Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey

by Chuck Palahniuk

  Teams with the wrong flag up, people say they’re police trying to break the game. Or they’re teams that tagged too hard, rammed other cars in the side or some other verboten spot. You commit enough fouls and people start to call the Party Crash Hotline and report you. Enough fouls go on your tally and you stop getting notices about the next flag and window.

  From DRVR Radio Graphic Traffic Reports: Here’s a quick look at the rollover on the 213. The meat-wagon boys tell me the driver exhibits bursting lacerations of the pericardium—that tough little bag that holds your heart. Early word is, localized impact appears to have driven the heart against the vertebral column, resulting in a contusion of the posterior wall of the interventricular septum. Dead means dead, and drive time means an update every ten minutes. This is the DRVR Graphic Traffic Report: We Know Why You Rubberneck…

  Shot Dunyun: That Student Driver Night, I’m riding shotgun, with Rant covering the backseat. The field looks pretty thin. With my window rolled down, I’m spitting outside, telling Rant, “Even if you give me rabies, I’m not your butt boy.” I spit and say, “Especially if you give me rabies.”

  Normally, Rant smells like a glass of clean water, but not tonight. Every place he touched me, I smell gasoline. “What’s that stink?” I ask him.

  And Rant goes, “Dimethylcyclopropanecarboxylic acid.” He’s turned around, watching our five o’clock, out the rear window. Rant says, “Supposed to kill spiders.”

  From DRVR Radio Graphic Traffic Reports: This just in from the 213: Further treatment of the driver reveals a lateral compression fracture of his right femur, resulting in lateral fractures of the pelvic rami, disruption of the sacroiliac joints with impaction, and fractures of the acetabulum. For those of you on the North Side, the northbound exit from the 614 to the eastbound Helmsberg Freeway is slow, due to a Student Driver stalled on the right shoulder. For Graphic Traffic, this is Tina Something.

  Shot Dunyun: Green’s lurking us behind a student driver, trailing, weaving through traffic for a better angle, hoping to split the target onto a side street where a solid tag won’t soak up too much attention. Maybe police attention. Green’s keeping a van, a taxi, a bus—anything big and bright—between us, so the target won’t see our flag flying.

  Watching for Sharks, I ask Rant if he’s looking for a boyfriend.

  And Rant goes, “Nah.” He’d screw a German shepherd, Rant says, if it would make his folks love him less. Save them from pain.

  “Part of my strategying,” Rant goes, his head turning to cover two quadrants, our three to nine o’clock. “The worse my folks think of me,” he says, “the less they’ll hurt about me being gone.”

  The bus driving next to us, it brakes, drops back for a stop. We’re exposed for the time it takes Green to say, “Gentlemen, brace yourselves,” and the Left B-Pillar Lookout in our target is staring back, straight at our flag.

  The target dives around the next right turn, down a dark lane of parked cars, and Green throws us past the bus in pursuit. Two student drivers, leaving rubber and smoke.

  From DRVR Radio Graphic Traffic Reports: This update just in from the meat wagon, en route with our earlier 213 rollover: We won’t know for sure until the autopsy, but it looks like another minor laceration of the proximal jejunum with communication with the peritoneal cavity. Inside word is, just two thousand milliliters of purulent material leaks into your peritoneal cavity and the ambulance driver shuts off those sirens and fancy lights. Somethingelse to keep in mind as you hurry through your commute today.

  Shot Dunyun: Our target’s cruising slow, too close to parked cars for us to make our tag without costly collateral damage. Putting a dent in a game car is fair, but denting an innocent bystander, you have to fess up. Pay for repairs. Our target banks on this fact and tucks close beside parked cars, staying safe until he can lose us around a quick exit. An alley. Ora cop.

  Keeping an eye on my game quadrant, I ask Rant if he’s queer or not.

  That’s the night Green Taylor Simms started calling him Huckleberry Fagg.

  And Rant goes, “Truth is, I won’t never be a doctor. Don’t even ask me to do long division.” He goes, “I can’t do much to make my folks proud…” And he leans forward, reaching into the front seat to turn up the radio. Tina’s yakking. Her taking calls from paramedics and traffic cops and pasting together her rubberneck deal.

  “But,” Rant goes, “if I get my folks’ expectations low, and pester them with the worry they messed me up, then just the simple miracle of me getting a girl in trouble—that will bust them open with joy and relief.”

  From DRVR Radio Graphic Traffic Reports: One last report from the boys in the meat wagon, regarding the fatality rollover on the 213: The song they died hearing was “My Sharona” by The Knack. And that makes Brian Lambson our newest Death Song winner. Brian, if you’re listening, call in the next hour to accept your prize. This has been Tina Something for Graphic Traffic: We Know Why You Rubberneck…

  Shot Dunyun: As Rant reaches into the front seat, to fiddle with the radio controls, written on the back of his hand in blue ballpoint pen it says: P295/30 R22…P285/30 R22…425/65 R22.5. Obviously tire sizes. Big tires.

  Nodding at the blue numbers, I ask him, “Been car-shopping?”

  And Rant goes, “How good do you know Echo?” He sits back.

  Good enough, I tell him. Pretty good.

  Green Taylor Simms feathers the gas pedal, patient. The target car almost touching-close. Almost brushing the line of parked cars. Our two cars moving first-gear slow. The smell of insecticide. The flavor of rabies.

  And Rant goes, “Figured maybe I’d get her a present…”

  Echo is off, working, tonight. Doing some bullshit I don’t want to explain here. Complicated shit.

  Rant goes, “Really truly with her whole entire heart, does Echo hate somebody?”

  I go, doesn’t Rant mean “love”?

  And Rant shrugs and says, “Ain’t it the same thing?”

  20–Junkyards

  From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms ( Historian): For sheer spectacle, the peak of Party Crash culture had to be Tree Nights. The idea, as always, was to choose a flag that the unaware public could dismiss as ordinary, normal—or, at worst, an accident.

  Among the accident type of flags were coffee cups and sack lunches. Crash teams utilized these flags on Ooops Nights: For example, during an Ooops “Coffee” game, participants indicated they were in the game by bolting or gluing a large travel mug to the roof of their vehicle. The actual coffee was optional. In the event of an Ooops “Brown Bag” game, teams glued a brown-bag “lunch” to their roof. To the general public, these flags occurred as silly accidents, and unaware drivers might pull alongside laughing and pointing, attempting to get the driver’s attention and help resolve the misplaced item.

  The “Baby on Board” events used another type of mishap flag. Understandably, public reaction was somewhat less jolly at the sight of a speeding car weaving through traffic with an infant carrier and baby seemingly forgotten on the roof.

  Shot Dunyun ( Party Crasher): The auctioneer starts the bidding at fifty dollars, saying, “Do I hear fifty? Who wants to give me an opening bid of fifty dollars for Lot Number One?”

  This is Sammy’s Towing, so this must be Tuesday night. The Wednesday police impound auction is at Radio Retrieval. How organized is this? On Fridays, we’d be at Patrol Towing to preview the cars. Police crime impounds. Abandoned cars. Cars seized in drug busts or for unpaid parking tickets. Cars towed out of pay lots and never claimed, they all go for chump change to the highest bidder.

  To find a car you can drive for a few days, paint and glue shit all over, and ram into another junker car, here’s your market. Marked with neon-bright grease pencil, yellow or orange, in the windows of some cars you can read “Brken Tming Blt.” Or “Eng Mnts crakd.” In one big four-door, still messy with “Just Married” toothpaste and hanging tin cans, Auction Lot 42, written on the windshield it says, “Cam
lobs scord.”

  The car up for bid right now, dented and crumpled, you’ll find dried blood and hair still caked on the dashboard.

  From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms: The infant doll and the carrier were, of course, bolted in place. Most teams used the same drilled hole and carriage bolts each week, switching the baby carrier for the coffee mug for the bag lunch. Other teams, as their vehicle accumulated dents and scratches, becoming less attractive as a target, these teams would expand on the basic theme. Instead of a coffee mug, they might bolt an espresso machine and a tray of demitasse cups and saucers to their roof. A basket of pain au chocolat. A silver bud vase with a single red rose trembling in the slipstream.

  Shot Dunyun: The auctioneer’s chanting, “Seventy-five, seventy-five, who’ll give me eighty? Who’ll bid eighty dollars? Do I hear eighty dollars…?”

  Rant and Echo are still poking around the lot, looking under hoods. Echo pointing at bashed, rusted minivans still decorated with shreds of crepe paper and poster-paint words that say “Go Team! Tigers Go to State!” The seats and floor littered with snacks and fast-food wrappers left when the team bailed on a Soccer Mom Night.

  Echo opens the driver’s door of a coupe, a faded artificial Christmas tree still tied to the roof. With one finger, she punches a button on the stereo, but nothing happens. She punches it again, hard, and a disk pops out. “My favorite chase mix,” she says, waving the disk for Rant to see. Echo goes, “I thought I’d never hear it again.”

  From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms: Approaching Thanksgiving, the simple misplaced-coffee-cup theme would expand to include papier-mâché turkeys, painted and varnished to a glossy brown. Sloshing stemmed goblets of red wine. Salt and pepper shakers. And tall white candles in brass holders, their flame bulbs glowing, battery-powered. A display of this extent usually signaled the last event in which a team planned to drive a particular automobile: Mounting dishes of yams and green beans required drilling dozens of holes through the roof and headliner.

  For these elaborate vehicle send-offs—known as Funerals or Final Runs—teams arrived at the event grid, or field, no less than an hour before the window. Until the play officially began, these cars would parade and model their decorations, bidding one final, grand farewell before the night’s play would leave them in a junkyard.

  Shot Dunyun: The script artist inside me still looked for events worth out-cording. I’d reach back and touch my port, ready to switch it. Maybe out-cord an interesting moment of my awareness. The way a rusted car looked. Or the way Rant smiled at Echo when it’s just her ass end stuck out from under a half-open hood, her voice muffled by grease and sheetmetal, saying, “This butterfly valve is fucked.”

  A few wrecks away, a bashed hardtop sits up to the rims in mud. Written across the trunk lid in bright-pink paint, sparkle-pink fingernail polish, it says “Cherry Bomb III.” Next to the wreck stands Tina Something.

  When Tina’s fingers curl into fists and she starts stomping through the mud, advancing on Echo’s ass, I switch my port to out-cord the carnage.

  From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms: As I’ve mentioned, for sheer spectacle nothing surpassed Tree Nights. At those rare events, cars old and new arrived early to show off. The original idea had been to tie an evergreen Christmas tree to the roof of your vehicle, as if you were a happy family bringing it home from the corner lot or the forest. But, like the simple coffee cup that evolved into the feast, soon a plain green pine tree wasn’t sufficient.

  Teams used artificial trees, of course, tied lengthwise, usually with the stump looming above the car hood and ropes holding it secure to the bumpers. Beginning with the original Tree Night, teams draped their branches with silver tinsel. Teams wired bright stars to the crown that hung and bobbed above the car’s trunk. People glued or wired shining ornaments among the needles. As early as two hours before a Tree Night window, Party Crashers will parade; atop their cars, their trees twinkle with colored lights, and a cord trails through a window to their cigarette lighter or vehicle wiring harness. Christmas carols will boom from every car stereo.

  The moment the game window opens, those Christmas lights go black. The parading cars go silent. Teams scatter, and the real hunting begins.

  Shot Dunyun: The auctioneer is saying, “Forty dollars. Do I have forty dollars? Come on, folks, it costs more than that to fill a gas tank. Do I have thirty dollars…?”

  Echo’s still leaned over, with both arms buried up to the shoulders in engine, her face cheek-to-cheek with a valve cover, when Tina Something comes to stand behind her, saying, “Hey, whore!”

  Rant’s planted both elbows on a front fender, peering under the hood at Echo.

  The auctioneer’s saying, “Do I hear twenty-five? Twenty-five dollars…?”

  And Tina says, “You, stop calling bogus fouls on me.” Talking to Echo’s butt, Tina says, “You foul me out and I’ll phone in fake shit on you.”

  From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms: With their Christmas lights extinguished, the Tree Cars become black, shaggy, scratchy…monsters. The soft tinkle of swinging glass and crystal drops, a faint clue. A team might drive past any dark hedge or bush only to see it blaze into a hundred colors in their rearview mirror. A squeal of tires, and that mass of sparkling light and color will sideswipe their vehicle and again vanish into the night.

  Shot Dunyun: The auctioneer is saying. “Twenty dollars? Can we start the bidding at twenty…?”

  And from inside the engine compartment, her face still against the firewall, Echo says, “Forget you. I don’t even know your current plate.” Still giving Tina nothing but ass, Echo goes, “How do I call fouls on you if I don’t know your plate?”

  The auctioneer says, “Twenty! I got twenty. Do I hear twenty-five? Who wants to bid twenty-five…?”

  Rant watches Echo, still propped on his elbows, leaning into the fender. Me, I’m still watching, out-cording so I can live this at home later.

  Tina says, “Hey, Day Boy…” To Rant, louder, she says, “You, with the black teeth! Day Boy!”

  Rant looks up. His shirtsleeves rolled back to show the bite scars on his forearms.

  And Tina says, “Has your girlfriend told you what she does for work? How she makes the cash she spends on wheels?”

  Rant says nothing. Just from habit, I spit. Spit again.

  One of Echo’s arms pulls back, out of the engine compartment, the elbow bending to show a hand. The hand stuffs an adjustable crescent wrench into one back pocket of her pants.

  And to Echo’s ass, to the wrench poking out of her pocket, Tina Something says, “Your girlfriend you like so much, she fucks for money.” Tina crosses her arms over her chest, leans back, and yells, “Your little girlfriend is a gaddamn whore.”

  From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms: The day following a Tree Night, the streets sparkle. They gleam. Gold and silver strands of tinsel flicker and flutter in the wind. Shattered glass ornaments crunch under passing tires.

  Shot Dunyun: The auctioneer is saying, “…I have twenty-three. A bid of twenty-three dollars. Going once…”

  Echo steps back, stands, and turns to look at Tina.

  And Rant says, “Is that true?”

  The auctioneer says, “…going twice…”

  Echo twists her head to both sides until her neck pops, and she says, “Is what true?”

  Rant says, “What she said.” He says, “Are you really my girlfriend?”

  And the auctioneer says, “Sold!”

  21–Echo

  Canada Mercer ( Software Engineer): My wife and I hired Echo Lawrence after a dinner party. A couple we knew, the Tyson-Neals, had just given birth to their first child, and the baby’s needs kept interrupting the meal. After the mother had disappeared to tend it for the umpteenth time, the father remarked, “I’m glad we experimented with three-ways before we started a family.” With a newborn, he said, they’d never have the time and privacy necessary to experiment with bondage and vibrators and poli
ce uniforms. But now all of that was behind them, so they had no regrets about this baby. They seemed very happy.

  As we left that dinner party, Sarah and I felt so far behind the curve. Here we were considering a child of our own, and we’d never even tried anal. We’d never even discussed a three-way. A few days later, we phoned the Tyson-Neals and asked how they’d met a woman who’d consider intimacy with a couple. They knew a young lady who worked with no one except couples our age. A Nighttimer girl who’d be happy to come to our apartment after the curfew.

  Echo Lawrence ( Party Crasher): Forget it. The police never found the fucker that smashed into my family. The last I remember of my parents, we were driving. We were always driving. My mother always drove a gray car that came with her job, so covered with dents it looked like tinfoil someone had balled up and then tried to press smooth. As an infrastructure engineer, my mother always lectured me on service flow rates: Level of Service E versus K. She’d stop in the middle of an overpass so we could look at the roadway below with the traffic passing under us, and she’d quiz me about Hourly Volume and the Peak-Hour Factor of measuring traffic flow.

  I was asleep across the backseat of that gray car when someone smacked into us, head-on.

  Sarah Mercer ( Marketing Director): When she arrived, the young woman had what I’d call a withered arm. One of her elbows was crooked, bent a smidgen, and that hand seemed stunted. The fingers curled into the palm, and she never used them to grasp or lift anything. Her leg on that same side was shorter, and she seemed to swing it from her hip with each step, walking into our living room with a pronounced limp.