Two brothers gathered around an object it had taken some doing to procure. They procured it with everything but that of prostrate imploration. It was their grandfather's little ford town car he inherited from a deceased member of the family. The deceased was a raisiny, ripe great grandmother of about ninety, who was fondly remembered in good times and who kept in her arthritic grip an old doddering Ford, painted a lackluster white with much body work needed. It could carry four midgets comfortably but for taller creatures it left much to be desired.
The interior too was white, but that was twenty years ago when the vehicle was in its prime. It coughed and hiccuped its way all over township but would never see the fruition of its dreams blazing a trail of steam on the Autobon. The two brothers agreed on this even fantasizing as far with empty words ideas on how to modify it for such high - stake's territory. They felt sorry, though, when picturing a moribund woman of ninetey speeding to certain death. She too would have to be boosted with nitrous oxide not just the vehicle its self. Just modifying the vehicle seemed selfish, reckless, and a gross example of bad engineering.
The grandmother smoked since she could maturely inhale and exhale. She preferred Marlboros in bad times and good, and smoked that car up for days on end. Whatever artificial aroma the car originally possessed fresh off the lot was replaced with a frowsy couplet of Marlboro-mothball and formaldehyde. It was venerable and well preserved.
As soon as their grandfather became the new and certified owner, he generously lent it to his grandsons, who expected something with some muscle. They didn't repine its inadequacy but remained humorous and outwardly grateful. "Now, boys, you can drive it. Just clean it out and spray it down when yer done." The brothers looked at eachother sheepishly but any fear was assuaged with the acceptance of a man who could say anything with neutrality. He was old but new the game and remembered his youthful enjoyment of it with enduring fondness. After all, what did he care? "Do what ever the hell you want with it. If you have to crash the damn thing do it some where important and noticeable,'' he continued his sermon of passivity.
They understood well enough and did the exact opposite. How could they crash it? They didn't even know the maximum speed if it could reach the semblance of speed at all. They surreptitiously took it off his lot in one of those serene Missouri nights in a rural and barren locale where the heavens could be viewed unobstructed by city lights.
They bickered and dickered upon the perfect whereabouts to test it's vehicular gumption on the beckoning asphalt. Between them was a sweaty lump of cash and a ziplock bag full of emerald green kind bud. They counted the booty and engineered a hearty joint with spit, herbs, and paper. One brother in objectionable forgetfulness blurted out, "Dude, did you remember the spray?" The other stared apathetically then barely ejecting his answer of reassurance. "Dude, it's right here - Febreeze, all-purpse and orange scented."
"Well, keep it where I can see it, damn it," stressed brother number one.
"Maybe you need to chill out. The old man's just that, ooooold," stressed brother number two."
They finished rendering their revivement and light it up firmly remembering the spray. They debated on where to take the car. What better place than Devil's Elbow. There is one every town. They are just named differently. Their eyes are beginning to grow bleary and questionable, the windows were conveniently rolled down, the breeze was lovely, and the silence suspenseful. They drove out on that starryt night to the edge of their hunting ground.
"You ready," said brother number one.
"Does a bear shit in the woods, does the pope have a balcony, does a" -
brother number two was interrupted.
"Dude, I just asked you a simple question. Are ready for this?"
"Mhmm."
The driver gave the pedal the led foot and aimed for the eblow, a curving, fell, black snake in the night. The old woman coughed and gagged on his foot issuing smoke from her dry exhaust pipe. "C'mon, give it some stack." The car was gaining it's way to twenty miles an hour, hopeful but hardly critical. They aimed high gaining twenty-five and a determined thirty. It was proving a mulish, recalcitrant endeavor. The enfeebled car choked and collapsed less than a third of the way. "How fast did the old man say it would go?" They reluctantly kept in mind that this car came from a jolly retired professor, who in his endless spiflications, drove a golf cart out in his front yard when his spirits were up. It came from a man who would hold an Amberbach bottle-neck in one hand and a steering wheel in the other driving foolhardily over treacherous knolls that didn't occupy a golf course. He'd shout at the passersby his jocund and hearty ravings whilst his ailing, senescent wife lay abed in the increasingly dilapidated estate, vegetative and slack-jawed. Their affections grew thereupon and they shared a decent moment. "This damn thing cuts at forty-five! Hahahaha!"
They sat, shared cultured tokes, and listened to the Missouri night song, the Ozark jumble of crickets playing their washboard legs, and all manner of creatures present in the nocturne.
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