ICE have found Prick, Reggie & Chuck! Will they get away, will they end up in El Salvador? If they do get away where will they go?
The answers to these questions and more is all in this action packed Part 4 of “A Prick in America”.
Transcript
Another bloody night spent nestled in the somewhat malodorous embrace of Beryl’s less than plush interior. Seattle by night, it turns out, is a rather less fragrant affair than its daytime, coffee-and-cannabis-infused charm. Chuck was snoring with the rhythmic intensity of a pneumatic drill, whilst Reggie, bless his heart, was muttering something about forgotten lines from Act Three. I, however, was attempting to achieve a modicum of comfort amidst the crumpled maps and discarded fast-food wrappers, by sipping on a bottle of Waitsburg bourbon when utter pandemonium commenced.
I recorded some of this as it happened (I’d been filing my previous report with the insufferable Neil’s of Ungagged over an awful line).
[A jarring clang against the side of Beryl jolts me upright. My eyes, still gritty with sleep and the lingering haze of that rather potent “Emerald City Kush,” and a half bottle of bourbon struggle to focus. My reportage began…]
“This is Richard P. Knobinson reporting live. We appear to be under attack by… individuals resembling heavily armed dustbins.
Through the gloom, figures are materialising – hulking silhouettes clad in what appears to be some sort of paramilitary gear, all clanking armour and masked visages. They look like particularly aggressive extras from a low-budget dystopian film. What in God’s name…? Where are… where are my fucking spectacles?
[Another brutal impact, this time against the windscreen. It spiderwebs alarmingly].
“Occupants! Exit the vehicle! You are now in violation of Presidential Proclamation 47B, Subsection Gamma-Nine! Foreigners must be deported to Deep Gut Prison facility… Prepare for immediate… compliance!”
[Compliance? With these thuggish apparitions? Not if I had anything to say about it].
“Reggie! Reggie!”
“Go away Bernie… Not tonight… my prostate feels like a satsuma being ripped by razor-wire…”
“No, you fool. It’s me, Prick!”
“Oh darling Prick, I thought you’d never ask…”
“Reggie,wake up for crying out loud!”
[Our assailants intentions are, at this point, unclear, but their attire suggests a distinct lack of sartorial elegance, allegiance to the S.A. and a worrying propensity for violence. It’s quite clear to me, that this is the result of that utterly clueless Director of National Intelligence. You know, the one who thinks ‘foreign policy’ is just a fancy term for rounding up brown people with accents at the airport? Clearly she is wasting national resources on this, instead of, say, catching actual criminals. Or, you know, doing her actual job! As for “shoot-to-kill puppies,” Noem… she obviously just wants to crawl over bodies to get that Abu Ghraib like selfie with scared and abused non-Americans.
They are attempting to wrench open the driver’s side door. The metal screams in protest. Chuck, jolted awake by the commotion, lets out a startled yelp that sounds like a strangled trapped hsmster (more on that later). Reggie, ever the pragmatist, is attempting to locate his glass eye amidst the chaos].
“Right, chaps, time for a tactical withdrawal. And to think, with all the money wasted on this, they could have bought Trump a Dummies Guide on how not to go to jail in 2029!” At this point, my phone died.
My hand instinctively found the gearshift. Beryl, bless her ancient carburettor, coughed to life with a protesting roar. I slammed the gear into drive.
We lurched forward, the sudden acceleration throwing our armoured assailants off balance. A chorus of guttural shouts and the sickening crunch of metal as we scraped against something – hopefully one of their ludicrous helmets. I glanced in the rearview mirror to see them scrambling, momentarily disoriented.
“Good show, Richard!” Chuck yelled, adrenaline clearly overriding any lingering psychedelic effects. “You’re beastin’ it!” He lowered his window and shouted back at them, “For Christ sake, someone tell that DNI stoonad that ‘Europe’ is not a country!”
I navigated the Seattle streets with a newfound urgency, Beryl handling surprisingly well despite her advanced years and the barrage of blows she endured. We careened around corners, tyres squealing, leaving our pursuers – those Trumpite Maga ICE buffoons – staggering in our wake.
“Where to, dear Richard? Where to?” Reggie asked, his voice surprisingly steady.
An image flashed into my mind, a hazy recollection of a younger, more bohemian time. Portland. Clementine. A woman whose artistic sensibilities were as… unconventional… as was her taste in men (myself included, I suppose). She had a ramshackle Victorian house overflowing with cats and a penchant for strong tea and even stronger opinions. A perfect bolthole.
“Portland,” I declared, my voice firming with a sudden sense of purpose. “Portland it is. Clementine owes me a rather large favour from our entwinement during the Albina riots in ‘67… regarding a rather unfortunate incident with a hamster after a weekend of Black bombers, copious amounts of vodka and a menage et trois with a handsome young singer from a local barbers quartet. To Portland, and sanctuary!.”
And with that, Beryl, our battered whale, veered onto the I-5 South, leaving the shadowy figures and the unsettling authority of a slowly, but violently encroaching fascist Trumpist Seattle behind us. Our escape was ludicrous, improbable, fuelled by adrenaline, Seattle’s best bourbon, and the faint, lingering scent of geriatric romance. Portland. Clementine…
Our journey, took an unexpected turn just south of Olympia. We encountered a lone figure thumbing a ride, a young man with a weathered backpack and what looked like an extremely long reefer. Chuck, ever the impulsive humanitarian (especially when under the influence of what he said was “sacred cactus pollen”), insisted we offer the chap a lift.
The young man, it transpired, spoke only Farsi. This presented a minor linguistic hurdle as none of us did, but Chuck, in his current state of mescaline-induced enlightenment, seemed utterly unfazed. He launched into a spirited monologue, gesticulating wildly and occasionally pointing at the passing scenery.
“You see, my friend,” Chuck began, his voice a curious blend of political fervor and psychedelic rambling, “the situation south of the border is reaching a critical mass. These invisible lines, these arbitrary demarcations… they are but psychic prisons, man! We must dismantle the walls of the mind Trump is creating, the geographical and mental shackles that bind the free flow of human consciousness! Like, imagine if butterflies had passports? Utterly absurd, wouldn’t you say? And this thing with El Salvador … it’s all tied to the cosmic imbalance, the yearning of the third eye for universal oneness!”
The backpacker nodded earnestly, a warm smile on his face.
“آه، بله! ‘Born in the USA’! چه سرود قدرتمندی! تصویر سرباز بازگشته، سرخوردگی… چه تفسیر اجتماعی جانسوزی! و ‘Born to Run’! اشتیاق جوانی برای فرار، جاده باز به عنوان استعارهای برای آزادی! اشعار او، روح را لمس میکند!”
Chuck, oblivious to the actual content of the pronouncements, continued his impassioned discourse. “Exactly! The yearning! It’s the same yearning that compels the very molecules of existence to seek reunification! These borders, they are like… like trying to contain stardust in a coffee cup! They must be dissolved, atomized, returned to the primordial soup of interconnectedness! And Trump… he’s building walls! Walls in the mind, walls on the land! A bastard architect of separation!”
The backpacker, his enthusiasm growing, chimed in,
“در واقع! ‘رودخانه آتش گرفته’! چه نماد قدرتمندی از ناآرامی اجتماعی! و ‘رقصیدن در تاریکی’! جستجوی معنا در جهانی پوشیده از عدم قطعیت! اسپرینگستین، او واقعاً روح زمانه ما را تسخیر میکند!”
Reggie, who had been quietly observing the exchange with a vacant smile, suddenly piped up, his voice surprisingly clear.
“اسپرینگستین رئیس است!”
he declared in perfect Farsi, before lapsing back into a series of unintelligible humming while draining his catheter bag into an empty bottle of Stolichnaya.
Chuck, taking Reggie’s bizarre interjection as a sign of profound agreement, beamed. “Absolutely, Reggie! The actor understands! He feels the cosmic vibrations, the yearning for a world where the eagles of freedom soar across the freeways of universal understanding!”
The backpacker, delighted by Reggie’s unexpected Farsi and Chuck’s seemingly insightful commentary, continued,
“روزهای شکوه’! چه تصاویری از نوستالژی و گذر عمر! و ‘جاده تندر’! وعده فرار و آرزوی یک شروع تازه!”
I, meanwhile, could only observe this surreal exchange with The Fear. The sheer disconnect between Chuck’s mescaline-fuelled political rant and the backpacker’s earnest enthusiasm for erm, something… was almost poetic but fucking scary in its absurdity. The need for the destruction of borders, the yearning for freedom, and whatever he’d said… in their own wonderfully skewed ways, perhaps were all on the same strange, cross-cultural wavelength. But the darkness that was slowly building between us all… around us… over and under us, felt like it could drown us.
I feel Clementine’s soft bosom may have some answers…
