15.3 – The Great White Hope

Marty rationalized that the money he made from selling doobies was justified, because it was intended for a definite purpose, and not just to buy more weed.  His goal was to save up enough money to get a real car.  Impressively, when he reached his goal, he stopped.  The proceeds were stashed in a cigar box in his room, until he had nearly as much cash as Mike had spent on the Stanger.  Marty wanted something useful, like a jeep or a truck, but Mike was trying to talk him into getting a hot rod.  Marty was agreeable to that – if the right truck came along – but he wasn’t getting any more stupid foreign contraptions.  He wanted a hunk of Detroit metal that was built like a tank!  Boobers was silent about their automobile discussions – he was experiencing a conflict with Fred about cars, and didn’t want to talk about it.

One day, Marty brought all his cash to Aquarium Beautiful to deposit in the bank while waiting to find the perfect vehicle.  One of Bob’s dubious talents was that he could smell money.  He looked up from the broken aquarium he was sealing (so he could still sell it), and asked Marty jovially what he had in his backpack.  This was the same pack, mind you, that Marty always brought to work, but on that particular day Bob was somehow interested in its contents.  He had been doing some heavy blow for a while, and Marty thought his mind was hovering somewhere between psychic and psychotic.  Still, he knew the boastful blowhard was well connected, and he told him he wanted to buy a nice truck.  Bob’s face lit up like a Christmas tree with some of its lights burnt out, then dimmed automatically as he transitioned to his poker face.  “Hey, I know a bitchin’ truck I could sell ya, at a good price, too.”  He tried to say this casually, but nearly grabbed Marty as he passed by.  His eyes were heavy-lidded and red, as if he’d been up all night.

Marty was immediately on guard.  “Oh yeah, like I’m gonna buy something from the guy who’s been telling me all these years, ‘there’s a sucker born every minute.’”  He had once seen Bob sell a cracked fish tank to a blind woman.  Still, his juvenile interest was officially piqued.  “Seriously?”

“Totally man, I mean, seriously!”  Bob rubbed his red eyes after that insensible assurance, and Marty couldn’t tell if it was his hangover, or something else.  The man existed in the small hours between night and day, and was always functioning in some disconnected dimension, but now he was running on pure adrenaline.  “You’re like family, here!” he slapped Marty on the back, “It’s a great truck!  You wait here, I’ll get it.”  He rushed out the back door of the pet store with a purpose.  He must have been at the bar all day, or napping at his house, because he was gone for hours.  Marty wondered if maybe he had to run out and actually steal a truck he could sell, because it was almost closing time when he returned; with his face resembling reanimated roadkill.  He threw the keys at Marty, and popped a vertebrae in his neck.  “C’mon, let’s take a drive.”

He led down the narrow steps to the tiny parking garage in the basement, and Marty couldn’t believe what he saw under the weak fluorescent lights!  A classic, white Chevy pickup truck from the Fifties with hot rod rims shining in full-chrome glory, like a gleaming vision out of American Graffiti.  “It’s a ’55 Chevy, dude!” Bob pronounced, rubbing Marty’s shoulders vigorously from behind, “A real fuckin’ classic!  It’s even got a Corvette engine in it!”  The awestruck skinny boy stood trembling, weak-kneed and transfixed in rapture, as if a radiant angel in white robes had appeared before his eyes.

“A Corvette engine,” he breathed in a whisper.  That truck was already his – an instant foregone conclusion – and it was difficult to speak coherently, so he just repeated everything.

“Yup, a 327 jet engine, buddy boy!” Bob punched his arm playfully, “Take it for a drive!” 

“It’s a 327,” Marty chanted, not knowing what that meant.  He reached out dreamily for the handle, but Bob whisked the door open for him, and brushed some imaginary dust off the seat.  The interior was totally awesome!  It had a polished wooden steering wheel with spokes made of chrome chain links, and a gear shift that resembled a pistol grip!  It was all black and red inside, from the vinyl bench seat to the paint and carpets.  A pair of fuzzy dice dangled from the rear view mirror.  There was even a custom, tinted sunroof!  Bob went around to the other side, muttering about his filthy roommate, and removed half a dozen beer cans from the floor.

“Hey, one thing, man!” Bob added, as he threw the cans into the back of somebody else’s truck and hitched up his pants.  “It’s a real muscle truck, you know what I mean?” he patted a fender, “These classic cars are built real solid – it takes a real man to steer one of ‘em.”  He hooked his thumbs in his belt and stuck out his chest, but his beer belly sagged out of his t-shirt.  “Are you up to it?”

Marty snapped out of his reverie.  He actually had to drive this sacred object of worship!  “Yeah, sure man, no problem!”  He hopped into the cab obediently, like a faithful acolyte, and banged the door shut.  His mind was enraptured as he placed his hands on the mahogany steering wheel, and turned the key.  The engine roared to life with a powerful vibration under his ass that got his male juices flowing.  He nodded repeatedly, anxious to leave, while Bob hopped in and explained how the clutch was a little loose, and you had to jostle the gear shift just right, and don’t mind the temperature gauge (they don’t call ‘em hot rods for nothing, haha) and Marty finally waved him off and let out the clutch.  The truck lurched hard, and he tried to steer the little wheel, but it didn’t turn, and the passenger side of the truck scraped up against a pole!

Skree-eech!!

“Holy shit!” Bob yelled, and threw his hands on his head in shock.  Horrified at his mistake, Marty ground the gears loudly, trying to get it in reverse, and with a screeching, scraping noise, backed the truck off the obstruction to have a look.  Nearly in tears and fearing the worst, he scrambled out and ran around to the other side.  The passenger door had a long crease in it!  He screamed in anguish as Bob couldn’t open his door and peered down from the window, embarrassed but resolute, as if his girlfriend’s puppy had just crapped on his couch.

“Well, I guess it’s yours now,” he shrugged, and slid out the driver’s side.  “I forgot to tell ya it has a granny gear.”  He slapped Marty on the back with patronizing dismissal, extracted the money from his backpack, and whistled his way up the stairs to write out a bill of sale.  Marty was mortally crestfallen.  He had his dream truck in his hands, and couldn’t wait to show it to Mike, but he’d ruined it the very first moment he started it up!  The “car virus” was at it again!  He was already calculating how many doobies he’d have to sell to get the dent fixed, seeing as how Bob had taken all of his money.  There was no way he was going to look at that dent every day and be reminded of what an idiot he was!  Marty had learned to cover up his wounds, and hide the self-inflicted blemishes most secretly of all.

Despite the ugly gouge on its side, the truck ran well as he drove it around town, and Marty discovered how to turn the steering wheel by holding it in a half-Nelson like Mike’s head.  The engine was powerful, but the truck maneuvered more like a tank, with an extremely low-ratio first gear that could climb up the side of a building like Batman.  It was nearly impossible to drive in that “granny gear,” which lurched at the touch of the gas pedal, and barely went over five miles per hour.  Parking lots and garages were not fun at all, so he left it on the street.  He christened her Apollo for her sheer power, and on the way home he tested her might on the Woodacre stretch.  Second gear tached out at about 20 mph, third gear took her up to 40, and once he dropped that baby into fourth gear, it tapped into a bottomless depth of power.  That Corvette 327 was hardly breaking a sweat, and he was doing 80!  The tachometer barely read 3000 rpm, but the body of the ancient truck was starting to make some noise.  “Hoo-wee!!  We ain’t on the farm no more, ol’ Bessie!”  Marty yelled, because it sounded like the caption to a cartoon.  He pushed it up to 90, and the rattling got louder, but still sounded solid.  “We have liftoff,” he shouted fiercely, thinking they might be his last words on this planet.  He wanted to reach 100, but wisely backed her down before hitting 95, because he ran out of straight road.

His heart was pounding in his ears, but discretion was the better part of valor.  He relished the raw power of Apollo’s engine, but was respectful of the older metal body containing it.  Because Marty needed this vehicle for transportation, he didn’t want to cause a breakdown or accident by driving it too fast.  Back at the Rusty Bucket Ranch, Julie was curious about how the engine was built, and made noises of approval under the hood for a long time, finally pronouncing it “boss.”  (That was her generation’s term for “totally awesome.”)  She also made a point, however, of informing Marty how busy she was at her new job at the auto shop, and that she wouldn’t have any time to help him with it.  She did inspect the steering, and diagnosed that the pins were rusted.  However, the whole front end would have to come off to replace them, and that would have to wait until he could sell a few more doobies.  Marty really wanted to stop selling pot, but had no other way to make the kind of money he was going to need to maintain a fine machine like that.  Until then, he planned to work out on Apollo’s steering wheel as if he were in a weight room, and build up his muscles to match the truck’s physique.

Later in the afternoon, Mike glided into the driveway in his Stanger while Marty was polishing the hood where Julie had gotten some grease on it.  His eyes flared open like high beams behind his windshield, and he practically got out before his car stopped moving.  “Is that your truck?” he asked, astounded, as Marty’s brain fired off 25 potential snappy comebacks to stupid questions.  “It’s totally awesome!”

Marty summarized the facts and features, while Mike circled the truck three times, gushing with rapture about Marty’s new ride.  “Dude!” he exhorted, thinking of his favorite superhero, “You gotta call it “The Incredible Hulk!”

“No, it’s Apollo,” Marty corrected, “Besides, the Incredible Hulk is green.”

“Whatever, dude,” replied Mike amiably, “It’s totally awesome!”

They immediately went out again for a joyride.  Mike wanted to gun it on the Woodacre stretch and continue to Fairfax, to show Boobers and his brothers.  But it was getting dark, and Marty suggested it would make the best impression in the morning light.

The arrival of the great white Greek god on Fern Lane the next day at school was suitably sensational.  Marty’s fellow bleacher creatures were amazed and impressed with the burly splendor of his 327-cubic-inch, 8-gauge steel, American-built relic from the Industrial Age.  The tribe always celebrated each new car as it was adopted into their armada, but lofty Apollo was lauded as a great and powerful warrior!  Gushing girls were attracted to it like moths to a porch light, but they all ignored Marty, as usual.  They’d probably go out on a date with my truck, he bemoaned, as long as I wasn’t in it.

Annie absolutely adored Apollo, and insisted on riding in it as often as possible (with Mike, of course), so she convinced him to leave the Stanger home sometimes so they could catch a ride with Marty.  She had to be home right after school (being grounded for life, and all), so Marty built up his arm strength on those twisty roads in the Fairfax hills.  Annie thought his truck would look much nicer if it had an ornament in the middle of the front seat.  A girl-shaped ornament, snuggled up next to him like a Siamese twin.  Marty appreciated her interest in interior decorating, and shared her aesthetic sense of filling the empty cab with something beautiful.  However, he was skeptical of her methods, knowing how willful and impulsive she was.  She admitted she often drove her parents crazy, just so they wouldn’t want her in the house anymore.  She gave Marty a mental image of Krishna, pacing the cage of the cabin while the tomcats howled outside.  As soon as Annie wasn’t grounded anymore, she hooked Marty up on a blind date with one of her friends.  She called Mike to come to her friend’s house in his Stanger, and to trick his little brother into following in the Apollo… as if he didn’t know what was going on.

Annie’s idea of an “ornament” turned out to be a girl Marty knew from the bleachers named Cathy.  She was quiet and large-boned, with straight brown hair and a plain face with big, sad eyes.  She usually hung out with April, another one of Annie’s friends, and chain-smoked cigarettes the way monks burn incense.  Annie had decided they should all go out on a double date, and there was no talking her out of it, much less explaining that it would have been polite to at least consult the other participants first.  They drove west on Bolinas Road all the way past Alpine dam, and up onto the ridge of Mt. Tam.  Marty was getting better at concealing how hard it was to steer the truck, but wasn’t quite at the point where he made it look easy.  Cathy sat in the middle of the bench seat next to him, but not quite “snuggling” the way Annie had envisioned.  Actually, he got the impression she was rather uncomfortable, and he made lots of corny jokes to try and break the ice.  Annie kept looking out the back window of Mike’s Stanger and grinning at them to see if they were necking yet.  He turned on the heater.  It was getting cold in the cab.

The stopped at the top, but the view was shrouded in fog and it was cold and windy.  Marty drove lower down the mountain to a sheltered turnout, and they all got out to smoke a joint.  Annie walked off with Cathy, and they had an animated discussion, in which there appeared to be a disagreement.  Mike asked him if he was okay, and Marty told him everything was fine, he just needed some time to get to know Cathy.  He saw her almost every day, but hardly knew anything about her.  “Ask her questions,” Mike advised.  “Get her talking about the things she likes, and act super interested.”  It was good advice.

Marty and Cathy got back in the truck, but now she sat a little farther away.  Marty set his jaw and resolutely followed the Stanger down the twisty roads of Mt. Tam.  “So, do you have any pets?  I work in a pet store, you know.”  Chicks dig animals, he thought to himself.

“I had a dog, but she died.”  Cathy gazed out the window as if she would rather be somewhere else.  “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” was all Marty could think to say, and lit her cigarette with the blue plastic lighter he kept on the dashboard.  Then he recovered and tried to change the subject, “What are your hobbies?  I mean, what do you like to do? I draw cartoons,” he offered, by way of hopeful example.

“I dunno.”  She flicked the ashes from her cigarette expertly into the truck’s ashtray, “I like to watch TV, I guess.”  Marty coughed, and she apologetically rolled down her window.  “Sorry, I guess I’m addicted to these things.”

“No problem, everyone in my family smokes cigarettes but me.”  He’d never thought of that before, but it was true.  Actually, nearly everyone he knew inhaled cancer sticks, in a long, slow slide to suicide.  The conversation lagged, and Marty got tired of being the one to keep it going.  He wanted to talk with someone who shared his interests, and in whom he could confide his dreams, but Cathy sat there chain smoking the entire time, fascinated only with the yarn bracelet around her wrist that was fraying.  She picked at the fibers until Marty could hear them scream as they fell to the floor.

He’d had enough.  Impulsively, he stomped on the accelerator of the Apollo at a strategically banked turn, and shot past the Stanger on the inside lane as if he was in the Grand Prix.  He could see the startled faces of Mike & Annie flit past the window, and disappear into his rear view mirror.  The Stanger’s headlights swerved back and forth to accept the challenge, and the race was on.  Through stop signs, tightly tucked around hairpin turns, and swerving onto gravel shoulders, they whipped down the mountainside insanely, with Marty trying to keep the Apollo in front, and block the Stanger from passing.  Cathy was frozen in terror, white knuckles gripping the edge of the bench seat beside him, but he didn’t care.  He was mad as Captain Ahab, wrestling with the ship’s wheel as if he was on the back of the Great White Whale itself, as it fought and thrashed its way through the twisting waves of Panoramic Highway, all the way down into Mill Valley.

Cathy never said another word, as Marty meekly recovered his senses, and drove her politely back to Fairfax.  She finished her pack of cigarettes before they arrived.  “Bye,” she said simply, as she hopped out in front of her house, and Marty knew their arranged romance was over before it even began.  Even though they were star-crossed from the start, Marty had already formed a romantic fantasy about their potential, and had to put it to good use somehow.  He commemorated the ersatz loss in a corny poem: