It would be good for you to arm yourself with a DRINK! before we depart upon the next leg of our journey. We will be driving through the desert dunes under the cover of darkness. You don’t want to get DRY. That sort of thing is the worst.
Here is a tune from that time, which played on the radio station (call letters KKDJ) as them chicks and Joey sat and spoke quietly while the tire was fixed. Go ahead and pour something for yourself. We’ll all wait for you while it plays. Please hurry.
All set?
Good. Let’s fly.
3… 2… 1… PROSIT!
Fat Jerry set the car jack down in the dirt and he set down to look at the wheel with the dented fender. Far off in the distance, we heard the sound of sirens. These were not the ones form Greek mythology. It meant help and assistance, and also, questions and jail time for many.
Jerry said, “Where do you want me to stick this?”
Of course, bad joke. But he was serious. We three punks bent to look inside the wheel well, and this made everything do dark inside it.
Jerry said, “One at a time!”
That made Sean laugh his ass off, and Jerry pushed him over into the dirt.
This made the wheel visible again, from the bright light of the inferno. I saw that there was a long metal beam underneath that held the flat iron springs. Those were meant to carry a lot of weight. The chassis was built like a friggin bulldozer.
I pointed at it. I said, “Hey, assholes! Stop fighting! I found it!”
This made Sean laugh harder. Joey laughed form the front seat.
I said, “Bastards.” Then I picked up the car jack and held the foot, you know, the cleat, against the chassis beam and then pulled the slider up the stem so that it would connect with the dented-in fender.
Think of something old that resembles this tool.
I held it there, but I couldn’t reach the tire iron laying in the dirt next to those two wrestling fuckers. I needed to stick it in the lever to click the slider to pull the fender away from the wheel.
I said, “Help me the fuck out!”
Sean stop laughing and threw Jerry off of him. He got on his knees and grabbed the tire iron. About damned time.
Well, it worked. The fender made a lough pinging noise as the dent came away, and then the jack slipped. The pressure was gone, so I let it drop into the dirt. Sean smacked his face against the side of the hearse and it was Jerry’s turn to laugh.
Man, what a mess we were. Like the Three Stooges or something.
*ahem*
Jerry said, “Sean ride in the back, take your girlfriend with you. My chick is riding shotgun.”
Sean said, “Do you know how to get out of here?”
Jerry’s shoulders slumped. He walked off growling. He balled up his fists and faced a fig tree. He looked like he was going to cold cock it. He shook his head and walked off a bit. We listened to the sirens grow louder. Sean did not laugh at all, but you know that he was savoring the moment.
After a few minutes, Jerry returned and climbed into the front passenger seat. He said nothing at all. I guided Joey to the second row of seats and we climbed in. We let them chicks figure out the rest.
SNOWINTHEDESERTNOTZIDBUTSNOWINTHEDESERTWHEREISTHEZIDWHYISTHISDIFFERENTNOWTHEREISNOZIDANYMORE?HOWCOME?
Sean could handle anything that combusted petroleum. It simply took him a few minutes of test driving to figure out how a machine handled. So that is what we did.
He discovered that the heavy iron beast did not drive like a Jeep at all. There would be no slaloms tonight.
But boy did he like to go fast. I think he did it because he was an adrenaline junkie. He would always look for the biggest rush, the most danger. That was why he dressed as he did for this night. It was why he stole the ZID form us and ate it alone without knowing what it would do to him. It was why he ended up the way that he did at the end of this long tale.
Also, he drove that heavy vehicle like that just to piss off Jerry. It worked. They sounded like an old married couple from the front seat.
“Hey! You’re going too fast!”
“Hush. It’s the only way I know how to get there.”
“You’re going to kill us!”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“You almost hit that one! Slow down!”
“If I slow down, we will get stuck and spin our tires out here.”
“We just went airborn! You’ll blow the tires!”
“Why don’t you blow me?!”
“Let me out! I’m walking home!”
“I told you, there’s no stopping now! Shut the fuck up and hold on!”
Jeez Louise. No wonder they didn’t get along. They should have gotten a divorce long ago.
I looked out the window and saw a stream of flashing lights growing brighter. The sound of them sirens got louder than the roar form the heavy engine of the hearse. Sean flicked the headlamps off and now we were driving blind in the dark. The glow form the fire behind us was much weaker by then.
This freaked Jerry right the hell out. He began to scream and cry like a baby.
“I doooon’t waaaant to diiiiiiieeee!”
Sean kept right on concentrating. He held that wheel steady and when he felt the hearse lurch to the left, he steered a bit right and straightened out. It really was a thing to behold. It was very scary, you know. At any moment, we would hit an iron wood tree and stop instantly and then there would be mangled pain.
The line of flashing lights passed by on the road and Sean turned the lights back on.
A fig tree stood right in our path and Sean did not panic. He swerved ever so slightly and avoided a head on collision. The mirror on Jerry’s side smashed as it connected with the tree and winged into the hearse like a bullet. It missed his head and flew past my face and smashed against the window behind me. The ladies back there shrieked.
Joey said, “Holy shit! That was fucking excellent!” He clapped his hands and immediately regretted his reaction.
Jerry said, “STOP THIS FUCKING CAR RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!”
Sean said, “Easy now, we are almost there. Just over this knoll…”
The lines of fig trees disappeared and we flew over the top of a small crest, dragging a plume of desert dust into the air behind us. We landed and bounced about upon solid desert hardpan as Sean stomped on the brakes.
We came to a stop as rocks clanged against the rear of the hearse and a cloud of dust billowed around us like a baby blanket.
Jerry opened the door and clambered out. He jumped up and down on the ground waving his fists around and hollering at the top of his lungs.
Sean turned back and said, “You folks OK? See if there’s any more booze back there, will ya?”
Huh. That actually sounded like a good idea at that moment. It sounds like a good idea right now. Hold on while I take a sip form this Kraken. Why not have a bite of Cake while you wait?
Ah. OK. Let us go onward.
The hopping mad baby outside of the vehicle disappeared in a cloud of dust. The headlights shined dark orange, but as the dust settled, they grew bright again.
Jerry coughed and sneezed. He had dry desert manure all over his body. That was when the clouds opened up. Rain poured down and Sean said, “We need to get to the road before this field turns into mud!”
He put her in Drive and floored it, leaving Jerry behind.
We made it to the edge of the field and the hearse rode up the incline. The open door on Jerry’s side slammed shut just as we got airborne again. It was a good thing, because it would have bent the hinges to land on asphalt with it open.
We landed with a loud thump and Sean said, “Ya hear that? I think I broke one of the flat springs!”
He made the hearse squeal its tires on the tar as we came to a stop again. The rain poured down and Monica handed a bottle over the seats. She said, “I don’t know what this one is, but there’s another one that’s broken in that side panel. It smells like a dive bar back here now.”
I palmed it and squinted at the label in the weak glow of the streetlight outside. It read, “Night Train Express.” That’s all I could make out. The rest of the print was too small to see in the rainy gloom of night. Well, it probably held ethyl inside, so
I unscrewed the cap. The odor was how gasoline smells, but with a sweet note. It tasted like both of those too. I handed some to Joey, and that was where he found his true desert rose. From then on, he would become a wine man.
We sat and waited for the muddy man in the field to reach us.
We did not think about all of the coke in his soggy pockets.
See you next time.
In the meantime,
DRINK!
.
