Awards: Auto-Engineering Service Star, Martin Luther King Justice Award, No Borders Resettlement Award with Gull Wing Cloudburst, Purple Heart [2 awards]
Conviction Reassignment Awards: Armed Robbery, Murder 2, Manslaughter, Menacing—six counts, all overturned and reassigned as Demographic Service Awards after the Whitefish, Montana Riots
Outstanding Community Service Debt: 162.5 hours
Onboard Array
A bald, crag-faced, muscle-bound man with tattoos and a potbelly betrayed by his sleeveless t-shirt two sizes too small, a Hitlerian mustache painted on a face but one shade lighter, a pink notch, cleaved from his nose by some unknown mishap, leaps back into the driving port, with two ruined Canada geese held by the neck in one left hand, the back of which is branded with the words, “Don’t Wait,” come into the line of sight of the infraction camera, which then focuses on the right hand which goes to the wheel of the override-manual controls and is branded with the word, “HATE!”
Crankshaft Witherspoon is the most racist—that is if the appellation of racist could be legally assigned to a Person of Color—that it has ever been my displeasure to encounter. Before converting to the Justice Service he was an assassin for the Afrikan Nazi Army in America, whose embers believed—and I am afraid, still do—that Hitler was actually a black Jamaican who used advanced cosmetic surgery techniques to hide his identity while seeking the Final Solution.
Crankshaft only speaks with Oldschool and Acetylene, regarding myself and Mainline as “no account bitches,” liberally employs such illegal hate speech terms as “soy boy,” “faggot,” “cat lady,” and the aforementioned “bitch,” and heartily believes that the “goboment,” is still run by “the self-serving so-called Whiteman.”
As the override driver and mechanic, Crankshaft is only supposed to be armed with a Glock 36 and the H&K Suppressor Sweeper. Unfortunately, these remain locked in the hold. Crankshaft arms himself with an 1898 Mauser 8 millimeter bolt action rifle, for which he laboriously and lovingly handloads the ammunition, which he names Von Moltke, an antique CSA saber he calls Ole Nate, a Bowie knife he refers to as Jimmy Jam, and a 9 millimeter Luger pistol he lovingly whispers to, unwilling to let any of the other crew members hear the sacred name of his totemic sleeping companion. Most disturbing is Crankshaft’s complete disregard for the suffused rainbow camo pattern approved for the Justice Service and his adoption of Anglo-Western attire, such as a duster when dismounted and a Stetson along with jackboots and the authentic WWII Luger holster for his handgun.
The subject is currently glaring up at me from the override port instead of watching the road so I will desist from further commentary.
“Nice driving, Crankshaft.”
“Fuck you, Sunshine. Ay don’ need no frizzy face faggit jus’ outa akad-ami blowin’ smoke up my black ass. Stay in yo lane soy boy en jus’ ged me dem co-ordinates fo da Red Rock Warrant. Dis brutha ain’ all about trussin’ dat electronic banka in da sky. Dig into doze Nat Geo Principal Warrant Officer Grease Spot left in the view port en ged me a tri-ang-u-ation—ged to it, nijar!”
I must respectfully request reassignment to a less hostile service environment upon the successful completion of our mission—Good Earth, they didn’t even remove the charred boot or bloodstains of my predecessor...
Video Array
Principal Warrant Officer Dessilanes is shown taking off his universal blue helmet and retching into it within the confines of his C&C turret, as Oldschool in the gun turret roars in laughter and Crankshaft in the override port below drives with his right hand and pounds on the housing of the C&C turret with the other and cackles like a fiend from Bosch’s vision of Hell…
Night City: The Short Fiction of James LaFond: 2015-16
