Car Incident, Nocturnal

I was poking through the hard drive and I found this. It's a few years old and I don't remember why I wrote it, but from the folder and the file name I think it was a draft that I meant to post to Usenet. Not quite sure whether I did or not. The question prompting it was most likely "What did you do over break?"

I don't know. It took me back. I hope you like it too.

I got in car accidents, kinda. Is there a word for when your car suddenly stops working, in traffic, so that it's as scary as an accident but you don't actually hit anyone else? That happens to me a lot. That's what happened.

First, I was in Gabe's Jetta, and it died whenever we stopped. An automatic, you had to press down on the stick to shift it, but the mechanics had broken the knob off. Gabe had to use a piece of cardboard to depress the shard of metal and plastic in order to shift.

Anyway, we were trying to get to his house, when it finally died for good, on a big highway during rush hour. I helped him push it to the nearest parking lot.

Gabe and I had been out spending his Xmas money. He bought a light saber, and then we went home to get batteries.

"Gabe, this makes noise and lights up. You should buy batteries."
"Not to worry! I have plenty of practice making the noises."
And he did.

--

Later, Gabe and Andy, who'd hurt his foot in a real car accident earlier, picked me up in Andy's car. Gabe drove us from 7-11 to 7-11, looking for one with a particular flavor of Slurpee. This is what Gabe does EVERY NIGHT. He just drives around and around, wishing something would happen. I keep telling him that if he got up before noon, he would be awake and active at the times that things DO happen, or at least stores are open.

Anyway, outside of one 7-11, I was keeping Andy company. He'd decided to just stop going in, because by the time he'd shuffled to the Slurpee machine, Gabe was already in the car, ready to go.

(Gabe also kept forgetting to hold doors open, and would often disappear for a minute or so, then backtrack sheepishly and explain that he'd forgotten Andy's reduced speed. He was pretty embarrassed, because he's a really sensitive fellow, just a forgetful one as well.)

Andy and I found a note on the ground on flower-covered stationery. It was a name--Noah--a phone number, and directions to a house. Andy and I were joking about calling the number and telling Noah that we were coming over, did he want any weed?, when Gabe came out. Andy showed him the paper, and Gabe got the Look in his eyes. Andy and I both knew then that we were going to Noah's house.

Now and then Gabe gets an Idea, and it will be an Adventure, and he'll be really into it.

--

Once he called me, in Eugene, at 11 PM and told me he was "coming over tonight."

"Gabe, where are you calling from? Roseburg?"

"Medford."

"Uh, okay." I decided to go to bed anyway, as I could dress quickly if he called me at 2 AM.

He called me again a few minutes later, explaining he had forgotten it's about a three-hour drive up here. I went to sleep.

--

So, we all drove to Ashland and spent quite a while following the directions on the note. The street names were poorly written and we had trouble reading them until we were past, anyway. We found the street, but couldn't read any of the numbers from the car, and didn't want to take Andy out of the car and down the broken sidewalk at 11:30 PM in winter, wearing only a sweat suit. So Andy and I convinced Gabe to drive home again.

As we turned onto Main Street, Gabe misjudged the distance and clipped the landscaped divider in the middle of the road. We heard the tinkling clang of something IMPORTANT rolling away, and the car stopped moving. Nobody swore or anything, which was nice.

Andy said "Why isn't my car going anymore?" and things looked black, but Gabe noticed that the impact had somehow shifted the transmission into neutral. Still, we turned into the nearby Safeway parking lot to assess damages.

"Looks fine to me," said Gabe, happily, "Andy, which side didn't have the hubcap?"

Turned out that we had knocked the hubcap off, and Gabe started off to look for it. I looked down at the wheel.

"Hey, guys? I'm reasonably sure it's not supposed to make the ANGRY HISSING NOISE. And that the metal part is supposed to be circular."

"Oh, FUCK." Gabe put his hand where mine was, over the 3" gash in the tire through which pressurized air was escaping. I went off and found the hubcap, while Andy showed Gabe where the tire changing stuff was hidden.

Did you know hubcaps are flat, now? The hubcaps I'm familiar with are all made of metal and could be used to eat soup or oatmeal, but this was like a big flat piece of plastic.

By the time I got back, Andy and Gabe had realized that although they had a tire (one of those only-drive-60-miles-or-else space-saving yuppie tires) and a jack, they had neither jack handle or wrench. Gabe really didn't want to, but we realized the necessity and walked over to the cluster of teens hanging out at Safeway.

At least we'd finally found people more pathetic than ourselves. I mean, Safeway?

Anyway, they ignored Gabe and myself, or rather, we couldn't seem to politely get their attention. That's when I had the brilliant idea.

"Guys! Let's go IN Safeway! I bet it's full of adults, and adults have car tools!" So we did, and the manager let us use his stuff. Gabe and I got all greasy, and Andy sat on the curb, ordering us about like a mandarin. It was fun.

Then, when we were done, Safeway was closing, so we put the tools back in the manager's Gremlin. I had a Brilliant Idea, and went to the soda machine. I thought that if I bought bottled water, I could wash my hands a little. Unfortunately, they were out. So I got iced tea, at Gabe's insistence. I thought diet cola would be better, as it has no sugar, but I think Gabe was afraid of the bubbles.

I wiped my hands on my handkerchief, and Gabe wiped his hands on Andy's upholstery when Andy wasn't looking.

We drove to my house to drop me off first, where we all had hot chocolate and washed up with Lava soap and hot water. It was nice to be somewhere that wasn't dark.