The Adventures of Dr. Coon and Kyle Rittenhouse: Vol. 1

Art by Parker Rinehart.

“Idiots,” he whispered.
“Unruly, ungrateful idiots.”

Dr. Coon lowered the binoculars from his eyes and clicked his tongue in the way men do when they believe they are witnessing the decline of civilization.

“They’re always doing that dance,” muttered Kyle, his pale and pudgy assistant, “Always the same song too. That Frankie Beverly devil song. It’s all noise. Pure madness. I hear-” WHACK. The slap landed swift and papery across Kyle’s cheek.

“Don’t editorialize, Kyle. Just observe.”

Two hundred feet away, the cookout swelled. Ribs sizzled in foil. Dominoes cracked on folding tables. A Bluetooth speaker blared Before I Let Go. Children in Crocs wobbled off rhythm. Uncles shouted. A woman with acrylic nails passed a pan of baked goods like an offering plate.

Dr. Coon hated this. He hated all of it. And not in the passive or performative way. No, his hatred was clinical. Sacred. Earned. Surgical. He whispered “I know for a fact they don’t have a permit.”

Dr. Coon was not always like this. He was once a boy. Ashy, yes. Lineup undefined. And hair that resembled taco meat from a respectable distance. He lived in an all-Black neighborhood, surrounded by what he called “unprovoked rhythm” and “emotional hostility disguised as play.”

Clarence Thomas was born in a Sonic parking lot during a thunder storm.
His mother, a gentle school librarian with dreams of moving to Connecticut, had been stood up by a man named Darnell who promised her crab legs and never returned. The delivery doctor misspelled “Cornelius” on his birth certificate and laughed when his mother asked to fix it. Thus began a life of cruelty and humiliation so consistent it became structural.

Clarence was born with no discernible hairline. Not receding. Simply absent. It gave him the look of a young professor, which only made the bullying worse. By age seven, he was already known as “parabola hairline boy” in the neighborhood. At age ten, someone threw a durag at his feet and said, “You’ll never earn this.”

Clarence went to an all black middle and high school. They teased him. They laughed when he brought cold spam for lunch. They asked him why his name sounded like a segregated law firm.

His mother bought him off-brand Jordans (worse than Shaq's) which had a logo of a man doing taxes instead of dunking. They lit on fire during recess when he tried to race a girl for her affection. She laughed. He caught an asthma attack. No one helped.

The death knell for any hope Clarence had of living his life as a respectable black man came his senior year, after every single girl he asked to prom rejected him. He asked sixteen girls to be his date. His backup plan was a girl named Tiffany who turned him down by pepper spraying him. His eventual prom date was Stormie, a 21-year-old portly white woman (held back 3 times) who called him “brother” in an affectionate but racially unclear way. She wore flip flops with a dress and said she didn’t like hip hop because it “stirs the spirits.” They were voted Worst Couple by popular consensus and awarded a coupon for Buffalo Wild Wings out of pity.

That night, Clarence wept into a hotel lobby vending machine, eating raw Pop-Tarts with no filling. He told himself that the world hated him for being refined. For using semicolons in text messages. For choosing to wear bowties unironically.

But the truth? Clarence Thomas was an asshole.

He was not some misunderstood genius. Not a tragic outsider. Just a smug, bitter, unpleasant man who corrected people’s grammar mid-conversation and cited Thomas Sowell during cafeteria debates. He was not disliked for his eloquence. He was disliked because he was insufferable. But that truth never reached him.
Clarence went to a small college in South Dakota. He found it by googling "whitest colleges in America" and finally found peace..

He then went on to receive a masters degree from Texas A&M, where he blossomed into full villainy. He became known as “The Lecture” because he would monologue at food court tables unprompted. One time a group of Black students were watching a Chappelle’s Show episode, and he interrupted with “You laugh at this, but you will cry when your credit score fails to ascend.”

He sent 37 unsolicited essays to The New York Times. He was banned from the campus NAACP chapter for submitting a proposal to “rebrand it as a think tank focused on Afro-conservative restoration.” His car was keyed weekly, and he assumed it was a conspiracy.

It wasn’t. It was just that everyone hated him.

Clarence applied to Liberty University for his PhD, citing it as “the last fortress of reason in a fallen nation.” There, he was finally embraced, not for his brilliance, but for his usefulness. He wrote his dissertation titled:

“The Hopelessness of the Negro: A Philosophical Inquiry Into Rhythm, Rebellion, and the Unchecked Ego.”

The thesis included chapters like:

- The Barbershop: Temple of Delusion
- Spades and Despair
- You Know What Saggin Spells Backwards?!?
- The Tragic Theology of Beyoncé

His white professors called it “urgent.” His Black classmates avoided eye contact. One janitor simply whispered, “That BOY ain’t right,” and kept mopping.

At graduation, Clarence did not walk across the stage. He descended from the ceiling of the gymnasium on wires stolen from the theater department. He wore a green cape made from the upholstery of retired church pews. His mask, silver, cold, unforgiving, was carved into the shape of a belt buckle mid-swing.

He landed, raised his diploma like a weapon, and declared “From this day forward, I am no longer simply Clarence Thomas. I am Dr. Coon: first of his name, last of the real ones, chosen enemy of the unsanctioned gathering. And I will not rest until joy requires documentation. Movie theaters are silent. And blacks are humbled.”

The audience applauded, mostly because they thought it was performance art. But one old white trustee cried. “Finally,” he whispered. “A Black man I can understand.”

And so it was, Supreme Court Clarence Thomas continued his life, traveling the country with his new companion, Kyle Rittenhouse, and they refused to rest until each and every black barbecue in America was squashed.

They were perched atop a Burger King like vultures.

Dr. Coon adjusted the dial on his binoculars. “Look at them,” Dr. Coon hissed. “Raw meat. Raw joy. Unlicensed.”

Kyle Rittenhouse was beside him, nude except for a utility belt, yellow stained crew socks, and Birkenstocks, vibrating with admiration.
“Yes, Doctor. You’re so wise. You speak with such logic. It makes me… hard as a roc-.”
WHACK.

“No eroticism during reconnaissance, Kyle. Now, hand me the weapon.”

Kyle grimaced and unveiled the REGAN (Radiologic Energy Gun Against Niggas) Rifle: a sonic cannon calibrated to frequencies Black Americans instinctively reject.

Tested in barbershops and once at an HBCU step show (which ended in 6 hospitalizations and 13 confused professors), it had been tuned to a single, devastating setting. The number one sound black people hate the most: Phoebe Bridges NPR tiny desk.

Dr. Coon took aim at the cookout, his gloved finger trembling with anticipation, fired, and watched as the air went cold.

A low, crooning wail seeped into the party. The sounds of music someone would only listen to on the drive home from an abortion. It sounded like the musical manifestations of returning a child you promised to adopt. Laughter turned to confusion. Plates dropped. An auntie screamed, “NOW WHAT IN THE HELL IS THAT?!” and tried to unplug the air.

Men staggered. Children wept. A folding chair folded itself.

“Phase one successful,” Dr. Coon said, salivating. “Now… on to phase two! the white babies.”

Kyle yanked back a velvet curtain to reveal a cage containing two animatronic white babies, programmed to cry at frequencies that trigger maximum white panic response. He hurled them into the crowd like cursed American Girl dolls and dialed 9-1-1.
“Yes hello! there’s violence. BLACK violence." Said Rittenhouse... "There are… BLACK people. And they’ve taken WHITE babies hostage. Please hurry!!!”

But something was wrong.

A few partygoers had resisted the sonic attack. Three of them pulled out pairs of SkullCandy headphones and began making their way towards the Burger King...
Three men emerged from the smoke of the grill: broad-shouldered, wearing the most ridiculously over sized skull candy headphones...

The Doctor scrambled to flee. He leapt from the roof, cape flapping like a green hymnbook, and landed on the pavement with a thud.

“Sorry LaMondre, I must depart!” exclaimed the Doctor.

“Who the hell is LaMondre? My name’s Jeremy. Why are you wearing that dumb ass mask? Why is your hair so happy? Yo this nigga thinks he's Kevin Durant!!!” said Jeremy.

Each of the three black men laughed at him.

“Yo!” Another one interjected.” is that Kyle Rittenhouse???”

Kyle fled. Vanished into thin air.

“No time for questions, jiggaboo!!!-” Dr. Coon exclaimed.

BANG.

A right hook, followed by a body slam. Dr. Coon fell to the pavement, shrieking.
“Ahh! Athleticism! My only weakness!”
He was stomped. Pummeled. His monocle shattered. His cape torn.
The ass whipping he received commenced for several minutes until the cops came and arrested everyone, including Dr. Coon...

Broken. Bruised. Humbled... but not defeated. Dr. Coon sat in a holding cell plotting his next move...
"I'll get you, niggas. Someday I will get you."

To be continued…

Written by Mike Birnigglia, @CantGuardMyke

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