Night Talk

Caryn White lived up to her name. Mostly. She was frigid with her husband, howled and clawed like a hellcat in heat when her son’s friends were around, and dutifully notified other absolutely irreplacable and societally indespensable lebensborn like her when followed by something a shade too dark or a tad too twitchy, only later realizing it was her own shadow.

Only time she couldn’t be bothered was when her foot was pressed firmly to the peddle, tempting dangerous curves to make up for not having any herself. The time is tomorrow. The place – a nondescript hatchback. The FM is tuned to an easy-listening channel, lo-fi beats buzzing unobtrusively in the background. In just a moment, mrs. Caryn White will learn the price of her slice of Americana and what it takes to maintain it, here, in The Place Where Honkies Fear to Tread.

Caryn pulled over onto the shoulder to pop a couple Xanax, on the verge of one of her patented panic attacks, having glanced up and done a double-take thinkin’ she saw Rod Serling in her rearview. As she tilted back her water bottle, tapping it for the last view drops – nothing came – dry capsules between her teeth, an obese shadow slammed straight through the window on the shotgun side, spilling glass on the car floor, somehow slipping the window frame and plopping down.

She jerks and catches the dial, cranking it to another channel.

The huffing gorilla panting next to her looks like Shaft if he’d been shot up with lard, down to the same stretched leather jacket.

“Go! Go!”

She’s too dumb to scream.

“Losing My Religion” starts up.  

“Go!”

She moves back onto Mulholland and carefully observes all the stop signs.

The FM crackles.

Caryn…

“Y-You say something?”

“Shut it. Lemme think.”

A burst of static from the radio --

Caryn!

She leans into the curbs, foot not giving a single millimeter on the pedal. 

Don’t say this isn’t happening Caryn. Say: this is happening.

She keeps jerking her head to look at the big dumb ape chewing on his thumbnail, staring blankly ahead.

Know where he was moments ago? Tried kidnapping a toddler.

She finally eases up on the gas.

He’s yours to do with as you please Caryn. Always as you please. But don’t gloat. Don’t you ever fucking gloat.

It’s enough that these cunts get fucked, those who are cunts – your snide remarks are unnecessary. You haven’t done a thing to have earned such a holier-than-thou attitude. Are you listening Caryn?

 “He’s a fucking kidnapper!”

A paw smashes her across the face.

…The front left headlight is totaled. She doesn’t remember that happening.

The radio’s screaming: How does other people’s shitiness undermine your shitiness, Caryn? How are you automatically a saint just because the fuck sitting next to you is shit?  

“I have fucking kids!”

So do these assholes.

“I-I graduated from Dartmouth! I have a house with a pool! I have my husband’s balls in a vice and no outstanding credit card debt a-and I-I uh, stimulate the economy by shopping at Louis Vuitton and have lunch at Century City! I only have one speeding ticket and two cavities and chuck used high-heels a-a-a-at chickenhead-crackwhores on the corner in Inglewood!”

The would-be toddler-snatcher pushes himself closer to the door, jerking the handle. Locked. 

Have you cured cancer? Have you found a solution to world-hunger or thought of a way to terraform Mars? Have you discovered cold-fusion or a grand unified theory? The way you go on, you must, at the very least, have the true identities of the Zodiac, Lady of the Dunes, Somerton Man and Eastbound Strangler rattling around up there. 

“I will not be preached at by a fucking box! I-I will no-”

What’ve you actually done to prove you’re any more indespensable than this tubby fuck? Sure he deserves to get gutted by the pigs, or rammed by the inmates, but if fucks like you are gonna act like you’re freaking Jesus, it’s only fair you get crucified too!  

“ I haven’t done anything to anyone!”

You don’t have to be Aileen Wuornos to be an absolute shit.

“WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?! WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN?!”

The turkey-stuffed dingo rolls around the cabin as she screeches another corner, eyes buggin’ outta his head like an old-time minstrel show.

“Is it so wrong to want safety, you fucking George Stephanopoulos cock-tugging - 

Everyone wants safety. The rabbit in its burrow wants safety from the wolf sniffing around outside - but who has more right to the forest? You’re not the only critter in the world, you don’t get to demand the world to tolerate your bitch-ass just because you’re part of some race of self-apotheosizing mutated chimps. What have you done for all mankind to justify the effort to “protect” you? The millions shat on to give you, you, a stupid bitch afraid of her own shadow, a sense of “safety” in a world where there’s no such thing?”

“Maybe we can’t make the world safe, but we can make it Safer. Right? Am I crazy?”

She shoots a desperate look at the grown-ass man with shit slipping down his jean legs.

The thing is, your type will never feel safe. Your sense of “enough is fucking enough already” is more warped than any criminal’s. In fact, it’s non-existent. It’s a psychosis. Every white American is basically Julianne Moore’s character in ‘Safe’.    

“Wild animals belong in a cage!”

Wild animals are for the wild. The cage is for the sheltered; It is the sheltered who are inadequate for the world around you.

“Am I the only sane person left?!”

Bitch, you’re arguing with a radio.

She splutters out more pre-recorded cliches:

“If they don’t know how to behave…”

Maybe the problem is you not knowing how to handle them.

“They can’t be handled!”

She grits the dry pills still clenched between her teeth as she takes her eyes off the road to stare down the intruder.

“Listen lady, I-I…”

How did man domesticate the wolf? Was it by caging the beast? Or beating him? NO! He drew the wolf closer and closer to his campfire, gradually, tossing him scraps of meat.

“Shut it! The second I leave this car in Torrington or Inglewood, a shit-stain like this motherfucker is going to smash one of the windows that isn’t broken and haul you off!”

Better than dealin’ with your crazy ass.  

“Think of the children! Won’t someone think of the children?!”

Know why they’re all such pussies now? Do you wanna know Caryn, why your goddam brats are such delicate snowflakes who’s Kryptonite is fucking glutin, who turn every fucking Jew joke into a fucking crusade, who’s idea of being a “responsible” citizen is online bullying some fucking yokel wearing a Dukes of Hazard T, and afterwards pat themselves on the back as if they just stopped an African genocide, who think skipping lamb for dinner makes them fucking Superman saving the world, being a limp-dick vegan makes them on par with Buddha – Veganism doesn’t make you live forever, it just makes your balls shrivel up! – and who are now bigger assholes than all those gutless automatons giving the Bellamy salute to a Charlie Chaplin lookalike? You did this Caryn.

“Oh shove it!

You bring out the worst in everyone, Caryn. You drive everyone insane, then when they snap – and realistically, there’s only so much shit you get to fucking expect people to take – and rightfully attack you, they’re the ones who get fucked.  

She jerks the dial. The radio voice, now distorted, keeps crackling over the ads, the DJ and finally over Manson screaming out “Irresponsible Hate Anthem.”    

Then do something about it! If you find his existence so unconscionable, do something about it, only don’t. Feed. The. Pigs! Don’t take away other people’s autonomy because you can’t do anything. Because you’re fine with having none personally. Do it yourself or shut the fuck up. Take this prick, who you know has no business being here and drive into a fucking pole, or plunge into the ocean, pull over and pipe him over the head, or shove him down a ravine, just shut the fuck up!

Your solution is I Kamikaze myself?

Don’t worry. Your husband will marry another trophy bimbo in less than a month and the kids won’t tell the difference. Stepford Wives are like goldfish.  

“I’m a White! I’m not supposed to learn lessons, or receive ironic punishments or grow as a person! My dad was a dentist! I was on The O.C. for fuck’s sake! You can see me in the background of two episodes!” 

From Mulholland onto Laurel, down into the city. Down. Down. Down.

The Lindbergh-baby enthusiast who picked this of all rides, and who in this light looks like Richard Pryor with Jubba-the-Hutt’s gut, can’t squeeze hisself through the window now.

“You can let me out here.” His voice cracks. They stop at a red light.

“Here. Here is good.”

He’s banging on the door, jerking, jerking, jerking the handle. Now. Now it’ll give. Ok now. Now.

She doesn’t hear him.

We’ll go down all the way to Santa Monica. And we’ll keep going.

Kill two birds with one collision. Drown two birds with one family-size vehicle. 

She goes quiet. Maybe the powdered Xanax taking hold. Maybe at peace with the idea.

She fiddles with the dial again. Driving on autopilot. Caryn has now left the body.

She patiently waits at the stop lights. Her passenger grips the handle, his other hand on the upholstery.

the kids won’t tell the difference. Stepford Wives are like goldfish.   

Static coagulates into a signal.

She hears Aimee Mann sing “Save Me.”

He hears an old Bauhaus track with “All We Ever Wanted Was Everything.”

Oh look. Rod Serling is in the backseat again. Wonder if Baby Huey here can see him?

Exit Caryn White. One among a million, ten million, hundred million just like her. A woman who left no discernable impression, did nothing to make the world a better place than when she found it, and who’s only sense of pride came from sicking the dogs on the big, scary boogeyman crawling under her bed with just the tap of a few phone buttons and the utterance of a single cry. Only now, on the last night of her life, did she personally do something about the evils that populate the world. Don’t look for her vehicle on Mulholland. You won’t find it. Try combing the ocean floor, or any Place Where Honkies Fear to Tread.