Whatever Gets You Thru the Night #36
4.
The ice cream truck lumbered across the ash for days before either DJ Sotto Voce or Martin spoke. Clemons the tapir lay across a bed of MyPillows, fighting their cardboard impressions and light aromas of pimple cream. The Gyp-O-Meter sat between the two humans without so much as a nudge or a scooch.
Finally, on Day 4, DJ Sotto Voce broke the silence with an understandable, but still unwelcome line of inquiry: "Do you think there was anything we could have done to stop this?"
Martin took a few seconds to respond. "No," he finally grunted. "Even if we had made it to Coachella to stop the gas leak, we would have been surrounded by hoards of Post Malone fans who were clearly enjoying the high off the fumes."
"Right, right, but I'm not talking about that exact situation in and of itself," DJ Sotto Voce said. "I mean, that got out of hand very quickly. It was already Armageddeon when the sandinistas showed up. But I mean, was there anything we could have done to prevent the end over the longer term?"
"Oh, sure," Martin said. "Plenty of things. We could have stopped TV Guide from ever being published. We could have built more gyroscopes. We could have eaten our lunches standing up. We could have taken yoga mats more seriously. We could have amused ourselves with abstract card games, or simply reached across the aisle and say, 'There, there, Malcolm. I know we come from different schools of thought and traditions, but there's no reason we need to keep whacking each other over the head with our clashing ideologies. I have some lawn darts, and even though they're contraband now, I suspect the authorities won't let a friendly tournament within a closed-off area get them all up in a dander. Come on, Malcolm, limber up.'"
"I think you're missing my point."
"We could have cuddled where instead we stapled. We could have pirouetted where instead we ricocheted. We could have sipped where instead we chugged. And we could have said, 'Dulce est desipere in loco,' where instead we said, 'I'm going to cut you into ribbons if you come between me and that air fryer.'"
"I still think you're missing my point," DJ Sotto Voce protested, turning in his lawn chair to face Martin in the driver's seat across from the Gyp-O-Meter. "Doesn't there have to be some compelling moral code out of this whole thing? Couldn't we just start the whole dog and pony show over with a new set of..."
"What? A new set of what? A set of principles? A benediction? This is it. This is our principle until we find that portal. I call it Nihilists At The Diner. It's a study of sand and dirt, constructed from sand and dirt, framed with sand and dirt and sold by the well-known boho art dealers SAND AND DIRT."
"But that doesn't add up to anything! How can we have separated ourselves from a beneficial narrative and just turned into a bunch of detached, amoralized people?"
"And what would you offer in this crotchscape, you miserable hierophant? Communion? Ambition? A moral code? What's so hot about your ski lodge of hope and glory?"
"I don't know!" DJ Sotto Voce yelled. "I don't know what we're supposed to do! All I know is that I always belived we should keep figh--"
DJ Sotto Voce was stopped by a sudden blow to the face, filling his eyes with light grey circles and knocking him off the lawn chair. Martin screeched the ice cream truck to a stop. DJ Sotto Voce scrambled on the ground and put his hand to his nose, taking it away and noticing a not-insubstanial amount of blood on his hands. Martin shut off the engine.
"Goddamn it!" DJ Sotto Voce screamed. "Why the hell did you hit me?? Are you just going to be straight-up violent from here on out?"
Martin eyed him with a look of disturbing empathy and softly said, "I didn't hit you, man."
DJ Sotto Voce gulped. "What do you mean you didn't hit me? I felt it!"
Martin said nothing, but nodded his head to the space between the chairs. DJ Sotto Voce gasped, struggled to his knees, and saw his assaulter -- the Gyp-O-Meter's red cushion, disengaged from its spring, sporting a shiny but invisible stream of DJ Sotto Voce's blood.
Martin muttered the obvious. "Looks like we found our portal."
To be continued.
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