I just "donated" $200 to the Indians today, so to remain in the giving spirit, I'm throwing up one of the more popular stories from by book. I haven't released anything new in many a moon here, but the reason for that will be announced at a later date. But enjoy this little nugget!
The Day I Did Kill 500 People and a Cow
I was so fucking glad to be done with this week of work. Everyday sucked more than the last, and today was the worst. I was so fired up and only had one thing on my mind, which was to get my ass home and forget the past five days ever happened. I finished my shift, and pretty much snuck out of there to avoid any conversations that would keep me there a second longer. I was so dedicated to leaving, that I ran past the bathroom, even though I had to piss pretty badly. Holiday weekends are always a bitch on the interstate, and I was ready for a tighter ride home. I don’t know where these people are every other day; they just seem to multiply on the Fridays before a long weekend. Assholes are mysterious if you think about it.
I was about to get on the last road before the highway, and there it was, a freaking traffic jam all the way back here, and I knew where it started, too. A 1000% chance of where I had to drive in order to get home. Holy hell, it took me 40 damn minutes to crawl onto the interstate itself, which was nothing but a parking lot full of people pointing in the same direction, really. Moving this slow made my mind wander, and the only thing I could focus on was the fact that I had to piss even worse than when I left. I am usually home by now, so every extra second out here is piling up the rage.
At least some cool trucker guy let me pull in front of him. I gave him a wave that said, “You fucking rock, man,” and he knew he rocked, because I could see it on his face from my rear view mirror. But that was the longest stretch I took at one time for about another hour and a half. I studied the back of the car in front of me. Every time I read the license plate, I wanted to spit on it, as it was an homage to being a hippie; a jumbled mess of letters that read “Flower Power” when spoken aloud at the right pace. How fucking cute, you hypocritical hairy-pitted troll of a woman! I chuckled in disbelief as she would flick the ashes off of her clove cigarette while also polluting the air with her car’s emissions. Oh, honey, do you really want to be the final straw out here on the interstate? Do you? At this point, the pressure of my bladder was biblical, only rivaling in intensity my hatred for humanity.
Then from out of nowhere, this blue piece of shit car was barreling up the side of the road, his car skipping along the rumble strip like a long fart in an empty church. Just another “Right Lane Retard”. There are oceans of them, man. And of course, the car tried to squeeze in between my car and the hairy polluter’s, but I wasn’t having any of that. I shot up a good foot and flashed the car my angry face. The guy driving the blue turd gave one right back at me, the dickhead. And what a puss it was, all crinkled up on the front of the biggest damn head I’ve ever seen. And then it happened. Melon Head flipped me off. And it was on. Big time.
As Melon Head pulled away, continuing up the rumble strip, I got out of my car and ran to the side of the road. I ripped off my pants and whipped it out. And with a blast that could launch a thousand space shuttles, I took aim. ZING! I took out his right rear tire with my laser-piss which could easily cut titanium from across the galaxy at this point. I laughed my ass off as Melon Head’s car flipped over about six times and landed on its roof. Then Melon Head crawled out of his window and stuck that boulder of his out the window and looked at me. “Touché” he really should have thought, but instead all he could do was give me that ugly crinkled puss look again, so I carved the top of his rind off with another shot from my awesome bladder. Blood geysered all over the place and I was sort of happy now.
I wondered if I could piss a hole to China, so to test my theory, I thought of a globe and aimed downward and let loose upon the earth. I knew I was deep, because steam shot up between my legs. All I needed was a guitar and a shitty song about rock n’ roll or some stupid chick with big hair and I would have been in a cock rock video doing a whiny solo, but who needs that?
Anyway, my aim was spot on, as my piss shot through a small village in China and up into the air, which was weird, because I pissed down, but the piss went up eventually, though it did both in the same line. I guess that falls into the “go west to get east” and “three lefts make a right” category. It is all perspective, I guess. As the stream went skyward, it pierced the fuel tank of a 747, which caused it to crash into the Great Wall. Such urinary devastation! I know what I did was cool, because the trucker who let me in blasted his air horn, and that is a badge of honor bestowed upon only the elite. And to let him know that I appreciated his gesture, I gave him an encore by pissing in every swimming pool on the planet. So I suppose that now everyone can come to my place and swim in my toilet. Although I was feeling pretty damn relieved, I still knew the horrible truth; I was still stuck in traffic.
Two hours. Six miles. Finally I could see for myself what the hold up was. A tractor trailer was upturned in the passing lane, which cut the interstate in half at the worst time possible. Everything was bottlenecked at this point, with cops and DOT workers all over the place. This mess should have been cleaned up a long time ago, if it weren’t for the fact that only two DOT workers are allowed to work at the same time. I think that is in some union bylaw or something. None of this shit would have happened if they just did their fucking job when they were supposed to. Then I see two of them hanging out near the pylons set up next to the only open lane of travel. They were having a drink and checking for hot chicks. Someone had to ruin their fun. Want to venture a guess?
I started running over the pylons until the two fools took notice. They were pissed and got all tough with me. I kept my car idling by while I got out and ran towards them. They didn’t know what to do, but I did, so things were cool. I kicked the first moron in the crotch so hard that I sliced him in half. His boyfriend took a swing at me, but I blocked it with my eye, and broke his hand with a swift winking motion. Then I took half of the first guy and nailed the guy with the broken hand into the ground down to his neck. I covered his head with a pylon and then hopped back into my car as it approached. The cops saw nothing and my trucker buddy finished the DOT guy off by running over his pylon/head. I never saw the trucker again, but I’m sure wherever he is, he is doing something awesome.
When I cleared the accident area, I was seriously jacked, because there was nothing but two empty lanes in front of me now. Finally doing about 75 after moving at a snail’s pace for over two hours was a rush. I’d be home in no time, or so I thought. I got a few miles further, and then saw another jam up ahead. I knew that some fool who couldn’t handle their newfound speed lost control or rammed someone. Here we go again. But as luck would have it, the next exit was coming up, right at the ass end of the new traffic jam. I got off of the interstate and decided to take the scenic route through the farms and hills. At least there would be little or no traffic, and that was all I wanted at this point.
My rage meter was about to turn off after slowly navigating the country roads, seeing nothing but fields and trees. As I drifted down a hill and neared a short bridge, I saw yet another obstacle in my way. Some asshole farmer had his tractor parked on the end of the bridge, and he was joined on the road by a cow. Yes, a fucking cow was now in my way. The farmer wasn’t even trying to move the cow, because he was too busy picking up a bunch of potatoes that fell off the back of his tractor. And to top it off, he didn’t even look my way the whole time. Hell, he didn’t give a shit that he was in my way. But I gave a shit that you would need to bust up with the business end of a plunger and pray like hell it would eventually flush.
I stomped my way across the bridge and gave him an ear-full. I told him to get the fuck off the road and to move that cow right now. He said something, but I was so pissed, my ears stopped working. He and his cow were about to have a farming-related accident.
I was so furious and in a zone, that I just looked at him and said, “Die.” So he did, right there in the middle of the road. He dropped all of the potatoes and most of them rolled under the cow. I got right in the cow’s face and asked her what’s up now? All I got was a pissy “Moo”, so I reeled back and that was it. I punched that stupid cow so hard that it rained hamburgers and French fries in Norway, and two baseball gloves and a leather jacket in Denmark. The jacket fell right onto this nerdy kid who read science fiction books and collected stamps. As the jacket slid onto his body, he became really cool all at once. He got laid right there on the spot, started smoking and bought a van. He’s still doing okay from what I hear, but I was kind of bummed out because I was initially aiming for Finland.
Sweet victory! I was now thirty seconds from home, and all I had to do was turn left at the light and that was that. I almost shed a tear. I saw a nice open space of oncoming traffic coming my way for me to easily make the turn and soon be on the couch with a beer. The moment I pressed on the gas pedal, this complete douche on a racing bike, which I didn’t see at first, started peddling like a maniac, seemingly trying to cut me off and beat me to this part of the road. I backed off and stopped my leftward progress. And at the last moment, I slid my car a bit closer to him and clothes-lined his head off. He was peddling so fast that his headless body kept on peddling down the road, into the sunset.
Weaver, this is epic. One of the best stories about freedom I've ever read. There's something vaguely Beat Generation about it, even though at the same time it's the complete opposite of that. It did make me have to go pee, though.
Also: the Danish are much less cool than the Finnish, so it was a net win. Neither country can claim any true black metal bands as their own, though.
Weaver, you already know that I know this story rocks, but I must admit reading it again just amplifies its level of awesome.
My two favorite moments: 1: The paragraph in which we first meet the farmer, the one that ends with the bit about the plunger. Priceless. 2: Everything about punching the cow and the effects of that very action. Comic gold. Definitely one of your finest moments.
Ed: I really believe that most of my works are literary catheters. Though less invasive, they tend to have longer recovery times of both soreness and shame.
Chris: The world of farming is ripe with the fruit of comedy that so few take the time to pick.
WVR:
What a lovely story, so full of energetic imagery and a palpable sense of place. If this is, as I suspect it might well be, a true account of your day, then you pee better and with more noble purpose than almost anyone I know.
The second-to-last paragraph is my favourite, what with an exploding cow and all. It probably will surprise you to know that I myself used to be a science-fiction-reading, stamp-collecting kid, just not in Denmark.
I eventually did get a leather jacket, but that wasn't until I was about sixteen, so I don't know how I managed to still be pretty cool by that time. Of course, my coolness then was the end result of a gradual process, not something that happened in an instant.
I really adore the fact that you worked a van into it, too.
Overall, there was a good feeling of sustained rage you kept up throughout the length of the piece. After reading it, I actually felt compelled to bust some shit up.
ED:
Do you not count Satanic Warmaster and Illnath as true Black Metal bands, then? I know the latter is Melodic Black Metal, but still, they work really hard for their appellation; their track "Hellish Butterfly" is a dandy little ditty to put on the ol' hi-fi at the end of a long day. Once the mix for "Ravenous Crows" is finalised, we may just have a serious contender for the new national anthem.
Only from Norway, Alex. Finland and Denmark are just victims of Trend. Their Nokia phones and chewing tobacco are nice, but are their hearts empty but for evil? Have they voyaged in darkness since birth, and known it as their home? These are things the Norwegian black metaller knows without thinking.
You may be right, Ed, you may be right... I hadn't contemplated fully how joiking might keep the Finns' hearts from ever filling up with naught but that which is most foul and malevolent. Also, the joy I often get from a well-topped Finn Crisp cracker does seem to be a little at odds with that which might be made by long-term travelers and denizens of the Ancient and Penetrating Darkness.
The Danes, however...
Don't forget that Niels Bohr was a Dane; surely his revelation that electrons orbit a nucleus in an atom was inspired by that country's long and contemplative consideration of evil and their willingness to be ever-so-near it even while observing it -- for what is more evil than an atom?
I also submit, in the interests of establishing the Danish right to bear the vile standard of the blackest rock these quotes from Bohr:
"There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them."
Surely what he means here is that even the most dire of our world's problems, including the ill-advised rush towards corn-based ethanol fuel, are funny. Only a heart full of evil, even melodic evil, would say such a thing. Skin your knee today? A Dane would laugh at your misfortune!
Secondly, he did also say once:
"Never talk faster than you think."
And I think we know full-well that in Black Metal, one growls -- and usually at a pace far more slow and plodding than the pace of most speech.
Yes, the Norse have ever crawled with hateful joy through the enveloping murk of doom; it is truly their home and they have a tradition of such corruption that extends back through the centuries. But with Niels Bohr's contributions to atomic physics, the groundwork appears to have been laid for the Danes to travel that grim footpath as well.
They may not fully know it as their home just yet, but they surely have established time-shares and holiday cabins there. Permanent residency is now only a matter of time's swift, merciless, and annihilating passage.
Alex, this Bohr fellow you speak of may force me to put on my Reconsidering Cap. Although I would be at odds with your atom statement, since electrons are negative, but atoms on the whole are neutral. Nonetheless, if Niels Bohr typifies all Danes, they might one day be able to accept darkness in the Norse manner.
One last word on the Finnish: Huckleberry Finn was ever the optimist, so there you go.
Lastly, I just wanted to make it known that the recaptcha code for this comment is "Legion hair." Chris, you have done this site a solid both in security and humour by adding this widget app.
Ed:
If what you say is true about atomic neutrality, then they may be very evil, for it has often been said that taking a neutral stance in the face of evil is itself an act of evil.
Perhaps the Danes will, like so many others before them, take a path towards total evil that is paved with the paperwork and lab equipment of atomic science.
I think Unloosen needs to have an official Black Metal band after all this. "Legion Hair" sounds like as a good a name as any for it.
Perhaps we could adopt a black metal band, like those African children? Not like the African children who adopt black metal bands...you know what I mean.
I think we're for corpsepaint, but against burning churches. Truly, I believe that each member of the black metal band should be black guys, because that would be as absurd as this site's material. Or we (meaning people with good camera skills, not me) should get a few black people and paint them up and pose them in the woods for a black metal photo shoot, though I think that this would inevitably be looked upon as a perverse minstrel show.
Alex : This is not a truly accurate remembrance of one of my days. I drive a truck, not a car.
I elect Alex to orchestrate and photograph our "black" metal band. May I suggest the name Ultrautopsy?
Then it is settled, Alex will do it.
Ultrautopsy is cool in print, but to chant that at a show would be rough. Perhaps Wrathfuct, Infant Slayer, Wheelchair Messiah, Molten Testicles, Necro con Queso or even Demon Raped?
I'm voting for Molten Testicles.
Molten! Molten! Molten!
I'll look into it. How big does this band need to be?
Didn't Jimmy Page use to serve a mean Necro con Queso at backstage parties following Zeppelin concerts?
Why can't we adopt a black metal band like the African children do? From what little I know about the subject, those kids have some really efficient protocols established for band adoptions. We should ask them. (And if we're not careful, we just might learn something.)
Other names that come to mind are: Box of Hate and Wrath of Ages. Somnambulant War Criminal is also probably too tough to chant.