Chapter 3 Infectious Grooves
Nate is hating life so hard right now. He is seething in his car, waiting for Patsy to get her shit together. He will NOT sit in the living room with Sorry... GOD DAMNED WRETCHED SMUG PIECE OF TWATTY ONE LINER SPEWING SHIT! Patsy appears at his car door out of nowhere it seems, chirping like a bird...
"Goody gumdrops Pats is here!"
Her smile fades immediately as she sees his face...pinched and uncharacteristically sweaty. He manages to clear his throat and
croak out
"Is that all you're bringing??"
"Oh dear..." she says ominously
Nothing else is said as she gets in the car and lights a cigarette. Nate can feel Sorry's beady charcoal eyes on him from the second floor window and visibly tenses. He pops the clutch too fast and stalls out....purposely bangs his head on the steering wheel and lets out a long sigh. He then abruptly sits up and tries to start it again, this time pumping the gas too violently until it floods.
"FUCKING SO FUCKING AWESOME!"
He screams at the visor. Sorry laughs from the window above and yells...
"Don't stop now Andretti....you can still win the race DU MBASS!"
Nate emits a sound that Patsy has never heard from him before. Kind of a growl but really more of a rasp. A gurgle as if coming from a stabbing victim.....yes more of a choking on your own blood sound. She puts her hand on his knee maternally then gets out and pops the hood. She jiggles something that Nate has no clue about and yells "TRY IT NOW!".....crank....sputter
"OK......wait a few minutes....it will work next time and SHUT THE FUCK UP SORRY! Seriously not now..." He tries again too soon but it works so Patsy jumps giddily back in the car and immediately pops in the "Infectious Grooves" CD.
They wheedle their way towards the freeway and just as they merge onto the 5 "Violent & Funky" comes on. "PERFECT!" Patsy yells as she rolls down the window. She needs more cigs but now is not the time to stop. He will tell her what's up eventually.
Now they just need some perfect slap bass and the road....desperately.
Chapter 4 Yellow Caution Tape
The post flooding gasoline smells waft in through the ventilation system ironically and it becomes a heady mix with thrash punk so Patsy moves to change the CD. She decides against "Taper Jean Girl" because she realizes she is wearing REALLY tight jeans so opts for Led Zeppelin....always a safe road trip choice.
"How about Battle of Evermore?"
"PERFECT"
Nate always says PERFECT and always lets her take over in the music department. He has trusted her with things of the heart since they were kids. Music, movies, books, lovers gossip....all things of the heart and she has never steered him wrong with any of them.....not that he ever gave her a chance to really.
Traffic is finally opening up now as they approach the sprawling suburbs of Los Angeles....the bedroom communities. The cookie cutter Terra Cotta places where purple is quite literally against the law. The quiet desperation places where murder-suicide tragedies happen. Where friends and relatives squawk as local news cameras pan across the yellow caution tape around the house "I had NO IDEA! I just talked to him yesterday......." When ever Patsy drives past these areas she sees the whole community surrounded by that yellow tape in her head. JUST as she was imagining tiny ambulances circling the Cul de Sacs like New York Taxi Cabs, Nate interrupts the lull between Zep tunes and blurts....
"She's fucking pregnant"
"WOW!.....is she going to keep it?"
"She wants to. She asked me to marry her"
She laughs heartily and assumes he's joking just to break the tension. She glances over hoping to see a grin FINALLY but sees a dour determination instead.
"Jesus Fucking Christ you aren't kidding are you??"
"NOPE!"
He says a little too loudly and giggles but it's a tight, forced giggle. The kind of giggle a teenager would have in the middle of a huge lie to their parents. So ok....now she knows there is MUCH more to the story.
Gasoline smells recede with the lights of suburbia now. AHHH....the smell of sand and dry brush enters this tiny pain filled ship....just floating down hill towards Vegas for no particular reason.
THUNK....flap flap flap flap flap....
A flat tire. They both slowly turn their heads toward each other at EXACTLY the same speed, as if it were a mirror gag. She bursts out laughing but he can't bring himself to laugh. He does crack a grin though...he loves watching her laugh. Almost in a child's voice Nate squeaks...
"I can't deal with this now Pats. I really need to shut down....like now"
"I know Babe go to sleep in the back....I'll figure it out"
He opens his door to near pitch black skies with a few pitiful stars and NO cars anywhere....climbs in the back and passes out immediately. As he begins to snore she ponders her options. Control seems laughably presumptuous at this point, but she makes a valiant effort despite this glaring fact. Out of cell range.....too far away for AAA especially this late....no flashlight to change the fucking tire tonight...
CRAP! She really has no choice but to go to sleep too. Travelling last minute without a reason is sooooooo enticing...truly seductive in a Julie London Smokey Jazz kind of way.
But sometimes it bites you in the ass.
