Bear v. Shark (15 page)

human milk is fine for average children

That’s what I’m saying.

serial rapist

sleek design

There are guys wearing digital watches in
Spartacus,
weren’t no digital watches in toga times.

we recently caught up with the busy little lady in Los Angeles and here’s what she had to say

that’s the seventh spinal cord injury we’ve seen this season, Butch

a five-year, 100-million-dollar deal

no word on civilian casualties

last weekend at the box office

high winds

bears can’t run downhill

dammit, Billy, you can’t just have everything you want life doesn’t work like that

meanwhile, the drought continues

you slept with her didn’t you well how was she was it worth it

do you have trouble keeping your food down?

Hey flip it back to my show.

What were you watching?

the only hot dog with vitamin C

American Vacation.

the Lord wants you to make sound financial decisions

What channel?

we’re so confident that you’ll be satisfied that we offer

the blood was actually running down the hill I know you would think that the blood would soak into the earth but what I’m saying is that the ground was so saturated with blood that it ran down the hill and covered our boots

Damn.

Eighty-four, I think.

nobody likes soggy French fries

Shit, eighty-three, then.

If you just joined us, we’ve got some rather strange news to report. The Normans were just a few miles from the Las Vegas border when Mr. Norman turned the Sport Utility Vehicle completely around.

Total U-turn, Wes.

Walt.

Walt.

I think you’ll be able to see the SUV from our aerial cameras. Chris, could you circle it there with the telestrator?

Like so?

No, that’s not it. That’s a cactus.

Sorry, I don’t quite have the hang of this thing.

Yes, that’s the one. Right there. Once again, Mr. Norman has turned the four-wheel-drive vehicle around and is heading away from Las Vegas. This is potentially very troubling news, but we don’t want to jump to any conclusions. Perhaps they just left some keys or a pair of glasses at a Food Mart somewhere back there.

I don’t think so, Walt.

What?

I think it’s more serious than that.

But look at how slowly he’s driving. Surely if he was trying to make a getaway he would be driving fast, with abandon.

Not necessarily.

Explain. Now’s your chance to show your stuff.

Mr. Norman. He’s driving. It’s . . . He’s driving through the slow, falling dark of the desert, away from Las Vegas.

This much is clear from our aerial pictures.

Las Vegas
, Walt. Feathered showgirls, relentless Entertainment, gambling in windowless, timeless, placeless mazes where the polychrome flicker and the free drinks and the clatter of impartial machines assaults you, first, then begins to seep into you like novocaine. It’s like the outside world. Except louder, more.

Hey now, you got a speech for every city?

There are pictures of winners on the walls, with blank spaces reserved for you: your bloodshot eyes, your wan smile. Funny, winning doesn’t feel much different than losing. It’s all a rush.

A marvel of human engineering. The art and architecture of it.

Space designed to make you say, over and over, OK, one
more time.

It’s brilliant, Cyrus.

Away from this place. He is driving away and . . . And night is happening outside his windows, but deliberately. It is not something to be rushed. And maybe a coyote is howling somewhere, maybe a rattler is easing through the sand, maybe a scorpion scuttles into a cowboy’s recumbent boot.

The boot, you say, is prostrate.

Help me out, Walt. Are there still scorpions?

Yes, some.

And cowboys?

No. But their boots remain.

And in the dying light the stern silhouettes of cacti line the highway like . . .

Like
dark people
?

No, Walt, like guards, members of some moonlit militia whose duty it is to keep you between the lines.

Foreboding.

And Mr. Norman is driving not recklessly, not feverishly, but slowly, contemplatively, well below the interstate limit. Imagine, Walt, the cool bank robber who bags his money and then walks out the side exit, his walk purposeful, not panicked.

An analogy, yes.

And Mr. Norman feels that high speed, even on this flat and straight and open road, might obliterate thought. Might just blow it away. Mr. Norman imagines a critical velocity — not fixed; generational, perhaps — at which the world rushes by too rapidly for reflection and conjecture.

Today’s hectic world not conducive to careful consideration and judgment. OK.

And so the white lines that have all day darted by like bullets or video game missiles or Television news segments are now floating past like logs on a river.

Metaphor.

They’re floating past, these white lines, at an almost unlawfully slow rate, Walt.

Fifty-three miles per hour. A thinkin’ man’s velocity.

And ahead of him Mr. Norman sees the signs and billboards growing larger in discrete units, as if in a slide show or ancient classroom film strip.

I remember those film strips. Demographic studies indicate that most of our viewing audience will understand that trope.

As if magnified to the next power at steady intervals.

Yes.

And behind him, through his rearview mirror, Mr. Norman watches dim and distant vehicles become — through a continuous time-lapse sequence of growth and cell division — bright-eyed monsters of luxury that speed past in a silent roar.

Blastula. Zygote. Next slide.

In a manner of seconds, Walt, embryonic headlights grow to full-sized sedans and then they are gone. This is the world behind him.

Just to catch everyone up to speed, Mr. Norman, just a few miles from the Las Vegas border, turned the Sport Utility Vehicle around and is now heading away from the Entertainment Capital of the World. He’s driving slowly, as you can see. Great work, as always, by our
American Vacation
camera crew in the army choppers. I’m Walt West and with me here in his bow tie and providing color commentary is Chris Backacher, a member of the studios catering team. He has a masters degree in English. Some history of depression and vagrancy and mismanaged affections, but no criminal record, no drugs in his system. A flair, it seems, for the dramatic, perhaps not unlike our Mr. Norman.

I often have a hard time falling asleep.

We know.

As one car passes the Normans’ SUV, a small child with a domelight halo waves and smiles at Mr. Norman.

But Chris, I don’t see any cars currently passing the SUV.

By the time Mr. Norman raises his hand in return, the child and the car have vanished into the distant constellation of taillights.

Technically speaking, when does this become a hostage situation?

Mr. Norman loves his children, Walt. You know that, don’t you? You
do
know that? At one time this vacation sounded like a good idea. It’s just . . .

Are we obligated to call in the National Guard at some point on behalf of the family? I’m thinking rubber bullets here.

He can see those kids in his rearview mirror.

I don’t know, Chris, it’s pretty dark.

Oh, maybe their dreams make more sense than the world they’ve been born into.

Those kids have it great, pal. When I was a kid, man oh man.

The radio in the Sport Utility Vehicle is on with the volume turned low. A woman is talking about a product. Mr. Norman cannot hear the words, but he recognizes the intonation of the sell. And maybe this is what it comes down to, not content but form — an Olympian’s sleek body, a well-known actress’s voice, a jingle, a striking use of color, a fade, a jump-cut, a swish pan, sound effects, a nice ass, innovative text-image placement. Not, Walt, buy
this
. But:
Just buy
. Buy, buy, and well all win.

The invisible hand.

The billboards look silly at this speed. They look like a joke. Fake billboards, parodies of themselves. The colorful lies are rhetorically engineered for highway velocity, the quick hit. When you drive too slowly, when you consider the implicit syllogisms — having a fun lifestyle is fun, Hernia Soda leads to a fun lifestyle, and so on — then you are left to believe that advertising is an insult and an absurd waste of money. And also you are left with some vague desire, what is it, an emptiness, a thirst, yes you are thirsty, wouldn’t a Hernia Soda hit the spot?

Wow, friend, I find that I’m feeling a little dry myself.

The Vibra-Dream Plus, you must understand, is not female in any literal sense, though its ad campaign has targeted men by using breasts and legs and belly buttons to confuse sexual desire with the desire for comfort after a stressful workday. This kind of confusion happens all the time, Walt. It’s good for business. Almost any kind of business.

I hadn’t noticed.

The Vibra-Dream Plus, which Mr. Norman wears like a collar, vibrates just audibly, but she does not ever actually say anything.

I understand. Mine never says a word, and that’s how I like her.

And Walt, there’s his wife in the passenger seat, dozing fitfully.

Can we get a picture of her? There. There’s a pretty recent shot of the Mrs.

And Mr. Norman looks over at this person beside him and he feels that certain tenderness you feel for the sleeping and for those whom you no longer love but with whom you share a history. After the rancor or the silence, Walt, can come this hopeless tenderness.

That feels right to me.

And I’m not sure if Las Vegas is technically an independent nation or not, but I’m certain that the Normans have not slept together in months, perhaps a year, perhaps longer. The days just dart past like little tiny fish.

Calendar pages fluttering in the wind like in those old black-and-white movies.

Walt, you can leave the imagery and the Sterno to me.

Because of this breaking news situation, folks, we’re not going to cut away to commercial. Please know that the next sixty seconds of broadcast are brought to you by the good people at HardCorp. HardCorp: Making life more real for over thirty years.

And even though the desert night is cool, the air conditioner is on and the windows are rolled up in the Sport Utility Vehicle.

We can confirm that, I think.

And in his slightly convex driver’s side window, Mr. Norman can see himself, his reflection, by the eerie lights of the high-tech dashboard. It is true that the dashboard is remarkable for the amount of information it conveys. His image tilted and floating like an astronaut or a ghost in the blackening sky above the driver’s seat.

HardCorp: Bears, Sharks, and so much more.

There I am, Mr. Norman thinks. There I am, haunting my own journey. The ghost of the American Vacation.

Mr. Norman has increased his speed a bit, but he’s well under the limit. I still don’t think we’ve hit a panic situation here. I’m holding out for the possibility of a simpler, less drastic interpretation, not that you haven’t been persuasive, if a bit gloomy. Everything I just said and most of what Clem said about ghosts was brought to you by Cereal on a Stick. Cereal on a Stick: Because who has time for hot cereal or cold cereal or a cereal bar?

Cereal on a Stick: Because oatmeal is for giant losers.

That’s the spirit, Chris.

So Ockham’s Razor is what you’re saying, Walt.

I’m just saying maybe you read too much.

You’ll see. This isn’t about misplaced keys or electronic games. This is about crisis. This is about the human struggle for meaning. This is about a turning point, an awakening. This is about enough is enough.

Off in the distance — can we get a better shot of that? — off in
the distance I think — yes, great work, guys, there in the distance you can make out the blue-gray glimmer of TeleTown.

Yes indeed
.

Now, Chris. You don’t think.

That is precisely what I think.

But why TeleTown? That’s hardly an escape.

Maybe, just maybe, TeleTown is not what it seems.

Chris Badchildren is being brought to you today by Chief Executive Orange Juice: The orange juice for the top one percent. CEOJ is not responsible for the opinions expressed in this broadcast.

Not at all what it seems. Maybe the million Televisions are a front. Maybe the million Televisions are not watched.