A Threat That Never Landed

Jason Carpenter opens this bonus episode of Dead Rabbit Radio with a neighborhood mystery: someone is trapping cats, and he suspects it's not for humane reasons. He drafted a Facebook post about it, and his first instinct was to write something genuinely threatening — something about finding the person and popping out their kneecaps with a claw hammer. He didn't post that. He ended with something milder: "Stop before I find you." But the impulse got him thinking about his younger self, and that's where the episode lives — in the gap between the threats he used to make and the man he is now, turning fifty with a bad back, recording a podcast from a chair.

The Liver Threat

The central story is a long, winding confession about a feud from Carpenter's twenties. He doesn't remember what started it — something about a female friend and a guy who wronged her, nothing sexual, nothing he can recall clearly. What he does remember is the campaign he launched. He told everyone he knew to pass along a message: if he ever caught this guy, he would cut out his liver and make him eat it. And he added a second layer — if anyone ran into the guy and failed to deliver the message, they would face the same fate. "I'll make you guys eat each other's livers," he says. "It'll be a weird scene. Involving lots of livers."