Rant

the most powerful leader of all time—for all time—that seems well worth the effort.
    Neddy Nelson: You don’t think a real Historian wouldn’t kill you just for laughs?
    Tina Something: The last time I seen Wax, I was Tag Teaming, wearing a bridesmaid dress, making a last-ditch effort to get picked for a team, and a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud pulls up to the curb. Scrawled down the polished side of the body, white and pink spray
    paint says “Just Married.” The shotgun window rolls down, and inside, leaning over from the driver’s seat, is Wax, smiling and saying, “Hey, baby, get in…”
    I ask, “Where you been?” And Wax says, “I did it…” “Did what?” I ask him.
    Neddy Nelson: Next, after Historians “terminate origins,” don’t they go through a long process called something like “residual fading,” where every trace of the old them starts to disappear?
    Tina Something: Karl Waxman tells me he’s got no more future or past. He never has to eat another bite of food or sleep another wink. No more haircuts. No more bowel movements. No aging or injuries or illness. No death. He’s outside of time.
    And Wax says, “I am without beginning or end.” He says, “And I can make you a goddess.”
    Yeah, I say. Like he made that burned-up kid in the BMW a god? And the kids in the Land Rover?
    And Wax laughs and says he was just goofing with them. Wax says, once you’re immortal, you forget that other people aren’t; you start screwing around, and somebody gets their head cut off. The way they screamed, he says they sounded funny as hell.
    With me, he says, it will be different.
    Yeah, I say. Like he made his mom and dad immortal?
    The Rolls-Royce, the shotgun door pops open, and Wax says, “Just get in, baby.” With his hand, Wax pats the seat next to him, saying, “You won’t be young, forever…” He says, “Unless you trust me.”
    And I didn’t get in his car. I slammed the door shut and said he was a dirtbag for not calling me. I said it was his turn to wait. “Oh, I can wait,” Wax said.
    Some Party Crashing kids have walked up, thrift-store brides and grooms, flocking to the Rolls with its tin-can tail and white streamers, ready to climb inside, asking if Wax needs a team, asking if they can all ride along.
    And I tell these kids, “Don’t.” I block the door with my hip and yell at them to get the fuck away from this guy. “You get in this car,” I tell them, “and this gaddamn psycho will murder you.”
    And the kids look at me like I’m the gaddamn psycho.
    That last night I see Wax, the last thing he says to me is, “Try and not forget me, baby.” And he blows me a kiss, pulling away, steering out into the flow of traffic.
    I haven’t Tag Teamed a night since then. All I hope is that’s the last time I ever see Karl Waxman.
    Neddy Nelson: Couldn’t you guess that old-time gods and saviors like Apollo and Isis and Shiva and Jesus are just losers with beater Torinos and Mustangs who went Party Crashing and found a way to “sever their origins”? Maybe they all started as real nobodies, but as their reality faded, a new story piled up around them?
    Tina Something: Soon as I got home, I phoned the gaddamn police detective that’s been bugging me. The detective says he’s never heard of any Karl Waxman.
    Allan Blayne: The stupid thing I said to the girl, it was just a reflex. In my capacity as a crewman, after we had her freed and wrapped in a blanket, I told her, “You are one lucky young lady.”
    Tina Something: In every gaddamn photo I have of me and Wax, he’s gone, just disappeared. They’re only photos of me, smiling, with my arm looped around nothing. My lips puckered, kissing air. When I try, I can’t even tell you if his eyes were brown or green. Ask me again in a few months and a hundred bucks says I’ve never, ever heard of Karl Waxman.
    Shot Dunyun: The way Rant told it to me, Simms didn’t want him to go back in time to fuck anybody. Now that Simms was his own super-hybrid, he wanted to be immortal. Simms wanted Rant to go back in time and kill his mom. Well, I guess—their mom.
    35–A Flashback
    Chester Casey ( Farmer): Here comes a load of bullpucky.
    The night before my boy, Buster, goes and kills himself, some old coot tells him this long, impossible yarn. This rich old coot named Simms says how, when he was Buster’s age and first moved to the city, he was in a car wreck. This Green Taylor Simms is a young man just driving along, and