Every morning I crawled out our kitchen window and photographed my ass next to our street’s latest road sign. This was my full-time job.
“NEW: NO parking on Franklin, 10am to 4pm, Wednesday. Street sweeping.” I posted the caption beneath a photo of a sign that read the same, featuring the curve of my right butt cheek hugging its stout metal pole.
“Hot,” read a comment from one of my two hundred and sixty thousand followers.
“My favorite booty,” read another.
And another: “This is important, , and, .. joyful work, ^.^ ..”
I’d started posting photos to an alternative Instagram account a year ago, after losing my real job at the city. The city had gone bankrupt, so nobody had real jobs anymore. But everyone still had cars, as long as they obeyed the signs. If they didn’t, they’d get towed.
The signs were erected overnight, like small arousals from a Devil unknown. I moved your car in the mornings: a shy silver Buick LeSabre with 126k miles in the can and very few left to go.
No one knew where the cars went once they were towed. There were theories. But I steered clear of those. It wasn’t my job to judge, only to inform. So I stuck to posting my photos.
The money came soon after. If I posted everyday, I received one thousand dollars per post. If I posted twice a day, I received five thousand dollars per post. If I posted three times a day or more, I received a phone call.
The phone calls were sudden, always soft whispers from an untraceable number: shy celebrations from someone under watch.
“Pssssst,” the voice would murmur, “your labor is noticed.”
You never followed the account. You never congratulated me. But I didn’t need your approval, or anyone else’s, because I was saving your car, and theirs, from a strange uncertain fate, and I was looking good while doing it.
“BEWARE! SIRENS!” I posted one day as a caption for a zoomed-in photo of some large cryptic signs, “INDECIPHERABLE RULES ON FRANKLIN AVE.”
I stood on tiptoes to snap the perfect frame of my ass. It took awhile. It didn’t come easy that day.
The tow truck was approaching. I posted the photo. One thousand dollars. I jumped in the Buick and slammed the door. It creaked, groaned, and fell clean off. I jammed the key in the ignition. But the Buick refused to start. It had finally given up.
The Buick and I were dragged away from the street by the tow truck, passing hundreds of street signs that had newly sprung.
A sign with two congruent lines, green, so the tow truck barreled down the road.
I snapped photos of the signs and ferociously posted. I crawled into the backseat and crouched ass-up towards the window. The signs whirred past outside. They refused to be captured. They were only growing taller. They were metal effigies, gloating.
You were a butt person. I couldn’t believe you never liked a photo. You must have been scrolling elsewhere, having small arousals of your own.
The signs grew more obscure, just red gibberish bleeding on white, but still, I posted. I flung my ass into the air and snapped. My phone emitted merciless dings, a barrage of interactions on the posts. It rang and rang and didn’t stop until I answered.
“WHAT!” I said, breathless, still posed in the backseat.
The freshly paved gravel scraped the chassis. The exhaust pipe was banging about the ground. The passenger door was rattling, and I was being shaken and jolted in the back.
“I made dinner,” said the shy celebratory voice, “where are you?”
The red signs had hemorrhaged and the Buick was near collapse. The tow truck was dragging us into burning oblivion, into a sunset that would never rise again. The voice was muffled. It was getting hard to hear. But I knew it was yours on the line.
“I’m in Hell right now,” I said, “and the car is dead.”
“Sit tight,” said the voice, your voice, “I’ll be there soon,” and I could hear you unlocking the door.
Lily Gareth Cunningham is a writer, filmmaker, and visual effects artist based in Los Angeles. Her first feature film, ACUTE FAILURE, premiered at the Cinequest 2021 Film Festival. Her writing can be found in Brusier Mag, Little Engines, and her Substack about coats and art called Coat Theory.
Image: geehairimages, commons.wikimedia.org
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