The Quest for the Mini-Bottles of Cinnamon Fireball Liquor, Part Two: The Rise of Car

 The Quest for the Mini-Bottles of Cinnamon Fireball Liquor, Part Two: 

The Rise of Car

by Steve Gearhart

Car sipped at his cup of two-day-old black coffee. He winced. It was more acidic than he wanted it to be. It needed a little bit more of a tasty kick. It wasn't that he couldn't handle the sharp taste of the acid reflux to come. After all, if he could handle the ulcers that had been festering in stomach for the past thirty years, he could certainly handle the oily, black liquid in his unwashed mug. That wasn't the problem... 

It was just that Car wanted to down his hate coffee of acid with some kind of taste that was remotely enjoyable. He wasn't a total heathen...just a white-trash version of a horseman of the redneck apocalypse. And as such, he wanted a little bit of pleasure with his very, very angry cup of coffee. 

Car shuffled around his dirty kitchen. He set down his gray coffee mug that he hadn't washed in five years. Once upon a time it was white and brand new. And much like many of the things in Car's life...it simply gave up and gave in. Another victim of Car's neglect. 

He looked at the small counter next to the sink. The sink had little flies flitting around. Car grunted. He supposed he would have to set off another bug bomb and then rinse off the dishes. His rheumy, yellow eyes scanned the bottle-strewn counter. Nothing but miniature bottles of Moss Eisley's Cinnamon Fireball Liquor. All of them empty.

Car grunted in disapproval. It was the only thing he liked to drink with his coffee. The coffee on its own wasn't enough to get him going...artificial anger could get him going only so far. He needed something to get him from anger to the energy of hate...the true thing that got him going. The cheap cinnamon flavored liquor was what did the trick. 

Now, Car was going to have to leave his redneck apocalyptic paradise and go down to the liquor store off of Mill Swamp Road. A small shack of a store with the imaginative name of 404 Liquors. No one knew what the 404 was supposed to mean. 

Car hated leaving his property. Car hated having to travel to 404 Liquors where that idiot boy with the greasy hair and pervy beard stood by the cash register. Car hated that kid. Car hated having to go into 404 and spend his hard-earned Social Security money on the only, small pleasure he had in life. He hated how that boy smiled smugly, knowing Car couldn't really afford more than ten miniatures of Moss Eisley's Cinnamon Fireball Liquor. Car hated his predicament. 

Car shook his head at the sad state of his world. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Just then his body reminded him of the three packs he had been smoking since age sixteen and doubled him over in a fit of violent coughing. 

After a minute, Car stood up and glanced at the sink and the small cloud of tiny flies swarming. He hawked up a huge loogey and spat at the sink. He tracked the ball of bio-goo and hoped that it hit some of the tiny flies, smothering them to death in his own phlegm.

Car scratched at his stomach as the blob of mucus splattered on a dirty plate, agitating the swarm. He turned and shuffled through the kitchen, through the living room filled with the odds and ends of a detestable life. 

Once reaching the bedroom, he followed the path he made that wound its way through the debris. The path branching off one way to the yellowed, sad mattress that was on the floor, he took the opposite path to the open closet. 

Car looked at himself in the closet door mirror. He looked at himself and knew instantly that if he was going to be remotely successful today, he was going to have to wear a shirt over his wife beater that was covered in mysterious stains.Not that the wife beater was the problem.

All that was remaining of his left arm was a short nub protruding from his shoulder. Car wiggled it and he let out a cackle. It was such an alien, little nub. Scarred and useless. Well, Car thought, not completely useless. When he wanted to make small children cry, he would wiggle the nub at them.

Car reached in and got the least offensive smelling plaid, button down shirt. With years of practice, he got it on quickly. When he first lost that arm twenty arms ago it took him forever to get his clothes on. Even so, he still blamed that raven-haired beauty of so long ago for what happened. It was her fault that he lost the arm. He woke up every day since, blaming her. 

With his shirt on and the left sleeve properly pinned in place, he looked at his hair. A dirty gray now. Sickly thin on top. Spiked up here and there. He slammed his greasy and cheap, dark green cap over his head. Wash day was in three days. He would handle his hair then. 

He walked out to his tiny foyer and snatched his key ring off the small table near the door. He undid the bolts one at a time. Finally, he opened the door and blinked his old eyes in the light. It was actually overcast that day, the sun was not in sight. However, Car lived in the gloom of his home for so long, any amount of light caused him to squint. 

He stamped down the steps and surveyed his front lawn. It really wasn't a lawn, but more of a junkyard of dead dreams. He had multiple trucks and cars on blocks. Companion pieces next to each murdered vehicle. Whenever a gearhead or mechanic would drive by, they would choke back a tear. They would recognize the total abuse of what were once proud and valuable wheels that had the potential of power and speed. But were now nothing but rust.

As Car walked by the hulks, he cursed. He was sixty-eight now. Back when these hulks were things of potential. Back when he was a talented mechanic. Back when he could make cars better, faster and beautiful...and get paid handsomely. Back when he had both arms. Back then...he had a future. She took it away. That raven-haired beauty of destruction. 

Car closed his eyes and pushed her out of his mind. He had a mission. He had to get his Moss Eisley's Cinnamon Fireball Liquor for his hate coffee. 

He shook his head as he got to his only mode of transportation. The state of Maryland had decided that he had no business driving a car again. Or a truck. Or a motorcycle. Not even a scooter. He had crashed the last car he would ever drive into the side of bank.

The courts took pity on him, thinking that the one beer he had that night had gotten him drunk, causing him to loose control of his car and go careening into the bank. Car let them think that. He was too embarrassed to admit he was trying to smash the ATM to rob it of its cash and failed. 

Car let out a deep and heavy sigh. He stepped up on the foot deck, swung one leg over the seat and plopped down. He found the small key on the chain and reached down. With practiced ease, he stuck the key into the ignition and turned. The engine coughed a few times, caught and started to run. Car took the parking break off and hit the gas.

He turned right onto Mill Swamp Road. It would take him about thirty minutes to get to 404 Liquors. He kept himself on the side of the road. The last time he drove on the actual pavement, he got a ticket from a state trooper for creating a traffic jam that went back three miles. 

The Sears Suburban Tecumesh Garden Tractor was pushing out vile and noxious smoke as it maxed out its twelve horsepower engine to its limited limits. The only consolation that Car had as he rode it was that the noise his riding lawnmower made would ruin the morning of anyone he passed by.

As Car puttered along on his lawnmower of impending doom, a lawyer from Washington DC who supposed to be on his way to Bay Bridge somehow got off of Route 50 and wound up lost on this back road. He pulled up alongside Car's ancient riding mower. 

The lawyer pressed the button to lower the window of his Lexus to ask Car for directions. Car, looking irritated, parked his mower and turned his head. The lawyer opened his mouth to ask how to get back to Route 50 when Car smiled.

The lawyer saw that Car was missing all but four of his teeth. The lawyer gaped and then slowly looked up into Car's almost dead and black eyes and saw nothing but malice. Wisely, the lawyer peeled out and opted to ask for directions in Edgewater instead.

Meanwhile, Car started chugging down the side of the road, cackling his mad and hateful laugh...getting closer and closer to his Moss Eisley's Cinnamon Fireball Liquor......

The theme song for this part:

(Author's Note: this is NOT an entirely fictional story)