Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, Found Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts

by David Shields

  How’s my driving? Call 1-800-545-8601. If this vehicle is being driven recklessly, please call 1-800-EAT-SHIT. Don’t drink and drive—you might hit a bump and spill your drink.

  My other car is a horse. Thoroughbreds always get there first. Horse lovers are stable people. My other car is a boat. My other car is a Rolls-Royce. My Mercedes is in the shop today. Unemployed? Hungry? Eat your foreign car. My other car is a 747. My ex-wife’s car is a broom. I think my car has PMS. My other car is a piece of shit, too. Do not wash—this car is undergoing a scientific dirt test. Don’t laugh; it’s paid for. If this car were a horse, I’d have to shoot it. If I go any faster, I’ll burn out my hamsters. I may be slow, but I’m ahead of you. I also drive a Titleist. Pedal downhill.

  Shit happens. I love your wife. Megashit happens. I’m single again. Wife and dog missing—reward for dog. The more people I meet, the more I like my cat. Nobody on board. Sober ’n’ crazy. Do it sober. Drive smart; drive sober.

  No more Mr. Nice Guy. Lost your cat? Try looking under my tires. I love my German shepherd. Never mind the dog—beware of owner. Don’t fence me in. Don’t tell me what kind of day to have. Don’t tailgate or I’ll flush. Eat shit and die. My kid beat up your honor student. Abort your inner child. I don’t care who you are, what you’re driving, who’s on board, who you love, where you’d rather be, or what you’d rather be doing.

  Not so close—I hardly know you. Watch my rear end, not hers. You hit it—you buy it. Hands off. No radio. No Condo/No MBA/No BMW. You toucha my car—I breaka your face. Protected by Smith & Wesson. Warning: This car is protected by a large sheet of cardboard.

  LUV2HNT. Gun control is being able to hit your target. Hunters make better lovers: they go deeper into the bush—they shoot more often—and they eat what they shoot.

  Yes, as a matter of fact, I do own the whole damn road. Get in, sit down, shut up, and hold on. I don’t drive fast; I just fly low. If you don’t like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalk. I’m polluting the atmosphere. Can’t do 55.

  I may be growing old, but I refuse to grow up. Get even: Live long enough to become a problem to your kids. We’re out spending our children’s inheritance.

  Life is pretty dry without a boat. I’d rather be sailing. A man’s place is on his boat. Everyone must believe in something; I believe I’ll go canoeing. Who cares!

  Eat dessert first; life is uncertain. Why be normal?

  Don’t follow me; I’m lost, too. Wherever you are, be there. No matter where you go, there you are. Bloom where you are planted.

  Easy does it. Keep it simple, stupid. I’m 4 Clean Air. Go fly a kite. No matter—never mind. UFOs are real. Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most. I brake for unicorns.

  Choose death.

  32

  Instructions for Extinction

  Melanie Rae Thon

  Sturgeons: Use steamboats. Imagine these lakes and rivers are bottomless. Trawl for the great fish in numbers beyond counting. Smoke their flesh. You and your passengers will find it delightful. Feast on their salty eggs. Use the fat of the fish to fuel your engines. Catch, eat, render—what could be more efficient?

  Songbirds: Slash forests, pave highways, build railroads. Expand suburbs. Create the perfect environment for usurpers and vagabonds. Give the cowbirds plenty of space to rove and feed; leave them just enough woodland for breeding. Watch them lay their big eggs in the nests of warblers and vireos. Close your eyes. Count to ten. Finished.

  Wolves: Use aircraft to spot them. Hunt them with dogs, their own cousins. Set steel traps, even where these are illegal. Use high-powered rifles with scopes. Follow their movement with heat sensors. Poison the carcass of a deer and leave it in the snow when the winter is hard and the wolves hungry. Lure a nursing female from her den. Shoot her. Crawl down the burrow to find her young. Be quick. The other wolves are hunting and might return soon. Do not be afraid of the pups. They are blind and toothless. You could keep one alive with half a pint of milk a day. Don’t do this. Put all five in a burlap bag, twist the top twice, sling it over your shoulder. These wolves are not heavy yet, only seven pounds between them.

  When you reach the bridge, drop three large stones into the bag. Do not be distracted by cries or whimpers. Knot the bag tight; use a rope if necessary.

  As you walk to the center of the bridge, take time to enjoy the view. Imagine the long plunge to swirling water.

  Heave the bag over the side.

  Drop it.

  Variations: If you suspect wolves have killed your livestock, you may prefer more intimate methods. Take the bag to the river’s edge. Some find comfort or satisfaction drowning the pups one at a time. You may wish to feel them struggle.

  If you live in Montana, if you are a stockman obsessed with the idea that the wolf, that wily thief, takes money from your pocket, you are invited to resort to extreme measures: the state veterinarian will inoculate any wolf you capture with sarcoptic mange. Give him your tired, your poor, your famished wolves, your trap-torn cripples. He will provide the needle full of mange, and the wolves will carry this new death to all their brothers and sisters.

  Advice: Do not be deterred by the knowledge that your precious cow died from disease, that the three wolves you saw at twilight were scavengers, not killers. Do not consider the likely possibility that your sheep was pulled down and gutted by your neighbor’s sleek black Labradors, those skillful hunters with strong jaws and powerful haunches. Ignore any blood you see on the paws of your own Irish setter.

  Remember: The wolf is dangerous. He leaps into your dreams. He steals your children. He disguises himself as your grandmother. Trust me. Your actions are necessary. Small and helpless as the pups are, your rage and your fear are justified.

  Consider the words of Lieutenant General Phil Sheridan: “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” I hear my mother’s voice, my mockingbird, my teacher.

  You can kill Indians one by one, risk your own life, suffer discomfort. Or you can wipe them out from a distance. Use your diseases: malaria, measles, influenza, cholera, smallpox, syphilis, tuberculosis.

  To speed the process: eliminate the buffalo. Again, Sheridan offers words of inspiration: “Destroy the Indian’s commissary, and you will destroy him.”

  The buffalo is everywhere and everything, sixty million strong from the Atlantic to the Rockies, from dusty Texas to the Great Slave Lake of Canada. He moves as one beast, an impenetrable mass of muscled animal twenty-five miles long and fifty miles wide. He cannot be counted. He cannot be domesticated. The only thing that stops him is the quick rise of western mountains.

  He speaks a language you might understand if you were wise enough and patient. He squeaks, bellows, clicks, hisses—at dawn and dusk you hear him moaning. He has a voice like God’s, or a cry like your mother’s.

  In a silent catechism, my mother asks, What is your uncle’s name?

  Pte, buffalo.

  What does he become?

  We are good Catholics, Rina and I; we believe in the miracle of transubstantiation.

  I say, His flesh is my body; his skin is my tipi. His hide is my boat, and his dung is my fuel. I worship his head. I sharpen his shoulder blades and swing them like axes. Hooves become glue, bones become needles. His sinew is thread, and his horn is my ladle. With his blood, I am dark; I am painted for battle.

  Rina says, If he is everything to you, why did you kill him?

  White girl, betraying daughter, I am to blame for this and other crimes against my mother and all her people.

  Mother, who swam away one bright day, who will not swim home, who has left her pale husband and her two fair-skinned daughters now and forever, this mother whispers, How can you sleep, my child, while the world you know vanishes?

  October 30, 2001

  To Whom It May Concern:

  Enclosed please find the last will and testament of Andrew Walter,1 which, as of five-thirty p.m. today, will be simultaneously submitted to twenty-seven unknown readers, in the hope
that one of them might accept the role of executor.2

  To choose these persons, the undersigned, with the help of the Manhattan Phone Book, recited the names and addresses of possible candidates aloud. Candidates were chosen partly because of the aural pleasure obtained by reciting their names and addresses, and partly because the visions that un-spooled during this recitation were harmonious with the undersigned’s idea of the kind of person the executor should be—i.e., someone sympathetic enough to stop when passing the injured, yet not sentimental enough to think herself/himself a hero; someone intelligent enough to complete a New York Times crossword puzzle, yet humble enough to say it was just a thing they did while waiting for the next thing to happen; someone who would pause—on a train, under a bridge, on a toilet—to read, and perhaps memorize, an extraordinary graffiti passage.

  The undersigned acknowledges these unreliable methods might have led him to make inappropriate choices. Indeed, some recipients may find the following subject matter3 offensive, and may conclude that the undersigned is insane, blasphemous, or perverted. In this event, the undersigned apologizes, and asks that the recipient destroy these documents.

  Though the letters of the undersigned’s name will, undoubtedly, have a particular effect upon the reader—an association produced by the particular combination of the letters, conjuring up a vision, however irrational, however unclear, of what the undersigned might look like—the undersigned understands that the reader will have not known him. The undersigned has figured, based on the proximity of the address, as well as the undersigned’s affinity for brisk walks, that there is a very good possibility that he has passed the reader in the street—though the undersigned’s face was, most likely, simply another face in that churning face-mass each day brings, and so the undersigned’s face probably tumbled, along with the hundreds of other faces of the day, down the laundry chute of the reader’s head into oblivion or, if the undersigned was lucky, into that unconscious well where he might be drawn up, momentarily, in a dream. Perhaps, as he types, the undersigned is performing any number of things, without his consent, in the confines of other people’s heads, though it’s more likely, since he has a face that he’s been forced, at times, to repress, that he’s been forgotten altogether. It is not, however, the undersigned’s intent to create a sense of guilt4 in the reader for his/her failure to remember the undersigned’s face. In fact, anonymity is of the utmost importance for the undersigned, as his purpose is to allow the reader, should the reader so desire, to believe that Fate has had a hand in the proceedings. Though the undersigned does not believe, necessarily, in Providence, he believes that this somewhat random act of choosing potential executors will allow s/he who decides to follow the accompanying procedures to indulge a sensation of having been chosen, thus granting said procedures a significance that they might not have otherwise possessed.

  That said, the undersigned asks that the recipient of these documents, in a spirit of goodwill, consider following the procedures set forth in the accompanying will and testament, in an effort to help keep the undersigned’s memory, or what’s left of it, alive.

  Signed, this 30th Day of October, 2001.

  Andrew Walter

  LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT

  OF ANDREW WALTER

  I.

  The undersigned, Andrew Walter, residing at 12A Lazarus Court, Brooklyn, New York, being of sound mind and body, does hereby declare this instrument to be his last will and testament.

  II.

  The undersigned hereby revokes all previous wills and codicils.

  III.

  The undersigned hereby directs that the disposition of his remains be as follows:

  A. ACQUIRING THE BODY:

  At Terminal D of the LaGuardia Airport, across from a newsstand, stands a locker numbered 15B, combination 5-25-74. In this locker the executor will find a key to the undersigned’s apartment, directions for acquiring the body of the deceased (the location of which, by this point, will have remained unknown), as well as access codes to a bank account containing the undersigned’s life savings, which should be used for any expenses accrued in the distribution of both the undersigned’s body and his possessions. Leftover monies should be accepted by the executor as payment for her/his participation.

  B. WHAT MIGHT BE DONE WITH THE BODY:

  Once contacted by the executor, the undersigned’s neighbor, a Mr. Charles Christopher—having assured the undersigned that his thirteen months at Johns Hopkins Medical School granted him more than sufficient knowledge concerning the dissection of human cadavers—has agreed, in lieu of the traditional embalming, to perform the favor of separating skull, skeleton, body fat, brain, and heart from the remainder of the deceased’s body. Fat, brain and heart will be placed immediately into plastic bags, then separate coolers,5 until the respective parts are to be prepared and delivered to the destinations described below. In return, Mr. Christopher6 will receive the undersigned’s rare and highly valuable antique Ouija board (the details of which are spelled out in section IV-C of this document).

  1. Skull: The undersigned would ask that his skull be given to one of the following doctors, providing said doctor place the skull upon a shelf in her/his office: Dr. Bill Jameson; Dr. Rachel Hawthorne; Drs. Lola and Marvin Randy; and Dr. Weston Hildebrand. These physicians—all of whom the undersigned has visited at least three times in the last year—should be reminded that the deceased’s skull could serve several functions. One: a kind of model for understanding where scientists believe memory is located, as well as various points of entry, and Two: when hinges are attached to the jaw, the skull might provide its owner with a macabre, though humorous, puppet. “Mr. Bones” might teach otherwise skeptical children the importance of abstaining from flesh foods, flossing after every meal, washing one’s hands regularly to prevent the spread of disease, and drinking plenty of fluids.

  2. Remainder of Skeleton: The undersigned has made arrangements7 with a progressive elementary school, St. Enid’s, on the Upper West Side, that will accept his skeleton. The skeleton could be hung on the wall of their biology lab, as both a model of the human body and, hopefully, as a reminder of what students will someday be reduced to. (The undersigned hopes that this reminder of one’s brief passage through this earthly realm will encourage students to treasure each unthinkable moment of their lives, though he recognizes that the sight of his bones might contribute to some kind of death desensitization, which may or may not be so bad, depending on one’s mental disposition and/or metaphysics.)

  3. Fat: Body fat should be removed from the remains of the deceased and placed inside a cooler, which should then be delivered to lamp maker Gabrielle Whiting, who works in a loft above a buffet in Chinatown, and with whom discreet arrangements have already been made to use the undersigned’s fat, not unlike the versatile blubber of the whale, as fuel for light. The undersigned has estimated8 that he has fat enough for ten lamps, to be distributed to the following ten women the undersigned has thought of, at some time or other, as his friends, some of whom he had dreamed, however fantastically, of loving: Hope Ramsey, Paris Kim, Lydia Gonzalez, Whitney Silvers, Anjeannette LaRoche, Raquel Davis, Daphne Finch, Jill Loganberry, Julie Smith, and Penelope Jones.9 For the sake of their delicate sensibilities, recipients of the lamps should not be told how the lamps are fueled. They need know only that the undersigned wishes to provide them with the kind of light in which their ancestors worked—the unstable and dramatic flickering of the lamp, the kind of light in which so many of us look best.

  4. Brain: The brain of the undersigned shall be sliced, by Mr. Charles Christopher, into sixty-six rectangular pieces—the exact number of companies/organizations the undersigned worked for during his life. These pieces of the undersigned’s brain shall be placed, along with a splash of formaldehyde, into clear glass vials, each of which shall then be corked, labeled, packed tightly in green shipping peanuts, and hand-delivered in a watchcase-sized box to the CEOs/presidents of these companies/organizations.10 The f
ollowing note should accompany each vial: Dear Sir/Madam: Here is a little something to remember me by. Enjoyed (circle all that apply): making copies / entering data / manning desk / folding pamphlets / surfing Internet at your top-notch company and/or organization. Adieu, AW.

  5. Heart: The undersigned’s heart should be removed, wrapped in plastic, packed in a small cooler of dry ice, placed in a square pinewood box,11 and shipped to eastern Tennessee, where the undersigned’s cousin, Marty Richards, maintains a plot of ground behind his A-frame in which deceased members of the Walter family, including the parents of the undersigned, have been laid to rest. No marked headstone is required, though the executor might mention to Mr. Richards that a jagged rock, rolled up from a creek bed, and stood, pointy part up, would be greatly appreciated.

  6: Remainder of Body: To be delivered by Mr. Charles Christopher to Abraham Crematorium.

  IV. THE UNDERSIGNED’S POSSESSIONS:

  A. Books: The undersigned owns few books, since the majority have been accidentally left on the seats of subway trains and upon the pews of various cathedrals. The following are the ones he refuses to remove from the house, and thus, can be found upon his nightstand:

  1. “Inner Experience,” by Georges Bataille; “Tao Te Ching,” by Lao Tzu; “The Diary of a Young Girl,” by Anne Frank; “Song of Myself,” by Walt Whitman; and “Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing,” by Judy Blume, should, within a year following the undersigned’s death, be de-paged and handed out as flyers to passersby in Times Square, preferably those just coming from or going to stand in front of NBC’s Today show window.

  2. “The Selected Poems of Robert Frost” should be delivered to Paris Kim, the round Korean woman who can recite “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from memory, and who has, for nearly six years now, shampooed, cut, shaved, and styled the undersigned’s hair at In Tri Cut, on Beaumont Street.

  3. Holy Bible, King James Version, which bears the under-signed’s name in gold print, should be delivered to Ms. Raquel Davis, with whom the undersigned worked for three days, filling a temporary secretarial position at St. John’s Episcopal Church in SoHo. Ms. Davis—who, as far as the undersigned could tell, had been blessed not only with a striking, if not luminous, winter tan, but also a lovely speaking voice—might be asked to read the first chapter of St. John aloud. If Ms. Davis will allow it, her voice might also be recorded.12 Also, if Ms. Davis would accept it, the Bible should be given to her. She may keep the photograph inside—a blurry image of the undersigned’s father, Hal, with his second wife, Regan, which was sent to the undersigned during the couple’s vacation to Iceland, days before the undersigned’s father swallowed13 forty-six sleeping pills, subsequently falling into a permanent slumber.