“Do you want to go to Satan Burger now?” he asks.
I look up at Grim Reaper joy-tumbling, Christian splashing. Pieces of fish meat falling from the ceiling. “Yeah. How we gonna get there?”
“I didn’t think that far.” Then Christian yells to Mort, who is putting all of the equipment away and getting no help from anybody, as usual, “Mortician, did you get your bus fixed yet?”
“No,” Mort says within working, “I probably won’t be able to until next week or next month.”
Mort’s bus hasn’t been working all year. He gets it fixed every month, but it only works for a couple of days before it needs fixing again. It is always polluting the back of the warehouse. If it was a normal autocar I wouldn’t care, but this is a bus. Not a VW Bus, I mean a full-sized school bus, laced with graffiti and bullet holes.
I point to Vodka, whispering, “What about him?”
Christian turns to Vodka. “Vod, got a car?”
Vod is in a trance.
“Vodka!”
He snaps hard out and twitches at Christian.
“Do you have a car?”
Vod glimmers down to his bagpipes. “I do.” Then up to Christian again. “It is only the most luscious and vigorous piece of machinery UPON THIS INSIGNIFICANT PLANET.”
“Well, can you drive us to Satan Burger?”
Silence.
Vodka continues a trance at Christian until his face turns dirty, the toilet seat sweats round pools into his buttocks.
He coldly answers, “Certainly.”
Christian claps his hands together. “Great. Let’s go then,” heading toward his next bottle of liquor, and his polyester jacket.
“NOT YET,” Vodka howls at him. “There are rules in my car that must not be taken lightly. If you break any one of them you’ll be THROWN OUT INTO THE STREET AND BANNED FROM MY CAR FOREVER.”
Vodka’s autocar turns out to be an AMC Gremlin, not the usual style of car to be remarked as luscious or vigorous, but some people seem to like them. It is sparkling black with silver lightning bolts on the doors and large metal wings attached to the back end. Vodka approaches the front and cuddles to it, warming the cold metal.
“It is more powerful than life itself, isn’t it?” he says.
A smile cracks Christian’s lips, not concerning Vodka though. He has remembered the most essential thing to remember upon entering a vehicle.
He yells, “SHOTGUN,” and we all grunt.
Mort argues, “Paper-rock-scissors, ye bastard.”
Christian argues, “I already called it.”
Vodka barges in, “NONE OF YOU SIT IN FRONT. I get both front seats in my car.”
“We can’t all fit in the back seat,” Mort whines.
“How dreadful,” Vod responds.
We pile into the Gremlin, with my corpse squished in the bitch seat. Vod starts up the car and takes a few essence-breaths into his lungs, humming with the engine purrs.
Vodka is one of those people who loves everything that is bizarre and disturbing and dreary and dead. Richard Stein called these people Black People, because they always wear black clothes and sometimes listen to black metal. He said that these people become black from hating everything.
They only like things that nobody else likes, and that is because they hate everyone else. Once their favorite underground band becomes popular, they won’t like it anymore. Not because it isn’t good anymore, but because they can’t stand to see normal people listening to their favorite band. That is why many of them turn to black metal, because that style of music can only be found in Germany and the Scandinavian countries.
He also went on to say that the leader of the black metal scene was a small troll who could only speak in ancient druidic languages.
After Vod finishes his car-meditation, he blesses the steering wheel. Then we leave for Satan Burger.
Scene 5
Silence Hurts the Eye
Stag and Gin and a corpse strapped to the roof, all drunk-slobbering and bobble-stupid. Up a sideling sludge hill, where crab-thorn trees and scorpion flies live — no female baboons up here, but neither man nor corpse is afraid. Stag’s motto is: “Too drunk to fear.”
The moon is a white construction paper cutout, the sky and night stars colored with crayon-chalks, which made God’s fingers all dust-gritty from the smudging and trying to color between the lines. When God fails to color properly and misses a tiny space, we call it a ghost.
Beginning colorists, such as kindergarten students, always finish a picture with many ghosts unaccounted for, but the mistakes are pardoned because they are only five-year-olds and aren’t even old enough to buy beer.
Sometimes five-year-olds will go back to their creation and fill the ghosts in with color, and the picture will be fine. But when God creates ghosts while coloring the world, it’s not so easy to correct them. They have to be filled in with the souls of people who have recently died. These poor souls are condemned to Earth forever. Instead of going to Heaven, they have to stay here and cover up God’s mistakes.
Neither Stag nor Gin believe in Heaven. They believe in a place called Punk Land, which is kind of like an amusement park but people can punch each other bloody and none of the security guards seem to care. It is supposed to be a gladful place to live, like Heaven, but only for punks.
Since the punk style of person would not be happy (nor welcome) in Heaven — being surrounded by white colors and angels and God and very nice people — he is sent to Punk Land, where he can be punk and talk about punk and listen to nothing but punk rock all day long in a totally anarchist society.
Stag is still very drunk. He is swerving widely about the road, singing an Irish drinking song called All For Mr. Grog.
I once knew a man named Mr. Grog. He lived next to my ex-parents and would buy me alcohol when I was underage. He always told me that the world is just a boring place made for rich conservative old men and there’s no reason to try to succeed in it unless you’re one of them. Best to just get drunk, try to be happy, and screw lots of married women.
Last year, old Mr. Grog was arrested for selling heroin to an twelve-year-old. At that point, he didn’t have any emotions left in him at all. When the judge asked for his plea, all he did was stare at his wall and shrug.
The autocar starts faster-faster as Stag’s foot goes heavy with intoxicated weight on the gas pedal. Faster-faster. Soon it is wind -fast, and since the wind sees the autocar as competition, they begin a race. Autocar vs. the wind, getting me confused to which is which. And they both go faster-faster-faster… Stag thinking he can actually beat the wind.
Stag has drunken reflexes and doesn’t make the sharp turn at the bottom of the sideling sludge hill. Going full speed on a grass field, out of command, drunk-fast.
He’s also blinded by a sharp orange light similar to a lightning flare, coming out of nowhere and electrocuting the horizon. Bright like an atomic explosion, but then gone in an instant.
Then I see the difference between the wind and an autocar. The wind can hit a tree, shift around it, and then keep going, but an autocar becomes crumpled to a wreck. And that’s what happens here.
Both of the characters are tossed from the car, through the unforgiving windshield. Stag’s face attempts oral sex with the tree’s trunk, but since the tree is not attracted to Stag it breaks his skull indoors, and Gin’s neck cracks on a large branch as he flies face-leading into the grass field, with dirt and a bug tasting into his mouth.