Sleeping Beast

Finally, another car build! Issue is now I don’t know what to do for the next one…. Anyway, inspired by a story written by a friend about a fictionalized version of me’s dangerous journey involving Manhattan and an 800 horsepower superwagon.

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TT: In Which the NYPD Gets an Arrest Warrant for Adam Janusick

New York City
State of New York
United States of America

“So as you all know, Cipher’s going great and we’re on the verge of introducing a whole new product onslaught. That is, I think so, but the asswipe writing this is too lazy to check his facts before writing a story.”
Adam laughed at Tommy’s remark, swallowed the last of his gin and poured himself yet another glass. Tommy, Adam, Dylan and I were seated in the center of Rogue’s subterrain, engaging in yet another evening of complaints, quarreling and automotive jabber.
Dylan turned to my friend.
“So, grampa Adam, you’ve told us the Noodle Incident and the Mayonnaise Mishap, but you still refuse to tell us the story of how you’re not allowed in New York anywhere outside of a jail cell.”
Adam looked imperiously at the suggester.
“I don’t know… are you sure you fellas are ready?”
“I’ve known you a while, there’s very little I haven’t seen by now,” I said.
“So be it. But first. MELANIE!”
“WHAT!”
“BRANDY!”
“Here.”
“Why thank you. Wait, what? This is brandy, woman. I asked for gin.”
“NO YOU LITTLE AS–“
“MELANIE I ASKED FOR –“
“GET TO IT!” Tommy screamed.
“Fine. MELANIE! -, please – have a seat.”
My friend was an arrogant jerk-off but he was polite towards his secretary. Most of the time. Thusly settled, he started his story.
“Well, I dimly remember that the night before I had arranged with colleagues that I would appear at the annual Rogue Automotive shareholder’s conference on the eleventh of September, 2210, and that I would be attending at 1:00 P.M. in some hole in Southern Pennsylvania, and that some of my more trusted colleagues told me to bring a pistol just in case things got ugly. Hell I don’t get it either. I had been travelling North from Florida – yes, Florida, where I had been tangled up in publicity for the new Rogue 800-4. It’s a hard life of a superstar, haha.”
Adam drank some more of whatever filled his ornate glass.
“Anyway, after seeing the colleagues off I engaged in a wild night of partying and shenanigans. This was in Manhattan, of course, the top floor of the St. Regis hotel. Talk about swank. The next morning I woke up in a bed the size of a 4×4 Super with a trio of beautiful supermodels dozing by my side.”
Adam stopped and looked at all of us in turn.
“Fellas, I repeat, I repeat, it’s a hard life, that of a superstar.”
“Uh huh.”
“Such a bother.”
“Oh I bet it was hard, all right.”
“Good one, Melanie. In any case, my colleagues had recommended that I retire to bed at a reasonably early hour. When I woke up with my snuggle-posse, I glanced at my watch on the dresser. It was 12:00 P.M. I had been planning on getting up at 8:00 A.M. Not even my throbbing hangover was able to prevent me from going through my morning paces and sprinting down to the garage, where I leapt into my Assault wagon. Wagon power, bitches. I know they say not to drink and drive, but like the Rogue publicities said, you don’t drive a Assault, you experience it. Surely there are no laws against drinking and experiencing?”
We nodded decisively in agreement. There were no such laws.
“Speed limits were no issue for me. I burned out of the underground parking, narrowly missing a bellhop pushing a gold trolley. Heh, there’s someone who told his superiors he was needed in the hotel laundry department. Anyway, downtown Manhattan was to witness the brutish bellow of the Assault’s twin exhausts. ‘C’mon!!!’ I yelled at the stoplights by Central Park, revving the ten cylinders to maximum RPMs. The light turned green and I stepped on it, leaving rooster tails of white smoke, then I heard police sirens. ‘FUCK!’ I yelled, as is my custom. The smoke cleared, and two cops stepped out of a white-and-navy blue Thunderhead Town Elizabeth. Cop shades, cop ‘staches, .44 Magnums, the whole deal.”
Here, Adam took a drink out of his glass, brows furrowed deep in his memories. We waited patiently.
“So in any case, the two policemen come up to my window on either side and put their hairy arms on my sill. As is my custom, I am polite and collected. ‘Shouldn’t you guys be eating donuts?’ That didn’t sit well with them, they’re like, ‘sir, would you step out of the car’. Well, right there I decided, fuck that shit. Nobody, NOBODY comes up to me and orders me to step out of a car which I engineered and manufactured – my personal car with my name on the title, no less.”
Adam slammed his glass down on the woodgrain table. At this moment, all four of us listeners recognized, that, for lack of a better term, shit had just gone down, or was about to, and with considerable force.
“They said, ‘sir, you’re under arrest for the willful theft of a motor vehicle and kidna-‘ they didn’t even get a chance to finish. Not like I was listening. I stepped on it like I was being pursued by the bats of hell. I roared away from them, and they sprinted back into their Town Elizabeth and called for backup. As I rounded a corner and almost crashed into a cab, I spotted an elevated parking garage. I quickly made my way for it through the traffic, thank God it wasn’t rush hour, or I wouldn’t be here speaking to you. I crashed onto the on-ramp and through a melee of parked SUVs and sedans, the Assault’s exhaust reverberating across the walls. Now, you may be thinking that making a beeline for a parking garage in such circumstances would be insanely stupid. But you know what? Wait, no you’re right. Justification: I was still drunk. As I wound up the circular exit to the roof, I became dimly aware of a couple of wildly screeching voices. I didn’t have time to check it out. I burst into the sunlight on the top of the parking garage and came to a smoky stop, both hands on the steering wheel, not quite thinking straight. Suddenly, I noticed the screeching was coming from my back seat. A couple of teenagers, a kid and his girl, probably, were huddled together looking as if they’d just seen footage of the freakin’ Holocaust.
Four squadcars appeared on either end of the roof, out of which a posse of pigs poured out and pointed their pistols at me, crouching behind the doors. One of them took out a megaphone and cautioned me, “please step out of the car with your hands behind your back”. With a tinge of desperation in my eye, I turned to the two teens in the back seat, perhaps hoping they’d save my hungover ass from this situation. No dice. They had quieted down but were stuttering things like, ‘why’d you steal my car man?’ and ‘we’ll give you all the weed we have, just don’t hurt us’. Pathetic! Right then, I’d had enough.”
We were all staring at Adam, waiting for more. Melanie was giving Adam the same look as Charles Foster Kane gave Mr. Thatcher in Citizen Kane in the newspaper room scene. You know the one.
“I looked back at the cops, who looked ready to pop a cap in what I was increasingly starting to suspect wasn’t my car after all. What can I say? When you’re drunk, you can easily mistake one man’s 800-4 Assault wagon for your own. The shareholder’s conference now entirely absent from my mind, I swung around to the two in my back seat and screamed at the top of my lungs, ‘YOU TWO LIKE MEXICO? WWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!’ I admit, not one of my classier moments, but those are best left to Raphy, amirite. I shoved the ‘box in reverse, gassed it and executed a perfect J-turn, gassing it again, roaring towards two of the cop cars by the exit and smashing them away from each other. Glass rained everywhere. The teens started screaming again, and the cops emptied their Magnums into my tires. The moment was perfect, but the only thing it was missing was an ‘I heart NJ’ bumper sticker on the back of the kid’s wagon. How’d they get this thing, anyway? Rich parents, probably. It was flat out from the parking garage to the interstate. The cops’ Town Elizabeth cruisers were quick, but not crazy fast like the 800-4 Assault. The wagon just ate up mass chunks of the interstate, blowing past semis and minivans. Eventually we slowed down and got to the toll booths, where I pretended everything was normal. It was difficult, what with the 800-4 looking like a crushed plastic bottle and two bratty teens in the back scared out of their wits, but the fat lady in the booth must’ve seen weirder stuff come out of NYC and into NJ because she let us across without any problems. I cruised to the nearest gas station, got out of the car and leaned against it, hands on my forehead, wondering how I’d gotten from snoozing with supermodels to being a state fugitive in three-quarters of an hour.”
Everyone was laughing hysterically by now. Adam’s stories never disappointed.
“I let the two kids out of the car. They were still convinced I was going to tie them up in my basement and do unspeakable things to them, but hey, I guess I give off that impression sometimes. I apologized to them for the hassle and made it clear that I was going to pay for the 800-4’s damages. I couldn’t not. After all, it was a Rogue, and even if they’re bratty, you don’t trash a teen’s prized car without compensation. And what can I say… they had good taste in cars. Performance wagon? Only a select few can appreciate that these days.”
Dylan spoke up. “So what happened after that?”
“Well, I left the kids there with the wagon to wait for a tow truck. The shareholder’s conference had to be placed to a further date – a few days later – I got shot in the leg at that conference, but you know that story. I sent Melanie to go fetch the 800-4 Assault wagon – my 800-4 Assault wagon, the one that had been resting peacefully in the St. Regis’ garage with a cold grille. And of course, the NYPD couldn’t reach me in New Jersey.”
We sat in our plush chairs, taking in Adam’s newest tale of mayhem, shaking our heads and reveling in the fact that our lives were blessed with such adventure.
“And that, fellas, is how I got a warrant for my arrest in the state of New York. Oh – and – (he poured himself another glass of gin and downed it) – kids, if you know what’s good for you, don’t ever drink and experience.”