Bent Highway: Chapter Sixteen

8-Track

The inside of the Charger vibrated with the bass beat of a honky-tonk old-timey western band blaring over the 8-track, jammed with two match covers to help the warbly sound - and I mean it made the ancient bleached tape warble even more. The boys in the back nodded in time, the ends of their cigarettes dangles in perfect beat, somehow the ashes didn’t drop. I started to say something to Mr. Nascar, who was holding it at a steady 83 mph, but was silenced by him reaching over to turn up the volume. 

He nodded at me and said, “Blaupunkt.”

“Fuckin’ A,” said the trucker twins in the back. I swore they said it in harmony, the guy with the handlebar mustache taking the third up.

I settled back into the sheepskin seat covers and tried to figure it out. All of it. The boys in the Charger had first tried to put Walt out of commission, and then good ole Uncle Lester and his shitkickers. Now, somehow, they were helping Walt out. I knew we were headed ti find Harold, though I didn’t really understand where he was - or more importantly, who he was. Some kind of super-boogie man with chaos and destruction on his mind? An evil force? A bad-ass Lex Luthor with an out of control ‘fro? But I had to remember that’s how he looked to me growing up together - I pushed that out of my head, as I knew we hadn’t really grown up. And to Chalk Girl he was some sort of lover, or husband, or… it hurt my head worse than the whiny vocals on top of the razor sharp fiddle sounds blasting through the car. Fucking dire music is what it was. No wonder they sang songs about killing themselves.

Chalk Girl. Damn. I couldn’t ever complete the task she kept bringing me back to - and now I knew Harold was behind that too. When did I meet her? A long line of events lined up in my brain, a stack of calendars or back issues of Time, Look and Life - I flipped through them like a sped-up newsreel. Again, I wondered how long I’d been on the highway. I knew by looking into Walt’s face, it had been a helluva long time - before asphalt maybe.

Outside a fat moon climbed over a copse of black fir trees. How long had we been driving?

The hell with time. I focused on the now. It didn’t matter what came before, or how much of “before” there was. Damned if I didn’t catch myself nodding to the music as another number, so much like the others it was hard to say it was new, came on and drifted back to the rhythm section behind me.

Mr. Nascar reached over and hit the eject button, shooting the tapes and matchbooks onto the floor.

“Got company.”

In the rear view mirror a green sedan grew in size.

“Looks like them Duke boys got themselves in a heap of trouble,” said the mustached one.

The other one whooped and I heard guns being pulled and racked.

“Shit.” I cranked my head around and saw the sedan coming hell-bent and the silhouetted fuzzy head behind the wheel. The headlights glowed a deep red, probably lousy for sight lines, but damn chilling.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Only one thing to do,” Nascar said and held his hand up. “Elvis.”

An 8-track was slammed into the hand - one of the boys in the back had pulled it out of who knows where.

“Little less conversation, little more action.” Nascar jammed the tape in and the speakers found a new level.

The bass exploded and the drums slammed into my chest. Nascar gunned it and buried the speedometer.

“Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Three-part harmony, I swear.

A pair of red headlights shrunk in the rearview.

“Piece-o-shit Ford!”

“Call us when you get a real car.”

More hoots and back slaps. The seats, the dashboard and the ashstray pulsed as the Pelvis dulcid tones swept through the car. I admit, I hooted. Just a bit.

Then, like the eyes of a python opening, a pair of red circles grew in the mirror. In a few seconds the rearview was nothing but red. The boys in the back leaned out and started firing. One of the eyes went out. Nascar speedshifted into some unknown gear. Just as fast he slammed on the brakes. A long screech that wasn’t from a guitar split the air. The back end of the Charger spun and at least two of the tires lifted. I kinda hoped that Nascar had installed a roll bar along with the supercharge.

I waited.

The cyclops sedan was framed perfectly by the back window.

The boys kept firing.

I waited.

Time slowed and stopped. Everything was so still, that if not for the g-forces of the spin, I could have reached down on the handle, got out of the car and went over to kick Harold in the nuts.

That did not happen.

The track skipped - a fast skiffle beat, coming in hard on the chorus.

Yer the devil in disguise.

We came back into the skid hard, the Charger enveloped in smoke from the outside and the one’s dangling from the boy’s lips. A long snip was taken out. And we were frozen stiff stretched across the highway. Harold’s one bloody eye stared at us. The tape ended.

“Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em boys.”

Three butts hit the floor of the charger and three zippos flared.

“Any chance you have a plan?” I asked.

“The best I had was Elvis.”

“Right.”

Harold got out of the car carrying a long sword.

That didn’t surprise me as much as who got out of the passenger side.