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I say, keep the infection local. God! Haven’t we done enough damage on this planet? Now we’re going to go somewhere else and leave our filth and garbage all over the universe? Jesus, what a pack of fuckin’ idiots we are. Thank you.
SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES: A DIALOGUE
KEVIN: Boy, a lot has changed in twenty years.
RAY: Yeah.
KEVIN: Is Naughton still around?
RAY: Frankie?
KEVIN: No, Jimmy.
RAY: Jimmy’s dead. And Frankie died at the funeral. They’re both dead.
KEVIN: What about Bobby? How’s he? RAY: He’s dead, too. A lot of em are dead.
KEVIN: What was the other Naughton kid’s name? Tommy? Is he dead?
RAY: No. Tommy’s not dead.
KEVIN: Thank God for that.
RAY: He’s dying.
KEVIN: Jeez! The mother must be heartbroken.
RAY: The mother was killed in a boiler explosion. Blown to pieces.
KEVIN: Jeez. I’ll never forget that house the Naughtons lived in. Kind of a cute little place with green shutters.
RAY: Hit by lightning fifteen years ago. Burned to the ground. All the pets were killed.
KEVIN: Jeez. That’s too bad. I remember the Naughtons always liked that house because it was so close to the church.
RAY: Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering?
KEVIN: Yeah.
RAY: The church is gone. Condemned by the city last year and demolished on Good Friday.
KEVIN: So where do the neighborhood kids go to school?
RAY: Most of the neighborhood kids were killed a few years ago by a rapist who worked at the grocery store.
KEVIN: Dorian’s?
RAY: No, Babington’s.
KEVIN: I liked Dorian’s. They always had good produce.
RAY: Dorian’s collapsed ten years ago and killed nineteen customers. The entire Halloran family was decapitated at the butcher counter while they were pickin’ out meat.
KEVIN: Jeez. Times really change. RAY: Well, life goes on.
REAL REALISM FOR REALISTS DRINK UP
I think the warning labels on alcoholic beverages are too bland. They should be more vivid. Here are a few I would suggest:
“Alcohol will turn you into the same asshole your father was.”
“Drinking will significantly improve your chances of murdering a loved one.”
“If you drink long enough, at some point you will vomit up the lining of your stomach.’
“Use this product and you may wake up in Morocco wearing a cowboy suit and tongue-kissing a transmission salesman.”
“Men: When emptying your pockets after a night of using this product, you may come across a human finger, a wad of Turkish money and a snapshot of a naked ex-convict named Dogmeat. The photo will be inscribed, ‘To Dave, my new old lady.’”
“Women: Drink enough of this and you will spend the rest of your life raising malnourished children in a rusting trailer with a man who sleeps all day. Except for the rapes.”
GOD REST HIS SOUL
Newspaper death notices could also be written more honestly. Have you seen the lies they print? “Cherished and beloved husband of Kathleen, devoted and esteemed father of Thomas; loving brother of Edward”? Bullshit. Let’s be realistic:
“Ryan, James D.; jealous and abusive husband of Kate; lustful, wanton father of Maureen; controlling and manipulative father of Matthew; cruel, envious and co
“Funeral at the Church of the Holy Bleeding Wounds, burial in Crown of Thorns Cemetery. No flowers; donations should be made in cash directly to the family for purposes of celebration.”
ON BENDED KNEE
This idea could spread. It might even inspire young men to make more realistic marriage proposals: “Honey, let’s get married. I realize I’m asking you to take a chance on a proven loserI don’t have any money or stuff like thatbut maybehear me outmaybe we could find a cheap, unclean apartment in a dangerous neighborhood and have more kids than we can afford. If we’re lucky, maybe a few of them won’t be born sickly and disfigured, in spite of our genetic histories. Meanwhile, I could find a dehumanizing, low-paying, dead-end job with no benefits, while you stay home watching TV and gaining weight.
“And if things get badlike if I get paralyzed, and you get raped by Mexican sailors and lose your mind and start crying all the timewe can always move in with my parents. They love kids, and their incest counsel
ing is almost complete. And I’ve noticed Dads ‘episodes’ are starting to result in far less property damage than before. What do you say, honey? You want to give it a shot? Maybe our second set of HIV tests will turn up negative.”
EARLY BOARDING: Children
If I may renew a theme found elsewhere in the book, I have a bit more to say about early boarding on the airlines. It’s not just favoritism to the “disabled” that bothers me; that’s unfair enough. But! Immediately after the various cripples, limpers and wheelchair jockeys have been unfairly allowed to board early, the airline then has the nerve to allow people with children to get on the plane. Once again, at the expense of the rest of us. I do not understand this policy at all.
Why should people board early simply because they have children? What’s so special about having kids? After all, a lot of kids are accidents; many people wind up with children simply because they’re unlucky. Is that something we should be rewarding? I don’t think being careless in bed should qualify someone for special treatment on an airplane.
And by the way, as with the devious methods of the cane-and-crutch crowd mentioned earlier, I think there are some couples who bring their kids along on a trip for the sole purpose of early boarding. What other reason would you have for including kids on a trip? Enjoyment? Hardly.
In factand this may seem extreme to someit’s my conviction that there are some couples who have intentionally gotten married and had families specifically for the purpose of getting on the plane early. I know it sounds unlikely to you, but don’t forget, these are cold, pragmatic, striving yuppie-boomers; unsentimental people who largely regard children as props and
commodities, anyway: “Honey, let’s have a kid, so we can board planes early.” “Great idea, Scott! You start making a list of good preschools, and I’ll get the lubricating jelly.” Believe me, it happens more than you may think.
So, during this preflight, pre-boarding fiasco, after the crippled and the maimed have been safely strapped in, the airline people tell us they will now “preboard passengers traveling with small children.” Well, that’s fine as far as it goes, but what about passengers traveling with large children? Suppose you have a six-month-old son with a growth-hormone disorder? One of those seven-foot infants with oversized heads that you see in the National Enquirer. Actually, with a kid like that I think you’re better off checking him in at the curb, don’t you? He’d probably enjoy it in the luggage compartment. It’s dark in there, and I would imagine he’s used to that.
But I digress. Forgive me for indulging my weakness for flights of colorful narration. Back to the real problem: people with children on airplanes. Here’s how you solve this. You make the following a
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a pre-boarding a
“First of all, you’re getting on lastif there’s room. Before that, we’re going to board the full-grown humans and allow them to settle in, get comfortable and have a drink or two. You may be standing out here for an hour or more. Then, you and your children will be swiftly escorted onto the aircraft and placed in a special, soundproof, walled-off area in the rear of the plane. There will be standing room only. For safety purposes, you will be tethered to one another and secured to the wall with leashes and straps.