'God-damn I need coffee' Dan thought as he awoke in his chair. He wanted to shout for Jay, but knew he was so hung-over he wouldn't be able to stand anything that loud in the morning, so instead hoisted himself out of the comfy, leather seat and set out on a voyage toward the kitchen, dodging tables, pizza boxes and walls on his way, only to find a cup of hot java waiting for him next to his laptop on the table.
"Sleep well?" Jay smiled behind his paper, before adding: "coffee, two sugars, with Irish cream, oh and by the way could you grab a few boxes of twenty-two calibre light rifle, forty-four magnum and twelve gauge, double-ought buck – we're running out again"
Danny gripped the mug and lifted the piping hot liquid to his lips taking a gulp of the thick, creamy, but ever-so-slightly bitter coffee. It was the perfect temperature, as always, and slid down his frayed and sore throat like a tar spill over a rough road, soothing everything instantly. His headache even started to dissipate, and the fire of the whiskey caught the pilot flame in his heart
"thanks man, I needed that like you wouldn't believe, I'll stop by Maggie's and grab a few boxes, need anything else?" he sighed as he stood up as fast as he dared, collecting his coat from the dining-room chair and heading for the door, mug in hand.
"Ermm, I don't think so, but there's a twenty on the side if we're out of beers" Jay replied from behind the paper, still engrossed in a story about a woman who found the original, master floppy disk of Ratchet and Clank 2 in a bin in West Virginia.
"Will do" Danny called as he grabbed the twenty dollars and closed the door behind him, the late morning air was hot, but not uncomfortably so.
He hopped down the steps to his car; a pristine restoration of a 1965 Pontiac GTO in candy purple, nothing was out of place, no mistakes, and everything from the interior to the engine was his. Danny caressed the bonnet as he walked up to the door of the beast, as the light glinted from the chrome, and the smell of hot, natural leather rose from the windows, he gripped the blistering hot handle of the car door and slipped himself in. This was his favourite place to be in the whole world; he slid his tatty converse trainers onto the brushed aluminium pedals, and moved his hands lovingly over the hand-made walnut steering wheel. 'Hey sweetie, did you miss me?' he thought to himself, and smiled as his hand twisted in the ignition and four-hundred-and-twenty-six cubic inches of Detroit steel roared like a polar bear mother protecting its children. He laughed and a wide smile spread across his face "today's going to be a good day".
On the open road with no cars heading either way, and no police or signs coming up, Danny felt a mischievous smile creep across his face 'Yes' he thought, and pushed his foot gradually into the carpet, the beast snorted and reared like a stallion, as the needle on the tachometer rose and rose. Forty, fifty, sixty-five, eighty, one-hundred and five, a hundred and thirty-five, a hundred and sixty, a hundred and eighty nine, two-hundred and two. The car whined and roared in tandem, its twin-turbo chargers forcing massive amounts of compressed air into the carburettor, while its big-block power converting fuel, air and road into noise and excitement.
"yahoooo" he screamed as the bear pushed two-hundred and ten, the noise coming from its tail-pipes astronomical, and as Danny shifted into the last gear, something happened that he had never felt before: The exhausts opened. Sound flooded through the car like a god's war cry. Each piston slamming their heads like battering rams on Asgaards walls'. A vacuum pulled the exhaust gasses from the bowels of the white-hot engine, and a sudden surge came from the back tires. The sound of the engine had dropped a few octaves since before; this was no longer for fun. As the tachometer kept creeping up, so did Danny's worry: two-twenty, two-thirty, how was the engine and more importantly the tires coping? Two-thirty-five he saw before he started pushing the brakes, carbon ceramics - so they wouldn't fail. The car lurched down the gears as it calmed and slowed; 'easy girl, easy' he thought to himself, as the beast's intercooler and Ram-air intakes desperately tried to cool its own choler. Braking harder, he could feel the new tires doing their job, gripping the dry ground and pulling the tachometer back down to more acceptable levels. Nervous laughter erupted from Danny's mouth and he patted the steering wheel with delight 'good girl, good girl' Danny's car was well-known in local drag-racing circles, but his latest addition; a VOE system from a 1970's Pontiac GTO, was unknown and until now, untested.
The fact that the whole car was practically hand-built and scrounged made Danny even more proud of it, but the nature of the beast made it bad on fuel and incredibly loud, and some of the parts weren't exactly what the police would call; 'road worthy'. Even so, it handled and drove like an animal, sounded like a beast and went like a burnt cobra, the interior was brown and cream leather, and finished in steel and chrome, nothing could make it better.