The car sneers, car lives, car days to car nights, headlight eyes and locks popped up on both shoulders. Automobile wheels spin out fate, joy, a way to say hi or even just make sure that some breathing is going on. Why do you need to take so much with you just to get somewhere. Jackson Meatball knows why. He speaks loudly, and speaks of the reasons.
"People claim that cars give them freedom but the truth is exactly the opposite. Once you invite a ton of mechanical steel and such speed and power just to move your mushy self you get much too serious. Once you get to cars you really start hurting things. That's why we need to create a whole industry just to protect ourselves from what we can do to each other with our cars. We have had to invent a police state just so we don't have to sit next to someone we don't know on the bus or get wet on our bicycle in the rain. We need to identify ourselves with several types of licenses to ensure we can chase down those who bring us harm thru the efforts of their large cars. We have a dependence on the highway patrol, on eyes in the sky, and on traffic monitoring just as strong as can be because it is deeply a part of our addiction to cars themselves."
Far away from Jackson Meatball's street corner, Johnny Primate stands still while cars from all sides of him are drawn to each other as if embedded with magnets, and crash.
There is a sky; it has a secret. Sounds that punch you in the ears. Sounds with the power to pass thru closed cardoors. Blue suits with gun holsters. White cars with emblems that hit you in the eye. We never have enough of them to keep our streets safe enough until they turn their lights and sounds at you. Then there are far too many.
There are two of them, he and she. They wear red berets and speak loudly over the rush of traffic. Their words are angry, but so are the cars. They try to make their words angrier than the cars' sneers and movement. When next Jackson Meatball opens his mouth, at a different location as cars roar by in either direction, it is another reason.
"How much do you weigh? You, how much, maybe 150 pounds, maybe 190 pounds. And your car, how much does it weigh. About ten times that much. So what happens when you take your car to work. Does your car join you at your job, does it make the tough decisions with you, does it have to operate the machinery too? No, it just sits in a parkinglot and waits for you to finish working. What does it do when you take it shopping? Does it help you decide which dress to buy, which pair of socks will fit you best? No, it just sits in a parkinglot and waits for you to finish your purchase. So you take this thing that weighs ten times what you weigh with you when you work and shop and it does no working or shopping. This is what is called a waste and that is what happens when you drive somewhere. You waste. You waste in a big way. When you drive to work over 90% of the energy your car burns up goes to moving it and yet it is not going to help you with your job. Only 10% or less of the energy goes to move you and you are the reason for going to work. That 90% is waste. When you look at a freeway full of cars you are looking at a freeway full of that 90% and thus a freeway full of waste."
Senta challenges all the amazed and confused people who stand around them to abandon their cars right this moment and never turn to them again. The people who walked over and expected them to be talking about Jesus in such a forceful way aren't sure if they heard correctly. Their cars are waiting for them and will waste their way back home once they have figured out what is going on. Senta and Jackson feel their voices drive away from them in the dust and noise of a freeway and they have to stop and wait for their throats to heal.
The sky follows them with its big bright eye the sun as they travel the distance with feet spinning to talk from street corner to grassy parkside. The days grow long the days grow short as pedals turn and the once bright top of the bicycle surrey dulls in the sunlight and the moonlight. When Jackson speaks, his mouth opens and closes. How fast it does so has a lot to do with how deeply he believes his message. You can bet his mouth is doing it now as fast as it can go. "Bicycles and such are human powered vehicles. Cars are powered by death. Fossils fuels are the living things of thousands of years ago. Now we burn these fossils so we can hurry as slow as congestion to our jobs or our parties. We are burning the dead to get to our fast food. The act of driving is an act of deep disrespect for the dead, and for everything living, and for all that will ever live after us."
Senta and Jackson speak to college students in a grassy area on a campus. Cars buzz by nearby, shattering the air and dirtying the day. Jackson speaks about oil and history, fuel and fossils, waste and percentages. The faces of the listeners bob up and down, as if they were going down the road. How easy it is to say a thing. How hard to listen exactly. Jackson brushes out his old mustache and flies far above his impromptu audience with the wings beneath the scab marks on his back. His brain connects words as Senta pumps the pedals. They travel the nation with their message inspired by weeds, the dead, and a Johnny. It takes such a day with trees and a lovely green lawn for the words to change to music. Once again a campus; once again an audience of students. And so, Senta sings her song of Johnny Primate and the Flying Dutchman of the Plains.
SENTA ROLLINS:
Oh Hohohay! Hahahaho! Yohahalay! Holayhoho!
Oh, have you seen a Winnebago
White stripes on green its colors be -
To every road it sends a plague, oh,
A storm upon the asphalt sea!
Whee! Signal left, signal right! Hohohe! Hohohe!
Whee! Watch your blind spot there! Hohohe! Hohohe!
Whee! If the death ship sails in your mirror
You will crash, you will burn, you will die!
What kind of fiends, what kind of ghostly crew
Could wish so many hasty travelers adieu?
Theirs to end the endless death toll
The travel with movement and nothing more;
To challenge speed till no more wheels roll
And silence the highway's eternal roar!
A burning car, a baby crying,
Aboard the ship, a life on wheels;
For Johnny it's less terrifying
When burning yesterday conceals!
Whee! It's a pile up! Hohohe! Hohohe!
Whee! Traffic jam explosion! Hohohe! Hohohe!
Whee! Too much speed, too little sleep,
Deadly curve, Deadly turn, Deadly dumb!
What kind of joys could he witness in such misery?
What kinds of lessons did he learn in this ghostly grand prix?
His to end the endless death toll
The travel with movement and nothing more;
To challenge speed till no more wheels roll
And silence the highway's eternal roar!
We held his hand in deepest friendship,
But roads did he from us serrate –
Death smashed a bus into the death ship
And burned our hero to his fate!
Whee! Angry traffic swirls! Hohohe! Hohohe!
Whee! More cars on the road! Hohohe! Hohohe!
Whee! From all sides come the warnings:
Too much sprawl, too much death, too much waste!
THE STUDENTS: [So moved by her song that they all sing together the next two lines.]
Who will send a message that will be loud enough?
Who will change the world, who will indeed call the bluff?
SENTA: [Singing as if the whole world depended on it.]
Ours to end the endless death toll
The travel with movement and nothing more;
We'll challenge speed till no more wheels roll
And silence the highway's eternal roar!
THE STUDENTS: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! [They laugh at her passion and resume taunting Jackson and her.]
In time, dreams end and sleep resumes in Johnny's head. The road slows down and the last few scraps of night vanish in an instant.
Copyright 2003 John Akre
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