Hammerhead Ranch Motel

20

Zargoza roared up in his BMW just as the bouncers tossed Serge and Lenny out of the all-night revival. They hopped in, and Zargoza sped out of the driveway.

“You’re right about Zeppelin’s fourth album,” Zargoza told Serge. “It rules.”

Serge launched into air guitar of the album’s first cut, “Black Dog.” Zargoza joined in playing drums on the steering wheel. Lenny growled with a Kmart Robert Plant, but it was serviceable.

“Hey, hey, mama said the way you move-gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove!”

Serge made guitar sounds with his mouth and Zargoza pounded on the wheel.

“…been so long since I found out, what people mean by dinin’ out!”

Serge resumed the scorching guitar part again, but Zargoza had a funny look on his face.

“Whoa! Whoa! Stop it! Hold the fuckin’ train!”

The others fell quiet.

“What was that?” Zargoza asked Lenny.

“What?”

“That lyric. Did you say ‘what people mean by dinin’ out’?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s not how it goes.”

“Yes it is.”

“No it isn’t you boob. It’s down and out.”

“No it isn’t,” said Lenny.

“What kind of shithead are you?” said Zargoza. “Jimmy Page is choppin’ the most savage guitar licks ever laid down, and you think Plant is singing about not getting out to White Castle enough?”

“I didn’t give it much thought,” said Lenny. “I figured they were very busy in the recording studio and they ate a lot of takeout.”

“It’s down and out!” said Zargoza. “He’s talkin’ about the struggle of the common man!”

“Now I’m hungry,” said Lenny.

“Me too,” said Zargoza. “Let’s find a place.”

Lenny fired up a tubular joint-“so I can taste my dinner.” They turned onto U.S. 19, fast-food row, and pulled in the drive-through lane at the new fried-chicken-skin joint.

Lenny was quite high now. “This is the best place!” he said. “They get rid of all the damn meat so you just get the skin. That’s all we’ve ever wanted. That’s all we’ve ever asked for.”

He took another hit.

“Why do they say the drinks are king-size, like that’s the biggest possible comparison. Look at Prince Charles-no superlatives spring to mind there,” said Lenny. “You wanna get my money? Start talking about a dictator or a conqueror. Like Attilasized, or Stalin-sized!…”

“What the fuck’s he talking about?” Zargoza asked Serge.

“Free-associating,” said Serge. “I’ve seen this sort of thing before. Verbal incontinence. Just vomiting words.”

“When does it stop?” asked Zargoza.

“It doesn’t,” said Serge. “Not without intervention.”

Zargoza glanced back at Lenny and then at Serge. “We’re up next at the ordering microphone. You need to suppress that shit with prejudice.”

Serge turned around and gave Lenny the mondo eye, which made Lenny extremely paranoid, and he became quiet.

“That should do it,” said Serge. “He’ll go on an introspective journey now. But be prepared. We may hear weeping.”

Zargoza rolled up to the menu board. The small metal speaker came on. “May I take your order?”

“Yes,” said Zargoza. “I’d like your mega-combo meal…number twelve. Do I get the Galactic Massacre playing pieces with that?”

“Yes, you do.”

“Okay, and I’ll take the extra-crunchy fried chicken skin on a stick…”

Lenny leaned over the side of the car toward the speaker.

“Hitler-size my french fries!”

“What?” said the speaker.

“Saddam-size my apple pies!”

“Can you repeat that?” said the speaker.

“Shut that motherfucker up!” Zargoza yelled at Serge.

“Excuse me?” said the speaker.

“I wasn’t talking to you!”

Serge climbed in the backseat and grabbed Lenny in a full nelson.

“Where were we?” Zargoza asked the clerk.

“Number twelve, chicken skin on a stick.”

“Can I substitute cole slaw for the mashed potatoes?”

Lenny broke free from Serge and leaned out the car again. “Ho Chi Minh my chicken skin!”

“I’m getting the manager,” said the speaker.

Zargoza floored it through the drive-through, snapping off a sideview mirror.

“Goddammit!” he yelled as the car bottomed out onto U.S. 19. “I was hungry, too!”

They headed back across the Howard Frankland Bridge and took West Shore down to Gandy.

A red Audi with tinted windows pulled alongside at a stoplight.

Zargoza looked over. “Twats!”

“What is it?” said Serge.

“Those damn Diaz Boys!”

The light turned green and both cars patched out and drag-raced all the way to Bayshore. At the red light, the Audi’s tinted windows went down and shotguns appeared.

“What’s this about?” Zargoza shouted at Tommy Diaz.

“Safety inspection,” said Tommy. “You wouldn’t mind if we checked your trunk, would you? We’ve been hearing rumors. Beemers sometimes have expensive loose objects back there that could create a hazard.”

“Sure,” said Serge. “But you’ll have to race us for the opportunity.”

“We don’t need to race. We have the guns.”

“You also have the tiniest balls this side of the squirrel family,” said Serge. “I was thinking of cutting ’em off and feeding ’em to my poodle as a new between-meals treat, since they’re not too filling.”

“Don’t ya just love this guy!” Zargoza called out the window.

Tommy Diaz was in a barely contained rage. “Okay, we’ll race! First one down to those psychedelic fish at the bridge to Davis Islands!”

“Hold on,” said Serge. He turned to Zargoza. “You got that opium pipe?”

“Sure,” said Zargoza. He handed the pipe to Serge and cranked up “Free Ride” on the stereo as he gunned the engine. Tommy Diaz gunned his engine, too.

Serge leaned out the window. “Peace pipe,” said Serge. “Anyone for some good opium?”

“Back here,” said Rafael Diaz, reaching out the passenger window behind the driver. He hung way out the door to take the pipe from Serge. Just as their hands met, Rafael noticed one end of a set of fur-lined handcuffs around Serge’s hand. Serge quickly clasped the other end around Rafael’s left wrist. He turned back to Zargoza. “Hit it!”

“Roger!” Zargoza floored the gas. Screaming came from the other car and Tommy gave it the gas, too.

The cars stayed tight as they wound along the waterfront route, Serge smiling, Rafael ashen and whimpering. Zargoza intentionally drifted the BMW to the left, and Tommy Diaz mirrored his moves. Zargoza popped the left wheels up on the grassy median. Then he had the whole car in the median, doing fifty, and kept drifting. Tommy Diaz was forced to drift with Zargoza unless he wanted to lose Rafael. Serge laughed like a lunatic, but the other car had gone silent.

Zargoza drifted left until he had forced the Diaz car onto the median as well. This was the same median where city leaders had decided to move a series of abstract modern sculptures, and the next one coming up was a jumble of sharp pieces of round metal, a giant serrated Slinky. Now the other car came alive again, pointing ahead and screaming, begging with Serge. Rafael was more than halfway out the window, and the others held him in the car by his legs.

Just a few seconds to go. Serge casually got out the key.

“Whoops,” he said, and jerked forward like he’d dropped it. He smiled and showed he still had the key. “Just kidding.” A second left. Serge turned the key and he and Rafael shot apart. The two cars parted high-speed around the sculpture, Zargoza ending up on the wrong side of the median in the oncoming lanes. He swerved around a taxi and jumped the next median, crossing back in front of the Diaz Boys as both cars raced around a hard left curve, then a right, neck and neck. Tommy Diaz gunned it and took the inside as they went into the last turn. Zargoza opened it up and passed him as they went by the psychedelic fish.

They both hit the brakes, skidding into the parking lot at the boat launch, and everyone jumped out and drew guns. Zargoza aimed a shotgun across the hood of the BMW and tossed a pistol to Serge.

“You fucking sons of bitches!” yelled Tommy. “Cocksuckers of whores!”

“Easy now,” said Serge. “You’re mixing your metaphors.”

“We should kill all of you!” said Tommy.

“Hey, guys,” said Lenny. “It looks like I’m not needed here. I’m free to go, right?”

Everyone: “No!”

“Shit-eating dogs!” said Tommy.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Serge, he and Tommy pointing guns in each other’s faces a foot apart.

“Open the trunk!” said Tommy.

“You lost the race,” said Serge. “Bite me.”

“The race is under protest,” said Tommy.

“You think this is NASCAR?” said Serge.

“Interference with another driver.”

“No way,” said Serge. “These are Ben-Hur rules.”

Nobody spoke for a solid minute, guns still leveled.

“Next time!” snapped Tommy, and he started walking backward to the Audi. The other Diaz Boys followed his lead, and they slowly climbed inside, still aiming guns.

Tommy started the engine. He began pulling away and stuck his head out the window. “You’re dead! You’re all fucking dead!”

“No, you’re the ones who are fucking dead!” shouted Zargoza.

“No, you’re fucking dead!” yelled Tommy, pulling into traffic.

“No, you’re fucking dead!”

“You’re dead!”

“You’re dead!”

“You are!”

“You are!”

“Fiddlebottom!”

“Don’t call me that! It’s Zargoza!”

“Fiddlebottom!” yelled Tommy, his voice trailing off in the distance.

“Come back here-I’ll kill you!”

Some guns were fired in the air as the Audi disappeared around a bend.

Serge turned to Zargoza. “I take it there’s some history here.”

“Fuckin’ tradition,” said Zargoza. “We’ve been racing for years. Before that we were in a bowling league, but they won’t let us play anymore.”

“Go figure.”