Tag: Star Wars

Of An Automotive, Roadside BBQ & Warming Beer.

6/23/22

So I was rolling the truck along on that long, dark road that stretches from work to home when I saw lights up ahead. At least some of them were flashing and multicolored, too — the kind you don’t want to find reflecting on your dashboard or in your rearview mirror. And for a brief, passing moment, that’s all I figured it was: the coppers had pulled some poor ol’ schmuck over and now I was left to hope that those bright, distracting, flashing lights didn’t blind or distract me as I attempted to safely pass them both. There were also taillights, however, so some other car seemed reluctant to pass.

Then, as I made my way towards the cop lights, I saw, just beyond them, brilliant, orange flames violently licking the night sky. It was like a roadside bonfire. I couldn’t see the source, but it was undoubtedly an automotive barbecue — surely not the kind of barbecue anyone save for extreme pyromaniacs devoid of any respect for human life wants to be a part of, even as a mere witness.

Just as I approached, the one car in front of me struggled a bit, but ultimately managed to turn around, though in the midst of backing up the second time he almost clipped the ambulance flying by.

By this time, cars were lining up behind me, and I wondered if I, too, should turn around. Just then, out from the blazing fire up ahead came an epic explosion and rain of sparks, which is precisely when I decided, yeah, that’s a sign that I should really, really pull into the same driveway of the last car, turn around, and go back the way I came.

So I did just that.

After heading back towards work, seeing other vehicles follow suit in my rear view, it suddenly struck me that I knew no alternate route home. This is the same issue I face every time they block main street in the town where I work for a car show or some festival, the same shit I have to deal with every time I face a detour along some familiar route. I have absolutely no sense of direction and get horrifically lost.

So I did just that, too.

I mean, I didn’t get horrifically lost, and I discovered how you get to the campgrounds a friend at work was telling me about in the process, and I only took two turns and managed to find my way back to the long, dark road I started from, but I didn’t know where to go from there, so I went back to the gas station where I got my beer before leaving work to start off my weekend. I parked by the air pumps, grabbed my phone, and opened Google Maps.

Somehow, this didn’t help at all, and I just ended driving back towards the bonfire in the road.

Quit whining, I told myself as I made my anxious way. Quit bitching. So it’s the start of your weekend and you’re an eager beaver with respect to getting home. So your beer is getting warm in the passenger seat. Boo-fucking-hoo. This might be an irritating inconvenience for you, one that’s sort of summoning forth your persistent anxiety, but whoever was in that wreck is having a far, far, fucking far more harrowing evening than you, rest assured.

So buck up and shut up, motherfucker.

By the time I got there, there was a line of cars again, though this time I couldn’t see beyond the semi a car or two in front of me. I didn’t see any fire reaching out to the starry heavens, either, however, which might be a good sign, at least with respect to traffic flow.

So it proved to be.

I could see cars coming from the opposite direction, then they stopped driving by and I could see the semi turning into the oncoming lane. So I followed taillights through the blazing lights of police, the fire department, the ambulance — all of them, some of them, I couldn’t fucking tell. The lights were so blinding, the lingering smoke so obstructing on top of it, and the battlefield of splattered bug corpses so littered my windshield that it was difficult to see much of anything.

Looking to my right, I did see a white car, however, and one that had been beaten to hell. Not charred, however, so I’m not certain it was the source of the fire. I expected to see a semi, the way those flames were, and perhaps there was one, but I didn’t see it. Looking at that car, I winced as my heart sank in unison. My blood ran cold, and my stomach twisted in knots.

There’s just no way, I thought solemnly.

I find it difficult to believe anyone survived that. If it was the origin of the bonfire, the occupants were certainly in citical and considerably crispy condition at best. Anakin Skywalker at the end of Revenge of the Sith would have nothing, absolutely nothing on them.

Once home, I checked Google to see if there was any word on what happened, and I did so again the following day.

Nothing.

These themes that have been running through my experiences as of late — the themes of old age, the fragility of life, of death and how it could come at any moment for strangers, loved ones, myself — it doesn’t seem to be letting up.

When I first arrived, it had pretty much just happened. Had I not stopped for beer, I might have been part of the accident, for all I know. And if I hadn’t been a part of it but witnessed it happening, what, outside of calling 911, could I have done? Run into the fire as a suicidal hero? Chat with the neighbors as we watched people die? I would have felt even more fucking lost as to what to do then I was when that long-haired guy overdosed in our fast food bathroom recently. I would have been even more fucking useless.

I hope, whoever was involved, that they’re okay, but I can’t for the wasted life of me imagine any of them are.

Of Jabba the Hutt & McGruff the Crime Dog.

It’s roughly ten in the eve and I slip out the door for a smoke, having just gotten done mopping the dining room. I hear a noise in the parking lot. Looking up, over by the drive-thru I see a half-naked guy staring at the ground. Jabba the Hutt in human flesh. He’s kind of wobbling, unbalanced, undoubtedly fucked up on something.

I smoke faster.

By the time I get inside, Natalie, the manager, informs me that Jabba is reportedly making the woman who just pulled into drive-thru uncomfortable. I don’t see him out the window anymore, but one of the girls tell me he’s on the other side of the store.

I unlock the back drive-thru window and stick my head out. And standing in between cars, there he is: dirty man boobs, jiggly beer belly, and all. He’s wearing two different kind of shoes and has a cigarette butt burning passed the filter hanging out the side of his super-slug mouth.

“Hey man,” I ask him, “what are you doing?”

This seemed like a reasonable opener.

“I wanted some food,” he says, holding up his baggy, stained shorts with one hand.

“Well, the inside is closed and you need a car to go through drive-thru.”

On a side note, I hate that I’m forced to point this fact out so often. The very presence of the word “drive” in “drive-thru,” I feel, should make this a no-brainer, but alas…

“Can I talk to the manager?”

“She’s busy right now. Just give us a call.”

“I don’t have a phone.”

I shrug. “Sorry man.”

This, of course, is not the end of it. He keeps pressing to talk to the manager, so I ask him kindly to step aside, out of the line of cars, and I’d let her know. I close and lock the window, go back up to the active drive-thru window and give Natalie the run-down.

We look out the window and Jabba is now sitting on the curb, leaning, splaying his filthy tummy to the growing line of increasingly uncomfortable customers. She confesses to me that she hopes that if she only ignores him he’ll go away, but I just stare her dead in the eyes as I slowly shake my head from side to side for dramatic effect.

I’ve seen Return of the Jedi countless times since I was a kid. I know all to well that he is immune to our Jedi mind tricks.

A few cars pass and he approaches the window, evidently having grown impatient. Natalie approaches and I hang close by, trying to find out where the broom is so I have some object to use as a weapon, just in case shit goes south. I find one. He asks her for food, free food, and she apologizes, informing him that we can’t do that. She then politely asks him to back up so the next customer can pull up and slowly closes the window.

I’m sure this comes as a surprise, but he does not back up. He merely crouches down, picks up an old nugget off the ground, stands back up, pops it in his mouth without a moment’s hesitation, and starts chew-chew-chewing away at it like a cow to cud.

Natalie’s anger finally overcomes her uneasiness. She opens up the window again, and this time firmly says, “You’re in the way. If you don’t move, I’m going to have to call the cops.”

“Call them then!”

And with Jabba’s blessing, she does, and she asks me to lock the drive-thru window as she holds the land line to her ear. Broom close by, I latch and lock the window, avoiding eye contact with the angry, bloated slug-man as I do so. He backs up to let the next car pull up, but stares back at me from beyond the car, yelling shit at me that I couldn’t hear. The guy in the car looks nervous but understanding and says he’ll pull around the building for his food.

After that, Jabba seems to vanish. Once I see the three police cruisers pull in from the other side of the store, I feel it’s safe to take the trash out the stock room door, and so promptly do so.

Back in the dark corral that houses the dumpsters, I hear defiant though indecipherable yelling through shaky, rhythmic gurgling. I imagine this is him getting tazed. Once back inside, I learn I’m right. At some point he was evidently also lying flat on the ground. The cops tried to pick him up by his hands and feet, at which point he bit one of the officers.

Sometimes, McGruff, crime takes a bite out of you.

I mean, I guess it makes sense. He did say he was hungry, after all, and almost anything — even raw bacon — had to taste better than that fucking filthy ground-nugget.

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate this town?