The Car Is A-Rockin' (With Castration)

Picking up right where we left off.

Remember when I said I predicted a scandal with this Michael Milton^[1] character? HOLY TITBALLS. Guys. Fuck, guys. Fuck. Okay.

I'll take a step back -- I've only read about 100 more pages of The World According To Garp since I last wrote about it. I thought I would be able to cover this book in two posts,^[2] one for each half. Nope. I still have ~150 pages (a little less than a third) to go but this needs to be discussed / shouted from the mountaintops.

Obviously more spoilers coming

Helen indeed starts having an affair with Michael Milton. Their relationship begins, ostensibly, on a somewhat professional note: Helen critiques Michael's writings. Eventually, he runs out of assigned material and begins proffering personal prose and poems.^[3] After that, well, they run out of things to talk about entirely: down to biznezz.^[4]

Helen is careful to conceal her extra-curricular activies, but one girl -- scorned by Milton dumping her in favor of Helen -- does find out. She writes a note and goes to Garp and Helen's home to deliver it with the mail. Garp receives the note, reads it, and promptly enters a state of obsessive sad-rage.^[5] He takes Duncan and Walt (their kids, which you knew 'cause you read the last post) to see a movie; Helen is instructed to end it with Milton immediately over the phone.

This does not go as planned.

Milton says, "Fuck it, I'm coming over," and drives to Helen's house.^[6] Helen meets him outside her house in his car; she's reluctant to get in, but does so when Michael hands her the keys. Unable to drive off anywhere, she sits in the car with him in the driveway as he whines and cries. Also it is raining / sleeting. It's hard to see out the windows.^[7]

Oh shit I forgot: when Helen went to Michael's apartment (so they could bang each other) he always drove her and she laid in the front seat with her head in his lap. This was so she wouldn't be seen in the car.^[8] Okay so she does that again in an attempt to calm him down so he'll leave before Garp gets back from the movie with the kids.

Surprise surprise Michael gets all rape-y and pressures Helen into^[9] -- erm -- putting her mouth on his penis such that he may achieve orgasm.^[10] She decides to do it so that he'll leave. It's "for the kids."

Meanwhile, Garp calls home and Helen doesn't answer. He rages and immediately takes the children in the car and drives home. Garp knows the roads really well, particularly his driveway; he does a trick for the kids often where he cuts the lights and engine of the car and coasts up the driveway and into the garage. He does that again. It's not like there will be another car in the driveway or anyth --

NOPE THERE TOTALLY FUCKING IS^[11]

The cars collide. More descriptively, Garp's car slams into Michael's, and Michael's is a shitty old Buick and it's really heavy so it doesn't budge. There's a lot of violence, which I'll summarize here:

1. Duncan, Garp's older son, is thrown from the back seat; his flight is broken by the car's stick shift, jagged and uncovered, taking out his eye.
2. Garp, in his failed attempt to stop Duncan from being tossed forward, hits his jaw against the steering wheel. It shatters.
3. Walt, Garp's youngest, is killed.
4. Helen's neck is slammed against Michael's steering wheel, but it does not break; her arm, however, does.
5. Helen, in the impact, bites down^[12] and -- oh sweet lord -- amputates three-quarters of Michael Milton's penis. She castrates him.

And thus another thing was added to Ian's Long List Of Phobias.^[13]

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[1] If you didn't read the last post (which I linked to) then you're going to be seriously confused so why don't you just go back up there and click that blue text c'mon it was pretty funny just do it.↩

[2] "Ugh. I don't care about your thought process," you say. "I'm only in this for the gifs."↩

[3] Somewhere, an English teacher has fainted.↩

[4] And just like that, awake again -- more effective than smelling salts.↩

[5] When you're really mad but you're also too sad to properly vent. It's sort of child-like but usually prompted by adult situations like discovering your wife has been cheating on you.↩

[6] Helen and Michael never did tha na$ty at Helen's place -- she was always careful to go to Mike's apartment -- so I don't know how he knew where she lived. Probably stalking / sleuthing / hiring a PI.↩

[7] Heads up guys this is important.↩

[8] Michael didn't object. (Erections, everybody.)↩

[9] Hi, Mom. Nice blog your kid's writing, huh?↩

[10] Was this too much? I'm sorry. I mean -- it is in the book, but I didn't have to write it like that.↩

[11] Parents, take your children out of the room. Faint of heart, just leave now. Get out while you can.↩

[12] I am in physical pain.↩

[13] Also on the List: bicycles, most social interaction, bees.↩