Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey

by Chuck Palahniuk

Listen up. Rant would tell people: “You’re a different human being to everybody you meet.” Sometimes Rant said, “You only ever is in the eyes of other folks.” If you were going to carve a quote on his grave, his favorite saying was: “The future you have tomorrow won’t be the same future you had yesterday.”

Get real. Most guys are keeping score with every lap of their tongue. Every time they come up for air, they’re clocking your pleasure. And, lick for lick, you know this had better balance out with the pleasure you give them back. So, lick after lick, you never can relax and get off, not when you know that meter is always running. Every lick an investment in getting licked back. Even guys who hate bookkeeping and doing their taxes, guys who could only shrug if you asked their savings-account or credit-card balance, they’ll compute the exact number of laps their tongue’s done around your snatch. And the payback they have coming. The sexual equivalent of clock watchers or bean counters.

Every family has its scriptures, but most can’t articulate them. These are stories people repeat to reinforce their identity: Who they are. Where they came from. Why they behave as they do. Rant used to say, “Every family is a regular little cult.”

No bullshit, but I never leave the house without a mix for anything: Falling in love. Witnessing a death. Disappointment. Impatience. Traffic. I carry a mix for any human condition. Anything really good or bad happens to me, and my way to not overreact—like, to distance my emotions—is to locate the exact perfect sound track for that moment.