2008 Forty-One Days of Metallicar - Week Two
There's a countdown to the season four premiere happening on LiveJournal, which also celebrates the Impala turning 41 this year. Writers and artists contribute something every day. Last year, I did 40 Impala haiku. This year, so far, I'm doing drabbles: short stories of precisely 100 words in length, not counting the title. What follows are my entries for week two. Week one appears in Chapter One, and subsequent weeks will appear in future chapters.
Day Eight -- Consecration
"What could it hurt, John?"
"No offense, Padre, but I'm not much of a believer. Not any more."
Jim just smiled. They'd stayed with him for a week while John learned more about the evils that hid beneath the surface of the world. The peace Jim exuded affected them all; Sammy was sleeping better, and while Dean was still silent, his eyes had regained a little sparkle. For the first time since Mary died, John felt less … stretched. He sighed.
"Go ahead."
Jim sprinkled the hood with holy water.
"Oh Lord, bless this car and those who ride in her …"
Day Nine – Pickup
He'd lost track of the towns across the years; the towns, the cheap motels, the trailer parks, the vacant homes, the diners, the quickie marts, the gas stations, the libraries, the bars. They all blurred together like rain on the windshield, a uniform semitransparent watery grey memory flicked away by the wipers only to be replaced by more of the same, over and over and over again.
But predictability wasn't always depressing. One surety never failed him if he wanted company to sweeten his night; his single most reliable charm needed only one admiring look.
"Is that your car? Sweet!"
Day Ten – Prank
The screwdriver slipped in his sweaty hand and he forced himself to slow down. Getting caught would be bad, but scratching the paint would be grounds for justifiable homicide. He made it back into his seat just before Dean emerged from the gas station restroom and crossed in front of the car to slide behind the wheel.
"Ready, Sam?"
He grunted noncommittally, not trusting his voice, and looked out the window to hide his grin as Dean's pride and joy muscled down the highway, boasting a bright pink and purple rear license plate frame that gushed, "I (heart) Hannah Montana!"
Day Eleven – Rebuild
She looked like he felt: warped where she wasn't outright smashed, sagging on broken axles, bristling with unexpected sharp edges of shattered glass and steel, bled out of water, oil, and transmission fluid. He rested a hesitant hand on her caved-in roof and felt the wrongness of it, the echoes of the crash still shivering in the twisted metal or in his trembling hand, he wasn't sure which. Nothing was left of her surety and grace, her strength and power. She was lost and empty and alone, nothing left to give.
Watch out for Sammy.
He picked up a wrench.
Day Twelve – Never Be
Once upon a time he'd looked into the trunk and seen nothing but a spare tire, a litter of crushed cups, a handful of magazines, a couple of stray CDs, a flashlight, and a few rags and tools. And the floor of the trunk.
It had only been a dream, of course. He didn't think he'd ever actually seen the floor of the trunk, even growing up. Even before the weapons and tools totally supplanted clothes, books, and toys, they'd always lived out of it, cramming it full of family.
That empty trunk? Just a wasted life.
And not his.
Day Thirteen – Barometric Pressure
Dean was fourteen days dead before Sam fixed her broken taillight. He'd forgotten until a cop in Oconto Falls ticketed him. He bought a book and learned.
Only then did he realize that she'd been Dean's emotional barometer. Dean had always taken care of her, always … until after Dad disappeared. He remembered Dad ragging on Dean about touching her up when they finally found him, and realized that Dean had gradually slipped up on her maintenance as he'd gotten more worried about Dad. It happened again only as he died.
Sam wondered how she'd looked when he'd left for college.
Day Fourteen – Dream Cruise, Check
"Are you nuts?"
"Come on, Sammy. We'll never be noticed, not in those crowds. Well, we'll be noticed, but I mean, we won't be noticed – she will. What could it hurt, huh? Just one day?"
"A little matter of being wanted? Our pictures on post office walls?"
Despite his protests, Sam knew he'd give in. Dean had few dreams he'd ever shared. Showing the Impala in Detroit made the list his eighteenth birthday, when she became his.
When the Impala cruised gleaming down Woodward Avenue among forty thousand classic cars, Sam basked in Dean's ecstatic pride, and savored the memory.
A little follow-up note to the Day Fourteen drabble: the Woodward Dream Cruise is a real event that happens the third weekend in August in Detroit, Michigan each year. The first one took place in 1995. If you would ike to see what it looks like, just Google the name and feast your eyes!