I got up the next morning with my bags packed and waited for the rental car company to drop off my big ass, American-style, monolithic cruiser mobile at my apartment. They had an option where you didn't have to go to the rental car place, they would just bring it to you, and that seemed like the right thing to do. They said they would drop it off at my place at 10:00am sharp. It was 10:05am. The bastards were late! A few minutes later, I heard a car horn outside and went to my balcony to see who it was. My beautiful big ass, American-style, monolithic cruiser mobile, painted metallic maroon with a white vinyl roof was waiting for me down below. It was perfect. A tall African-American fellow got out of the car and waved. A white van pulled up behind it and waited too. That must have been his ride back to the rental car place, I figured. I waved back, went inside, got my bags, and locked up. My road trip was about to begin. It's true.
Down in the parking lot, I dragged my bags behind me, waiting for the African-American fellow to come over and help but he stood there like a goddamn idiot, staring at the sky. He didn't make an effort to help me at all. I dragged my bags to the back of the car and that's when he moseyed over, taking his time like the day was his, not mine. He pressed a button on the key dongle and the trunk popped open. What a fantastic luxury mobile. And then he opened his goddamn mouth.
"You need some help, sir?" he asked, after I had plopped my bags in the trunk. What a piece of work, the lazy bastard.
"No. I got it."
He stood there staring at me, staring at me up and down like he knew me or something. I didn't know him from shit so I was kind of worried. Don't ask me why. I just was.
"Do I know you?" he asked, giving me the stink eye.
"I don't know. Do you like to read?"
"Sho nuff. I like to read Playboy, Penthouse, Jugs, whatever."
"No, I mean do you like to read literature?"
"Not really. Reading is for pussies," he said, laughing all over the goddamn place, slapping his knee and throwing his head back. He got a real kick out of that joke too, a joke at my expense. I didn't think it was too funny but he sure did. He was laughing and spitting and wiping his brow. What a numbskull.
"Maybe you recognize my face from the newspaper. I'm a writer. My novel The Rise and Fall..."
"I told you, reading is for pussies!" All of a sudden, he got really serious, gave me a look like he meant business. I about crapped in my pants. But then, out of nowhere, his pissed-off looked changed to a look of bewilderment. He blinked a couple of times, wiping his brow again, and looked me up and down. It was like he really knew me or something. Weird. "Do I know you from somewhere?"
"I don't think so."
"Yeah, I know you motherfucker. Come here!" He grabbed me in a bear hug that almost choked the breath out of me. It was like I was a long, lost relative or some shit like that. It's true. He squeezed me hard, picking me up off the ground. "I know you, homie. I saw you on the east side."
I stepped back a bit, puzzled, and looked at his name tag. It said "Marvin." I knew exactly who he was, unfortunately.
"Oh, yes. Yes, we've met."
"You were driving over to see that white bitch who say she give massages when she really gives blow jobs and shit. Weren't you?"
"Uh, no."
"I know you white people. Always paying for blow jobs and shit. I feel ya!" He raised his hand in the air for a high-five. I was hesitant to give good ol' Marvin a high-five but I did anyway. He slapped my hand so hard that it felt like a bolt of lightning shot up my arm. I knew my hand would be tingling for the next hour. It's true. "I ain't never paid fo no blow job but that's cool. You gots to do what you gots to do sometimes. We men, right?" He nudged me with his elbow and gave me a wink-wink, as if to say he knew my deep, dark, perverted secret. What a dipshit.
"I didn't go to see her for a... blow..."
"Don't be embarrassed, nigga."
"OK."
He smiled and slapped the car keys in my hand. Patting me on the shoulder, he then waved to the white van, indicating that his job was complete. "Don't get you self in any trouble now, you hear me? If you need any help, just call the 800 number in the car. Just ask for Marvin!" He walked over to the white van and hopped in the passenger seat. The van pulled up right next to me and good ol' Marvin rolled down the window. "Wait til I tell the ol' lady that I delivered a car to a honky writer. She'll think I'm talking shit. But Marvin don't talk no shit! Peace out, Tom Brokaw!"
The van tore off. Thank God! What a gas bag. That Marvin, he really did talk a lot of shit. He was delusional. What is it that makes people who talk a lot of shit think they don't talk a lot of shit? I thought that was very strange as I watched the white van speed off through the parking lot, not yielding to the speed bumps and the goddamn signs that said to DRIVE SLOW. If I never saw good ol' Marvin again then it wouldn't be soon enough. It's true.
I sat in my beautiful big ass, American-style, monolithic cruiser mobile and I have to tell you, it was fantastic! The driver's seat was a white, poofy monstrosity that was like sitting on a goddamn leather marshmallow. I could tell already that it was going to be a fantastic trip driving in this bad boy. I felt like a million bucks. It's true. There's something about luxurious American automobiles that make you feel like a goddamn important individual. What do you think the President of the United States drives around in? That's right, a Cadillac. What more do I need to say? The rest of the car cabin was decked out in leather and wood paneling and electronics galore and buttons and knobs all over the goddamn place. There's probably even a feature where I don't have to drive the goddamn car, just tell it where I'm going and it will drive all by itself. If this car didn't have this feature, then it should. Imagine the look on good ol' Sammie's face when I pull up in this car. I can hear him now. "Daddy, that's a shmancy shmar!" Ha! That kid just kills me. It's true.
I put the Caddy in drive and pulled a wad of paper from my pocket. On it, in an almost illegible chicken scratch, was directions to Snaggle's place. Strange as it may seem, he actually didn't live too far from me so the drive there would be short and uneventful. If he hadn't told me beforehand where he lived, I probably wouldn't have been able to make out what he wrote down on this piece of paper. His handwriting was a goddamn mess. It looked like a combination of Egyptian hieroglyphics, elementary school level cursive, and random digits and swirly thingies. His mother must be absolutely disgraced. It's true. When I was a kid, handwriting was a big deal. Learning cursive was a big deal. I received grades for handwriting on my report card and if you didn't write well, you were assumed to be retarded or worse, unrefined. Nowadays, no one gives a shit about handwriting. Everyone is too busy using their goddamn thumbs typing on their smart phones or their cell phones or their PDAs or whatever you want to call them. The art of handwriting has gone down the goddamn toilet. My kids don't receive grades for handwriting on their report cards like I did. Snaggle, since he's quite a bit younger than me, probably didn't receive grades for handwriting either, at least as far as I could tell. His handwriting was atrocious. It's true.
I quickly settled into my poofy driver's seat and turned on the stereo. Good ol' Marvin must have left his CD in the car because The Commodores started playing Brick House. It was marvelous! I turned the volume up, put the seat back, and cruised down the main road that cut through my neighborhood. Snaggle's apartment complex was on the other side of my neighborhood, not too far away, but far enough. As soon as The Commodores came to their funky climax, I arrived at Snaggle's complex. I pulled into the main entrance and headed for the back, where he told me he'd be waiting. The Caddy's ride was so smooth and comfortable that I didn't even feel the speed bumps as I drove over them. That's what I call American ingenuity!
At the back of the complex, right in the middle of the fucking parking lot, was Snaggle, standing in front of a pile of luggage. It looked like he had packed for a goddamn trip to Europe or something, several suitcases and duffle bags piled as high as he was tall. It was goddamn ridiculous. In front of the lug
gage pile, he pranced around kicking a hacky sack, his arms and legs flailing out of control all over the goddamn place. The way he tried to keep the hacky sack in the air, he looked like a gibbon having a seizure while wearing nerd's clothing. He was a nerdy, uncoordinated goof ball. It's true. I parked the Caddy next to his pile of luggage and rolled down the window.
"What gives with all the luggage?" I asked.
"I packed what I needed for our trip."
"But we're only going to be gone for a few days. What do you have in there?"
"Clothes."
"Clothes? In all of those suitcases?"
"Yeah, clothes. Oh! And some board games, in case we get bored!" He started hemming and hawing all over the goddamn place, laughing his nerdy head off. He thought he was pretty goddamn funny. "Oh! And a Linux server I started building last night. Oh! And some snacks and..."
"This isn't all going to fit into my trunk, you know? You really should only bring what you need. Do you really need to bring a Linux server?"
The minute I said that, his demeanor quickly turned from happy nerd to sad nerd. It was a sight to see. It almost looked like he was going to start crying. He was a sad bastard if there ever was one. It's true.
"Alright, I guess. I'll just bring my clothes."
I popped the trunk and he lifted one, very small duffle bag and placed it in there. The rest of his pile of crap he took back to his apartment, one by one, dragging them across the asphalt. It took him a good 10 minutes to get all of that crap back into his place. I thought of helping him but I quickly decided against it. That would have been an awful lot of unnecessary work on my part and I wasn't going to do any unnecessary work on my vacation. It's true. When he was finished, he hopped in the passenger seat. I could already smell his rank breath. A stench of peanut butter and pop tarts and coffee filled the car's cabin. I felt like I was going to barf. I took a deep breath, trying to hold the bile down. It was very difficult.
"Ready?" I asked.
"Did you know that Monarch butterflies migrate thousands of miles every year from Canada to Mexico and back?"
Goddamn it! He was already starting with his bullshit and I wondered if I was going to kill Snaggle before even getting out of the city limits. I also wondered if I was going to be able to handle this snaggly bastard's constant stream of goddamn trivia questions or his rank breath or his testicle juggling habit. It was all just too much to take. He looked at me with his goofy smile, his teeth jutting out from between his dry, cracked lips, and I realized for one quick second, that Snaggle was oblivious to his awkward demeanor and nerdy behavior. I felt bad for some reason. I decided right then and there to suck it up and make the best of it. I was going on a road trip to save my kids, for God's sake. I was going to be a hero! It's true.
"No, I did not know that."
And then we drove off, headed for Dallas.
13.
I-35 stretched out in front of us, an uninhibited highway cutting through the Texas country side. There was very little traffic, except for the occasional eighteen-wheeler, so there was plenty of room for my beautiful big ass, American-style, monolithic cruiser mobile to maneuver. The Caddy. I decided that my cool ride needed a name, a manly name. So without even a single suggestion from Snaggle, who was too busy digging into his nostrils with alternating index fingers and not-so-secretly flicking his boogers onto the floor mats, I christened the Caddy with the manliest of names: Clint. Clint the Caddy. The name Clint made me think of a lone cowboy, toughened by the sun and a solitary life, drowning unsuspecting desert insects with tobacco spit, arriving in little towns wearing crusty boots and jingly spurs, kicking everyone's asses yet uninterested in taking any names. It was a grand thought and the Caddy deserved a manly name like that. It's true.
Snaggle, on the other hand, was not manly at all. In fact, he was the anti-Clint, an awkward, nerdy, snaggly mess, with a face only a mother could love, if that was even possible. He also lacked the simplest of coordination skills that most of us take for granted, as I watched him putz around with the window button and air vents and the glove box, almost breaking everything he touched. I couldn't say this enough but he really was a goddamn mess. It's hard to believe that he was supposed to be some kind of computer programming genius, or at least that's what my boss Rod claimed. Rod would tell me these little asides about Snaggle, how he whipped out batch files in seconds that performed elegantly, how he would create applets in a matter of minutes that would save employees thousands of man hours, or how he would code scripts that saved the agency thousands of dollars. But (and this is a big BUT) if he wanted to toast a strawberry pop tart, then he failed miserably and almost burned the goddamn building down once. It's true.
For the first half hour of our trip, Snaggle was relatively quiet. Occasionally, he'd blurt out a goddamn trivia fact or two but for the most part, he sulked in his seat like a sack of moldy potatoes, which was fine with me. The less I had to listen to him the more likely I wouldn't have to kill him and dump his body on the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere (I'm just kidding, sheesh!). He just looked out the window, watching the rest stops, Dairy Queens, and gas stations go by. Then suddenly, as if he had been injected with adrenaline, he shot up in his seat and blurted out at the top of his lungs like a crazed bum.
"SLUG BUG!"
He punched my arm as hard as he could and scared the shit out of me! The punch sent a chain reaction to the rest of my body, my arms pulling the wheel back and forth, and I tried to control the car but I was driving all over the place like a goddamn idiot. My legs stiffened and stomped on the gas and brake pedals and poor Clint the Caddy screeched and bounced across the lanes almost crashing into the cement wall that separated our north bound lanes from the south bound lanes. If a State Trooper had been watching us, I guarantee that he would have pulled us over and given me a sobriety test. It's true.
"Hey?!" I said, giving good ol' Snaggle the stink eye. It's like he went crazy all of a sudden. "What was that for?"
"Don't you ever play Slug Bug?"
"What?"
"You have kids. Don't you play Slug Bug with them?"
"I don't know what you are talking about!" I really didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. He might as well have been speaking Pig Latin for all I knew. It's true. "All I know is that you never hit the driver while HE'S DRIVING!" I was really surprised that I lost my temper like that but what did Snaggle expect from me? I mean, I was already on edge from dealing with the stench of peanut butter and pop tarts and coffee reeking up Clint's cabin but goddamn it if he had to go all psycho and shit and start punching me while I was driving. It was enough to drive me insane. It's true.
"I'm sorry, Simon," he said. He sounded genuinely sorry. I could tell. It made me feel bad, believe it or not. He started sulking all over the goddamn place like a sad bastard and there is nothing worse than being stuck in a car on a long trip with a sad bastard. It's true. "I just thought it would be a fun way to pass the time. I used to play Slug Bug on long road trips with my family. It was fun."
"I see. Well, how about we play a game I like to play?"
"OK!" He perked up like a puppy that spotted a brand new leather shoe. He was all excited and shit, barely containing himself. "What's it called?"
"Mad Libs."
"Mad Libs? The game where you fill in the blanks and make silly sentences?"
"Yes." That's right, doofus, the game that was pure genius for literary inspiration. It's true.
"Well, OK, but that game isn't really any fun unless you're under 10 years old."
"Excuse me?" Was this nerdy bastard crazy?! I had to hear his explanation for this because he obviously was out of his goddamn mind.
"Sometimes you will come up with a funny sentence or two but otherwise the end result usually doesn't make a lot of sense."
"Well, then, what would you suggest for a game for us to play?"
"How about Trivial Pursuit?"
"I'm not playing Trivial Pursuit with you. You k
now everything about trivia."
"Well, then what are we going to play?"
"How about we play the silent game?"
And that was it. Over. Done. He sulked back down in his seat and stared out the goddamn window. Why wouldn't he want to play MadLibs with me? It was pure genius. There were practically hundreds of hours of writer's block I had to fight through and MadLibs was the only thing that ever got me through it. MadLibs got my writer brain going. It triggered my stifled, creative mind into action every time. It's true. How was I going to pass the next few hours with this snaggly bastard without MadLibs? It was enough to drive me crazy. If only my good friend Jason was here. He'd play MadLibs with me for sure, no doubt about it. But Jason wasn't here. He was back in Montgomery, Alabama with his goddamn whore wife. So after thinking it over, and realizing I was on a long trip with a coworker who volunteered to tag along, I decided to play nice and include him. It was the right thing to do. It's true.
"Actually, here's something we can do together. When I was a kid, there was a convenience store along this highway called Stuckey's. I used to love going to that store when I would go on road trips with my parents to my grandmother's house in Oklahoma. If we can find that Stuckey's, then I would be very grateful."
This perked that snaggly bastard up real quick.
"Aye aye, Captain!" he said, sitting up, peering out the window like a dog waiting for a squirrel to run across the lawn. It was a crazy sight to see. It's true.
Like I said, when I was a kid, I would go on these LONG road trips to my grandmother's house in Oklahoma City with my family. They were excruciating road trips where long periods of time would go by without passing anything of interest on the highway. Being that Texas is so goddamn large, you could go miles and miles without seeing anything but an old abandoned field with some emaciated cows or a rundown Dairy Queen that looked like it was built in the 1950s or junk yards filled with crushed cars and appliances. For a kid, this was a goddamn nightmare. It was the worst kind of torture. But the funny thing was, also during this time in the 1970s, there were a bunch of movies that glamorized the lifestyle of truckers and outlaws and they made it seem like traveling on these goddamn barren highways was a lot of fun. And when I was a kid, I soaked up these silly movies like a sponge. Who wouldn't want to drive a goddamn eighteen-wheeler with an orangutan or a chimpanzee or whatever monkey the movie studios could find to work for no money and get all the booze and bananas it could consume? It was a beautiful thing to an 8-year-old kid. It's true.
The Spectacular Simon Burchwood Page 10