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When I can see where Crenshaw passes under I-10, I stop, shift into reverse, and drive back a half a block. I can see cop lights in the distance, heading for the officer-down call.
Fuck Bava. Fuck doubt. Fuck everything.
I stomp the accelerator and aim the car for a freeway support midway under the roadway, in the center of the crossroads. I take the plastic rabbit from my pocket and hold it in my teeth.
I hope you’re up there, Mustang Sally. I never prayed to God, but I’m praying to you right now. Please know what the fuck you’re doing.
I’m doing just a hair over a hundred and ten when I hit. Time slo-mos as the car jumps the curb and takes the last few yards airborne.
It doesn’t really hurt when we hit. It’s more like a supersonic body blow as all the air and fluids in my body explode out of me like butcher-shop fireworks. My eyes can’t focus. The world is a liquid blur. I hear the scream and groan of metal as the Crown Vic pancakes against the support. The steering wheel twists upward and turns my skull to cake batter. The front of the car comes apart and a million metal and plastic razor blades rip my skin off the bones. My arms break as I flip over the dashboard and out the window. One knee catches and is torn apart on the way out. I glide over the car hood like an Olympic figure skater and into a whirlpool of flame as the engine explodes.
Time shifts again. Shoots back up to normal speed. I slide through fire and gas and come out the other side a limp ball of flame. My eyes focus long enough to see the freeway support. Funny thing. It doesn’t look like I’m flying at it. It’s like it’s coming for me.
And the world goes away.
THERE’S GidtEÈRIT IN my eyes. When I try to brush it away, I just grind it in more. I roll over so my face is to the ground and run my hand all over my face so whatever’s there falls down and not back onto me. The grit is all over me, like I’ve been rolling around in kitty litter. When my eyes are clear, I work up a little saliva and spit, clearing more grit from the back of my throat.
That’s it. That’s as much as I can do right now. Did I save everything yet? Guess not.
The world goes away again.
WHEN I WAKE up things are a little better. It feels like this thing weighing me down might be my body and not a bag of wet cement. I open my eyes.
The world is a fuzzy indistinct place, like I’m looking at it from inside a vodka bottle.
From what I can make out, I’m still under the freeway. Sunlight streams in from both sides of the underpass. I roll onto my back. My left foot rests on the crumpled front bumper of the cop car. I focus my eyes on that one image. My foot and the car. Slowly, the world comes back into focus.
>Are sex and death connected? Hell yes. They’re the two things in the world you can’t explain. You only know them by experiencing them. Maybe that was my mistake. I should have asked Mustang Sally if I could trade this death trip for having to relose my virginity at the crossroads. Easy. Any fun girl would be up for that. Instead of driving to my doom in a mom’s powder-blue shit wagon, I could be back in Hollywood, stumbling down the street with a grin, a beer, and a frustrated boner, trying to lure drunken dollies into a night of black-magic freeway lust. But no, I didn’t think of that and now I’m stuck on a backed-up interstate with what Medea said about Alice banging around in my head and wondering what this steering wheel is going to taste like when my face smashes into it at a hundred miles an hour.
IT HAPPENS ON West Adams as I’m closing in on the crossroads underpass at I-10 and Crenshaw.
The light bar on top of a cop car flashes in my rearview mirror.
Maybe he’s looking for someone else.
His sirenn">His bleeps twice.
“Pull over.”
The cop’s voice comes out of the car’s bullhorn sounding like a bigger and angrier version of the robot in Candy’s glasses.
“Pull over.”
The one time I don’t steal a car this is what happens. That’s the lesson for tonight. Anytime I try to do something like a regular person, I get fucked for it. Never again.
I slow down, but I don’t pull over. Every nerve in my body is vibrating, telling me to jam the accelerator and leave these shitbirds in my dust. But I can stomp this accelerator from now until the sun burns out and there still won’t be any dust. This three-speed rowboat would lose a drag race to a crippled monkey on a Big Wheel.
I pull over and cut the engine. The patrol car stops behind me. The driver aims the car’s outside spotlight at my side mirror, blinding me. I unclamp the angel a little and its eyes cut right through the glare.
Two cops in the car. Both male. One is young and wiry with a close-cropped flattop. He’s more excited than he should be at a simple traffic stop. Probably a recent cop school graduate.
The driver, the one getting out, is heavier. A bit of a donut gut, but he’s got at least fifty pounds of muscle over his partner. The older cop showing a young pup the ropes. Shit. I’m probably one of his life lessons. Any other night, this Romper Room scene would be playing out somewhere else. I should have pulled over when I saw the lights go on.
I roll down the window. The cop comes up on me sticking close to the car. Smart. If he came in wide, I could reach for a weapon and shoot before he had a chance to get his gun out. Sidling up like he is, I’d have to turn around in my seat to get a shot off and he’d put six slugs in the back of my head before I could say, “Ouch.”
The cop has his flashlight out, held in an underhand grip so he can swing it like a club. He shines the light in my face then lowers it a few inches, leaving me temporarily night-blind.
“Evening, sir. Did you know that your left taillight is out?”
