys, and I took my leave. I headed back to the stands to get a good view of whatever was going to happen next. The muggy summer night took on an unnatural air of electricity as the crowd buzzed. Meanwhile, the cars continued to speed around the track. This was no easy wait.

Eventually, the PA crackled to life, announcing it was time for Fat Riker to appear. The enthusiastic crowd let up a wild cheer. I hadn’t seen the band for nearly an hour now, and I wondered what they’d been up to.

The audience’s attention was drawn to the left side of the arena, as an impressive black race car rumbled onto the track, the rolling cage hitched behind it. Fat Riker had set up inside the cage. The car came to a reluctant stop as an audio technician dashed out of the infield with the end of a long wire, which he hooked up to the cage.

As he made the connection, the speedway speakers screeched and suddenly we heard the voice of Fat Riker’s lead singer booming. “We are Fat Riker!” he yelled, and the crowd yelled back. “We are here to be the fastest band in the world. Hit it!”

The technician dove away from the cage as the car jerked forward, engine roaring. The band immediately tumbled to the back of their cart, but in a moment managed to right themselves. The drummer counted them in and music, good music, erupted from the PA.

The crowd went wild and so did I. The car ripped around the track, the cage fishtailing behind it dangerously, the band somehow playing their songs. Through our frenzy, through their madness, we find some deep part of the human soul that binds us all together. I wish I could have looked into the band’s eyes during that moment. I think I would have seen God.

Then came the terrible sound. A sort of plink, or maybe a plunk. It was low and not easily heard over the din. It sounded like metal on metal. A sword clanging against a shield, or maybe the grim reaper’s scythe cutting a cart latch. I don’t know how many people noticed. I’m pretty sure the band didn’t.

The briefest of moments later, the cage’s fishtailing grew exceedingly severe. To their credit, the band did not miss a beat, not even when their cart broke free of the car and careened toward the edge of the track. The audio cable snapped and the speakers went quiet as the cart jumped the raised embankment and flipped, rolling and tumbling across the field, past the perimeter of the stadium’s lights. The gut-wrenching sounds of the wreck echoed off the East Tennessee hills, the metal cage collapsing and breaking in our collective mind’s eye.

There was a brief moment when none of us could move. Then chaos. There was screaming and running and terror. Some flee for the parking lot. Others rushed toward where they imagine the band to be. The reporter in me did not allow me to run away. I joined the minority of people who ran to the crash site.

It was a mess. Lives and instruments had been lost. Two of the men were miraculously alive, though only one was responding at all. My foot hit something hard, and I looked down, realizing in disgust that I was standing on the remains of a guitar. I moved quickly.

There was fast and furious work as band members were extracted from the carnage, the living separated from those sacrificed for our shared moments of animalistic ecstasy.

As the first-response paramedics began to take away the only conscious member of Fat Riker, I see that he is smiling. A big, bloody, missing-toothed smile. Our eyes locked and I smiled back at him.

“Rock on,” I thought I heard him say.