Chuck Palahniuk - Rant - The Oral History of Buster Casey

Echo Lawrence:At the gas station, inside Green's Daimler, the cigarette lighter popped out with a «think» sound.

From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms ( Historian ):Let me, somehow, compress this. The human brain operates at four basic levels of brain frequency. Normally, awake and aroused, you operate in the «beta» level of brain waves, which occur at thirteen to thirty cycles per second. At a resting state, your mind slips to an «alpha» brain-wave level of nine to fourteen cycles per second. As you daydream and feel drowsy, your mind slows to «theta» level, five to eight cycles per second. And as you pass into deep, dreamless sleep, your brain waves slow to a «delta» level of one to four cycles per second.

Wallace Boyer:Nothing says you have to believe this. Nothing says you have to even listen, but consider that plenty of smart, rich, powerful folks in history went to their graves swearing that the sun went around us. Also consider that someday, when you're dead and rotted, kids with their baby teeth will sit in their time-geography class and laugh about how stupid you were.

Echo Lawrence:The gas pump chunked and the numbers stopped turning. The hose jumped and went silent. Green Taylor Simms slipped one hand inside his pinstriped jacket and lifted out his wallet.

"According to Chet Casey," I told Green, "we met Rant because you recognized him on that street corner…"

Green pinched a twenty-dollar bill, another twenty, a ten, a fifty. He pinched all the paper money out of his wallet.

I said, "Pull up your sleeve." I said, "Let me see your arms."

And Green said, "Who do you think invented this little game you enjoy so much?" He said, "Who do you think decides the field and flag and window, then sends the word out?" He said, "What do you suppose would happen to Party Crashing without me?"

Around us, the stink of gasoline.

Green Taylor Simms handed me the cash and said, "Would you be so kind as to buy me some Red Vines licorice?"

From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms:Of greatest interest is the idea that an average person easily reaches this mystical meditation state, «theta» brain waves, the state most sought by monks and pilgrims, simply by driving an automobile. Any long drive, anytime you've passed time and covered distance with no memory of the process, you've been submerged in deep theta-level meditation. Open to visions. Open to your subconscious. Creativity, intuition, and spiritual enlightenment.

Echo Lawrence:I left him with the nozzle still stuck in the side of his car. I went inside and bought Red Vines, paid for the gasoline, and came out. And—no duh—when I came out, the red Daimler was gone.

From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms:Of special interest is the theta level of brain activity. It's at this frequency that mystics report that visions and inspiration are most likely to occur. In those relaxed moments, while bathing or driving or falling asleep, as you lapse into theta brain waves, you typically retrieve deep, distant memories. You make connections and achieve revelations.

In order to stimulate theta brain activity, Tibetan Buddhist chants follow a droning rhythm which matches the slower brain-wave frequency. Among drumming cultures, shamanic drummers trigger theta activity by a steady, constant four beats per second.

Pattie Reynolds ( Bartender ):I was at Pump Seven. The man you're talking about was at Pump Five. I heard splashing and turned to look, and this old man was hosing gasoline all over the mattress tied to the roof of his red car. He wore a dark-blue business suit. Gray hair. Good wingtip shoes. The gasoline soaked into the mattress, except a few drips of it rolled down the sides of the car, the windows. The smell was suffocating.

I remember he climbed into the driver's seat and started to drive off. He had to turn on the windshield wipers, so much gasoline was running down the windshield.

Wallace Boyer:Like I told you, I didn't really meet Rant Casey until after he was dead. The remainder of that flight, the time I sat next to Chester Casey, he tried to teach me the impossible. He drank my scotch and told me that time is not a straight line.

Time is not a river. Or a clock or hourglass. It doesn't only run one way.

You could hire a gaggle of brilliant experts to dissect how it might happen, but some people will still look at the proof and argue that the world is flat. Humans didn't evolve from something else. And Elvis Presley is still alive.

From DRVR Radio Graphic Traffic:I'm Tina Something with a Graphic Traffic emergency bulletin. All westbound lanes of the Madison Beltway are closed, due to the crash of a burning car at the CenterPoint exit. Emergency crews are on the scene trying to control the fire. Already traffic is backed up to the Market interchange and the 287 Freeway. Traffic on the eastbound Madison is also slowed to stopping…

Shot Dunyun:Shit. I don't know how flashbacks work. I couldn't tell you exactly how a lightbulb works, much less make you one from scratch. But I can use one.

You burn out your brain with rabies. Go all theta-trance-y with driving. You hit something and wake up naked in history.

Wallace Boyer:If it helps, consider how people used to think the world was flat. Two-dimensional. They only believed in the part they could see, until somebody invented the ships and somebody brave sailed off to find the rest of the earth. Consider that Rant Casey is the Christopher Columbus of time travel.

From DRVR Radio Graphic Traffic:Traffic on the West Side is at a standstill. A parking lot. Emergency crews report the fire at the CenterPoint interchange is extinguished, and the accident has been moved off the roadway, but the boysin the meat wagon are still waiting for their cargo.

According to the early rumors, the burned Daimler-Benz appears to be empty. Bringing you the gory details, this is DRVR Graphic Traffic…

From DRVR Radio Graphic Traffic:You don't have to look up at the sky to tell it's a full moon tonight. We already have reports of a fender bender at Milepost 14 of the 217 Freeway, where two bridal parties appear to be throwing handfuls of wedding cake at each other. With the Rubberneck Report every ten minutes, this is Tina Something for Graphic Traffic…

Neddy Nelson ( Party Crasher ):Doesn't everybody know, people still Party Crash? To attain that road-trip trance where you come up with ideas? Or maybe people get off on the chase? You know, to meet people and spend time together?

Echo Lawrence ( Party Crasher ):Relax. If Shot Dunyun manages to transplant himself into the past, the rest of us will wake to the new reality that he's become the father of boosted-peak technology. Shot will finally use his education, to become the Thomas Edison of neural transcripts. That's if he remembers enough about the actual science. It's one thing to be an auteur, but it's another to birth the entire fucking art form.

No, the instant he goes back and tweaks history, the rest of us might wake up, tomorrow, to a world without neural-transcript boosts. We'll still be watching movies and reading books. But his little pug dog, Sandy, will still be alive.

Shot Dunyun ( Party Crasher ):Maybe Rant wasn't so…ballsy or big as we remember him. Maybe this is how any religious figure gets created—his friends brag him up, huger and huger, so they can get laid. You can picture St. Peter in a bar telling some pretty girl, "Yeah, I hung with Jesus Christ. We were best buds…"