Katie was driving. She was driving not because it always made her feel good to drive but because it did always make her feel better to drive. This particular drive was not unlike any of the others. In her “little fast machine” it was never so much about the destination as it in fact it was the trip itself. Katie didn’t really drive because she had somewhere to go but instead just so enjoyed the process of getting there no mater where there might be. She usually always drove “little fast machine” with the music up very loud because, well simply put because if it wasn’t up very loud she couldn’t hear it. Now Katie didn’t have any sort of auditory disability. Her only DISability was not being able to go anywhere in “LFM” with the windows up. It didn’t matter if it was negative 30 outside and a blizzard was coming down the windows would be the same. She would just adjust the in cabin temp with the AC. She drove with them down because it didn’t feel like magic with them up. She couldn’t feel the road as well. When they were down it was more like she was flying just over the surface of the asphalt then like she was really behind the wheel. She was behind it though and that’s the “why else” she loved to drive. She loved that control or that supposed illusion of control at least. Even when her heart and head felt the most out of control, the times when Katie felt the most upside down and insidewithout, she could just strap in and take off, with her four wheels underneath her and her mind racing out in front screaming for her body to keep up.
Now no girl or woman should just drive anywhere without any sort of protection. She was no different. Well she was certainly different just not on that specific count. She wouldn’t carry a gun. Katie did not believe in it. Besides she was not some gang banging hood rat that needed a piece to justify her gangsta. Neither though was she the preppy college sorority girl or even the ever illusive soccer mom who not unlike the hardened cowboy of earlier American times would feel comfort having holstered on her hip a deadly can of pepper spray. A weapon of mass destruction that could be easily deployed in seconds to temporarily incapacitate ones adversary, well unless of course ones adversary had an affinity for extremely spicy world cuisine. No these types of protection were out of the question. So what then?
Sometime around the beginning of Katie’s driving career when she was still living at home with her mother (dad had skipped town years prior and taken most everything of his with him when he left) the fateful day came when the perfect “it” was discovered. In a closet underneath years worth of un-played board games, unfinished science projects, unread self-help books and too many skeletons her “it” appeared. Now this was an item she had never seen and kind of laughed when she pulled it out. Before she could react or even fully comprehend what she held her mom came around the corner and snatched “it” out of her hands. Moms had a mixed look of absolute terror and also sudden and unbridled rage.
“THIS FUCKING THING WAS IN THERE?” Mom screamed on the verge of head popping insanity.
“Ahh……….yeah?” Katie replied, not at all sure why a little piece of wood would or could incite so much instant animosity. She was not even sure she wanted to know. She just stood there silent, waiting.
Nothing else was said. Mom just walked out of the living room into the kitchen, “IT” in hand. She opened the back door and threw that little carved splinter as hard as she fucking could. Then as calmly as she had seemed before the excitement she returned downstairs to the basement to finish laundry.
This was absolutely too much for Katie to process. The main thing was she knew that whatever it was had belonged to her father and that she had nothing from him besides emotional abandonment issues. So an attempt at discretion was made and she stole out the back door hoping her mother was going to remain unaware. She was in a mad dash to find “it”. She dodged mindfully the mind field of dog shit and scaled skillfully the 3 foot chain link fence of her backyard to the adjoining field. Some little farmer had already cleared it for the season so she should have little trouble finding what she was looking for. Which she didn’t, have trouble finding it that is, but she was amazed to note that she had never given her moms much credit to having such super human strength which she now could seeing as mom had almost hit the next zip code with it.
So there it was her prize. It was something that belonged to her dad and she now had both it and enough time to take it in fully, to assess the find. Upon investigation she realized it was a little miniature baseball bat. Maybe about 1/3 the size of the kind the boys Katie grew up around would use to not only play ball with but also used for an assortment of other devious boy type activities. It was no ordinary bat though. It had carving all over it, Pictures of people involved in various menial and leisure activities all wearing sombreros up and down this glorified toothpick. Along the smallest part of the handle on one side were the letters M, E, X and then on the other side were I, C, and O.
Somewhere in the back of her head it popped. This bat had probably seen its fair share of split heads and busted ribs (some maybe even belonging to her mother which could account for her mothers reaction) She had no clue how many or who else but just then with a divine sort of sick inspiration she realized that like an edict straight from the mouth of heaven or maybe hell for that matter that this was supposed to be her Excalibur. And so it came to pass, that where ever she drove form that time forward it would be her protection. She coined it the moniker “Mexican ass beater” and rightfully so. She reasoned it was always better to have a “Mexican ass beater” and not need it then to need a MAB and not have one. Whenever she was faced with tweaked out truckers that would try to force her “ little fast machine” off into the grass or even puberty faced teenage boys who got hard trying to impress hot chicas with the heat under their hoods she would feel safe just having it present. When God forbid some amped up junky crack head looking for a fast pass to the next fix might attempt to car jack her at some downtown streetlight she knew and found solace in the fact that MAB was close at hand. The rest be damned!
Now I have digressed but it I promise was important so now back to Katie on the open road. Katie going gods know how fast, down fuck if she knew what highway, to who the hell knows where with her windows down, radio up and her head, heart and voice all flying at half the speed of light. That’s when the proverbial “it” happened. She was rightfully in the passing lane or what she liked to call “the get the hell outa my way” lane when she noticed up ahead a beat up old dark red pick up truck. You might know the kind. Dirty, half rusted out and most certainly a bumper festooned with such insightful stickers beaming the most prolific truths. Ones like “if you can read this you’re to close” or “if you don’t like my driving call 1-800-EAT-SHIT.”. Then right in the middle the one that summed it all up “I break for beer, tits and Jesus!” Then last but not least the Pièce de résistance was the gun rack in the back window of the cab sans guns. Apparently they had only had the blue light special on the racks them selves that week and not thank god on the shot guns as well. Besides the shot gun would have just simply taken too much out of his Pabst Blue Ribbon daily allotment so it would just have to wait. Now descriptions aside suffice it to say that the speed with which she was coming up to be able to in fact read and take all this in was rapidly increasing. Just in case he hadn’t seen her rapid accent towards his bumper art she flashed her lights to help maybe facilitate him into recognizing proper road rules. An attempt to be the would be aggregate he needed to incite him towards the smallest amount of highway etiquette and for him to pull to the right lane to let her pass without incident. It wasn’t and he didn’t and before Katie could say “shit, fuck, shit” their eyes locked in his dangling rearview and two bright red lights clicked on bannering the indication that this little shit had just hit his breaks and hard. She had just enough time to not lock hers up and swerve into the lane one over to the right. She hit the gas again and was back up quickly in the lead. She was now caught back up with her head and heart as well and now wanted some mad max like vengeance. She was going to give him just a little taste. She pulled in front of him and then just as suddenly she popped the breaks so hard she looked like she was attempting to put them through the floor. She looked into her rearview and along with what seemed like a cloud bubble of what she was sure were uneducated expletives issuing from his mouth, face dirty and bright red under his extremely worn john deer weave ball cap, she was relieved to see he was able to successfully avoid collision. Well thank god he isn’t “to drunk”.
Now though he was angered were as before he was just self satisfied that he might have successfully intimidated what he had mistaken to be a helpless little flower he just wanted to stomp. He hit the accelerator Katie had assumed he had drunkenly misplaced and was quickly up beside her as they both raced once again all out down the open road. Her windows were open as they always were and so she realized his were as well because even over the roar of the wind and the two motors and the grind of the tires tearing grooves into the asphalt she still could hear his belligerent ranting, An unpunctuated slew of the most hateful profanities bounding from his half toothless mouth.
She was not afraid. She knew what to do and had but to do it. She reached down under her and pulled out her sacred protection, her cross and holy water as it were, the MAB. She took that majestic sigil and in a proud signal of empowerment she placed “the golden fiddle on the ground at Johnny’s feat.” The ground being her dash board and Johnny’s feat being eyeshot of old rebel redneck her toothless nemesis. His jeering and frothing halted all but immediately. He seemed taken aback but only slightly and very briefly for his next move in this high speed chess game, which he might have taken to be “mate” by the smug look that ensued, was to produce from a very similar spot inside the cab of his redneck-mobile another bat. Only this one was not hand carved like Katie’s. It was also the size more of the type the boys Katie grew up around used to play ball and also to do those various other devious boyish things with. In fact this very well might have been just the sort of thing “the boys” might have used one for besides hitting homeruns.
Now Katie was taken aback. The feeling was very similar to showing up to a knife fight with a pack of gum. This was only temporary though because just then she remembered her second line of defense. She reached behind her to the pocket in the back of the seat after she punched in the cigar lighter on the dash. She produced from the pocket a nine ball roman candle, quickly lit it in her lap with the lighter and without so much as a second thought she tossed it through the son of a bitches open window and somewhere in the general vicinity of his lap, hit the gas and zoomed off. Her rearview told her all she needed to know. The happy story of a man consumed by hatred as well as by tiny balls of multicolor fire and loud ear aching pops and zooms. He madly attempted to, while unable to process mentally exactly what had transpired, physically do everything in his power to decelerate and pull to the shoulder fast enough to get out and put out tiny flames spreading on his dingy flannel shirt. Somehow in the chaos forgetting that the catalyst for this spontaneous combustion was once again out there on the open road trying to drag race against the setting sun.
Safe, satisfied and refreshed Katie returned to the journey which always made it all so worth it. Katie with her four wheels beneath her and her mind out in front screaming for her body to catch up!
