“Don’t, Brad,” says Doris. “Do not.”
“Think about what you’re doing, Bradster,” says Chaz Wayne.
“Listen to me carefully, Brad,” says Doris. “Go up onto the roof, install the roof platform, duct-tape the AIDS baby to the roof platform, then come directly down, borrow your butter, and go home.”
“Or else,” says Chaz Wayne.
From the yard comes the sound of sobbing.
Sobbing and grunting.
Or else? thinks Brad.
Brad remembers when Old Rex was sent to the old folks’ home against his will and said: Little pardner, sometimes a man has to take a stand, if he wants to go on being a man at all. The next day Old Rex vanished, taking Brad’s backpack, and years later they found out he’d spent the last months of his life hitchhiking around the West, involved with a series of waitresses.
What would Old Rex do in this situation? Brad wonders.
Then he knows.
Brad races outside, picks up a handful of decorative lava stones, and pelts the pigs until they flee to a bone-dry watering hole, with vultures, toward the rear of the yard.
Then he loads the corpses into the wheelbarrow, races around the side of the house, past the air-conditioning unit and the papier-mâché clown head from the episode when Doris was turning thirty and he tried to cheer her up, and loads the corpses into the back of the Suburban, after first removing the spare tire and Doris’s gym bag.
Then he races back inside, grabs Doug, races out, tucks Doug between the woman corpse and the corpse who died fending off blows, and gets behind the wheel.
What he’ll do is drive down Eiderdown Path, across Leaping Fawn Way, Bullfrog Terrace, and Waddling Gosling Place, and drop Doug off at the EmergiClinic, which is located in the Western Slope Mini-Mall, between PetGalaxy and House of Perms. Then he’ll go live in Chief Wayne’s former apartment. He’ll clean out the garage for the corpses. He’ll convert Chief Wayne’s guest room into a nursery for Doug. He’ll care for Doug and the corpses, and come over here once a day to borrow his butter, trying to catch Doris’s eye, trying to persuade her to leave Chaz Wayne and join him in his important work.
Suddenly Brad’s eyes are full of tears.
Oh Doris, he thinks. Did I ever really know you?
Just then a gray van screeches into the driveway and six cops jump out.
“Is this him?” says a cop.
“I’m afraid so,” says Doris, from the porch.
“This is the guy who had questionable contacts with foreign Filipinos and was seen perversely loading deceased corpses into his personal vehicle for his own sick and nefarious purposes?” says another cop.
“I’m afraid so,” says Chaz Wayne.
“Well, I guess we all learned something from this,” says Grandma Sally.
“What I learned?” says Doris. “Is praise God we’re now free to raise our future children in a hopeful atmosphere, where the predominant mode is gratitude, gratitude for all the blessings we’ve been given, free of neuroses and self-flagellation.”
“You can say that again,” says Uncle Gus.
“Actually, I’m not sure I can!” says Doris.
“Well, if you’re not going to be using that hot mouth of yours, how about I use it?” says Chaz Wayne, and gives Doris an aggressive tongue kiss while sliding his hands up to Doris’s full hot breasts.
This is the last thing Brad sees as the cops wrestle him into the van.
As the van doors start to close, Brad suddenly realizes that the instant the doors close completely, the van interior will become the terrifying bland gray space he’s heard about all his life, the place one goes when one has been Written Out.
The van doors close completely.
The van interior becomes the bland gray space.
From the front yard TV comes the brash martial music that indicates an UrgentUpdateNewsMinute.
Animal-rights activists have expressed concern over the recent trend of spraying live Canadian geese with a styrene coating which instantaneously kills them while leaving them extremely malleable, so it then becomes easy to shape them into comical positions and write funny sayings on DryErase cartoon balloons emanating from their beaks, which, apparently, is the new trend for outdoor summer parties. The inventor of FunGeese! has agreed to begin medicating the geese with a knockout drug prior to the styrene-spray step. Also, the Pentagon has confirmed the inadvertent bombing of a tribal wedding in Taluchistan. Six bundled corpses are shown adjacent to six shallow graves dug into some impossibly dry-looking soil near a scary gnarled-looking dead tree.
“We’ve simply got to get some of those FunGeese!” says Doris.
“Plus a grill, and some marination trays,” says Chaz Wayne. “That way, I can have some of my slutty porn stars cook something funky for our summer party while wearing next to nothing.”
“And meanwhile I’ll think of some funny things to write in those thingies,” says Doris.
“I hope I can invite some of my dog friends?” says Buddy.
“Do your dog friends have butts?” says Chaz Wayne.
“Does it matter?” says Buddy. “Can I only invite them if they have butts?”
“I’m just wondering in terms of what I should cook,” says Chaz Wayne. “If they have no butts, I’ll make something more easily digestible.”
“Some of them have butts, yes, says Buddy in a hurt but resigned tone.
Then we hear the familiar music that indicates the backyard has morphed, and see that the familiar Carrigan backyard is now the familiar Carrigan backyard again, only better. The lawn is lush and green, the garden thick with roses, adjacent to the oil pit for Orgy Night is a swimming pool with a floating wet bar, adjacent to the pool is an attractive grouping of FunGeese! with tantalizingly blank DryErase cartoon balloons.
We see from the joyful way Doris and Chaz Wayne lead the other guests into the yard, and from the happy summerparty swell of the music, that this party is just beginning, and also, that it’s time for a commercial.
Back at the Carrigans’, Brad floats weightlessly in the bland gray space.
Floating nearby is Wampum, Chief Wayne’s former horse. Brad remembers Wampum from the episode where, while they were all inside playing cards, Wampum tried to sit in the hammock and brought it crashing down.
“He used to ride me up and down the prairie,” mumbles Wampum. “Digging his bare feet into my side, praising my loyalty.”
Brad knows this is too complicated. He knows that if Wampum insists on thinking in such complicated terms, he will soon devolve into a shapeless blob, and will, if he ever gets another chance, come back as someone other than Wampum. One must, Brad knows, struggle single-mindedly to retain one’s memory of one’s former identity throughout the long period in the gray space, if one wants to come back as oneself.
“Brad brad brad,” says Brad.
“I used to eat hay, I believe,” says Wampum. “Hay or corn. Or beans? Some sort of grain product, possibly? At least I think I did. Oh darn. Oh jeez.”
Wampum falls silent, gradually assuming a less horselike form. Soon he is just a horse-sized blob. Then he is a ponysized blob, then an inert dog-sized blob incapable of speech.
“Brad brad brad,” says Brad.
Then his mind drifts. He can’t help it. He thinks of the Belstonians, how frightened they must be, sealed in large plastic bags at the police station. He thinks of poor little Doug, probably even now starving to death sunburned on the familiar Carrigan roof.
The poor things, he thinks. The poor, poor things. I should have done more. I should have started earlier. I could have seen it all as part of me.
Brad looks down. His feet are now two mini-blobs attached to two rod-shaped blobs that seconds ago were his legs, in his khakis.
He is going, he realizes.
He is going, and will not be coming back as Brad.
He must try at least to retain this feeling of pity. If he can, whoever he becomes will inherit this feeling, and b
e driven to act on it, and will not, as Brad now sees he has done, waste his life on accumulation, trivia, self-protection, and vanity.
He tries to say his name, but has, apparently, forgotten his name.
“Poor things,” he says, because these are now the only words he knows.
in persuasion nation
1
A man and a woman sit in a field of daisies.
“Forever?” he says.
“Forever,” she says, and they kiss.
A giant Twinkie runs past, trailed by perhaps two hundred young women.
The woman leaps to her feet and runs to catch up with the Twinkie.
“The sweetest thing in the world,” the voiceover says, “just got sweeter.”
The man sits sadly in the field of daisies. Luckily, a giant Ding-Dong runs past, trailed by perhaps two hundred young men.
The man leaps to his feet and runs to catch up with the Ding-Dong.
“But not to worry,” the voiceover says. “There’s more than enough sweetness to go around!”
The Ding-Dong puts his arm around the young man, and the young man smiles up at the Ding-Dong, and the DingDong bends down and gives the young man a kiss on the head.
2
A hip-looking teen watches an elderly woman hobble across the street on a walker.
“Grammy’s here!” he shouts.
He puts some MacAttack Mac &Cheese in the microwave and dons headphones and takes out a video game so he won’t be bored during the forty seconds it takes his lunch to cook. A truck comes around the corner and hits Grammy, sending her flying over the roof into the backyard, where luckily she lands on a trampoline. Unluckily, she bounces back over the roof, into the front yard, landing in a rosebush.
“Timmy,” Grammy says feebly. “Call 911.”
Just then the bell on the microwave dings.
We see from the look on his face that Timmy is conflicted.
“Timmy dear,” Grammy says. “For God’s sake. It’s me. Your Grammy, dear.”
Timmy comes to his senses, takes his MacAttack Mac &Cheese from the microwave, and sits languorously eating it while listening to his headphones while playing his video game.
“Sometimes you just gotta have your MacAttack,” the voiceover says.
Grammy scowls in the bush. We see that she is a grouchy old unhip hag who probably wouldn’t have even been cool enough to let Timmy have his MacAttack, but would likely have forced him to eat some unhip old-person gruel or fruit.
Then fortunately Grammy’s head drops back, and she is dead.
3
An orange and a Slap-of-Wack bar sit on a counter.
“I have vitamin C,” says the orange.
“So do I,” says the Slap-of-Wack bar.
“I have natural fiber,” says the orange.
“So do I,” says the Slap-of-Wack bar.
“You do?” says the orange.
“Are you calling me a liar?” says the Slap-of-Wack bar.
“Oh no,” says the orange politely. “I was just under the impression, from reading your label? That you are mostly comprised of artificial colors, an innovative edible plastic product, plus high-fructose corn syrup. So I guess I’m not quite sure where the fiber comes in.”
“Slap it up your Wack!” shouts the Slap-of-Wack bar, and sails across the counter, jutting one pointy edge into the orange.
“Oh God,” the orange says in pain.
“You’ve got an unsightly gash,” says the Slap-of-Wack bar. “Do I have an unsightly gash? I think not. My packaging is intact, weakling.”
“I have zero calories of fat,” says the orange weakly.
“So do I,” says the Slap-of-Wack bar.
“How can that possibly be the case?” says the orange in frustration. “You are comprised of eighty percent high-fructose corn syrup.”
“Slap it up your Wack!” shouts the Slap-of-Wack bar, and sails across the counter and digs its edge into the orange over and over, sending the orange off the counter and into the garbage can, where it is leered at by a perverted-looking chicken carcass and two evil empty cans of soda.
“Now you have zero of zero of zero,” says the Slap-ofWack bar.
“The Slap-of-Wack bar,” says the voiceover. “For when you’re feeling Wacky!”
4
Two best friends look at their penises under sophisticated microscopes.
“You call this Elongated?” says one man.
“Jim, I gained four inches,” says the other. “Perhaps you should try my brand.”
“What is your brand, Kevin?” says the other.
“My brand is, I hang a brick from my penis and stand for hours at the edge of the Grand Canyon,” says Kevin.
“Okay Kevin,” says Jim. “You’ve been my dearest friend since kindergarten. I’ll give it a try.”
Then we see Jim standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, brick hanging from his penis, while Kevin tiptoes toward Jim’s car, and a voiceover says: Pontiac Sophisto: So sophisticated, it might just make you trick your best friend into dangling a brick from his penis!
While Jim is distracted by the pain of the brick on his penis, Kevin squeals away in Jim’s Sophisto. As Jim spins around to look, his penis rips off and plummets into the Grand Canyon. Jim smiles wryly, acknowledging Kevin’s trick but also Kevin’s good taste in cars, then starts down into the Grand Canyon, to retrieve and, hopefully, reattach his penis.
5
A young man leaving a nursing home gives his ancient grandmother and grandfather what might be a final hug.
“My advice, son?” says the grandfather. “Find yourself a woman like this one.’
Turning to go, tears in his eyes, the young man drops his car keys. As he picks them up, a bag of Doritos falls out of his pocket.
The grandmother and grandfather race in fast-motion for the bag of Doritos, kicking, gouging, and biting each other. The grandfather finally wins with a hard elbow to the grandmother’s throat, which knocks her unconscious.
“Grandpa, what are you doing?” the young man says. “It’s just a bag of Doritos.”
“Just a bag of Doritos?” says the grandfather.
“You speak lies, scum,” says the grandmother, regaining consciousness. Then the grandmother and grandfather nod to the Doritos bag, which rams into the young man, who falls to the floor and is kicked repeatedly by his grandparents.
“Grandma, Grandpa, please, stop!” the young man says.
Hearing herself called Grandma, the grandmother hesitates. The Doritos bag scowls at her. The grandfather kicks her in the stomach, and she falls to the floor.
“Who do you think you are?” the young man screams at the Doritos bag. “Do you believe yourself to be some sort of god? You’re a bag of corn chips, with tons of salt and about nine coloring agents! That’s all! That’s all you are!”
The Doritos bag takes a huge sword from behind the back of its bag and decapitates the young man.
“Now what do you have to say?” says the grandmother.
“Nothing,” says the young man’s head.
“Do you love Doritos more than anything?” says the bag of Doritos.
The young man’s head hesitates.
The Doritos bag cleaves the head in two.
The grandfather, prompted by the bag of Doritos, kicks one half of the head into the street, where it is run over by a Doritos truck and reduced to mush. On the other, unmushed, half of a head, one eyebrow goes up in sudden fear.
“Care for a Dorito?” says the grandfather.
“Yes,” the remaining half a head says.
“Yes please?” says the grandfather.
“Yes please,” says the remaining half a head.
“Yes please, it is sweeter to me than the most profound nectar?” says the grandfather.
“Yes please, it is sweeter to me than the most profound nectar,” says the remaining half a head.
“Fat chance,” says the grandfather. “You’re not good enough for even a tiny
fragment of a Dorito!”
Then he kicks the remaining half a head into the street, alongside the mush, and the Doritos truck backs up over the second half of head, reducing it to a second pile of mush.
“Do you still believe that Doritos is merely a bag of corn chips, with a ton of salt and about nine coloring agents?” the grandfather screams at the two piles of mush.
The piles of mush are too frightened to answer.
The bag of Doritos and the grandfather and the grandmother walk off, stepping comically over the two mushes with exaggeratedly high steps, as if revulsed.
They are escaping from the old folks’ home, going to live in the land of Doritos, which is not in Mexico, exactly, but is very much like Mexico.
6
The grandfather and grandmother and the bag of Doritos can now see the land of Doritos in the near distance, beautiful and arid. Everywhere they look are bags of Doritos, working industriously.
Suddenly their path is blocked by the two piles of mush.
“What the?” says the grandfather who loves Doritos. Suddenly the piles of mush are joined by Grammy-the woman who died in a bush, neglected by her grandson Timmy, having been hit by a truck.
Then Grammy and the piles of mush are joined by the orange violated by the Slap-of-Wack bar.
Then Grammy and the piles of mush and the orange are joined by Jim the penisless man, who is still limping a little, and occasionally gaping down incredulously into his pants.
“Get out of our way,” says the bag of Doritos.
“We’re trying to get home, to our sacred land of Doritos,” says the grandmother who loves Doritos.
Just then the man briefly involved with the gigantic Ding Dong comes running up and joins Grammy, the mush piles, the orange, and Jim the penisless man.
“Sorry I’m late,” he says.
“Actually?” says the orange, with a hint of bravado. “You’re right on time.”
The grandfather, the grandmother, and the bag of Doritos see that they are badly outnumbered.
Luckily, at that moment they are joined by the giant DingDong, the Slap-of-Wack bar, Timmy, grandson of Grammy (even now eating from a container of MacAttack Mac & Cheese), and Kevin, the man who tricked Jim out of his penis.