Babylon, the Great, Is Fallen

“Utter blankness, intolerable strain, shrieking despair, are just the essences they are, and they are unrolled and revealed to intuition like any other essences. But such intuitions, being those proper to the most brutal and rudimentary life, have a suasion in them out of all proportion to their articulation, or, rather, we might almost say, inversely proportional to it; as if the more an experience meant the less it cried out, and the more it cried out the less it meant.”

George Santayana, from Skepticism and Animal Faith

Road Rager: I don’t know why I got so mad. I know I lost it and I didn’t mean to go so apeshit crazy. It’s just I was driving back down to Richmond with my girlfriend and her friend Tori. We were in two cars, we were in a caravan sort of. Megan was in Tori’s car and I was in mine by myself and I was mad a little already because Megan didn’t want to drive with me. She said she had important stuff to talk to Tori about which was bitchy and it made me nervous like maybe they were talking about me or something. We were up all night at Kyle’s graduation party and we didn’t sleep–I mean–two hours tops and that was on the floor at my friend Mike’s house. Mike was also being a total dick but anyway so we were on the highway and this frowny lady in a BMW starts getting between us. It was totally like she was doing it on purpose with her big shiny SUV and she kept cutting in between us and we were trying to stick together. There was so no reason for that lady to be in our lane and she was threatening Megan.

State Trooper: How was she threatening Megan?

RR: Just hogging the lane and speeding up when she shoulda slowed down to let Megan back in. Megan was totally stuck in the slow lane. It was wrong, officer.

Trooper: Are you sure the woman in the BMW was doing this on purpose?

RR: Yeah, she was totally being malicious.

Trooper: How many lanes were there at this point?

RR: Two lanes but she was definitely doing it on purpose.

Trooper: Tell us how the accident occurred.

RR: It wasn’t no accident. I finally had enough of that grand madam with her attitude. So I pulled up next to her on the shoulder and gave her a few nice gestures.

Trooper: How fast were you going?

RR: Well, when I first pulled up beside her about sixty or seventy. But she slowed down real fast after that. You can’t act like you own the whole road. You can’t get away with it. Not on my watch. (laughs)

Trooper: Then what happened?

RR: She tried to slow down. I mean, she did slow down but then I slowed down and took her picture with my phone.

Trooper: Where was Megan?

RR: She was right behind the lady in the beemer at that point. We had her trapped good.

Trooper:Go on.

RR: First I rammed her car a couple of times from the side but light like. You should have seen her face. (laughs) Listen I didn’t know she had kids in the car. She had tinted windows. If I’d have known that I wouldn’t have done it. Beside she shouldn’t have been playing chicken on the interstate with little kids in her car.

Trooper: Then what happened.

RR: I got in front of her and came to a dead stop. That was awesome. Bitch was totally blown away. Like she couldn’t believe someone would do that on the interstate. She should have been shocked. Someone had to shock her. It was me. I had enough, you see? I showed her what she could do with her high-and-mighty driving. I think Megan was even surprised. That’s when the Grand lady hit me from the rear because she didn’t have time to stop. And I think I saw her head hit the steering wheel but she snapped right back up. Then she backed up right into Megan and Megan got freaked out and pulled away. Meg’s probably back in Richmond by now. None of this was her doing. Then the lady tried to get away. That’s when she got hit by that other car. It wasn’t my fault, Officer.