Don Whitney remembers the trip to Chicago, when the kids were tiny, and rain was pissing down, and the puddles on the highway were deep as the wheels in places, and he was still barreling along for some stupid reason, fingers glued to the wheel, hunched forward, until they went through what was half a lake in one spot, really, it was that much water, and there was a floaty moment where even the kids in their car seats seemed to notice, and Kelly, she just took a breath that went down to her toes, and Don, he didn’t have some miraculous driving maneuver that saved the day, some turn into the slide bullshit; no, he just thought, like he was about to post to Facebook, Don Whitney is gonna die, along with his whole freaking family, in a smoking, twisted heap.
They skated through, somehow, and Kelly didn’t say a thing, and Don slowed the freak down and re-tooled the update. Don Whitney almost died, along with his whole family, in a mangle of metal. In a crumpled highway nightmare. Don Whitney almost died, along with his whole family, because he’s an idiot without an ounce of common sense.
Don Whitney didn’t die. His family was fine, too. They made it to Chicago and did the things: they went to Navy Pier and built a bear and went to a museum for kids and ate French fries. They took the kids in a taxi, which they loved best of the whole trip, some strange man in the front seat driving while their family sat in the back, in a bench seat with bad springs, no kiddy car seats, just Mom’s and Dad’s arms, and then the magical, beaded driver’s seat cover with the polished wood balls that spun a little and, to Don Whitney, didn’t look comfortable at all. That was it, the taxi ride in jerky stops and starts and weaving this way and that and the driver honking and cursing in a language they didn’t understand—that was worth reporting, and Don Whitney did, though in the clipped way that made for a Facebook post: Don Whitney took a cab with Kelly and the kids, who think having a driver is the coolest thing.
Don Whitney thinks the story worth posting would be the one where Don Whitney and his family did die in that twisted wreck—especially if they had been driving fast in bad weather because they were fleeing the police or the mafia or, better, a horde of tattered zombies with a taste for juicy, human flesh. Don Whitney imagines all the running and hiding and the looting of grocery stores leading up to the crash and the hacking off of zombie heads and the comforting of confused, crying children who, understandably, didn’t like seeing anyone’s head cut off, and maybe there was romantic drama mixed in, as in Don Whitney and Kelly had been having marital troubles (covered in a flashback that followed Kelly falling into the arms of a seemingly kind but manipulative co-worker who argued that Don Whitney was a really self-involved son-of-a-bitch with a surprising mean streak (which Don Whitney in the here and now can’t argue about)) but were reconciled under the threat of having their throats torn out, because they’d really, truly been the only ones for each other all along but had just drifted under the daily discontents of everyday life, which seemed mundane now that they were eating from cans of dog food and pooping in the woods and driving at a furious pace west to the coast where, they’d heard, there was a haven of kindred spirits who’d found a safe, coastal location in which they were starting civilization over, one farm bed and windmill at a time, only, Don Whitney wondered, was the haven real or just a fantasy that drove survivors to keep on keeping on—and, if it was real, what dramas were unfolding there among factions that couldn’t agree whether it was better to grow yams or sweet potatoes and what hunky, bearded post-apocalyptic studs waited there to steal away his wife, who, once safe, would again feel disconnected from Don Whitney. Did they have a Facebook to post to?
Of course, how would Don Whitney post about his own death?
What does Don Whitney post?
Don Whitney just had the greatest cup of coffee.
Don Whitney has to shovel snow.
Don Whitney wishes Firefly didn’t get canceled.
That’s primetime. Worse nonsense doesn’t get that far. Nights he can’t sleep, he thinks about posting that Don Whitney can’t fall asleep—and, actually, that one might have made it online, but Don Whitney is tossing and turning didn’t. Nor did Don Whitney is going to be tired tomorrow. Don Whitney is tired today. Don Whitney slipped walking down the stairs. Don Whitney is in need of a shave. Don Whitney wonders if he should wear shorts or something warmer. Don Whitney has decided on jeans. Don Whitney wonders if he should pack a lunch or get a sandwich at the deli down the street from work. Don Whitney doesn’t want to go to work. Don Whitney has to drive a half-hour in the fucking mess of traffic and then drag his sorry ass through the front doors of the building with a smile and a wave to all the other schmucks dragging their sorry asses through the doors with him, and then Don Whitney’s got to park himself at his desk and look busy when he isn’t and look un-fussed when he is and, all the whole day, while he’s making small talk in the hallway or answering eight-thousand emails or wondering if he really, really threw away the forms he just can’t find, Don Whitney is thinking he needs a smoke, that he should have never quit smoking, that he would trade his firstborn for one Marlboro Red to slide under his nose before even lighting just to smell that tasty, goddam tobacco, and then the first drag would be kind of like heaven mixed with the smell of the match that lit it, and mmmmmmmmmmmm, Don Whitney is feeling it, baby. He is feeling it. But Don Whitney isn’t. Don Whitney is imagining it, which is kinda nice but doesn’t make the day disappear any faster until Don Whitney can fight his way back through traffic to be absolute, fucking last to pick up his kids at daycare, with a million apologies, because it’s Kelly’s late night of the week, and then home to mac and cheese all around, and a beer, which he won’t mention to Kelly, and then some loud, green and blue animation on the TV until bedtime for the kids and, later, bedtime for him when Kelly pokes him awake and says, “Don Whitney,” and Don Whitney brushes his teeth and gets ready to do it again tomorrow. Don Whitney is working for the weekend.
Maybe the stupidest part of the entire scenario, Don Whitney thinks, is the way every Don Whitney post, as well as every post written by Jane and John Doe and every other Facebook user on the planet, starts with his or her or name—or used to. Don Whitney did this. Don Whitney thought that. Don Whitney dot dot dot. Is every Facebook user a main character? Main characters don’t exist, Don Whitney thinks, outside of epic poems and books and films. Enter Don Whitney, case in point. Even in what was arguably Don Whitney’s big moment, when Doctor X negotiated a slippery and, as-of-yet unnamed Don Whitney out his mother’s birth canal and presented him, Simba-like, to the assembled room of caregivers, before providing a sharp and completely gratuitous slap on the buttocks to start Don Whitney squalling—even then, Don Whitney was a bit player in a theater that, really, belonged to his mom, laboring away like her life depended on it, which it probably did, back then, or Doctor X, who shouldered onto center stage, triumphant in his medical degree and years of experience and huge salary and and huger wristwatch and even hugest ego, to say, look at me bringing forth life to populate the greatest country on earth, also a contender for primary in this performance, if a bit more abstract, and let’s not forget the nurses gathered around, all women, of course, as mise en scene, apparently, until their shining moment, when, as one, they collected Don Whitney-to-be and scrubbed him of all the yellow and red gunk of afterbirth with the first of many hospital towels with institutional blue stripes and so became the center of attention, Nurse Y the boss of the bunch and, therefore, commanding her own moment, though Nurse Z was everyone’s actual favorite and the one to whom the assembled players turned to share their secret looks of both pleasure at birth and frustration with Nurse Y, who was such a goddamn b****, and let’s not forget that this scene ran wholly to the side of the one featuring Don Whitney’s dad, who drew every eye in the waiting room with his nervous pacing, no matter that it was the worst sort of cliché, and, eventually, his thrill, when the nurses as a group presented Don Whitney, swaddled and separated by a pane of glass, and, then, his unexpected shock and verbal reaction at the amount of goop still stuck to Don Whitney, who wasn’t even firstborn into the Whitney family but already, at 10 minutes old, stuck forever in a supporting role: mischievous, youngest brother. For fuck’s sake. This is the Don Whitney who grew up to present himself as so freaking important on Facebook that everyone should be waiting with bated breath to find out just what Don Whitney does next?!
What does Don Whitney do next? Don Whitney lets everyone know that the orange is a messy fruit to eat. Don Whitney says he’s watching a gorgeous sunrise, with a picture as proof. Don Whitney wishes it were warmer, colder, sunnier. Don Whitney sings the praises of his son, playing hockey, and his daughter, playing the piano, and Don Whitney knows to leave his wife to her own devices. Don Whitney posts way, way too many pictures of his dogs, standing, sleeping, peeing, barking. Don Whitney’s working for the weekend, again, and, for some goddamn reason, people give a shit. Tracy says that Don Whitney should cut his orange and bend the peel off. Robert says he saw that sunrise and adds more pictures to fill the scene. Don Whitney’s friends agree that it should be warmer, colder, sunnier. Don Whitney’s friends complain about their own meteorological states. Kristen woots about Don Whitney’s progeny and their many talents, and Don Whitney’s wife shouts about them, too, using capital letters, and hot damn if a whole lot of friends of Don Whitney aren’t also aiming for a Friday drink at five o’clock or maybe even earlier, and they’re slapping up beer mugs and the cast of Seinfeld doing a happy dance, this last from Andy, who, hot damn, Don Whitney hasn’t seen since they rode the school bus together in sixth grade, and there’s freaking Chris P, man, and Gina, from summer camp, and Vince W, who sat next to Don Whitney in every school and every class ever, and Donna and Steve and Paul and Liz from college, and Harvey, who always needed and still needs a shave, and Brian and Traci and Dennis and Noel from the dog park, with their big ole thumbs up, and Andrea, with her wise-ass comments, and Linda, one house over, worrying about ticks, and Joe, who’s just a good dude, and so on and so forth, forever and forever, amen, or until the algorithm changes.
But Don Whitney wonders about the people he wonders about. Why isn’t Tim from the old neighborhood on Facebook, or Nicole, who Don Whitney, oh, man, did he have a thing for her, or Amy or Steve and on and on. Do they not do Facebook? Are they unplugged? Don Whitney wonders. Are there people still out there who aren’t tethered to their computers or tablets or phones, checking this app or that way, way too often, as in checking it again ten seconds after they just the put the thing in their pocket, because it’s a reflex or a tick, like chewing their nails down to the cuticles and then chewing some more, or because they’re bored and looking for some diversion, or maybe they’re waiting for news, although they don’t know what news they’re waiting for? Just maybe, Don Whitney thinks—even though everyone he sees on the street, walking, or in their cars, driving, or with their friends, talking, or in the bathroom, sitting (Don Whitney imagines, he admits) seems to have his or her or their nose buried septum-deep in goddamn screens, Don Whitney included—just maybe there’s a whole subculture of untethered humans at, Don Whitney doesn’t know, maybe a concert, and they’re digging the music, not taking a picture, or maybe they’re on a trip in Italy, for crying out loud, with their focus on the Colosseum, not their iPhones, or maybe they’re seriously unplugged, living it up in some old-school habitat, like a neighborhood block party with grills ablaze and games on lawns or, wait, make it a county fair, with carnies a-calling and the Ferris wheel turning and excited children pulling their parent to the cotton candy stand with not one phone in sight, or, whoa, think of backwoods campers with their packs hiking out to the most wooded spot imaginable, trees and more trees and rivers and beautiful cliffs with not a cell tower in screaming distance, Bambi-her-freaking-self prancing through the buttercups, not afraid that she’s going to be corralled into a one-armed selfie hug. Don Whitney thinks that Don Whitney would love the shit out of that, but Don Whitney knows better. Don Whitney remembers the Sunday he tried to leave his phone in the bedroom, on the charger, and all he could think all day was how much he wanted to get his hands on that sucker, just for a minute, to check what he wasn’t exactly sure, but goddamn if he didn’t have the feeling it was awfully important. In other words, Don Whitney’s fate is to be sitting, always, at the Facebook table, at least until the internet overlords come up with something more addictive.
Posts don’t start anymore with Don Whitney this or Don Whitney, but when Don Whitney internets about a recipe, he’s nothing if not saying that Don Whitney has made and eaten amazing vegetarian spaghetti bolognese, and when he makes his kids watch Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, what he’s really saying is that Don Whitney has great taste in the greatest of films, and what else has Don Whitney been up to? Don Whitney is taking a glorious trip to visit family. Don Whitney’s drinking a tasty beer. Don Whitney’s been mowing that ole lawn raking them darn leaves and cleaning that dagnabbed garage. And Don Whitney will keep on keeping on. Don Whitney will post that Don Whitney’s son is on the honor roll, in junior high, and then high school, and then Don Whitney’s son will graduate and go to college, and so will Don Whitney’s daughter, with same posts, different kid, different college. Don Whitney will have renovations done on the house. Visual evidence will abound. Don Whitney will start taking long walks in the local parks. Don Whitney will snap a pic of the dessert he and Don Whitney’s wife ordered at the fancy restaurant downtown. Don Whitney will post about national politics and the state of the stock market. Don Whitney will travel to Europe via cruise ship full of drunk, shuffle-boarding geezers like Don Whitney. Don Whitney will celebrate the idea of retirement. Don Whitney will complain that retirement is too far off. Maybe Don Whitney will finally retire to an awesome cabin about which he’ll post ad nauseam complete with shots of the babbling brook nearby and all the oak trees dropping their nuts. Maybe Don Whitney won’t have the nerve to retire to anywhere, withering in his renovated house and body and mind until a drive to the goddam grocery store is so perilous that he’s wiped out for days after, and the same will be true for all his nearby and corporeal pals until, one by one, they kick off, leaving Don Whitney and his similarly afflicted wife alone, their kids and grandkids halfway across the country. Will Don Whitney’s only community be those friends on Facebook still willing to offer up a thumbs up or smiley face or care emoji when Don Whitney manages to squeeze out a complaint about the price of his pills or his noisy neighborhood or this ache or that pain, for fuck’s sake, until, Don Whitney, in one last gesture, when he knows his time is well and truly up, posts that Don Whitney has left the building?
Even then, Facebook won’t cancel his account, because Don Whitney has it set to Memorial, meaning Don Whitney will be here still, my friends.
Don Whitney lives.
