Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey

by Chuck Palahniuk

  Stated simply: a god.

  Allan Blayne: In my capacity as a crewman, I counseled the survivor, a woman approximately twenty-five years of age, coaxing her to remain calm until she could be examined by paramedics already at the scene. Encasing the survivor was what can only be described as a shell or cocoon of rigid netting. Inspection of the inside surface of this shell proved it to be the burned and melted remnants of synthetic-fiber apparel and headwear, apparently the remains of a long white dress and veil of the type worn by brides at traditional wedding ceremonies.

  In my effort to keep the survivor calm, I asked her age, her name, and birthdate.

  Perhaps due to shock, she responds, “One hundred and sixty-three years old next month.” Twisting her shoulders and torso inside the cocoon of debris, the survivor then said, “That was way fun; now get this burned shit off me…”

  Tina Something: Waxman watches this miracle girl walk across the tracks, barefoot and wrapped in a blanket, and Wax says, “That’s where I want to get…”

  I guessed Wax meant she was pretty.

  This miracle girl is looking right back in his eyes.

  But that’s not what Wax meant. Not even close.

  Neddy Nelson: You want I should introduce you to a Historian? You want to be alive and stupid, or do you want to be a know-it-all dead body?

  From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms: In a somewhat hideous parody of the Annunciation, the time traveler would make a pilgrimage to a direct ancestor, ideally the traveler’s mother or father, at a time before the traveler’s conception—for the purpose of killing that ancestor.

  Shot Dunyun: Again, do not confuse Stoking with Resolving Origin. Stoking means you flashback to breed a better you. Resolving Origin means you slaughter some ancestor to make sure you’ll never be born. I’ll grant you, they’re both pretty nasty.

  Neddy Nelson: Historians, don’t they call it Destroying Source or Severing Origin? Haven’t you heard it called Resolving Origin? Doesn’t it make sense, that, serial killers like the Zodiac and Jack the Ripper, those were people dropped back into time and having trouble finding and “resolving” their mothers?

  Tina Something: I never hear from Wax, not until a long, long time after Rant Casey takes his suicide dive off the bridge. In the meanwhile, certain police have been asking me if Wax has been in touch. It seems some kids died rolling a Jaguar X-Type inside a concrete highway tunnel. The car turned out to be stolen, and Wax’s wallet was in the back pocket of some jeans left behind in the wreck. As if Wax totaled a Jag, killing two kids and leaving his gaddamn pants behind…

  Neddy Nelson: You wonder why we always have war and famine? Can you accept the fact that the people, the Historians who run everything, they get off on watching our mortality?

  Tina Something: A couple weeks later, the cops are calling about Wax again. Seems another kid’s died in a stolen car, this time a BMW 3 Series 325i. Seems a witness is ready to swear that, the second after the car sailed off the top of an eight-story parking garage, landing nose-straight into a concrete sidewalk, killing the kid in the shotgun seat, after that disaster Karl Waxman climbed out from behind the shattered windshield and walked away.

  And again, I told the cops I hadn’t heard a word.

  Neddy Nelson: How can you expect Historians to feel anything for the suffering of the rest of us? Do you cry when a flower wilts? When a carton of milk goes sour? Don’t you think they’ve seen so many people die that their sympathy or empathy or whatever is pretty much wore out?

  Tina Something: Another time the cops called, they claimed they’d matched fingerprints on the steering wheel of the BMW to fingerprints in Wax’s apartment. The cops asked, was I harboring him?

  From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms: One of the common tenets shared by widely divergent spiritual beliefs is the rule that an individual can only attain true power by “killing his father.” One possibility is that said rule was not meant metaphorically. The primary difficulty would lie in transporting oneself backward to a time before one’s birth.

  Then, of course, comes the physically easier but emotionally tricky task of murdering one’s own parent.

  Tina Something: To try and find Wax, I looked up his mom in the phone book, Gloria Waxman, but she’s not listed. Her maiden name was Elrick, so I call the few Elricks I find. One says, wrong number. When I ask for Gloria Elrick or Waxman at the other number, some old lady hangs up the phone on me. About ten times this old lady hangs up, so I drive over for a visit to the address listed in the phone book. Behind the apartment door, the same old-lady voice tells me to go away, but I don’t.

  I keep knocking and pounding, saying I know Gloria and Wax are around and saying I only want to talk.

  Finally, I threaten to tell the police, and somebody inside unlocks the apartment door. Some old man opens the door enough I can see the gaddamn chain’s still on, and he tells me to go away or he’ll call the police himself. This old man says his daughter, Gloria Elrick, she died almost twenty-some years back. Seems she was parking with her steady boyfriend, and a maniac shot them both dead in the car. A total stranger, a young man with no apparent motive, somebody nobody knew from Adam, had killed Gloria and her boyfriend. And the old man slams the door in my face.

  Through the door, I ask what was the boyfriend’s name.

  And the old man says, “Go away!”

  I yell, “Just tell me his name!”

  And the old man says, “Anthony.” Through the door he yells, “Tony Waxman.” He yells, “Now, you go!”

  From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms: However, once one had made the journey and completed the task, to become immortal, to live eternally in a world where everything and everyone would wither and die while you accumulated knowledge and wealth, becoming the most powerful leader of all time—for all time—that seems well worth the effort.

  Neddy Nelson: You don’t think a real Historian wouldn’t kill you just for laughs?

  Tina Something: The last time I seen Wax, I was Tag Teaming, wearing a bridesmaid dress, making a last-ditch effort to get picked for a team, and a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud pulls up to the curb. Scrawled down the polished side of the body, white and pink spray paint says “Just Married.” The shotgun window rolls down, and inside, leaning over from the driver’s seat, is Wax, smiling and saying, “Hey, baby, get in…”

  I ask, “Where you been?”

  And Wax says, “I did it…”

  “Did what?” I ask him.

  Neddy Nelson: Next, after Historians “terminate origins,” don’t they go through a long process called something like “residual fading,” where every trace of the old them starts to disappear?

  Tina Something: Karl Waxman tells me he’s got no more future or past. He never has to eat another bite of food or sleep another wink. No more haircuts. No more bowel movements. No aging or injuries or illness. No death. He’s outside of time.

  And Wax says, “I am without beginning or end.” He says, “And I can make you a goddess.”

  Yeah, I say. Like he made that burned-up kid in the BMW a god? And the kids in the Land Rover?

  And Wax laughs and says he was just goofing with them. Wax says, once you’re immortal, you forget that other people aren’t; you start screwing around, and somebody gets their head cut off. The way they screamed, he says they sounded funny as hell.

  With me, he says, it will be different.

  Yeah, I say. Like he made his mom and dad immortal?

  The Rolls-Royce, the shotgun door pops open, and Wax says, “Just get in, baby.” With his hand, Wax pats the seat next to him, saying, “You won’t be young, forever…” He says, “Unless you trust me.”

  And I didn’t get in his car. I slammed the door shut and said he was a dirtbag for not calling me. I said it was his turn to wait.

  “Oh, I can wait,” Wax said.

  Some Party Crashing kids have walked up, thrift-store brides and grooms, flocking to the Rolls with its tin-can tail and white strea
mers, ready to climb inside, asking if Wax needs a team, asking if they can all ride along.

  And I tell these kids, “Don’t.” I block the door with my hip and yell at them to get the fuck away from this guy. “You get in this car,” I tell them, “and this gaddamn psycho will murder you.”

  And the kids look at me like I’m the gaddamn psycho.

  That last night I see Wax, the last thing he says to me is, “Try and not forget me, baby.” And he blows me a kiss, pulling away, steering out into the flow of traffic.

  I haven’t Tag Teamed a night since then. All I hope is that’s the last time I ever see Karl Waxman.

  Neddy Nelson: Couldn’t you guess that old-time gods and saviors like Apollo and Isis and Shiva and Jesus are just losers with beater Torinos and Mustangs who went Party Crashing and found a way to “sever their origins”? Maybe they all started as real nobodies, but as their reality faded, a new story piled up around them?

  Tina Something: Soon as I got home, I phoned the gaddamn police detective that’s been bugging me. The detective says he’s never heard of any Karl Waxman.

  Allan Blayne: The stupid thing I said to the girl, it was just a reflex. In my capacity as a crewman, after we had her freed and wrapped in a blanket, I told her, “You are one lucky young lady.”

  Tina Something: In every gaddamn photo I have of me and Wax, he’s gone, just disappeared. They’re only photos of me, smiling, with my arm looped around nothing. My lips puckered, kissing air. When I try, I can’t even tell you if his eyes were brown or green. Ask me again in a few months and a hundred bucks says I’ve never, ever heard of Karl Waxman.

  Shot Dunyun: The way Rant told it to me, Simms didn’t want him to go back in time to fuck anybody. Now that Simms was his own super-hybrid, he wanted to be immortal. Simms wanted Rant to go back in time and kill his mom. Well, I guess—their mom.

  37–Resolving Origin

  From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms ( Historian): In Middleton, sleeping dogs have the permanent right-of-way…both metaphorically and literally.

  Echo Lawrence ( Party Crasher): So we went back to Middleton. To see the Middleton Christian Fellowship. The Sex Tornado. If we were lucky, the Tooth Museum and the wild dogs.

  Neddy Nelson ( Party Crasher): Didn’t we go to Middleton to see if Irene Casey was dead? Wasn’t our real reason to see if Rant had fulfilled the mission Simms sent him to do?

  Shot Dunyun ( Party Crasher): We parked Neddy’s Cadillac at the end of a gravel driveway that ran to a white farmhouse on the horizon, Rant’s house. All around that house, the yard where Rant had buried those stinking Easter eggs for his dad to find with the lawn mower.

  Echo Lawrence: We parked in the middle of the night and watched the house with a dark outline of Irene in the yellow square of the kitchen window. One of her hands holding a shape in her lap, while her other hand touched the shape and pulled away. Touched and pulled away. Her head bowed down, the light behind her, embroidering. We watched until Shot and Neddy fell asleep.

  Shot Dunyun: Until Echo fell asleep.

  Irene Casey ( Rant’s Mother): For Christmas one year, my mother and Granny Hattie gave me a sweater they’d made. I figure it was Hattie who’d knitted it, and my mother who’d embroidered the fancy detailing. Satin-stitched down the front were pink roses, padded with felt, with green cord-padded stems. All complicated. Mixed in the roses were violet periwinkle blossoms, made with long and short stitching. Scattered in the background were so many navy-blue bullion knots and smaller French knots, they made the white yarn of the sweater look light blue. Not a single pucker or stray bit of floss.

  It was a sweater for indoors, maybe for church on Sunday. Looking back, I should’ve pressed that sweater behind glass, inside a picture frame, and hung it on the wall. It was that kind of masterpiece.

  I couldn’t wait to show it off, but my mother said not to leave the house. After family started to arrive for Christmas dinner, all the aunts, uncles, and cousins, the house got so crowded I had no problem sneaking out.

  From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms: I hesitate to even comment further on this pathetic person, this Rant Casey. It’s regrettable that I ever discussed with him my theories about Liminal Time. Beyond that, he suffered hallucinations brought about by a terrible chronic disease, and died a horrible death in the deluded belief that it would be his salvation. Even as we depict him as a victim and a fool, our attention and energy create Casey as a martyr.

  Irene Casey: Down along the river, in the trees along the Middleton River, I used to walk and pretend the water was the sound of traffic. I’d pretend I lived in a city, full of noise, where anything wonderful could happen. Anytime. Not like Middleton, where my mother and aunts locked the doors at sundown. Even with our closest neighbors, the Elliots, a half-mile away, my mother pulled all the curtains in the house before she’d turn on a single light.

  My mother and my aunts grilled me about never talking to strangers.

  But there were never no strangers. Not in Middleton.

  From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms: To date, fourteen troubled people have driven their automobiles into obstacles and over precipices, dying in apparent imitation of Rant Casey. On a personal note, I deeply resent Mr. Casey casting me as a serial rapist and murderer.

  Irene Casey: Usually, the river was noisy and windy, but not that day. That Christmas, it was silent, froze. The ground was so hard you didn’t leave footprints. No wind swept the dead leaves or clattered the bare tree branches. You were like you were walking through a black-and-white photograph of winter, without sound or smells. Like I was the only alive thing moving, walking along the river path. My breath blowing out ghosts. The air so dry everything sparked my fingers with a shock of static.

  Near as I recollect, such a black-and-white day, my eyes must’ve been starved for color, since they saw the littlest flash of gold. Way out on the center of the froze river, the thin ice over deep water, my eyes seen just that littlest bright speck of gold.

  Tina Something ( Party Crasher): Green Simms would tell you that Rant was insane. He’s very much part of the elite, and he doesn’t want to see that threatened by any new order.

  Irene Casey: With one tennis shoe, I toe-kicked the shiny gold spot, round and bright. A coin. I pulled my long sweater sleeve, I slid the cuff back to keep it from getting dirty, and I stopped to touch the coin. To see if it was maybe chocolate. A chocolate-candy pirate coin wrapped in gold foil from the Trackside Grocery. With my other hand, I reached behind and held my hair together at the back of my neck. To keep the hair from falling in my face.

  The river ice, gritty with dirt, but slippery under my shoes. Under the ice, water so deep it looked black.

  With two fingers, I pinched the coin out of the dirty frost.

  From somewhere in the woods and cattails along the riverbank came barking, dogs snarling and snapping.

  Between my teeth, the coin was hard, not breaking, sticking to my lips with the cold. A real coin. Treasure. My tongue tasting gold, dated—

  And: “Hello.”

  Someone said, “Hello.”

  Dogs you couldn’t see, off a ways, howling.

  In back of me, a man came walking upstream on the deepest stretch of water, flat as a glass road. Ice all around us. He said, “Well, don’t you look nice…” The Christmas sky floated over him, blue as embroidery floss.

  Echo Lawrence: They don’t know I saw, but I woke up in the backseat of the car and saw Shot kiss Neddy Nelson on the lips. Shot said, “There, now you’re infected.”

  And Neddy said, “I’d better be, because I’m not doing that again.”

  Irene Casey: The man reached to finger the sleeve of my sweater, and he said, “Isn’t this pretty.”

  I started to step back, making my fist tight around the gold coin, to hide it in case it was his. Nodding at the cattails, I told him, “There’s wild dogs, mister.”

  His eyes and mouth made just a look. Not a smile or frown, more how you�
�d look if you was alone. The man’s fingers worked into the knotted yarn, and he said, “Relax.”

  I told him, “Don’t, mister.” I said, “Quit pulling, please.”

  He stretched the sleeve toward him, so hard you could hear the seam at the shoulder creak, a thread popped, and he said, “I’m not hurting you.”

  Holding the coin to hide it, saving it, left me with only one hand. My shoes sliding on the ice. To save my sweater, I stepped closer, saying, “You’re going to ruin it…”

  Neddy Nelson: Don’t you know rabies is key?

  Irene Casey: The sweater, the white yarn worked like a net. An acrylic spiderweb. With both hands, his fingers were tangled, worked deep into the knots and stitches, and when he dropped to his knees, his weight dragged me down. Buttoned to my neck, I twisted away from his clouds of ghost breath, and when he slid flat onto the dirty ice, he pulled me with him. The two of us tied and knotted together.

  In the brush around us, dogs barked. The man put his lips together in a kiss and said, “Shhhh. Hush.” The heart inside his coat, beating one thud for every four times mine jumped.

  His eyes rolled to look toward the barking, the dogs, and I told myself he was saving me. I was fine. He’d only grabbed me and pulled me down to protect me. He heard the dog pack coming, and he wanted us to hide.

  As the barking faded, moving down the river, his fingers still knotted in my sweater, he looked at me, from too close to see anything but my eyes. His eyelashes brushing mine, he said, “You ever wonder about your real daddy?”