More of the best in the vault! The Digital Potlatch continues with another column written for Horse Fly, this one from four years ago. Written during my bachelor days in the old adobe, the dark little ditty with a soupçon of self-loathing shows at least two ways to get yourself shot. For better or worse, I was ultimately unsucessful in this pursuit, leaving me alive to learn a very important lesson. There’s speedbumps, mysterious honking horns, wild dogs, and even the Code of the West in here! So see what you think, and enjoy.
Yells-At-Nothing
Right there by the little church, the speed humps nearly did him in.
Juan del Llano had been at home for two days straight, but now it was either supper from a jelly jar or make a run to Cid’s. Hungrier by the minute, he fired up the truck and rattled into town. As he approached the spot where the road narrowed by the old adobe walls, he barely hit the brakes in time.
Someone had been busy. There where the shoulders disappeared and all sane people slowed down anyway were not one, but TWO brand-new speed humps, less than 50 feet apart, where none had ever been before! The Ford heaved sloppily over the evil black asphalt, instantly rearranging everything in back, while Juan bounced high enough to wish the roof wasn’t there. The happiest thing Juan thought as he rounded the curve was that there might not be money for fixing the roads, but at least there was plenty for messing them up. And then he found another one.
Juan could hardly believe his eyes: a speed hump at the bottom of a hill was a blow to manhood, gravity, and common sense. It was like the terrorists had won. On this third hump the tumbled contents of the pickup bed ricocheted off the sides of the aluminum cap, and the horn honked. Uh-oh.
When Juan drove back up the hill after scoring a hot organic chicken and bread, the truck honked on every hump: (bonk) HONK! — (bonk) HONK! — bonk) HONK! The next day it almost happened again, but Juan decided no one would buy the story of a stuck solenoid and a loose ground wire, though he almost believed it himself. No, he would forever be known as The Man Who Honks, with all the honors accruing thereto. It would be like The Man Who Yells at My Dogs, and possibly just as exciting.
The road theater occurred some months earlier, on a cold, damp February afternoon when Juan was already darkly disposed. As the oversize tires splashed sullenly through the adobe slop, the neighborhood canine kamikazes came barreling out of the sagebrush, bent on glorious self-destruction or holy performance art. While the little black and white one ran back and forth in front of his wheels, the humungous white one leaped up against the driver’s side window, slobbering and bellowing maniacally. It was all too much for Juan, who lurched to a stop, jumped to the ground, and hurled rocks into the corn snow at the retreating dogs. “GIT! GIT, damn you!” he yelled, and then, “KEEP YOUR [CENSORED] DOGS ON A LEASH!” this last flung more at the heavens than toward anyone within earshot.
But who could ever know, he pondered later? Had that been a scowl of recognition from the face behind the sunglasses glinting from a certain pickup truck? And who wouldn’t let dogs run loose across the mesa, especially stoked-up mutts as loony as these? You’d have to turn them out or shoot them just to get a moment’s peace, he realized, and maybe never have them in the house at all. Suddenly Juan felt just a little sympathy. Not much, but enough to make him wary of stretching the Code o’ the West.
It was similar with him on the Internet. Every morning Juan honked at speed bumps of reasoning or yelled at romping fascist hounds, but the next day the nonsense and the Republicans were still there. He honked and yelled some more, but it made no difference. From the mud at his feet to the farthest reaches of cyberspace, the sheer exuberance of the stupidity that surrounded him was stunning. Juan wondered if he’d given it life. Not created it, necessarily, but tossed slop in the trough, been sucked by vampires, something.
It was time to get simple. Maybe then he would know.
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“the sheer exuberance of the stupidity that surrounded him was stunning” What else to say? This is our current world in a nutshell.