Chuck Palahniuk - Rant - The Oral History of Buster Casey

Irene's fake, pasted-on stars versus Rant's mural of real snot.

His pride as her shame.

Logan Elliot ( Childhood Friend ):It's no lie. That Casey kid done nothing above ordinary except pull up roots and burn bridges.

Shot Dunyun ( Party Crasher ):Times like that, you look like a failed experiment your parents will have to face for the rest of their lives. A booby prize. And your mom and dad, they look like a God too retarded to fashion anything better than you.

You grow up to become living proof of your parent's limitations. Their less-than-masterpiece.

Echo Lawrence:His mother looked down at little Rant from the full height of standing straight, and she said, in a deep voice Rant had never heard, a voice that would echo inside him for the rest of his life, she said:

"You disgusting little monster."

That afternoon, Rant quit being to his mother what his «Bear» was to him. That was the real moment he was born. The start of Rant as a real person.

For the first nap of his new life, that afternoon, Rant fell asleep.

From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms ( Historian ):That next Thanksgiving dinner, after the black widow spiders had stung old Granny Esther to death, Irene Casey abandoned her seat in the kitchen. However, Rant's Great-grandmother Hattie stood next in succession for a place at the adult table. The line of succession was as clear as the names and dates written inside the family Bible.

Shot Dunyun:How creepy is this? By the end of that Thanksgiving, old Granny Hattie's twitching and scratching. The fox-fur piece she wears to every occasion—two or three red-fox pelts with the fucking heads and feet stuffed, pinned so they run around her neck—the shitty thing is jumping with fleas.

It's beyond creepy. People that old, it only takes a gust of wind to kill them. A broken hip. A bee sting. Just one mouthful of tuna bake gone bad. Like black widow spiders, flea bites, you're talking another natural part of the glorious redneck lifestyle. It could've been chipmunks or marmots or deer mice, rabbits, sheep, or rock squirrels, but something in their natural world's left its fleas behind. First, Granny Hattie complained about a sore throat and a headache. A stomach ache. Hattie is gasping for breath. An hour in the hospital, and she's dead of pneumonia.

From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms:The last rat-borne epidemic of bacterium Yersinia pestis occurred in Los Angeles in the years 1924 and 1925. It was traced to the widespread practice of destroying prairie-dog colonies by introducing animals infected with the plague. By the 1930s, 98 percent of the native marmot population was destroyed, but the remaining 2 percent remain asymptomatic carriers of bubonic plague.

Echo Lawrence:He used to wake up with a yelp. In his nightmares, Rant said his grandmother's little flirtation veil, the black lace would start to shift. The hat seemed to come alive, tearing itself to shreds, and the black threads crawled down her cheeks, biting, and his Grandma Esther, screaming. In those dreams, Rant could hear dogs bark but not see them.

Sheriff Bacon Carlyle ( Childhood Enemy ):Them dreams was his feeling guilt, plain and simple. Over Rant's killing those old women. Over spreading his infection.

Shot Dunyun:Those little fluff balls that look so cute in nature films, every year an average of twenty people cross paths with a plague-infected ground squirrel or chipmunk. Their lymph nodes balloon, their fingertips and toes turn black, and they die. The people, I mean. Not the fluff balls.

Echo Lawrence:Go ahead, ask Irene Casey about Rant's bedroom wall. She ended up hanging wallpaper. To her, dried snot was worse than asbestos.

Even as an adult, in his own apartment, the wall above Rant's bed wasn't anything you'd ever want to touch.

Irene Casey ( Rant's Mother ):Near as I recall, we did put up wallpaper in Buddy's bedroom, when he was going on three or four years old. A pattern of cowboys roping horses, and some cactus, on a background of chocolate brown, something that wouldn't show dirt. Awful dark, but practical for a boy's room.

The rest, about a wall covered with dried boogers—that never went on. Buddy was a beautiful child. A regular little angel. We did paste stars on his ceiling, those stickers that glowed in the dark, little cowboys under the stars. That part is true, but the rest…I wouldn't never call my baby a monster or no curse from the Devil.

And Buddy wouldn't never tell folks that story.

Bodie Carlyle ( Childhood Friend ):Weeks out ahead of Easter Sunday, you could smell the vinegar on Mrs. Casey's hands, worse than pickling season. Mrs. Casey would keep a pot of water boiling. First to hard-cook her eggs. Then another pot of water to boil with vinegar, add chopped junk for color, and dye her eggs.

The Caseys, their house was in the country, but they buyed their chickens already dead. The worst thing you could say about somebody hereabouts is they buyed their eggs, but Mrs. Casey buyed hers. Only the white ones. Leghorn eggs. Mostly on account of Easter.

Coming in through the Caseys' kitchen screen door—spreee… whap —you'd find Mrs. Casey with both elbows up on the table. Her reading glasses slid down to the tip of her nose. Her head tilted back. In the middle of the table, a white candle, fat as in church, burning with the smell of vanilla. Around the candle flame, a clear pool of melted wax. Mrs. Casey, she'd dip an embroidery needle into that wax, and she'd hold a white egg in her other hand. Holding the egg at the top and bottom, with a finger and thumb, so she can turn it, she'd write with melted wax on the shell.

You couldn't help yourself, you had to stop and watch.

From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms ( Historian ):The young hang mirrors in their homes. The elderly hang paintings. And, if I may make an ungenerous observation, residents of rural communities display crafts—those dubious products of spare time, limited motor skill, and inexpensive yarn.

Bodie Carlyle:Invisible as spy writing, only Mrs. Casey could tell where the white wax disappeared on the white egg.

The stove would be crowded, with boiling out of every pot a different smell. Onions. Beets. Spinach greens. The stink of red cabbage. Black coffee. Plus the vinegar smell. In each pot, a different color: yellow, red, green, blue, or brown. Everything boiled down to the color of the cooking water. No lunch ready.

Her eyes crossed, looking straight down her nose, so concentrating on the wax that her mouth hanged open, red lipstick every day of the year, without looking up, she'd say, "If you two are chewing tar, spit it out." She'd say, "You'll find graham crackers over the stove."

Me and Rant.

If you stood there long enough, maybe she'd say how the wax was to keep dye off the egg. At her elbow would be hard-cooked eggs that still looked white, but in truth were half decorated with the parts where dye couldn't go. Just watching her, it could slip your mind how you had an ant hill waiting outside. Or a dead raccoon. Even a box of wood matches.

Even being hungry for lunch, you'd get nosing into Mrs. Casey's egg work.

From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms:It's compelling that so many cultures practice a meticulous yet transitory art form as a spiritual ritual, prayer, or meditation.

Bodie Carlyle:Her elbows on the table, one hand dipping her embroidery needle in the wax, her other hand holding the eggs, not looking at Rant and me, one day Mrs. Casey says, "Pull up an egg or get out." She says, "You're making me nervous."