I don't usually write Grand Theft Auto...in fact I've never written GTA at all...but I wrote this as a birthday request for my good buddy and former crazy roommate, Nicole. Happy birthday, Nicole! Hope you like it!
This was supposed to have been a quiet Friday afternoon. Michael expected to be asleep on the couch while his daughter watched ultra violent cartoons on TV. Amanda would be home any minute now, yell at him for sleeping while on baby duty, and then order take out because fuck if she ever bothered to cook once in a while.
Instead here he was, driving a stolen ambulance while Rage Against the Machine blasted over the radio to drown out the sounds of police sirens chasing in the distance, his best friend Trevor in the seat next to him with a madly giggling two year old strapped to his chest in a baby carrier and shouting profanity at the cops through the dispatch radio, and shit, he may have just passed Amanda's car on the highway and he hoped she didn't see who was driving this crazy machine of death and mercy.
"Think we can beat her home?" Michael asked his passengers.
"Take a right onto that turnpike! I know a shortcut!" Trevor replied.
A few hours earlier...
Michael jumped and fell off the couch when he heard someone pounding on the front door. He sat up and looked around, seeing Tracey playing with her blocks just a couple of feet away. He'd fallen asleep on the couch watching her again. Thank god Amanda was out with her friend, Connie, or she'd be screaming at him right now. At the tender young age of two, his daughter was now old enough to know how to take apart the TV with a metal clothes hanger and a drawer full of spoons. Last time he'd fallen asleep on guard duty, he woke to find that she'd somehow figured out how to reach the top of the fridge and got ahold of a box of donuts and they were now smashed into the carpeting.
The pounding started up again, followed by the doorbell. And the doorbell. And the doorbell again. And then whoever it was just held the button in, causing it to drone on and on and on. "Alright! I'm coming! Fucking hell..." he groaned as he stood up to answer the door.
Trevor slowly turned to look at him when Michael threw the door open, his finger still on the doorbell. "Finally! I thought I was going to have to break a fucking window!" he shouted at him.
"Trevor..." Michael groaned. "It's too early for this. What are you doing here?"
"What, I can't visit my best friend in the fucking world whenever I want?" Trevor asked. "Also my ex-girlfriend discovered that I've been living under her porch for a few weeks and she called the cops, so I kind of need to borrow your phone for a sec."
"Teeee!" Tracey shouted when she saw her father's best friend at the door. She abandoned her blocks and toddled over to his side, throwing her arms around one of his legs.
Trevor seemed surprised to see her and even more surprised to see her grabbing his leg. "Hey shrimp!" He walked to the phone with her still holding onto his leg. "You're on kid duty."
"Yeah, the day care's closed for repairs right now. Apparently some crackhead crashed a stolen camper van through the front door and stole a box of coloring books."
Trevor looked lost in thought a moment. "So that's where those came from..." he said quietly.
"What?"
"Never mind."
Michael waited with Tracey in the living room, keeping her attention with a stuffed cat while Trevor made his phone call. It started out pleasant enough then devolved into juvenile name calling and finally ended with Trevor screaming a string of incoherent swear words through the mouthpiece before slamming the phone down on the charger. He returned to the living room looking rather chill for a guy who had just had a shouting match with someone through the phone.
"Well?" Michael asked.
"You still got that gently used futon in your basement?" Trevor replied pleasantly.
"I'll go get you some blankets from the closet."
"Can you find the train?"
"It's there..."
"Where is it?"
"It's right there..."
"Is this the train?"
"It's RIGHT FUCKING THERE! How can't you see it?! It's the size of a fucking train!"
"Trevor, relax, it's a cartoon for preschoolers," Michael pointed out.
"I think a preschooler can find a fucking train that's in front of them without a map!" He looked at Tracey, who was staring at the TV with a blank look on her face, almost like she was deep in a trance. "I'm not letting her watch these goddamn communist shows! They're going to turn her stupid!"
"It keeps her busy. What do you suggest we do with her instead?" Michael inquired.
"I don't know. How old do you think is old enough to learn how to rob a liquor store?"
"She just turned two, Trevor..."
"You're right...maybe after she's toilet trained?" Michael rolled his eyes and got up to fetch a drink from the liquor cabinet. "What?"
"I was thinking maybe we could take her out somewhere. Like...uh..." He looked at the fridge, scanning the numerous fliers and ads that Amanda had stuck to the front with magnets as a sort of "to do with baby" list. "Here's one. We could take Tracey to the Sunshine Springs Petting Farm," Michael suggested.
"Can't. I'm kind of banned from that place."
"What did you do, eat one of the ponies?"
"Hey, I read the rules twice and there was nothing that said you can't fuck the animals!" Trevor complained. "But of course some cunt with a thousand crotch goblins has gotta complain because she saw someone with their dick in a sheep!"
"Okay, then we can go to the park."
"Too close to the Chuck E. Cheese. I'm not allowed near there either."
"The candy store?"
"Hey, the sign said shirt and shoes required, it said nothing about pants!"
"Well where the hell haven't you been banned from yet?"
"Hmm..." Trevor thought. He reached into his back pocket and removed a list that he kept of the places he was still allowed to go to. "Oh! I haven't been kicked out of the Toy Whore yet! We can go and get Tracey one of those slutty dolls that give little girls bad self esteem!"
Tracey's trance was broken and at once she spun around and threw her arms into the air, shouting, "Toy store!"
"Toy Whore. Sounds like a date. I'll go get the diaper bag," Michael agreed.
"Oh yeah, and we're gonna need to use your car. My ride isn't exactly a three-seater," Trevor said as he grabbed the keys off the key ring and went to wait outside.
Michael double checked the diaper bag to make sure there was an ample amount of supplies and grabbed the baby carrier off a shelf. Taking Tracey by the hand, he led her outside. "What, did you come here on a motorcycle?" he asked on the way out. He stopped on the front porch and almost dropped the sippy cup of chocolate milk in his hand. A thoroughbred racehorse emblazoned with the number 8 stood at the edge of the asphalt in the driveway eating the azaleas. "Trevor, where did you get a horse?" he asked.
"I dunno. I just woke up and found it in the garage," Trevor shrugged.
"Who's garage?"
"I dunno."
"And you rode it here?"
"Why not?" He leaned across the car and threw open the passenger side door. "Now get in, bitch! We're going to the Toy Whore!"
"Toy store!" Tracey shouted before running to get in.
They hadn't even made it to the freeway yet and already the roads were backed up. Ever the patient one, Trevor hurled insults at everyone in front of him. "UGH! This fucking traffic is taking too long!" he shouted angrily. He held the car horn down for about fifteen seconds. "MOVE YOUR ASS, GRANDPA!"
"Yeah, that'll get everyone moving faster," Michael said sarcastically.
"Toy store!" Tracey shouted from the backseat.
"We'll get you to the toy store, hun. Right now traffic isn't moving," Michael reassured his daughter.
"Fuck this, if our little girl wants to go to the toy store, our little girl is going to the toy store!" Trevor shouted. He turned off the street and drove up onto the curb, nearly nailing a curiously stupid squirrel in the process.
"Trevor, you're on the sidewalk."
"Oh don't worry, I do this all the time!" he replied.
"Oh. Okay. For a minute there I was worried you had never heard of local traffic laws." Trevor put his foot on the pedal and the car bolted down the sidewalk. "Hey, you might want to drive a little slower there. My daughter's in the car."
"She's in a seat, she'll be fine," Trevor shrugged. The car jumped as they hit a massive bump. Both of them looked in the rear view mirror to see what it was. "Shit! I think I hit a deer!"
"Trevor, what the fuck! That was an old lady!"
"Old lady?"
"Yes, old lady!"
"Not a deer? Because they both look so much alike, sometimes it's hard to tell."
"We need to go back! She might still be alive!"
"Good idea! We gotta make sure we finish her off before she rats on us!" The rear view mirror lit up with red and blue lights and a distinct siren could vaguely be heard over the loud stereo.
"This is the police! Pull the fuck over now!" an amplified voice shouted at them from behind.
"Oh shit...honey, we're going to have to take a detour from that toy store!" Trevor shouted into the back seat.
"Toy store!" Tracey babbled.
"We'll take you to the toy store, but right now we're going to go play a game for a few hours. It's called 'Let's Hide With Daddy and Uncle Trevor Under a Pier at the Beach'!"
Trevor jerked the steering wheel sharply to the right and veered off the path into an alley. The lights illuminated the mirror once more as the cop followed closely. Trash cans and garbage flew over the windshield as he plowed over everything in his path.
"Step on it, T! Amanda's going to be pissed if I get Tracey taken away from us!" Michael shouted from the passenger seat.
"NO BACKSEAT DRIVING!" Trevor shouted at him before gunning it.
The car smashed through a wooden fence at the end of the alley, scaring a flock of birds up into the air. As he made a sharp turn left, Trevor reached towards the console with a free hand and flipped through the stations.
"Uh, maybe keep an eye on the road in front of us?" Michael suggested.
"If we die in a fiery crash, I don't want the last thing I hear to be fucking Madonna!" he shouted angrily.
They drove through several yards now, taking out someone's laundry hanging out to dry, demolishing a dog house, and running over a little kid's tricycle while the kids cheered from the back porch and their parents watched in horror as the police vehicle made chase not far behind.
Trevor reached into his pants and pulled out a shotgun. "Here! Shoot out their tires!" he said as he shoved it into Michael's hands.
"Where were you hiding that?!" Michael asked.
"You don't want to know!" Trevor shouted. "Less talky, more shooty!"
Tracey could hardly be heard laughing and shouting "Toy store!" from the backseat while Michael hung out the window and fired shells at the car behind him.
"Shots fired! I repeat, shots fired!" the cop shouted into the radio.
"Should we really be doing this with a baby on board?" Michael asked.
"That's right! We have a baby on board! She can help!" Trevor reached into his pants again and pulled out an assault rifle. "Give this to her!"
"I'm not giving my barely two year old daughter an assault rifle and telling her to shoot at cops!" Michael scolded. "What is wrong with you?!"
"No idea, the tests were inconclusive!"
"Give me that!"
Michael grabbed the assault rifle and once more hung out the window. He fired a spray of bullets at the pursuing vehicle. The front tires exploded and the car flipped up into the air and landed on its roof.
"Fuck! You think he survived that?!" Trevor asked as he watched the carnage through the mirror.
As it turned out the car was carrying a shipment of illegal fireworks in the trunk that had been seized as evidence just moments before the chase began. The discovery was made when the car exploded in an awe inspiring display of sparkles and explosions and the car itself flew straight up into the air in a giant fireball of death.
"Nope," Michael replied as he sat back down. "To the pier! Step on it!"
"Toy store!" Tracey shouted.
Michael lit up a cigarette as he tuned the police scanner from the glove box and propped it up on the dashboard. "Alright, sweetie. Now we just wait for the cops to lose interest and then we'll head to Toy Whore," he said towards the backseat.
"Toy store!" Tracey shouted excitedly.
A cool breeze blew across the ocean and through the open windows of the car. It was hot as hell, but in the shade of the pier they'd parked under it actually felt somewhat tolerable out here. Too bad they had to drive almost two hours out of the way to get here.
He looked to the empty driver's seat. The keys were missing from the ignition and the door was wide open. "Trev! Hurry up and finish taking a piss! I think it's almost time to go!" There was no answer. "Trevor, where are you? You better not be picking fights with kids again!" Suddenly he saw him. Trevor stumbled out into the open almost drunkenly and fell against the side of the car with the intent of using it for support. "Are you okay there, Trevor?" Michael asked with concern.
"I may have...ugh...found some pills behind a dumpster, so I decided to try them to see what they did," Trevor replied as he swayed back and forth.
"...you found some random pills, so you just decided to take them without even knowing what they are?"
"Yeah, I've been sober for a while and it kind of sucks, so I figured, why the fuck not?"
"Maybe I should drive now?"
"Drive the fuck where?" Trevor asked.
"Well we were going to the Toy Whore and then we were going back home, weren't we?" he asked.
Trevor felt up his clothes and then looked annoyed. "Fuck! Shit! I left the keys in my other pants!" It was then that Michael realized that Trevor was wearing a completely different set of clothes, one that was slightly too big on him and smelled ominously of slight decomposition.
"T...where are the keys to my car?" Rather than answering, Trevor started to waver and fell into the sand. "Trevor, how are we supposed to get home?"
"I 'unno...hitchhike," Trevor suggested before wandering into a random direction.
Michael watched Trevor hobble towards the ocean in a delirious stupor and jump into the water. "Trevor, where are you going?"
"I'm going to Atlantis!" Trevor slurred.
"Atlantis isn't out there, buddy," he replied.
"Well fuck you! I'm going to Atlantis and then I'm gonna fuck a mermaid, and you can't come with me because you're a dick!"
Michael watched him swim out into the waves and looked back at his daughter. "And that's how your Uncle Trevor died, exactly as he lived. High and stupid."
Michael was trying to show Tracey how to build a sand castle, but really she was more interested in eating handfuls of sand off the beach. He and everyone else on the beach looked up when they heard a scream.
The lady nearest to the water kept screaming as she saw a very wet man covered in seaweed and holding an octopus emerging from the sea. "What? You act like you've never seen some drunk asshole walk out of the ocean with a cephalopod before!" he shouted at her as she ran away. He dropped the octopus onto her towel and stole a cooler of beer from the sand.
"Trevor," Michael said with relief when he saw him. "Glad you didn't drown."
"Yeah well, apparently several swallows of fish piss and seawater were the exact antidote to whatever I took," Trevor replied. "So, are we headed out?"
"Just as soon as you tell me where my keys are," Michael nodded.
Trevor stared at him blankly. "Your keys?"
"Yes. My keys. The ones to my car. Where are they?"
He suddenly looked even more confused and stared off into the distance. "I have no fucking idea. I thought you had them..."
"You took them and put them in your pocket! Your exact words were 'so you can't leave without me'!"
Trevor reached into his pockets and looked at what he was wearing. He seemed to suddenly realize that he wasn't wearing what he had on before too. "Huh...don't remember putting this on..." he muttered.
"Trevor, how the fuck are we supposed to get home?!" Michael demanded.
"Relax, I'll get us home! Grab Tracey and meet me up by the boardwalk!" Trevor replied dismissively.
What Michael wanted to do was grab the shotgun and meet Trevor in a dark alley, but he did as instructed, gathering up the diaper bag and taking her by the hand. She insisted on walking, too fascinated with the seashells and seagulls to want to be held in her carrier at the moment.
True to his word, Trevor was waiting at the part of the boardwalk that met the street with a taxi on standby. "Michael! Over here!" he waved him over.
The driver was a very redneck-looking sort of guy who was clearly annoyed at something. Michael wondered if this was Trevor's doing or if he was always this unpleasant. He clearly looked like he wanted Michael to hurry the hell up as he strapped his daughter into her child safety restraints.
"So Michael, this guy is my new best friend," Trevor said. "His name is Whitey McCracker-Honkey."
"That's not my name," the cab driver said in a dull monotone.
"Shut the fuck up before I scoop your eyeballs out with a spork!" Trevor shouted back.
"So where to?"
"Take us to the Toy Whore! And step on it!"
"Toy store!" Tracey shouted.
"Trevor, put your seat belt on, it's the law," Michael said as he clipped his own seat belt on.
"Fuck the law, it can't tell me what to do!"
"Actually I think it kind of can, that's why it's called 'the law'," Michael pointed out.
"He's kind of right, sir. It's unsafe to ride without a seat belt on," the driver agreed.
"You know what else is unsafe to ride without?! Your fucking eyeballs!" Trevor shouted at him. "Now drive!"
"Alright. To the Toy Whore it is then," the driver sighed.
"Toy store!" Tracey shouted giddily.
The driver pulled away from the curb and mumbled, "I fucking hate my life."
The taxi driver pulled up into the Toy Whore parking lot. While Michael undid his daughter's seat belt, Trevor watched a guy come closer on a bicycle in a calculating manner. At just the right moment he flung the door open and the man collided with the vehicle, his head going through the window and his body falling limply onto the sidewalk. Trevor checked to make sure he was unconscious and dug through his pockets, removing his wallet and taking a handful of cash from it.
"Come on, sweetie! Uncle Trevor is going to buy you a new doll with this nice man's money!" Trevor said before tossing the empty wallet back onto the unconscious cyclist's body.
"Okay. I'll just wait here then. Losing wages," the cab driver said before heaving a huge sigh.
The inside of the Toy Whore was huge. It was definitely a good thing that Tracey was strapped to Trevor's front with the baby carrier, because she reached out for everything they walked past from giant rubber balls to expensive electronics.
"Geez, how hard is it to find a goddamn doll in a toy store?" Michael asked.
"Toy store!" Tracey shouted.
"Yes, we're at the toy store," Michael replied.
Aisles of transforming robots, colorful ponies, and realistic looking fake guns later, they finally found a section in the back containing a row of dolls. They stared at them, trying to decide which one would be the best for a barely two year old girl.
"So do we want 'Slutty Sarah' or 'Tramp Stamp Stephanie'?" Trevor asked as they sorted through the dolls.
"Why are there so many of them?!" Michael asked in disbelief. He reached for one and read the list of features on the back. "This one apparently talks," he said before hitting the try me button.
"Science is like, for boys!" the doll said in an obnoxious valley girl voice. "Maybe if I had bigger boobs, my dad wouldn't hate me so much!" it said when he hit it again.
"I don't know, do you think this one maybe?" he asked. "It might get annoying after a while, but I can probably just take the batteries out of it..."
"Ooh! That one comes with detachable breast implants!" Trevor shouted as he pointed out another doll on the shelf.
"That's perfect!" Michael shouted as he snatched that one instead.
"Yay!" Tracey shouted as she held her doll on the way to the front of the store.
"Oh...not yay," Michael groaned when they saw a long line that wrapped all the way around the store and only two registers open.
It was another hour by the time they made it through the line and out the door. By the time they got outside, they both froze on the sidewalk. The diaper bag, car seat, and stolen cooler of beer sat on the curb with a note that said "Find your own ride!" tucked into one of the bag's pockets.
"Fuck!" they both exclaimed simultaneously.
"Now how are we supposed to get home?" Michael asked in disbelief.
Trevor grabbed a beer from the cooler and popped the tab as he looked around. There was a bus pulling up to a bus stop a few feet away. There were two more cabs slowly driving by. An ambulance was parked outside a fast food restaurant next door.
"I know exactly how we're getting home!" he replied. "Hold my beer!"
And that's how they ended up in their second police chase of the day, inside a stolen ambulance with a jovially screeching toddler, a drunk man with a cooler of beer, and angry music coming from the tape deck while Trevor proclaimed, "Take a right onto that turnpike! I know a shortcut!"
Michael did as told, veering off to the right with a serious look on his face. One of the police cruisers making chase got clipped by a speeding convertible and spun out before exploding on the side of the highway.
"Why the hell do they always explode?" Michael asked as he floored the pedal.
"Quick, across that golf course!" Trevor instructed.
Michael swerved around golf carts as the police zigzagged behind, trying to keep up with them. One of them collided with a gopher hole and exploded on impact.
"One more cop to go! Across the canal!"
"Are you fucking insane?! There's no way I'm going to make that in an ambulance!" Michael pointed out.
"Just trust me! Drive up that conveniently placed ramp!" Trevor instructed.
Michael once more did as told, ramping off the side and flying over the waterlogged ditch below. "Whee!" Tracey giggled as they vaulted through the air and landed safely on the other side. The final police cruiser tried to keep up, only to collide with the canal wall and combust into flame.
"We did it!" Trevor shouted triumphantly. "We fucking did it!"
"Now let's get home before Amanda finds out where we've been all day!" Michael said with equal fanfare.
The ambulance screeched to a halt and spun out on the front lawn, ripping up the grass and sending chunks of dirt and flowers flying every which direction. Michael tripped and fell getting out of the front seat, leaving a man-sized imprint in the disturbed dirt, while Trevor got out beside him, knocking several empty beer cans all over the front lawn.
"You think Amanda will notice anything's wrong?" Michael asked.
Trevor walked through the stream of water pouring out of the fire hydrant they'd hit on the way in to get to the house. "Nah. She won't notice a damn thing," he replied.
"You're right. Let's go see if we have any whiskey left."
They both walked through the mist of water and up the front steps, tracking mud through the hallway and to the liquor cabinet, Tracey babbling happily from her carrier while she held her new doll tightly.
Amanda pulled up in her car and looked at the driveway in irritation. Water splattered the windshield. There was a racehorse eating the landscaping. Her husband's car was missing from the garage. There was a smashed up ambulance with the lights still flashing parked at an angle on the muddy, tire track-covered lawn, and discarded beer cans were scattered throughout the grass.
"Trevor's here," she mumbled distastefully.