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Wednesday morning, as i was folding, cramming, and zipping up my other life, in preparation for this one... i unwittingly got another one of those half-assed premonitions. when i was reducing my jeans into a packable size, i randomly thought... "damn, that little ragtop has been pretty dependable for a sporty type." years of British car ownership should have had me drawing a circle in Castrol, doing Pythonesque incantations, and gulping a big mouthful of Fuller'sESB... spewing it into a mist to placate the evil spirits. Haitian style. no. i blythely wandered through the day and evening without foreboding. clueless. eager to strap in, rumble southwestward, find a groove in the meager cassette tape collection that i've heard incessantly for the past few months... and GO. i like to GO. getting there leaves something to be desired, sometimes, but motion is my favorite prescription. cue the toll of the iron bell. i noticed a brief banshee wail from under the bonnet, pulling from the parking lot, and ignored it. after all, after it ended, all systems were go. gears snicking into sync. exhaust burble from behind me. pithy talk from the late night jazz station. a comfortable beginning. it was when the cigarette lighter didn't pop out with it's usual rocket force that i got a little concerned. that wasn't usual. when i pushed it back into it's little cylinder, the radio blinkered off. then on. then off. i pounded on the side of the console with my fist... a loose connection, surely. the cock crowed, thrice, when i stepped on the brake pedal for a lonely stoplight... and all of the instrument lights dimmed. oh. fuck. fifty miles from home, two o'clock in the morning. worst-case scenario. at that point, it became a battle of wits. turn off everything electrical that would interfere with the headlights and the fuel pump. that included the fan for the heater. anything less would mean "dead battery," and right damned quick. and lead me to be flattened by a unseeing semi, thrown into the slammer by a suspicious cop, or kidnapped at gunpoint by a Dr.Mengele-inspiredNaziPsychoKiller... my bleached bones stripped of their DNA, whenever, if ever they were found. yeah, i got a little distracted. the beams dimmed, imperceptably, until oncoming cars' lights were blinding. frost built up on the inside of the windscreen from my breath. the tachometer needle rose wildly to the redline, though the engine noise remained constant. and then it would drop to zero, and swing around in a backwards arc from whence it came. possessed... the miata's nervous system so depleted that the demons took over. still, twenty miles to go. every stop sign, light, obstacle in the road... a cause to downshift in anticipation, right heel blipping the throttle to keep the engine from shutting off. mentally assessing every possible safe stopping place to make the call for help, and a ride. ten more miles. that's when i got a grip. fighting the cold, i tensed up all of my muscles, held, and released... and got a warm flush from the effort. lights so dim now, that i could have held a flashlight out of the window and seen better. no matter. there was the lane. the driveway. the back end of Yoko's car. the door. did i ever thank Jah for that one. even the cold, the snow, the ick of today... noticing that my mother had trashed the taillight of the Volvo... the 150+ pricetag of an alternator... couldn't diminish the rush of getting where i needed to be. home and dry. that kind of thorny experience certainly cuts the whiny bullshit. |
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