Chapter IV: Bumper Cars in the Tri-Towns

I’ve never been good at first impressions. I suppose the reason that The Professor and I got off on the wrong foot was because he saw me as a faithless follower who did not think for himself. Or I suppose it was because I almost killed him when I hit him with a stolen car.

I didn’t mean to steal the car, and I certainly didn’t mean to hit The Professor, but both things had happened as a result of a heavy night of drinking and the ingestion of unmarked prescription pills. At the time, I was unemployed and living with a guy named Aquaman and his girlfriend who called herself Skittles. I was 24 years old, and had officially given up on college after four attempts. I had come home to live with my parents who gave me two weeks to clean myself up and get my life back on track. I agreed to go see a therapist in my hometown, but I got a bit sidetracked.

It wasn’t entirely my fault. I was walking over to the therapist’s office when a fight broke out between two gaggles of hoodie-wearing bastards in front of a 7-11. I tried to make peace between the two leaders who were barking at each other before the leader of the emo-looking kids stuck me. With that, a scuffle broke out and I immediately joined the opposing side. The next thing I knew I was involved in a three-county highway chase and spent the night in an opium den speak-easy in another state. When I returned home four days later the locks had been changed and the doorbell had been disconnected.

Now, I didn’t mean to steal my mom’s car. I mean, technically I had every right to drive it because the insurance policy had yet to officially be cancelled, even though I hadn’t paid it in two months. Of course, even if my driving wasn’t illegal, I was wasted and had no business being on the road. In my defense, I was in the Tri-Towns, and after 1:00 am, the rules of traffic cease to apply, and the rules of bumper cars take effect.

The Tri-Towns had everything. They had the big malls, the best bars, the hot clubs, the after-hours joints, and of course, the seediest and unscrupulous drug dealers this side of the Casablanca. The Tri-Towns always teetered between respectability and repulsion, combining cookie-cutter communities with cocaine alleys. One day, the entire region will be townhouses and condos, but for now, it remains one of hell’s finest suburbs.

Now, The Professor had spent his entire life within a 20-mile radius of Morgenthau and the Tri-Towns, and the old son of a bitch should have known better than to walk the streets while the rules of bumper cars were in effect. Regardless, I should have done more to avoid him. I had been driving the speed limit to avoid the ire of the local police, but my reaction time had slowed tremendously due to the old man pills that Aquaman had offered me.

I saw The Professor from down the road with my high beams on. I attempted to drive around him, but my vision had been placed on a five second delay. When I assumed I was 100 yards away, I was actually 10 yards away. By the time my brain caught on to the trick, I had clipped The Professor’s right hip and spun him into a heap of trash placed outside a clam bar. Rather than do the sensible thing and speed away in the stolen car, I stupidly pulled over to the side of the road to see if the man was okay.

I walked over to the trash and found the old man in his corduroy jacket yelling into a bag of garbage.

“Agggg… you thoughtless bastard!” he yelled at me. Me? Thoughtless? I thought, Fuck you man; I’m here to see if you’re alright.

“Sir,” I mumbled, “Are you al—“

“Just shut up!” he yelled as he lumbered to his feet, swatting away my arm as I offered to help him. He was walking back to the car, which remained parked in the middle of the street, prime target for anyone out engaging in bumper cars. I got into the driver’s seat and motioned to open the passenger’s door for him, but the old man had other plans.

“Slide over, you god damn moron,” demanded The Professor. I tried to refuse, but he started swatting at my head and in a state of panic—possibly promoted by the prescriptions I had overloaded on—I obliged.

“Sir, don’t worry, I’ll drive you to the hospital,” I said, trying to calm him.

“We’re not going to the god damn hospital,” he said. “They’ll arrest both on sight.” The Professor groaned as he pushed me out of the cockpit into the passenger’s seat. He grimaced as he shifted the car from park to drive, but as soon as he was ready to step on the gas we both saw the red and blue lights reflect off every surface surrounding the car. “Sweet merciful shit,” he muttered, realizing that the police had spotted the car positioned awkwardly in the street.

“Just keep your god damn mouth shut and we’ll get out of this,” said The Professor without a great deal of trepidation, as if he had been through situations like this before. The Professor re-shifted the car back into park and placed his hands peacefully at ten and two. Two officers in dark uniforms slowly marched up towards the car, thinking that their menacing stroll would induce fear into The Professor. Instead, he just looked annoyed and tired.

The officer banged his flashlight on the driver’s side door, not hard enough to break the glass, but pretty hard nonetheless. The Professor gracefully lowered the driver’s window and swirled his head around to the policeman on the left.

“Good evening officer,” said The Professor, doing his best to hide the fact that he was in a tremendous amount of pain. “Is there a problem?” The officer looked past The Professor and over to me, the drunk asshole who was scared shitless in the passenger seat. Over my shoulder I felt the icy glance of the second officer who was just waiting for me to flinch so that he could draw his weapon.

“Sir, these streets are dangerous at this time of night. Why are you out so late and parked in the middle of the street?”

As if he had already concocted a perfect story, The Professor sighed and dropped right into a carefully prepared diatribe.

“I apologize officer, but you see my imbecile grandson here went out and got himself shitfaced drunk and was too wasted to drive home. So at three in the morning I had to get out of bed and pick his lazy ass up from the Kobra Klub. I apologize for the inconvenience, officer.”

The Professor did not need to embellish my intoxication, for I certainly looked the part. The officers were hoping to nab a couple of bumper car kids and exchanged a nod before one of them walked back to the patrol car.

“Alright, well, drive home safe, sir. Take the back roads if you can.”

“Will do,” replied The Professor. “You go have yourself a safe night yourself.” With that, The Professor rolled up the driver’s window and proceeded to drive off.

He picked up a fair amount of speed immediately, making it clear he had no intention of staying one more minute in the treacherous Tri-Towns. Within a few minutes the two of us had rocketed out of downtown and began flirting with the city limits and the outskirts of Morgenthau. The Professor drove past the rusty iron gates of the college and drove a few blocks down to a funeral parlor that sat across the street from the college. He finally parked the car, let out another painful groan and leaned over to my face.

“You owe me, kid,” said The Professor. “I need you to help me back to my room.” He exited the car and started walking back towards the long stone wall that guarded the Morgenthau property.

“Wait a minute,” I yelled, stumbling out of the passenger’s seat to catch up with The Professor. “Where the hell do you live? And we can’t just leave the car there, it’s going to get towed.”

“Precisely,” said The Professor, who had crossed the street and was standing next to a pay phone. He picked up the receiver and awkwardly pulled a few coins out of his jacket pocket, still visibly shaken from his near death experience. He inserted the coins, dialed the number and waited for someone to answer.

“Eddy,” said The Professor, “It’s Willie… Hey, fuck you! This is Willie god damnit! Yes, I have another one for you, outside the parlor… Just make sure we get our cut.” With that, The Professor slammed the receiver down and grimaced in pain. He began lumbering towards the rusty iron gates of the college. I ran up along side him to see if he was alright.

“Excuse me, Willie, are you—“

“My name isn’t Willie, you asshole!” yelled The Professor. “Willie is the name of a friend of mine who steals cars and leaves them in places where they’ll be towed. The towing company gives him a cut of the impounding fee.”

“Oh…” I said sheepishly as we approached the entrance. “Where are we going?”

The Professor looked at the entrance and let out an exhausted sigh of disgust and relief. “We’re going home,” said The Professor who hung his head momentarily before instructing me to assist him over the wall and back to the place that I would call home for the next two years.