Carolyn Bryant-Donham: Left Side of the Page, Right Side of the Political Spectrum, Wrong Side of History

 

Ted Cruz Will Lose

 

Ray Stuckey from Mississippi Burning vs. Kash Patel, Kristi Noem, and Eric Adams

 

I used to think I was just having fun with acronyms here, but this has taken on a bigger meaning. White conservatives don't respect minorities within their own party. Sheriff Stuckey is a closeted member of the KKK, so he's not going to give two shits and a flying fuck about an Indian FBI agent, a female DHS agent, or a black NYPD cop. Bootlicking gets you nowhere in life.

KKKaren

VERSE 1
Your first amendment rights
Shouldn’t lead to fist fights
Put on the goddamn mask
It’s not too much to ask
Put down your semiautomatic
Stop trying to be autocratic
Karen is spelled with three K’s
I could rant about you for days

VERSE 2
No, you can’t see the manager
About your faulty hamburger
No, you can’t call the police
To disturb a black guy’s peace
No, you can’t yell at clerks
Who’re only trying to work
Karen is spelled with three K’s
Who will be your next prey?

BRIDGE
You got your refund paid in full
Your jail time is void and null
You can go back to normalcy
And live your life so cordially
No, not you! You’re never happy
Cussing, screaming, shooting, slapping
Live and in color on a viral video
In case the news cycle was really slow

VERSE 3
You can apologize all you want
But only because you got caught
You can shed your river of tears
While your victims cower in fear
You can do it again to someone else
And never put the blame on yourself
Karen is spelled with three K’s
What more do I have to say?
Karen has an N at the end of it
Her favorite letter, racist sentiment
Karen is spelled with three K’s!

Escape From Kentucky

Matt Ramirez and Alice Logan joined hands and let the soothing sounds of “Oh” by Stone Mecca wash over their exhausted bodies. Just a few more miles on the road and they’d be free at last. Matt took especial care not to drive over the speed limit lest he be pulled over by “Kentucky’s finest”. They’d take one look at his dark skin and wouldn’t think twice about pulling the trigger. Such thoughts caused Matt to accidentally squeeze too hard on Alice’s hand, to which she yelped and he promptly apologized.

“It’s my father, isn’t it, Matt?” asked Alice.

“It’s not just him,” said Matt. “It’s that whole group of assholes and whack jobs he sides with. I can’t go anywhere in Kentucky without seeing a burning cross or a burning swastika. Even when I close my eyes to sleep at night…” That last sentence was punctuated with a sigh as he was lost for further words.

Alice saw the pain etched in Matt’s otherwise handsome face and hers suddenly became visible too. That black eye he received healed quite nicely, though it was noticeable from miles away. All of this hatred over something as stupid as the color of someone’s skin. How senseless and cruel, she thought. She reached into the glove box and pulled out two items: a bowie knife and a manila envelope.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Matt,” said Alice in her sweet southern belle voice. “It’ll only be a matter of time before daddy finds us. If he does, I want you to have this knife. I’ll keep the envelope in case things get too heated.”

“What’s in the envelope?” asked Matt.

“Something my father won’t like. There’s no telling what the hell he might do if he sees what’s inside.”

“Like we need him to be angrier than he already is,” sighed Matt.

“He would have been angry regardless. Racist assholes like him always are. That’s why I’ve got a lifetime of lashes on my ass. Every little thing. Every stupid little thing!” Alice punched the dashboard and almost inflated the airbags.

“Hey, hey, hey, take it easy!” said Matt as he barricaded his girlfriend with his thick arm. “Everything’s going to be alright, Alice. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. Let’s just get the fuck out of this god-awful state and we’ll see what happens from here….Alice?...What’s wrong now?”

Alice’s icy blue eyes widened as she gazed into the rear-view mirror. Matt took a peek as well and said, “Uh-oh” when the source of his girlfriend’s horror came in the form of a massive pick up trick with a confederate flag paint job. He squinted into the mirror and saw the scraggly bearded face of an older man in overalls chewing on slimy tobacco. “That’s him, isn’t it?”

“Who else would it be?” sobbed Alice while wiping away her tears with her bare arm. The couple held hands even tighter and said their I-love-yous before Matt pressed down on the accelerator, giving zero fucks about the police potentially pulling him over. But the faster his SUV went, the further the pickup truck chugged along, spewing smog into the sky like a factory smokestack.

The pickup speeded close enough to tap Matt’s bumper, to which Alice squeaked and hugged her boyfriend’s whole arm. Matt never took his eyes off the road and pressed even harder on the accelerator. But the more he pressed, the harder the pickup truck tapped his bumper. “Son of a fucking bitch!” Matt roared. He didn’t know where the hell to go since there were ditches on both sides of the otherwise empty freeway.

Matt’s sniper sight turned to distracted rage when he saw another flaming cross off in the distance, complete with bigots in hoods dancing around and chanting. Alice tried to keep him focused with squeaks of his name, but all Matt heard was the many racial slurs he’d been subjected to all of his life. Nigger. Spick. Spigger. Porch monkey. Wetback. Being half-black and half-Mexican really brought out the creativity and imagination of his prejudiced tormentors….said no biracial man ever.

Matt’s grip on Alice’s hand tightened as the truck rammed hard into his bumper, causing the SUV to spin out of control and crash into the ditch. The couple screamed and cursed throughout the whole collision, shattered glass flying into them like a hailstorm of bullets, airbags and seatbelts being their only saving grace…or so it seemed.

The red in Matt’s vision wasn’t just hotheaded rage. It was the warm, copper-scented blood trickling down from his eyebrows and forehead. Any vision he still had was obstructed with blurriness. Looking at his own cut up arm felt like he was on acid…and drunk…and stoned. He reached across to the passenger’s seat and felt around for Alice’s arm. He shook it in an attempt to wake her up, but she barely moved an inch. “Come on, baby girl, wake up! Don’t die like this!” begged Matt with glass in his gums.

The excruciating feeling of having his puffy hair yanked on cancelled out the slashes tormenting Matt Ramirez’s body. At least lying dormant in a ditch lent itself to a somewhat peaceful slumber. This was war. And as such, he reached around for the bowie knife and kept a death grip on the handle before being jerked out of the vehicle by none other than Jesse fucking Logan, Alice’s father.

Matt wanted nothing more than to slash Jesse’s throat open like a slaughterhouse cow, but his normally muscular body felt weaker than a grandma who slipped and fell in the bathtub. Every time he went for the slash, the slashes in his arm set the rest of his body ablaze with agony.

Jesse wrestled the knife out of Matt’s hand and held the blade to the “nigger’s” throat. The old man’s body odor along with the tobacco sloshing around in his mouth made Matt want to puke himself inside out. “You ain’t going nowhere with my daughter, you little coon. In fact, you’d been sticking that ugly black thing in her for far too long. I think it’s time we do something about that.” Jesse went to work in pulling off Matt’s jeans and underwear, to which the sluggish victim put up a minimal struggle due to the burning pain he was in. Holding the blade up to Matt’s genitals, Jesse asked, “Any last words before I cut you from asshole to appetite?”

Matt spit out the glass in his mouth and allowed the nickel-flavored goodness to descend upon his throat and tongue. He took a few deep breaths before resorting to his final act of defiance, the one act he could actually perform without torturing the shit out of his own body. “You call yourself a father?” The brown-toothed smile on Jesse’s face made Matt shiver like a naked Eskimo. “I know Alice better than you ever will. Underneath all of that hatred you tried to teach her, there’s a beautiful and intelligent woman. I don’t look at her and see the lashes you gave her. I look at her and see someone I want to spend the rest of my life with. Looks like I’ll get my wish one way or another.”

“That’s some sweethearted poetry you’ve got there, nigger,” said Jesse while mockingly wiping away a fake tear with his free finger. “But there ain’t no such thing as magic here in our great nation. You’ll get plenty of that when you’re burning in hell with the rest of the sinners, boy. Later, tater!”

Matt could feel the blade opening a fresh wound on the base of his penis. Slowly. Painfully. Torturously. Jesse had all the opportunities in the world to finish him off straight away, but instead chose to pick the wings off of the proverbial butterfly. If Matt got any sicker to his stomach, his vomit would result in more violence than his torture and car crash combined.

And then out of the corner of his blurred vision, he saw an angel descend upon Jesse Logan. A blood-soaked angel who nonetheless looked beautiful and radiant in her teal dress, glass shards aside. In that small moment of temporary salvation, Matt smiled his handsome smile. And then Jesse shoved his own daughter to the ground and trained the blade on her. The smile was dead, just like the couple would be in a few seconds.

“I didn’t raise you to be no nigger-lover, Alice,” sneered Jesse while spitting tobacco in his own daughter’s face. “You’re a disgrace to this family. You’re a disgrace to my people. You’re a disgrace to God himself! You see that cross burning out there? That’s going to be you and your lover once I send both your asses to hell.”

“Be….before you kill us…” stuttered Alice. “Open this…” She lifted her battered arm just high enough to hand Jesse the manila envelope.

Jesse shrugged and said, “Why not? It’s the least I could do for my baby girl before she spends eternity getting butt fucked by the devil.” He took the envelope and slashed it open with the bowie knife. He read the contents inside at first with an arrogant grin. That grin slowly faded into wide-eyed shock. He lost control of his jaw and allowed the rest of his tobacco to splatter all over his daughter’s leg. “This is bullshit! This ain’t real!”

“Oh, it’s very real, daddy. Looks like you’ll be going to hell with me!” said Alice with a bloody grin.

“No way…no way in fucking hell…” Jesse dropped the paperwork and held the blade to his own throat. “I’m sorry, Jesus! I’m sorry for everything!” In one swift motion, Jesse D. Logan slashed his own throat and plopped to the ground dead as a doornail, covering both his daughter and her lover with his viscous life juices.

Although Matt felt a weight the heaviness of Jesse’s truck being lifted off of him, he couldn’t help but give his girlfriend a confused frown. Alice smiled her beautiful smile at him and said, “That was a DNA test, my love. My daddy has a little good in him after all.”

“He’s black?” asked Matt, to which Alice nodded. “That’s some sick ass irony.”

“It is. And when those Klan bastards come running over here to see what’s up, they’ll find that paper work and know their whole bullshit is just that: pure cow manure. They can kill us both, but love itself never dies. Hold my hand, just like we did in the car.”

As soon as Alice reached out, Matt found the strength in his left arm to squirm over and hold hands with his girlfriend. In this moment of beauty, he didn’t care about the Klansmen rushing over with their hateful rhetoric. He didn’t even care about the burning crosses that haunted his mind like schizophrenic ghosts. All he felt was love. His heart beat faster, the wounds stopped hurting, and even his blood-soaked penis couldn’t help but stand up for what felt right. Alice gave him a little giggle and said, “If only we could do that in front of these racist assholes.”

“I love you, Alice.”

“I love you too, Matt.”

Gyro Psycho Modulator

VERSE 1

A Kafkaesque prison, you’ll never break out

Straws in your nose and a ball in your mouth

The tightest straps on your ankles and wrists

Clamp down on your gut with one more twist

Spinning in circles like the wheel of fortune

Your stomach boils in this evil torment

Your head bursts from all of the mind rape

Bringing torture back to medieval dates

CHORUS

Gyro! Psycho! Modulator! X4

VERSE 2

You need to learn your hardest life lessons

Surrender your soul, lay down your weapons

You’ve done enough damage to your own kind

Let these necromantic images burn in your mind

Lynchings and shootings: what’s the difference?

They both come from those with sinful visions

You can spin forever on that torture table

Keep your supper down if you’re able

CHORUS

Gyro! Psycho! Modulator! X4

VERSE 3

One last chance, you won’t get another

Confront the souls of your slain brothers

Tell them why you murdered their asses

Tell them why you terrorized the masses

Your Freudian excuses are so pathetic

Death and disease is your sick fetish

Tell me all you want how you give no fucks

Tell it to the gangsters who fill you with slugs

EXTENDED CHORUS

Gyro! Psycho! Modulator!

Sensory! Deprivation! Chamber!

Stripped! Naked! For slave labor!

You still! Reject! Your only savior!

FINAL LINE

Welcome to hell, motherfuckers!

I Am Death

Kobra and Lux embraced each other lovingly as they watched the scene unfold from their abandoned building hideout. Black protesters, with rage on their faces and profanity on their cardboard signs, surrounded the courthouse waiting for the perfect moment to unleash their fury. White hooded Klansmen stood on the opposite side with nooses and effigies to show their disgust. In between the two extreme parties were police in riot gear, armed with batons, tear gas grenades, and facial expression fiercer than an entire hunting party of starving wolves.

Lux, dressed beautifully in a fairy-like white dress, black knee high boots, and a glittery mask over her stunning blue eyes, gazed into her lover with and said with the softest voice, “What will happen if this plan doesn’t work?”

Kobra, with a snake’s mask covering his face and black robes with skeletal armor covering his toned body, stroked his girlfriend’s long black hair with soothing comfort and said, “Let me put it this way, my love: we don’t have a choice. Any minute now, the verdict for Keith Turner will be revealed. No matter what it may be, this city will descend into chaos in a heartbeat. I never really did like politics, but I hate senseless violence even more.” He touched a gentle finger underneath Lux’s chin and said, “Everything will be alright. The devices are rigged, everything is in place, and we’ve rehearsed this act until the end of time. They’d be foolish not to be frightened by Death himself.”

“I love you, Kobra.”

“I love you too, Lux.”

The two magicians shared a passionate tongue kiss only to be distracted by the noise going on outside. They peered out their window and saw Keith Turner and his lawyers dancing happily down the courthouse stairs. No shackles. No cuffs. Not a damn sign that he had been found guilty. The long brown-haired defendant even had a sadistic smile on his face. Kobra shuddered to think that was the look he gave the eight-year-old black girl before he murdered her in cold blood. And now the illusionist’s blood came a rolling boil now that this racist son of a bitch would walk free.

Just like Kobra predicted, the scene outside the courthouse descended into madness upon hearing the news that Keith Turner was free. Black protesters shouted and scrambled toward the heavily-guarded murderer while slinging their signs like steel chairs in a wrestling match. The KKK members swarmed the protesters and threw haymakers and shin kicks, not to mention a few choice N-words and other delightful racial slurs. The riot police struggled to maintain order and instead resorted to swinging their batons at anything that moved, be it protester or Klansman. Blood filled the streets of Paulson City and Mr. Turner watched from the stairs above without an ounce of warmth in his heart.

“It’s show time, Lux. Levitate me!” demanded Kobra. The magician had thin wires running through his robes that were undetectable by sunlight, yet powerful enough to hold his 180 lb. frame. Once Lux pounded a few buttons on a nearby control panel, those wires gave the illusion of floatation as Kobra “levitated” out of the window and high above the riot in progress.

Only a few rioters and police officers stopped to watch the floating death angel with wide-eyed awe and wonder. Kobra gained everyone’s full attention when he pulled a tab inside his robes and unleashed a pair of metallic angel wings. He winked at Lux inside the hideout and prompted her to activate the flamethrowers rigged on both sides of the street. This burning gesture was on cue with Kobra raising his arms in the air and extending his fingers like a sorcerer casting spells.

What once was a riot full of angry people and weary cops now turned into a theater with a dumbstruck audience. No more bloodshed, no more racism, just shaky bodies and faces of fear. Kobra loosened a few bladders and bowels once he swung his arms to the side and summoned a hurricane force wind around his body. He threw down his hand and tossed a rigged lightning bolt onto a gimmick fire hydrant, which exploded into a secondary Old Faithful.

One of the cops pulled out a shotgun and tried to squeeze off a few shells in Kobra’s direction. The combination of wind, lightning, and fire blew the ammunition every which way and almost blew out one of the covered-up flamethrowers. Instead of wiping off his sweaty brow in relief, Kobra went right into his distortion box-voiced tirade against the masses.

“Fools! Each and every one of you! You’re nothing but goddamn fools!” shouted the masked illusionist. “You’re gathered here today to spread mayhem and murder, the same mayhem and murder that the idiot in the gray suit was so happy to commit not too long ago!”

Even as Keith Turner stared daggers at him with a brown-toothed smile, Kobra wouldn’t shake and stutter so easily. The magician pointed an elongated, bony finger at the killer and shouted, “If you think you’re going to get away with your sins so easily, you’re sadly mistaken! I am Death himself! I am nightmare fuel! I speak the words of every victim you have claimed! That girl you killed had a name! That name is…”

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” Keith interrupted with a booming voice. “Does anybody else here think this Angel of Death garbage is a bunch of bullshit?! Am I the only one who sees this cocksucker for who he is?! You don’t scare me, snake boy! None of y’all niggers scare me either! White power!”

With Mr. Turner performing a Nazi salute, the KKK members did the same before clashing with black protesters and riot police once again. Their nationalist rage transformed back into pants-wetting, voice-stealing fear once Kobra shot a lightning bolt a jimmied mailbox and ignited the flamethrower underneath. “Silence, you fools!” shouted the Angel of Death.

“If you think those streets are bloody now, keep testing my patience!” bellowed Kobra. “I shall turn this city into hell itself! I shall turn this world into a necrocosm! I shall avenge every restless soul…”

“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah! Yeah, we get it! Armageddon and shit!” yelled Keith with his arms folded and arrogant anger etched on his face. “Tell you what, shit head! Why don’t you float on down here and I’ll rearrange that pretty little snake face of yours! No more magic tricks and hocus pocus bullshit! Just you and me slugging it out, baby!”

Kobra sweated profusely inside his costume trying to think of ways to keep his bluff alive. He had an idea, but it was risky. But with no risks came no rewards. Either this would pay off or it would get him killed. “Tell you what, Mr. Turner,” said Kobra in his usual demonic aura. “Why don’t you come over here instead! You think this is a gimmick?! You think this is a fairytale?! I don’t deal in fairytales, you sodomite! I deal in death! Bring your bastard ass over here and prove to me you’re more than just a coward who targets children!”

Keith took off his suit jacket and angrily threw it to the floor before cracking his knuckles and putting his dukes up. He breathed heavily like a beast ready to jump on its prey. But then he chuckled egotistically and said, “Who am I kidding? I’m a free man. I’ve got nothing to prove to you. You’re the one breaking the law, not me. Hey, officers! Do your job and put this pinheaded asshole on trial! Maybe these jiggaboos out here can get a hashtag going on Twitter that says Snake Lives Matter or some shit.”

“Suck my dick!” shouted a random protester who threw a cardboard sign at Keith. With kicks, punches, elbows, and knees being thrown every which way, the rioting crowd and the armored police were back to square one with the bloody violence.

Kobra had one last trick up his sleeve and he had to make it count. He turned to his lovely partner Lux and gave her thumbs up before dragging that thumb across his throat. She smiled and nodded at him before pulling the biggest lever her control panel had. Slowly but surely, a parked police van on the sidewalk levitated off the ground with the same invisible wires to support it, though nobody could see them.

The fighting ceased once again despite Keith Turner’s constant bellowing that this was just another “hocus pocus stunt”. The higher in the air the van got, the more the crowd parted like the Red Sea. Protesters, cops, and Klansmen alike dispersed from the streets running like Olympic athletes. They left behind a battlefield of blood and bodies. There were even wounded bodies in the streets struggling and crawling to get away.

“This is horseshit! This is absolute horseshit!” Keith complained. He jumped into the nearly empty streets and started kicking the dead bodies of black protesters. “I’m so sick of this crap! Black lives don’t matter, motherfuckers! Your lives don’t mean shit to me! I’m sick of that stupid goddamn hashtag going around the fucking internet! You hear me?! I said do you hear me…”

The wires, being thin enough to evade detection, were bound to snap with that much weight underneath. Kobra knew this part of the illusion was a bad idea and covered his eyes, not wanting to watch his cinematic masterpiece crumble beneath him. But the sound of metal crunching on concrete deafened his ears, he opened his field of vision again to see that the only thing crumbling beneath him were Keith Turner’s bones. He was crushed underneath the wrecked vehicle with just his head poking out and his eyes bulging from his skull.

The poetic justice brought laughter to Kobra’s throat from the depths of his belly. It was an evil laugh that only a sick and sadistic demon could pull off. He even raised his hands to set off more flamethrowers and lightning bolts to keep his gimmick alive in the eyes of those still hanging around (which weren’t many). The howling laughter continued even as Kobra was slowly being pulled inside the hideout by Lux’s controls.

The illusionist stripped off his robes, skeletal suit, and angel wings to reveal a T-shirt and jeans underneath. “How did I do?” asked Kobra with a sexy smile on his face.

Lux wrapped her silky arms around her lover’s neck and said in a seductive voice, “I hope they give out Oscars for performances like that. You were wonderful, my dear. You even had me scared for a minute. Come here, sweetheart.” The magic-wielding couple pulled each other in for an emotional kiss. This illusion was a long shot in the making, but it paid off handsomely. Magic was real whether it was in the bloody streets of Paulson City or in the embrace of two passionate sorcerers.

“I love you, Kobra.”

“I love you too, Lux. Don’t ever forget that.”