[04/03/26]

[FICTION']

Jello Dogs

by Coltrane Yan

We live in a small town. My friend Carl hates the government. He hates China even more. He says the CCP controls the internet. 

“They’re sucking away our brains,” he tells me. “They want to keep us docile.”

He spends most of his time videotaping himself eating hot dogs and having racist conversations with his Hungarian grandmother. He wants to be internet famous.

There’s not many people here, so Carl is a pretty good one to hang around with. He doesn’t do drugs but claims he’s tried them all. He lives a few streets over, and it’s a quick walk if I cut through the neighbour’s yard. His parents built a porch deck in their backyard when we were kids. I remember we used to hide underneath it in the summer. His dogs would crawl under to join us, and we’d all lie there, looking up at the sky through the cracks in the wood.

***

About a year ago we were hanging out in his backyard. Around then Carl was really into the videos. He kept saying he was on the cusp. I was sitting with his grandmother on the deck while he recorded himself at the barbecue. She was eating peanuts. I remember I was wearing sandals because she kept throwing the husks onto my bare feet. 

“What you want to do,” he said to his phone, “is blend up the hot dogs with all your condiments. Then we’ll get the jello powder.”

He hadn’t gotten very far because it took him a while to even light the barbecue. Then the first batch got burned so I had to run to the store and buy more.

Carl said, “Make sure they’re one hundred percent beef.”

I’m not sure what happened while I was out, but when I got back the barbecue was smoking even more. Carl’s grandmother wasn’t sitting where I left her. She was standing at the cooktop with Carl with a set of tongs in her hand, shaking them at him, screaming her head off in Hungarian. Carl doesn’t know any Hungarian, so he kept shouting back, “Patchouli! Patchouli!” and videotaping, his phone right up to her nose.

And this I’ll never forget—she slapped him across the face so hard his phone went flying into the grass. And Carl kind of stumbled backwards off the porch right onto his back like a little kid. He looked so shocked I almost laughed, but I held it in until she put the tongs down. Then she turned off the barbecue and went right back to her chair and started eating peanuts again.

I remember the next morning too because he called me while I was at work. He sounded so hysterical I had to lock myself in the bathroom to talk to him. He said that a million people had seen the video of his grandmother hitting him. He was really excited about it. 

“She really pulled through for me,” he said. “I think I’m going to take her to Vegas.”

That night we went to Joe’s Country Restaurant to celebrate. We were halfway through our meal when Carl got the email. The Chinese company that ran the video site had taken down the video and deactivated his account. Apparently the video was too violent and didn’t uphold their values, or their terms of service or whatever. The night took a turn for the worse after that. I remember we had to tip the waitress really well, and now when we go back there they don’t let us sit in the booths.

***

For a few months after that I didn’t see him much. His gaming account showed that he was active a lot but we never played together. I just let him have his space. Usually he’s the one to call me anyway. Now he’s doing much better though. His uncle owns a construction company in the next town over. Carl’s been working there so he has some money, and he says the guys on the crew are pretty funny. He seems a lot happier. 

But he’s still serious about the internet and everything. He tells me we’re living in the middle of a modern day gold rush. That’s why he bought a gasoline generator and a bunch of floodlights. He’s been live-streaming himself digging a hole in the backyard. He digs all night and then goes straight to work in the morning. I don’t know when he finds the time to sleep. Most nights after work I like to sit out there with him for a few hours before going home. I’ll drink a Coke while he talks to the camera and shovels. At least a hundred people tune in to watch him dig every night. My mom even watched once. He says he’s digging a hole to China. 

“I’m going to be the Howard Hughes of the ground,” he tells me.

Like I said, we live in a small town.

COLTRANE YAN is a Canadian writer living in England. He also writes texts, emails and Instagram comments and contributes to polite online discourse.