Sunday, October 21, 2007

The REAL Story of that Trip in One Part (So Far)

(NOTE: Here it is, in all it's glory, the real story of that trip so
far. For those that haven't kept up, now's your chance. For those
couple who have, I just wasted your fucking time.)


So here it is, the REAL story of the vacation. None of that namby-pamby
bullshit you (might have) read before, but the real-deal, no corners
cut, unexpurgated, uncut, director's version that you could not see in
theaters, the story too shocking to tell but it must be told, oh yes, it
must.


It started off innocently enough.


I was just sitting around doing my thang when the phone rang. With
nothing better to do, I answered it.


"We need some beer," said the voice, obviously scrambled by some
high-tech spy scrambling voice thingy.


I was game. "How much?"


"Eighteen cases."


"Where do you need it delivered?"


"The state fair."


"When?"


"Nine hours."


"But that's over two thousand miles away!"


"We'll pay you for your troubles."


"Ok, sounds fair. How much?"


"Eight hundred dollars along with the cost of the beer of course."


"Of course."


"If you're late, the elephants die."


"That sucks."


"Yeah. You know, my brother doesn't think you can do it."


"Oh?"


"Yeah."


"Interesting."


"Yeah. You game?"


"Yep."


"Ok. The clock starts ticking.........NOW!"


With that the phone went dead and I sprung into action.


I scurried to the garage and uncovered the Mazda 3 with the 857 Hemi,
dual struts, 18" wheels, shift on the ceiling and those two oversized
canister of nitrous oxided glycerine glycerine, hopped into the leopard
skin covered bucket seat, started that fucker up, floored it and
screamed out of the garage onto the street filled with the neighborhood
kids and senile senior citizenry.


I managed to get away with clipping only one of the seniors, sending him
and his walker airborne where they both performed rather graceful swan
dives before settling gently onto the hard, hot pavement as I floored
the accelerator, hitting 80 in about two seconds, and then smashing down
the brake pedal causing the car to drop from eighty to nothing in about
45 yards because I almost had forgot about the stop sign at the end of
the block.


Next stop was the store, where I stocked up with the requested beer and
then I hit the highway. As I was bringing the vehicle up to a safe
speed, I whipped out my trusty cell phone and punched in some numbers.


"Hello?" I asked.


I heard nothing.


"Hello?" I asked again, but again there was nothing.

I looked down at the phone and noticed the dialed number was showing on
the screen which was odd but then I remembered so I hit the "SEND"
button and then heard a thunk and the car veered to the left so I put a
hand back on the steering wheel and then saw in the rearview mirror and
elderly gentleman and his walker revolving quite gracefully through the
air until they both landed gently on the hot highway tar.


I shrugged it off because it didn't look too painful, but then it did
when the Roto-Rooter truck tried to swerve around the rocker, but didn't
manage to completely do so because one of the legs of the walker got
caught in the spokes of the left front wheel of the truck and then there
was a Roto-Rooter truck floating and revolving quite gracefully through
the air.


Remembering I had made a phone call and it would be rude to ignore that
fact, I never saw the truck land, but I'm sure it would have been as
graceful as the old men and walkers as before.


This time it was the phone saying "Hello?" to me so

I said "Hello?" back and it went on from there.


"What's up?"


"You still have that eighteen wheeler?"


"Sure as my name is Rubber Duck!"


"Which it isn't."


"True."


"But can I be Rubber Duck?"


"Probably have to be Rubber Duck Two, or something like that. Don't want
to get sued or anything."


"Yeah. Hey, how about Ducky Rubber? Can I be Ducky Rubber?"


"Sure."


"Cool! What's the two-ten?"


"Two-ten?"


"Yeah! That's CB talk for 'what's happening'?"


So I told him and soon Ducky Rubber aka Spunky the Clown was on the road
in his shiny eighteen wheeler adorned with glittery chrome pipes, a two
story sleeper, clean mud flaps, 17' running boards, duel fog lamps and a
large green devil-looking face attached to the front grill.


We were going to have ourselves a convoy and nothing was going to get in
our way.

FADE OUT

FADE IN


"Breaker. Breaker. Breaker. Breaker. BREAker. BreaKER.
Breakerbreakerbreakerbreakerbre.."


"What the fuck do you want?!"


"This here's Ducky Rubber, got four on the floor and am coming to you on
the down low. 10-4 good buddy."


For a couple hours, this was the shit coming over the CB every few
minutes. What it meant, I had no idea, but it makes for a compelling
story.


"Okay Ducky."


"Got some smokies heating up in the back, should be good and ready in a
few."


Alarm bells suddenly went off in my head, almost drowned out by the
powerful purr of the massive engine described, in detail, somewhere
above.


"Cops? You have cops following you?"


"No. Smokies. S-m-o-k-i-e-s. Those tasty little beefy hot dog-looking
things. Not Smokeys. Smokies."


This intelligent conversation was abruptly stopped when I saw a rather
large shadow appear on the road in front of me. I slowed down when the
shadow kept growing and then came to a complete stop when the shadow
turned into a one man flying machine landing not so gently in the middle
of the road.


I jumped out of the car and ran up to the machine.
A dust covered man was struggling to get out of the seat but was having
no luck considering the harness holding him in.


After a couple minutes he stopped struggling and pulled down his
goggles.


"I've seen them. I can take you there," he said in an Australian accent.


Scared of the accent because I didn't know if somehow I managed to cross
a country and large body of water without actually realizing it, I could
only stand there silently as a dog wearing a bandana around its neck
appeared from nowhere and attacked the man in the flying machine.


After a few well placed nips, the dog got bored with the man and hopped
into a passing white Sebring convertible where it proceeded to latch
onto the bleach blonde's throat with it's powerful jaws, cutting off her
cellphone conversation just..... like....that.


And then....BOOM....the car exploded. Probably bvecause it ran into the
gas pumps at the nearby convenience store, or something like that.


Obviously not paying attention to the huge balls of flames, Sebring
parts, bleach blonde parts and a scruffy little bandana wearing dog with
a neck still locked in its jaws, all of them floating through the air,
the man continued prattling on.


"It goes on all night. All the time. Ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk.....I
can take you there."


"WHAT goes on all night?"


"The pumps. Ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk....."


I flipped him off, climbed back into the car and continued on my
mission.


"Breaker, breaker. Smokies have heated up, they're good and ready."


"Great. Glad to hear it. Have a nice lunch or whatever the fuck it is."


"Oops, 20-4 good buddy made a mistake there. Meant to say 'smokeys' not
'smokies'. My bad."


"Right. 'Smokeys', 'smokies'. Whatever."


"44-4 good buddy. Smokeys. SMOKEYS. You get it?"


"Cops?"


"Smokies. Shit, did it again! Smokeys."


"So.....cops?"


"7564-40. You got that right."


A new voice thankfully cut into the conversation.


"Good morning gentlemen!"


"Morning."


"88-4!"


"I heard there's a couple boys driving real fast on my here highways!
Can't have that or my name ain't
Sheriff Wurrell T. Wurtzell I tell you what!"


"So is your name Wurell T. Wurtzell or what?"


"10-54?"


"Oh, it is. And you boys are in a heap of trouble!"


"Why?"


"10-32?"


"Aren't you the boys driving real fast on my here highways?"


"Are you in Australia?"


"10-8764545553?"


"No, I'm in (state, city, town, zone, municipality, zip code, etc.
witheld due to some law or protection or something)."


"Oh, it's all good then. We're in Australia."


"10-724728758347583753457895?"


"Oh. Sorry. Another shrimp on the barbie then. Ciao!"


Close one.


"Close one, Ducky Rubber."


"Are we really in Australia?"


"Well, I thought so for a minute and then I saw a Sebring convertible
and.....well, it doesn't matter. We're not."


"But he's still behind me.....oh wait, he turned off. Could he be that
stupid?"


FADE OUT


FADE IN

I was making good time now, the engine wailing like a cat in heat while
the dual water-cooled intra-exhaust chrome plated super-sized gold
coated super-duper-charged titanium speckled fat sensurround magnesium
injected heat-deflecting tubes sticking out of the hood shimmered in the
afternoon sun.


I hadn't heard anything from Ducky Rubber for a few minute, so I relaxed
and watched the cactus, oaks, junipers, weeds, shredded tires, birds,
bees, ants and beetles flying by the driver window.


(Not that they were actually FLYING by the window.
What I'm trying to get across is the image of me speeding down a highway
and these things on the side of the road were there but I was passing
them by really quickly so I guess they gave the appearance of flying.
Ok, you got me, I'm actually wasting time as I try to remember what
happened next, hence the previous sentence and this one. This one too.)


"17-17, got another problem here."


"Oh?"


"Yeah. And it's kind of....weird."


"Oh?"


"You ready for this? You sitting down?"


"No, dumbass. I'm standing on the hood of the car, guiding the car with
a couple ropes tied to the front wheels."


"Hey, that sounds cool! Not as cool as being chased by a large cheddar
cheese wheel though."


I slammed on the brakes and the car went into a skid. It jumped the
curb, stopped skidding then skidded some more, did a complete circle and
then a couple triangles before crashing through the front door of the
worlds largest (and only) roadside antique china, glass and taco shell
shop.


Ignoring the screams of the workers and patrons along with the sound of
many items shattering and crackling, I quickly located the rear exit and
drove out, almost losing control again when I was temporarily blinded by
the sun and then I was safely back on the highway.


I then remembered what caused the near-accident I almost had just a
moment before so I slammed on the brakes and the car went into a skid.
It jumped the curb and slammed into a cactus which did nothing to stop
the forward momentum of the vehicle, but it really wasn't necessary
since the car had slowed down quite a bit because of those brake things
I had slammed on just seconds before.


And very soon after that, the car stopped.


"You there Ducky Rubber?"


"Yep."


"You still being chased by the cheddar cheese wheel?"


"Hold on, let me look........Holy shit! It's getting closer! What am I
going to do? I DON'T WANT TO DIE! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"


"DRIVE, DUCKY, DRIVE!!"


"I DON'T WANT TO DIEEEEEEEEEEE!"


"OH GOD, OH GOD, OHGODOHGODOHGOD! DRIVE! DON'T LOOK BACK!"


"AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!"


"I'M SO SORRY I THOUGHT IT WAS ALL MADE UP I DIDN'T KNOW THERE WAS A
CHEEZ-IT PROVING GROUNDS AND THAT'S HOW THEY REALLY MADE THEM I THOUGHT
IT WAS ALL FAKE I DIDN'T KNOW I DIDN'T KNOW I DIDN'T KNOW I'M SORRY I'M
SO SORRY I'M SO...."


"Hey, calm down!"


'I DON'T WANT YOU TO DIE, NOT THAT WAY!"


"Dude, it's cool! Mellow out, I was just messing around. Chased by a
large cheddar cheese wheel? Come on."


"Really?"


"Yes. It's okay. Stop crying, it's going to be okay. Okay?"


"Okay."


"There. One day we'll look back at this and..."


"I'M THE NIGHT RIDER!"


"Ducky, was that you?"


"Nope."


"IT WAS ME, THE NIGHT RIDER FOR I AM THE NIGHT RIDER WHICH IS ME!"


I dried off my tears, took my foot of the brake and headed back to the
highway as The Night Rider (that being he) continued telling us who he
was (that being The Night Rider).


COMING NEXT: Who is The Night Rider?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't believe you stole my idea for the world's first roadside antique china, glass and taco shell
shop.

Now that you mentioned it, they're gonna start popping up everywhere...jerk!

Anonymous said...

Oh, I'm sorry! It came to me when I was taking a shower. Weird.

Stephen