I learned that part of being alive is screaming your heart out to something. Anything. That sometimes crying and listening to the Rent soundtrack is a good thing. A necessary thing. And, most of all, I learned that some of the best thinking is done on long, silent drives.
I was shell-shocked enough from seeing Magnus’s collection of P-cars online, and now I am standing in his incredible goth-rock palace with a bunch of Porsche execs.
“You’re gonna enjoy it, I’m sure. It’s so Stephen King-ish,” he said to me during one of our summer chitchats. The book fell into oblivion then, mostly because we were too busy making out.
I hadn’t been into motorcycles before I came to Israel, to the Kibbutz Maayan Zvi, just south of Haifa. But my deep feelings for Raul included the bike as well, because it was a part of him.
Bailey’s driving like a maniac while I sit in the back, smoking a cigarette, ecstatic. Engines rev, lights flash, tires squeal — suddenly your life and a movie converge.
The soft, thick leather of the steering wheel begged for a gentle touch; the engine's natural rumble was backed up by Audi's turbocharged powerplant; and the 505-watt Bang & Olufsen sound system bumped harder than anyone would ever need.
As the whacka-whacka guitar intro of Van Halen’s “Atomic Punk” fills my head, I pick up the pace and David Lee Roth’s shriek segues into Led Zeppelin’s strutting “Black Dog.”
In the mirror, I’m a barely recognizable 98 pounds — “Olsen-twin chic” as I call it. But there’s nothing chic about this at all. I’ve been self-destructive, chasing pretenses of glamour — and for what? I’m disgusted with myself.
He pleads with God for answers — something to ease Charlotte’s suffering. His fingers drum nervously on the wheel as he pulls up to the church. He sits for a minute. Finally, he kills the engine.
I need more than just a drink, I need a pick-me-up, a familiar taste. After all, the pineapple is the symbol of hospitality. Why not order Stiggins’ and hope for the best?
Maybe that’s where I belonged after all. Oh, how this journey had fallen apart. A night that had once sparkled, and now, here I was, sliding into the backseat of a squad car.
There are a few of us having a fancy meal and drinking a douchey French rosé called Ruse le Douche, talking about how dissecting comedy is awful. It’s the show’s host, the playwright, my girlfriend, and myself. I should have gotten more stoned.
