Driving on the moon, they stop on a dime to pick me up. Two dashboard-green, talking faces, bodies squirming in the front seat, skin crackling with tiny static electrical storms, learing at the landscape, a neon gorgonzola. Really nice folks, Dan and Jan, or so they claim, but the look in their eyes make me think they use a different name for everyone they meet. The upholstery is covered in warm jelly that moves in to surround me as I jump in the spacious backseat.
"Sliced bread turns to toast," Dan bellows, as he pulls out onto the roadway, crowded by giant foam boulders. This they find very funny. Everything is very funny. Their laughter pops the pressurized lugnuts off the wheels. With each pop, they shriek with glee. I can't help but laugh myself, in spite of my condition. Holding my side, I am bleeding.
Jan looks at me over the seat, "So who let you wander out here? Same person who sold you the artsy experience, I'll bet," she says, she knows. "You got any more?" She smiles at my grimace. I manage a weak smile back. I can smell smoke, but it is the scent of burning leaves and doesn't seem to originate in the car. My mouth begins to water with some syngothesic hunger. I could very well eat a tree. She seems to divine this, but has no help to offer. She does not exist to complete me in any way. Her face changes from cat to iguana as she turns. They probably forget to turn down the sfx even for guests.
We are coming up on an exact replica of Hot Springs, Arkansas circa 1948. I can tell. I grew up there. We lived behind the old filling station. I worked my summers there. I remember looking at an old dusty calendar featuring farm equipment and women in elegant lingerie like sheer curtains. I would talk to them. Some of them had very interesting lives before the war. I carried one of their smiles in my pocket.
He leans over the speedometer, ignoring it. She searches vainly for a radio station. "Where's that one? Ya'know that says exactly what we're thinking?"
"Oh, yes!" Dan screams. "We lost a wheel back there." He confides, matter-of-factly, as a sort of footnote. He starts to hum with increasing volume and bark an occasional note; Gene Vincent squeezedoll with action diaphram. She bounces on the seat with encouragement and glee, now that she doesn't need to find music.
This is his song:
Mmmmm hmmm mmmmm. YA YA!
Mmmmm hmmm mmmmm. YA YA!
Mmmmm hmmm mmmmm. YA YA! YA YA!
Mmmmm hmmm mmmmm. YA YA!
Mmmmm hmmm mmmmm. YA YA!
Mmmmm hmmm mmmmm. YA YA! YA YA!
Well, I'm a hot plastic lover
and a big wheeled trucker
and I'm hauling something valuable all night long
Well she's a hitchhike honey
And she don't got no money
But she found some ugly lemons in Tuscon
Yes, Tuscon!
(Jan squeals with delight. I wonder if she's ever been there.)
So I pull out my bottle
And loosen the throttle
And she pours a couple toddies
warmed by the cigarette lighter
Mmmmm hmmm mmmmm. YA YA!
Mmmmm hmmm mmmmm. YA YA!
Mmmmm hmmm mmmmm. YA YA! YA YA!
Mmmmm hmmm mmmmm. YA YA!
Mmmmm hmmm mmmmm. YA YA!
Mmmmm hmmm mmmmm. YA YA! YA YA!
After a silence, that is not at all uncomfortable, I say, "You two look alike." This seems to make them even happier. Another tire falls off and we lift off the ground, it seems, sheerly by their strange libido alone. I can feel the jelly transfering biolelectricity to my nerve endings. "You're both beautiful," I add, but this must really be the delirium.
We pass over a man walking through an alleyway, as if he's lost his dog long ago. I wonder if it's my drunk old daddy. "Anybody hungry?" Dan says, looking down at the man. Another wheel falls off. The man below, looking up at us, catches it. Looking back at him, Dan and Jan howl with delight. They take another pass so Jan can lean out the window and blow the man a kiss.
My wound starts to staunch. I can feel it underneath my hand.