No, Lord, have mercy. My traitorous hand shot out to answer the summons of its own accord. Talk about Pavlovian... The receiver was off the hook and beside my head before I was consciously aware of the betrayal. If thy hand offends thee, cut it off. I would to, man, I'm really sincere about that. Except I use this same traitorous appendage for self-gratification.
"Time to pay up, Davey boy. I introduced you to Martina. Now I want my due."
Where is Daniel Webster when the devil comes knocking? I'm not talking about looking up a definition here. I know exactly what this she-devil is referring to and I've promised not to break my vows.
"Surfer, you and I have a date tonight. You do intend to honor your bargain, don't you?"
No, not if I can prevaricate my way out of it. Let's see, is this the plague season?
"If word gets back to B.J. we are both going to be in big trouble. Are you sure it's worth the risk? I mean, your reputation and all..."
"The last thing I'm worried about is my reputation," Susan laughed. "In fact, notching you on my six-gun gave half my competition in the dorm a new goal to set their sights on. Relax, David, I promise not to hurt you - much. And as far as Bobby finding out, we will just have to go someplace where nobody we know will ever see us. Anything in mind, baby doll?"
"I'll pick you up at 7:00, but not at Manzanita. Walk over to the Post Office at University and Van Buren," I answered.
"See you at 7:00, Surfer. Why don't you take a nap 'til then? I want you all rested up for tonight. Bye, love."
The next seven numbers I spun on the rotary dial left my index finger a smoking stub. Somebody ought to put buttons or something on these frigging things.
"Evans?"
"Yeah, what's up?"
"Are the drags running tonight?"
"Every night."
"See you at 6:30."
*****
CAR SURFING
Evans' house is five minutes from mine. At 5:55 sharp I stepped out my front door and headed for the Impala. I am not anxious to see the drags again, but I must avoid Susan at all cost. I have taken Evans' advice to heart, but the flesh is weak. If I am left alone with her my resolve will crumble. I will fold. I find strength in avoidance. Remember my family and confrontation?
Susan's Karmin Gia convertible is parked at the curb. She sat across both seats sunning her legs and sipped a Budweiser longneck. A surfboard protruded from behind the seatbacks. "Hey, Surf," she said with a laugh as she peeled the sunglasses from her face, "how's it hanging? I decided to pick you up instead. That's not going to spoil your plans, is it?"
"I have to call Evans."
"We can stop by on our way. I know his address too."
So okay, most men would not consider this development a defeat, nor Susan Burke's company too harsh a punishment to endure. It's not like Napoleon at Waterloo. I have to spend the evening with a beautiful over-sexed blond. Napoleon was exiled to some place called Melba where they fed him really dry toast. College has not been wasted on me. I have learned the lessons of history so I am not doomed to repeat them. This isn't so bad. I can suffer this indignity and survive. That which does not kill me makes me strong. I hope Evans isn't too upset by the change in plans.
His front door was open. We let ourselves in. I'm practically one of the family anyway. Mama Bea calls me her smart "houli" son. Evans, sitting on the couch in nothing but a pair of Hawaiian surfing jams, was immersed in an episode of Hawaii 5-O.
"You didn't say she was coming with us," Bill said.
"Well, that's just it," I explained. "She coming and you're not. If that's a problem..."
"No," he answered, "just leave me the keys to the Chevy. I promised Dee I'd help out in the pits. I had a pit pass for you tonight too."
A night with Susan was looking better all the time. "Sure," I said digging in my pocket for the keys. "But it needs gas."
"If I fill the tank can I keep it over the weekend? I can use the equipment at Bee Line to tune it up and recalibrate the carburetor so it will quit missing. I can save you about a hundred bucks versus having a mechanic do the work."
"Let him have it, Surfer," Susan chimed in. "I'll take you on a magic carpet ride; places you never dreamed."
"That won't be a long ride for Davey boy here," Evans said. "I can't get him to even listen to the Playboy Forum. I believe his middle-class Catholic upbringing has made him a tad prudish. New experiences would definitely broaden his horizons."
"New experiences with her?" I protested. "What about our talk?"
"When that kind of opportunity knocks only fools don't rush in. So have fun," Evans interrupted, "and don't do anything I wouldn't do. In fact, Surf, I have this pocket edition of the Kamma Sutra. It's illustrated and I marked the ones I haven't done. If you'd like to borrow it and report back to me..."
"Have you tried 'The Perfume Garden'?" Susan asked. It's Persian and has some positions that bend you like a pretzel. I've had orgasms you wouldn't believe. There's this one called The Snake and the Pomegranate..."
"Enough," I protested, "take the keys. Keep the car. Keep your damn book."
"Oh, David, you're blushing," Susan cried out. "Oh, that's so cute."
I side-armed the keys in Evans' direction and headed for the door.
"Be gentle with him," I heard Evans caution.
By the time I reached the Gia Susan had caught up. My slamming the door barely concealed the sounds of her laughter.
"Surf?"
"Drive."
"Where?"
"Away from here."
"Are you mad?"
"No."
"At me?"
"A little."
"Can I make it up to you?"
"Got a pomegranate in your pocket?"
She laughed. "Being a prude is not cool, Surfer. Life is a learning process. There are things you can show me; things I can show you. David, if you show me yours, I'll show you mine. Deal?"
Am I going to stay mad? I may at times be shallow, but I am not stupid. Well, not generally... And rushing in is what I do best.
"What are we going to do tonight?" I asked patting her leg.
"I brought the board," she answered pulling away from the curb and heading for downtown, "so how about car surfing?"
Arizona does not have a coastline - yet. In a recent referendum we voted overwhelmingly for "the big one" to hit California ASAP so the Pacific will pour in around Yuma. Yuma has excellent beaches, just no water. It was once the site of the Arizona Territorial Prison just for the reason that it had no water. We only have to wait for California to slip silently into the Pacific. But for the time being the Arizona surfing community must be content with car surfing.
This is a sport Wide World of Sports should cover. It combines the best of American culture. The necessities are simple: a high performance convertible, a surfboard, and busy downtown traffic preferably on a sultry summer night. Participants are required to lay the surfboard from the dashboard over the front seatbacks and extend it back over the rear deck, then climb atop the board and ride while the driver negotiates the roadway. Bonus points are given for the rider's footwork on the board and the driver's daring manipulation of oncoming traffic. Speeding, weaving in and out of lanes, running red lights and taking corners on two wheels score highly; as does walking the nose, hanging five and ten, jumps, spins, and mooning the occupants of adjacent cars.
The Karmin Gia is actually too small and underpowered for car surfing. A two-seater with a wind-up rubber band for a power plant, the Gia has trouble reaching 0 to 60 in less than a week and a half. Cabin space is cramped. The best surfing crew has a driver, a surfer, and a back-seat spotter who faces toward the rear and calls out spontaneous lane changes. Just like in Nature the wave should break behind you, felt but unseen. But Susan's natural ferocity behind the wheel makes up for the lack of power. The mirror in the center of her windshield is for checking her makeup. She never worries about the people behind her. That's why she has insurance. If her father didn't want her to use it, why would he pay for it? It's a lot more exciting surfing Scottsdale Road with Susan than hitting Oceanside when the surf is only running two to fours.
We reached downtown in the West's Most Western Town just about 6:30. This little city survives on the tourist trade so every business, shop, and restaurant is open late and traffic is heavy. We still had three hours of daylight. And a problem...
Cops don't care for car surfers. Authority figures have no problem sending eighteen year olds to Vietnam where they face land mines, booby traps, snipers, enemy artillery, mortars, and small arms fire, grenades, napalm and even something called "friendly fire." Though I personally don't understand how anyone shooting at me can be described as friendly. It seems to me to be a decidedly unfriendly act. Wouldn't ‘stupid fire’ be a better term? "He was killed by stupid fire" makes more sense. That's what it is - stupid, not friendly. Anyway, them sending us to get killed for whatever reason is cool. But me deciding for myself to engage in an activity that has the tiniest possibility of resulting in bodily injury to myself is reason to arrest me and throw my ass in jail.
It's known as protecting the cannon fodder. If the cops are really there to serve and protect, send them to Vietnam where they can act as human shields for all the eighteen year old GI's who aren't old enough to buy a beer here. No, we are old enough to fight and die serving a country in which we still need to be protected from ourselves. They won't even let us vote on the matter because they are worried we might have the maturity or good sense to realize we could vote "Hell no, we won't go!" So, car surfing is an outlaw act. Next they'll be making us wear helmets to ride motorcycles. No wonder outlaw acts are best committed when the robe of darkness shields the rebel's identity.
Susan has $25.00 in her pocket and Motel 6 left the light burning for us. There are worse ways to waste two hours. During that time I picked up a little Persian I can toss out in conversations. As my mom says, "a person can never have too much education. When we stop learning we stop living." It is doubtful Mom and I will ever converse in Farsi, but I agree with her philosophy.
At 9:00 p.m. we decided to hit the streets again. I raced Susan out the motel room door, bounded over the side of the Gia as she hit the starter, and we pulled out into traffic right in front of a City of Phoenix Police cruiser. It didn’t take him two seconds to see the board and hit the lights and siren. We pulled to the curb, but he didn’t even exit the vehicle.
“The beach is closed tonight, kids,” boomed over the cruiser’s loudspeaker. “Take it back home and park it. I do not want to see that car back on Central tonight.”
Susan turned to me and spoke, “Are you just going to sit there and let that pig talk to us like that?”
“That’s pretty much what I had in mind. Respect the badge, even if you don’t respect the man,” I replied.
“David,” she insisted, “do something. He can’t stop us for no reason and banish us from the City of Phoenix just because we have long hair and a surfboard. He’s not some feudal baron. He’s just a City Cop.”
“That’s good enough for me, babe. The bro has a gun.”
“David Stone, I can’t believe you are going to pussy out. That pig is profiling us.”
“No, he’s right behind us. All he can see is the back of our heads. Well, maybe when you turn like that to talk to me he can see your profile. What’s that got to do with anything anyway?”
“Not that kind of profile, Davie. He’s type-casting us. That’s not ethical. It’s like discriminating against black people just because of the color of their skin. If you don’t take a stand on this, Surfer, I am really going to be disappointed in you.”
‘Disappointed in you,’ is female code for ‘no more sex for you, mister; I’m looking for a real man to satisfy my needs.’ Take a stand? I stood up in the front seat and slowly turned to face the patrol car. “So, like what did we do wrong, Officer, sir? I mean…”
The cop hit the siren again and then stated in a very matter -of –fact manner, “Don’t try to get smart with me kid. I’ll lock you up quicker than you can whistle the tune from the Lone Ranger.”
One, it’s not the tune to the Lone Ranger; it’s the William Tell Overture. That already makes me smarter that this particular cop. And why shouldn’t I get smart with him. For the past thirteen years of my life, and probably the next five or six minimum, society has mandated that I be educated – with or without my consent, in order that I become smart and the species and our culture advance.
Everyone does this to me; Mom, Dad, cops… “Don’t get smart, David.” A smarter statement would be to not get sassy or insolent. Tell me to refrain from back-talk. But ‘don’t get smart’? Isn’t that self-defeating? If society wants me to be retarded, let me stay home in my pajamas eating Oreos with my chocolate milk while I watch cartoons on Wallace and Ladmo all day. I can oblige. “Sir, I really think…”
“And I have a gun… Drive safely…” He drove behind us with the lights flashing until we made the turn on Thomas and headed out of Phoenix back to Scottsdale.
“Surf,” Susan finally said over the blaring radio, “thanks for trying. Tell you what, they have motels in Scottsdale and I have a credit card.”
Okay, there are rainy days at the beach too. A guy’s gotta do something to pass the time.
*****
Fueled with a nourishing pre-lunch brunch of peanut butter, banana, and whipped cream sandwiches I ran the three blocks from my house to Evans'. I was anxious to reclaim the Impala. It isn't that I don't trust Bill with the car, I trust him with my life on a regular basis; it's just that the Chevy is my baby. A car is a ticket to independence, a passport to manhood. And "I've got a ticket to ride..."
Think about it. A child is born. The doctor slaps it on the butt and hands it to its mother. But you don't really sever the umbilical cord until they put that first set of car keys in your hands. Oh, they clamp it off and slice through the physical manifestation, but a child is still tied to the home front by an indestructible organ of amazing elasticity. It stretches. It twists. It resists mold and mildew and miles of separation. Mom feels through the psychic neurons still connecting her to her issuance and reels in every time she detects fear or hunger or need. She follows the life flow to find her progeny after school, after Pee Wee football practice or Tee ball. It's a leash, a noose, a tether and a lifeline connecting a child in this symbiotic relationship to the mother ship on its EVA out into the universe.
But there comes a time in a man's life when he must break loose, when he must step into his fate on his own two feet, when he needs a jet pack and not a lifeline. That's usually around 5th period sometime in his sophomore year at high school. A car is the ultimate scalpel. Razor sharp, it lops off the connection as quick as a French guillotine separated the royalty from the throne during the revolution. And without the Queen, rule passes to the masses. "I've got a ticket to ride..." And for an umbilical I've still got Ma Bell...
The Impala is parked in the street in front of Evans' house. This is a little more than distressing to me. I've told Bill on many occasions to park in the driveway, never on the street. Parked on the street a vehicle is a vandalism target for every booger fingered little bastard walking by. This is an elementary school neighborhood. Hoodlums lurk around every corner. Not only do they wipe their snot on any and every stationary object their dirty little hands contact, they throw rocks, fall off bicycles, shoot skateboards off the sidewalks and generally constitute a nuisance to the street-parking public. And since my car insurance comes out of my allowance, I only carry liability, not comprehensive. I could carry comprehensive, but the only deductible I can afford is higher than the value of my car.
Not only is my car parked in the street, it's parked the wrong way against traffic. I'm looking at the rear of the car and at traffic ticket if a cop comes along. The top is down. I never leave the top down, not if the car is going to sit on the side of the road unattended looking like it has a sign on it saying, "Open Dump Site" just waiting for some little vandal to come along and toss his Slurpee cup. Wait a second, there is a 3" chrome pipe running along the bottom of the car just beneath the door, a chrome pipe that looks like the barrel of a howitzer. And an identical pipe runs along the driver's side.
I've changed from an easy lope to a sprint racing to my altered prized possession. It is sitting funny and as I reach the rear of the vehicle, I can see it has been jacked up and springs and shocks large enough to level the Leaning Tower of Pisa have replaced my factory installed. My shifter knob is gone. My pearl white custom shifter knob with the red etching has been stolen and there in its place between the bucket seats someone has left a grotesque gun metal gray slug of metal forged as if a human hand had squeezed it as it cooled. On the side of it written in red letters is the word "Hurst". Then my eyes catch sight of the hood of my car. The once sleek aerodynamic lines have been interrupted by a gash from which protrudes a monstrosity. It is an immense metal hood or scoop on top looking like something one might find on a jet fighter. It looks kind of bitchin', but it doesn't belong on my car. If this is my car... And it has my license plates and my registration is in the clear plastic holder wrapped around the steering column. And the black and gold tassel from my mortarboard cap showing I was top ten percent and National Honor Society at graduation from Saguaro High School is hanging from the rear-view mirror. So, yes, this mutant once was my car. But some evil has perverted it. Evans...
Pounding on the front door I scream for Evans, for an explanation, for justice to rain down on the evil ne'er-do-well who has perverted Detroit's perfection. Billy answers the door in shirtless fashion wearing only jams and flip-flops. His mischievous grin deflates my efforts to huff and puff and blow the house down.
"Like it?" he answers to my unasked question.
"Like it," I respond bewilderedly. "Fuck no, I don't like it. What have you done? And who gave you the right to do it? That's my car out there. Bill. Or at least it was. Now it's some kind of monstrosity."
Oh, it is a monster," Evans answered, "a monster funny car and the best part is it didn't cost us a dime,"
"Us! It's my car, not our car. I paid for it, not you."
"Surfer, your parents bought you that car for high school graduation. You didn't shell out a penny."
"Okay. I still paid for it. I busted my butt making the honor roll every semester, didn't I? So I paid for it. And that's not the point anyway. It's my car. Bill. You had no right to go modifying it without asking me."
"But you got to admit it's cool."
Arguing was pointless. The damage had been done. Besides, Billy was so proud of his accomplishment. I've always found that when facing a no-win situation, it's best to change tactics and look for common ground. I'm not a fighter; I'm a compromiser.
"Okay, let's forget why. Let's concentrate on the how. Tell me."
"Want a beer first?" Evans asked.
"Evans, its eleven a.m.; I haven't even had lunch yet."
"Beer and Sugar Pops?"
"That works for me."
We talked as we ate. Billy had taken the Impala to the drags and met his sister DeeDee and her boyfriend Luigi. Dee's car was racing in the modified street rod class, but she lost out in the first round. She and Luigi decided to leave early and invited Bill back to Luigi's garage. Then they got hungry and went for pizza. Luigi's last words had been for Billy to consider the place his own, so Bill did. With an entire evening to kill, Evans had "borrowed a full blown 427 L88 engine, modified the mounting brackets in the Impala to accept the monster, and installed a Hurst transmission with synchromesh, hydraulic lifters and heavy-duty shocks. If he found it lying around the shop, Bill made it his own. Or our own as he pointed out. It was a job that would have taken Luigi's mechanics a week to do, but they work by the hour. Bill only had one night and he made the most of it.
"When Luigi finds out you took this stuff he is going to kill you, man," I said slurping down the last of the cereal. "There's no way we can pay for this. You know an engine and a transmission must cost hundreds of bucks; maybe a lot more for racing gear."
"Hundreds? Man, we are talking thousands. You should have seen this shop, bro. There was so much shit lying around. I bet Luigi won't even miss the stuff. Just between you and me, I wouldn't be surprised to find out all of it was hot. So the cost is in the labor and I did that all for free."
"Hot, you mean stolen?"
"I mean there aren't any serial numbers on the engine block. They have been filed off with acid or something. There aren't any boxes or tags or anything that's new. Okay, there's like Napa and Mopar parts, but all the big stuff like transmissions and engines and rear ends is all used and all the ID numbers are gone."
"You mean it's a chop shop?" I asked in amazement.
"I don't know for sure. I just know a guy driving a Hostess Bakery delivery truck can't afford all the shit he has stashed away in that shop. So if it's stolen in the first place, what's he going to do if I borrow a little? Call the cops? He's dating my sister, for Christ sake."
"He's going to bury you in the desert, Evans. He's going to bury you and then find out it's my car and then he's going to bury me in the same hole. That's what Mafia dudes do."
Evans held up a dissenting hand to silence me as the phone rang. He spoke briefly and returned to me ashen faced, "That was Luigi. We have today to come up with the money to pay for the stuff on the car or he's going to send some of his employees over to 'collect'. He wants two thousand. I think he's seriously pissed."
"Give it all back to him, Billy, just take the car over there and pull the engine and put mine back in and call it even. Don't even worry about the hood. We can go to a junkyard and find a hood. Put things back the way they were, okay?"
"Well, I suggested that to him and he said that isn't the way things work. We took the engine and now we have to pay."
"We! It's always we with you. It isn't we, Bill; it's you. I had nothing to do with this fiasco. Call him back and tell him that. Tell him you did this on your own. The man is dating your sister, for Christ sake. He's not going to kill a prospective brother-in-law. Call him!"
“I don’t have to call him; he said to meet him at the drag strip tonight.”
*****
The Drags
I am hanging out at Evans' house waiting for him to get ready. At least there's beer in the fridge. We are heading out to the Winter Nationals, America's drag racing championships. This is the first time they have ever been held at Bee Line Drag Way, just east of Phoenix. I cannot relate to you the depth of my excitement.
Drag racing has been referred to as a uniquely American sport. There are those who use the term "sport" in reference to the clubbing to death of baby seals. Sport, like beauty, is obviously in the eye of the beholder... or his sponsor... or a drunken fan. I see nothing resembling sport in auto racing. And drag racing is the bottom of the auto-racing barrel...
Auto racing is not a uniquely American sport; a uniquely American phenomenon I might agree, but not a sport. To begin with, a sport requires a participant to actually do something. If auto racing were a sport, commuting to work would qualify as an Olympic event. What skill is involved in gadding about in a perpetual left turn? Bowling comes closer to qualifying as a sport than does auto racing. Bowling involves a ball, a fundamental element in what most Americans define as sport. Okay, badminton doesn't have a ball and you don't do much, but it's more a sport to me than drag racing. At least it utilizes a net and the violent swinging of wooden implements making it therefore consistent with the American sport format. But car racing?
Let's get real about this. Have half the racers run clockwise and half counter clockwise. That would be exciting. Or maybe change the course from an oval to a figure eight... All anyone watches for is the crashes. If we had them cutting across each other's path at 200 mph we'd up the collision rate 1000%. I'd pay to see that. Evans, on the other hand, is enthralled by this Detroit inspired spectacle. This is his idea, us watching drag racing. He has fallen in love with the whole scene: the grease, the asphalt, the noxious fumes, and the drunken crowds. Drag racing attracts ugly man types. It is as openly Freudian as college males are allowed to be in polite Arizona society.
Chicks assume there must be more to it - there must be some deeply hidden significance in those vibrating pounding muscle cars that escapes first glance. No, there is just the open sexuality of the raw thundering power, the phallic symbolism of the ultra-streamlined stock car erupting down the straightaway toward its goal like a determined sperm in a kamikaze nose dive for the ovum. The six-second-ejaculation barrier... Yes, at nineteen sex is a dash down the quarter mile, get it up, get it in, get it off, get it out, and get on with the next one race against the clock. We may do that ten or twelve times in an average night. It is quantity and not quality of performance that counts. Foreplay happens on first dates. Foreplay is that light bar counting down to all green: red, yellow, green, ejaculate, haul the spent projectile back to the pit, gas it up, repack the chutes and line it up again for another run.
Personally, I don't like chutes. I prefer au natural, but after two cases of the clap I've developed an allergy to penicillin. I try therefore to avoid the kind of women who frequent drag races. I confine my activities to college coeds who douche regularly and take "the pill."
Evans exercises no such discretionary caution. Ugly men, having established the notion that they must by nature be deeper and more sensitive than a shallow self-consumed handsome fellow, are indulging in sex with anything on two legs and several species on four. Previously restrained by their physical limitations their formerly handcuffed libidos have been freed by the female assumption that ugly men will be more trustworthy, loving, thankful