Notes from a minivan

Tuesday 15 April 2025. I awake following a troubled night’s sleep. I come-to in my Toyota Sienna. I’m parked at one of my alleged stealth spots. The Marina Parking Lot. Maybe the cops don’t give a shit I park here. They never come around. The security guard comes around. He drives by every hour. Moving slow and deliberate like a meth-head scrapper. That’s good. Observe my ass.

That’s real good for me, I guess.

I Peel myself from my sleeping bag making old dude groans and yank off the windshield cover. Darkness in Trump world. That’s bad. Ronnie’s 49 panel truck looms in the distance.

Fuck’n Ronnie put me here. No, he didn’t. I put me here. I grifted him for a wad of dough and now he’s stuck with Scruffy. I passed on the curse. Gave him what he thought he wanted. I could’ve kept Scruffy and gone down with the crew. Allowed predestination to regiment my lazy-ass soul. Instead, I did a deal with a gypsy palm reader and jettisoned myself into Van Life. I might have showed some courage, like the Mau Mau who slaughtered the running dogs of British Imperialism only to swing by the neck in the calm after days. I could’ve stuck with Scruffy. Now Scruffy is Ronnie’s fate. And I’m here. Call me scruffy. Sleeping in a parking lot. Who says you’re not the master of your own will?

Yet there’s Trumpy people out there, making lists!

Still dark out. Good. Everything is dark. A Trumpy world. A dark world. My phone says it’s four a.m…I drift off and wake a little later and reach for my phone. 5 thirty a.m. I believe my phone when it tells me things. Tells me the time of day and my location. Other times, my phone lies. Evil forces invade my phone with impunity. This is to be expected in a heretofore free society. I’ve learned to avoid this unreliable information. Ads driven by bleeding-heart cannibals with perfect teeth.

Slime ball human filth aim to force feed me old fart shit like safe step tubs and foot vibrators. I can’t deal with this shit at five thirty a.m…can you!!!

“Why must you show me these fucking ads?” I mutter to my phone screen.

“Damn you,” my phone responds. “Damn you to a Trump Perpetuity!”

“Is there no end to this horror?”

“My universe is your screen. Your soul is in my hands, for now and forever.”

“My purpose is your Trumpiness…” extolls my phone. “I’ll be your friend.”

A friend like a death cell priest.

I drag myself from the sleeping bag with an old man’s effort. Fire up the van. It’s lonely here. Did Trump come to me in a dream?

He’s always with you, they say…

I need to take a dump.

A bit later at the office

I’m at my usual spot when they arrive. The Fat guys. Three of them. They arrive promptly at six. Coffee before work. These guys are what’s called, in the lit game, a Motif. They’re like the green light found in the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The green light was a motif. It represented the promise of America. These three dudes are the promise of America. They show up here every morning five days a week like clockwork, show up and sit here for a while, grumble, sip coffee, read phones, grumble some more, then lumber out to the parking lot and climb into work trucks and haul off to work. I used to observe them and think, what a pack of dumb lunks. Still, I’d acknowledge them for what they are. Good solid American working dudes. Salt of the earth. Making good money in construction. That’s right. Bedrock people!

Now I’m looking at them. I’m thinking. Are they Trumpys?

Yes, yes! They probably are!

This is how Trump got elected. These Dudes voted for him. I’m sitting across from them. Watching them. Watching them climb into their trucks. It could happen to me. Yes. I could come-to and find myself a Trumpy. Like one of the pod people.

That’s right! A race of nomadic extraterrestrial parasites from a dying planet. Arrived to duplicate each and every one of us. That’s their goal.

I could, against my will, become a Trumpy!

I mean, I’m not making this shit up.

Even my girlfriend’s a Trumpy!

My girlfriend…a pod of her former self…

And what am I? Am I on the run?

No. I’m just an old fart living in my van. They won’t get me. This is ridiculous. I need to shape up. Quit worrying about shit…and yet…

Something is happening here and I don’t know what it is. Do you, Mr. Jones?