Red Truck
By Lorraine J. Anderson
Copyright 2011 Lorraine J. Anderson
Smashwords Edition
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You know, sometimes a guy like me has gotta get away. I mean, even to this little Alaskan dive like this. My boss, Charles... old Charley to Skeet 'n' me behind his back... tells me I'm young yet, I'll learn to settle down, but then he yells at me for doing stupid things, too. Which I do. I wonder, man. I still got the restless stuff in me, and I gotta get away from the job 'n' have a beer or just die. I mean, we're going to be training for this job for a long time. Charles says that someday, maybe, we'll find gals to marry, like he has with his Sadie, but, man, I can't see any girls going up to where we're at.
You wanna know my job? Well, guess it won't do no harm. Got a half-hour or so? I need to tell someone or just bust
You see, me and my pal Skeet were cruising the streets of Kalamazoo one Christmas Eve in Skeet's old beat-up Plymouth that he got from his Ma. His Ma was a screw-up, too, man, one boyfriend after another, a real boozer, then she got into this de-tox program and started to go to church and all that... stuff. Skeet couldn't stand that, man, she was praying for his soul all the time and telling him to get a job like she did and stuff like that, so he split every chance he could and cruised with me.
As for me, well, jeez, I had to live down a name like Peter Paul Rubin, man, which is a heck of a name for a Jewish kid like me.. My Ma and Dad crashed when I was a kid and Grandma tried to bring me up, but she was kinda a screw-up too, them kind that give you good thoughts and do things and flutter around and say "Oh, dear" and which don't amount to a hill of shi... beans to a wild kid like I was. 'Cause I was mad at the world, man, for stealing my parents, and I screwed around at school, when I did go to school, and I screwed around after school, and I was starting to get into drugs, kid, like I was ready to go big-time. 'N nobody ever suspected me, man, because I came from a "good home" and I was a blond-haired blue-eyed kid who was "going through a phase." But school counselors don't know jack.
Anyway, we were cruising Kalamazoo on Christmas Eve about 2:00 in the morning when we spot this red truck. It was a sweet thing, so red it glowed, jacked up to the sky, and we both drooled when we saw it.
"Waddya think, man," Skeet said. "We gotta look at this babe."
"Oh, God, I'm dying," I said. I looked it over closely. "Gotta be a custom job, man."
"How you think?"
"Look at it, man. Headlights from Ford, taillights from Dodge, wheels from Pirelli, 'n I dunno where that body shape's from. Streamlined like hell. Get that out on 94 and that thing'll fly!"
Skeet looked it over and said, yeah, I gotta be right. Just then a car came up behind us and laid on the horn, and Skeet flipped him the finger and parked in front of the Hot Thing.
We got out of the car and went up to the 4x4 scared-like, hell, I dunno, like it was gonna bite or something. I touched it with one tip of one finger. It was cool, and I laid my hand on it. I dunno, I guess some of my bible learning took, 'cause I thought maybe a red guy with a tail and horns was gonna jump out and drag me under the ground. But we weren't nowhere near a cemetery, so I thought maybe that supernatural shit didn't apply here.
That's what I thought.
Skeet was climbing up on the passenger's side. "Hey, P.P., the keys are in the ignition, man."
"Bogus," I climbed up on the driver's side and looked in. "Oh, man, I'm dyin'." It had buttons and a cool black interior that looked kinda like leather but wasn't and a stick shift... and a CD player with big-ass speakers in the back window.
It was the baddest thing I had ever seen in my miserable life.
I stared at Skeet over through the car. "You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" I said.
"We shouldn't..." he said, kinda slow and gravelly. Yeah, I was feeling the same way, 'cause, man, we really wasn't bad kids, but we thought we were. And, man, this fu... stinkin' 4x4 was like chocolate to a fat man.
"I mean, we gotta," I said. "We're not gonna steal it or anything, we're just gonna take a short ride, right?"
"Yeah."
We climbed into the cab. Oh, man, sitting on that seat was like sitting on a soft pillow. That Plymouth of Skeet's had busted springs all over it and there was only a couple of spots that were good... but if I shifted just a tiny bit I got springs in my butt. I coulda sat in that 4x4 all day and not moved, man.
"You gonna start it up?" Skeet said.
I started the truck slowly, but it sprang to life like a mouse springing out of a trap. I eased it into gear 'n we were both pressed into the seats like a damn astronaut. "Shit," I said. Skeet looked over at me like I was crazy. "That's second gear, man!" He looked down at the gearshift, like he didn't believe me. "I'm giving you straight shit, man."
His eyes bugged out. "Bogus." He sat thinkin' for a minute. "Don't shift it into first, man. I gotta bad feelin'."
I didn't answer. "He got any CDs, man?" I dunno when I thought the owner was a guy, I guess I just figured girls wouldn't buy such awesome things like this.
Skeet was looking through the CDs, tossing them all through the truck. "Man. all he's got is Christmas shit." He stopped. "Here's a 'Boyz-2-Men.' Christmas."
I glared at him. "No metal?"
"You want effing Crosby?"
I sighed. "Ok, Boyz-2-Men."
He put the tape in, and I shifted into first.
"Jesus!" The houses blurred. I saw a car coming toward us. Before I could move, the car came... through us. Don't look at me like that, man, I ain't shittin' you.
Man, but Skeet and I almost peed our pants. I'm not sure, but I think I heard Skeet callin' for his Mama. Which made me only the more determined to be cool, even though I was nearly as scared as Skeet.
I reached out towards a button. Skeet grabbed it. "Don't," he said. I jerked my hand free and pressed a button that said "fly". I felt a jerk, then a grinding noise out the window. I looked out the window, and damn if the wheels hadn't gone sideways. The steering wheel suddenly became loose, and I jerked it down. Next thing I know, man, we were above the treetops looking down at the Meijer's store. I wondered if their damn surveillance cameras picked this up.
"Shit," Skeet said. "We hijacked frigging Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang."
I circled the parking lot. "This is totally cool," I said, trying to still my chattering teeth. I was wishing I was home with Grandma, watching TV. I looked over at Skeet. He was looking down, smiling, which was somethin' I hadn't seen in a long time. Just not much to grin about, you know.
He turned to me. "Go over my house, P.P."
"Like I can tell where your house is?" I turned north anyway, and two seconds later we were over Skeet's neighborhood. Then past it. The damn 4x4 was running like a jet. We shot past North Kalamazoo, and I turned around and then a minute later we were south of Kalamazoo. I wanted to fly to Miami Beach, man, but I knew it wouldn't be good, I didn't want to steal the 4x4, we were just borrowing it. Which was wrong. I knew that. I was just really fucked-up.
"We got two buttons we ain't tried," Skeet said.
"Wanna push 'em?" I asked. I really didn't want him to, not really.
He hesitated over 'em a second. "Ah, what the hell." He jabbed his finger on both of them... one said "E", the other said "S". Which occurred to me, too late, that "E" coulda meant "eject."
But we didn't, and when I looked out the window, man, nothing had happened. Except I heard a funny kind of noise from Skeet. I looked over at him and almost peed my pants. It was Skeet, but it wasn't, man, it looked like... an elf. You believe it? A damned elf, man, with pointy ears and red and green clothes and a big hat, man. Just like an elf oughta look.
The elf with Skeet's face looked over at me and was working his mouth and looked 'bout as scared as me. I quick looked down at myself, hell, no, I looked the same. Same jeans, same T-shirt, hell, same coat, then I looked in the rear view mirror. Ah, hell. White hair, blue eyes, white eyebrows, white beard, red coat...
"Shit," I said, "we're joy-riding in fucking Santa Claus's sleigh, man!"
I jammed the buttons, and Skeet returned to normal. He was sweating like the devil. He looked at me, I looked at him. "Turn this thing around, man, we gotta return this baby."
I wasn't scanning him. "Where's the sleigh? Where's the fucking reindeer? Where's Santa, man?" I was getting scared. I mean, I was beginning to think Santa was dead. Not that I had believed Santa was real before, but, man, I was afraid. Hell, I even thought we might get the chair or something. Man. we were just joy-riding.
Skeet grabbed my arm, bruising it. "Turn it around, man!"
It scanned this time. I looked down. "Where are we, man?"
Skeet looked down. "Dunno." He looked at the dashboard. "We're going southeast. Do U-ey and go northwest."
"Ok." I started to turn the wheel and the damned thing jerked out of my hands. "What the hell..."
Skeet's eyes were bugging out. "Not so fast!"
I took my hands off the wheel. "I ain't doing it, man. It's on fucking remote control."
"Who's got the controls?!"
"How the fuck should I know?!"
It wasn't no time at all that we were over Kalamazoo, then back in front of the house where we started. A big black man, kinda old, kinda fat. He was looking at us and tapping his foot.
“Are you boys quite finished with my vehicle?"
Skeet gulped. "...yours...?"
I looked him in the eye. "You gonna turn us in, man? You ain't stinkin..." I stopped talking. I mean I'm white and Jewish and Grandma was a synagogue-going lady but wasn't exactly color-blind, you know what I mean, and then I had a thought go through my head, and then I blushed...
The guy looked sharply at me, then grinned. "...stinkin' Santa Claus? Yes, I sure am. Ho, ho, ho."
"Yeah, but, you..."
He sighed. "Don't look like Santa. Tell me. when you were in the car, did you happen to push a couple buttons titled 'S' and "E'?"
We both nodded our head. "Oh," Skeet said.
"Well, we all see what we want to see. You probably saw a white bread Santa." He grinned. "I knew you pushed them. I was delivering some presents and looked in the mirror and saw... myself. Fortunately, no-one woke up. I saw myself at the police station explaining that a Black man had a legitimate reason to be in the house, because I am Santa Claus. Really. Then I would've been fitted for the little white jacket." He looked at the truck. "I see a big red Cadillac. What do you see?"
"A 4 x 4," Skeet said. He looked at me. I nodded.
He looked at Skeet thoughtfully. "Red doesn't usually show herself unless she finds a potential replacement. And I've been thinking that I should settle down with my wife. I've been at this seventy years."
"No shit?" Skeet said. He looked real interested. Actually, I was, too.
"One of the benefits of the job. I have a lot of good years ahead of me. I really should retire," he said softly, then smiled. "You both saw the car? At the same time?"
I looked at Skeet. He nodded and I said, “yeah.”
"Huh," he said. "A tag team." He looked at the truck. "That's what I should train?"
”Yes, Charles," said a deep voice. "These two. The job's too big for one."
He grinned "Far be it for me to say no."
"What are you?" I said.
"A servant, young man. Just a servant."
We've been learning this job a couple of years now. Yeah, man, under the North Pole. I don't miss my family at all, and my Grandma doesn't miss me because she doesn't remember me, and neither does anybody else. Except Skeet, of course, 'n he thinks like me. And neither will you, when I leave. But thanks for listening, man.
You know what, man? It's worth it. I thought I was some tough shi... stuff, but the first time I talked to a kid... really talked, you know, I just loved it. Charles said he knew I would. The power ain't steered him wrong yet. I asked him who the power was, and he said he thought it was Jesus. I asked him then why he would pick a Jewish kid like me, and he said, well, why not. But I'm betting with Skeet that the Power is some sort of space alien someplace. Then Charles found out what we were thinking and asked well, why couldn't it be both! Charles is such a bible thumper I knew we wouldn't get anywhere with him.
The hardest thing for me to do is to quit swearing. Santa just don't swear in front of kids. And I gotta learn to use proper English. But I'll learn, man, I'll learn. Somehow. Or burn my fucking mind out trying
Oh, shit, I did it again, didn't I?
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