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Slip, sliding away 1969 Mustang versus 1964 Pontiac GTO Put yourself into the story! Then show your friends! This page last updated on or about late 11-4-07 a - j m o o n e y h a m . c o m - o r i g i n a l

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've personally met face-to-face only a few celebrities in my life. All of them by accident or happenstance, as I'm not a groupie or autograph hound by nature. One of those I did encounter was Paul Simon of Simon and Garfunkel, who sang Slip Sliding Away. I met him in the lobby of the combination hotel/restaurant I worked at during the period described in this story. I think the reason for his presence was his wife of the time was native to my region. END NOTE.

Just scraping by It was after dark. My best friend Steve and I were attending a basketball game at a rival high school. I personally had zero interest in the game or sport. Or 'school spirit'. But Steve had successfully persuaded me to come to this particular game because both Sienna and Sue Anne would be there. Sue Anne was a cheerleader from our school while Sienna was our recently elected class body president. And recent beauty pageant winner as well. So she'd had significant real estate in the local newspaper lately. I was round-the-bend crazy over Sue Anne. Despite not really knowing her at all. Yeah, sure, she was beautiful. In my eyes anyway. Blonde. Model tall (or basically the same height as the average guy her age-- which was tall for a girl). She was also a fairly quiet and polite girl, so far as I could tell. But in hindsight it was likely a combo of her natural pheromones and my own burgeoning puberty that really did me in. For instance, I never even noticed Sue Anne until happenstance placed me in a desk immediately behind her in a class. See the proximity there? Smack dab in her pheromones field. Tsk, tsk.

Unfortunately even had I been aware of these factors I'm sure I wouldn't have possessed the presence of mind to successfully fight them off anytime soon. No, my fate was to suffer terribly through that horrendous crush for the remainder of high school and somewhat beyond. And perhaps let a few much better opportunities slip through my fingers in the meantime.

Sheesh!

Sienna was no slouch herself in the beauty department: recall the recent beauty pageant win. She had long medium dark brown hair and was of average girl height for her age. She bore a single narrow blonde streak through her hair I was never sure of as being natural or not. If not, then it was by far her most radical characteristic appearance-wise. She likely got better grades than Sue Anne: but I believe we're talking the difference between a valedictorian and straight-A or nearly so student. Sienna wore glasses, and seemed a paradoxical mix of outgoing and shy. For instance, she could hold her own in public speeches or debates but seemed nearly as shy as me in closer one-on-one encounters.

Sienna also dressed and acted very conservatively. Which may have been the single biggest reason she never tried out for cheerleader, what with the mini-skirt costumes and all involved.

Steve and I had helped Sienna with her presidential campaign. My own contribution had mostly been the brainstorming and creation of campaign posters for lining the school halls, and related chores.

Steve and I had spent an evening or maybe two at Sienna's home with other campaigners making the posters and planning strategies.

I'd also accompanied Sienna sans Steve to a good-sized meeting in the banquet room of a local restaurant for something around that period-- something official I'm sure-- but I can't recall the details. I believe there were roughly 20 to 30 people there total. Most or all of them high schoolers like ourselves. Sienna had stepped up onto some sort of wide ledge which ran across the bottom of a huge window (basically serving as the building's outer wall there) in order to better address the crowd. I think I helped her get up there, and then stood by her side during her brief speech to assist her descent afterwards (the ledge was a bit high for modest, knee-length skirt wearing Sienna to do on her own).

The young crowd seemed to sense some chemistry between Sienna and I. For when I carefully brought her back down again suggestive noises erupted from the audience. Embaressing us both into blushing, I believe.

Now tonight, at the game, Sienna was supposed to give another brief speech during half-time. But for reasons I still to this day don't fully understand, Sienna and Vicki got waylaid in the parking lot before they could get to the gym.

Vicki was Sienna's best friend of the time, and a cute girl in her own right. About the same height as Sienna but somewhat slimmer, and with very short light to medium brown hair which mostly ended at the nape of her neck.

Apparently the rivalry between our two schools got out of hand that night, or maybe mixed up with something else brewing at the time. But whatever the cause, Steve happened to hear about it while visiting the concession stand, checked out the situation for himself, and immediately rounded me up to help him throw together a rescue plan.

Though I was uneasy about leaving Sue Anne there, she didn't seem to be in danger inside the building, surrounded by her fellow cheerleaders, our basketball team, the audience in the bleachers, etc., etc. But according to Steve Sienna and Vicki most definitely were at risk outside, and couldn't get into the building.

We knew from experience trying to solve the crisis with whatever adult authorities were around would likely take too long-- if you could get them to do anything about it at all.

"You get the girls to your car while I distract the bastards," Steve told me.

As time seemed of the essence, I didn't question Steve on his method of distraction. Steve was extremely resourceful, plus pretty shrewd in regards to human nature. I was sure his distraction would work.

What I was less certain of was Steve's personal safety in the matter. Steve sometimes took enormous risks.

"OK. Be careful!" I urged him, as we went our separate ways once outside the gymnasium.

Steve and I had known Sienna and Vicki for some weeks by this point. We'd first met them while helping Sienna on her election campaign. To me and Steve Sienna and her friend Vicki were cute and friendly and unusual. They stood out from the pack in several ways.

There was also the weird round-about nature of the duo. That is, Sienna seemed to like me more than Steve. Usually among such a pair both liked Steve best. And if not that, the side-kick was the one who preferred me. And here Vicki was pretty much Sienna's side-kick as I was Steve's.

Although Vicki herself was pretty nice, Steve was an alpha male and always set his sights on the top female. If Sienna liked me better than him, it only made him even more determined to win her over.

Of course Steve liked Vicki a lot too. I knew this for a fact. So he'd pretty much still win even if he lost the battle over Sienna.

Unless of course he simply bungled the whole thing due to having too many girlfriends at the same time. That would be one of Steve's biggest ongoing problems throughout much of the first couple decades that I would know him.

Anyway, the present mob threat in the parking lot might have been just the chance he needed to win Sienna over. To Steve's mind anyway. Opportunity knocks!

I liked Sienna a lot. But the Sue Anne thing just had me confused in all sorts of ways, which often left me almost apathetic towards other romantic possibilities of the time.

And from what I know of pheromones now, some thirty years later, once one set has a lock on you it might keep it for a year or more, on average. Agh!

Plus, I knew Steve was after Sienna, and that even had I contested it with all the resources at my disposal, I likely wouldn't have stood a chance.

That was my mindset anyway.

But back to the parking lot mob...

When Steve said he'd distract the gang he meant it. And it was spectacular. In a scary and outrageous sort of way.

I have to say it was pretty brave of him. And creative too, seeing as how he had to come up with something on the spur of the moment with no prep beforehand.

Steve suddenly appeared out of nowhere stark naked and shouting epithets at the mob. The crowd's attention quickly shifted-- at least temporarily-- to the crazy naked guy seeking suicide. Giving me the chance to locate Sienna and Vicki and hurriedly maneuver them towards Shadowfast.

I hoped to hell Steve could elude the wrath of the mob after they discovered they'd been duped.

This particular event occurred before I'd even named Shadow. Back then he was just my car.

Shadow in those days sported a black enamel paint job like maybe every tenth car you saw on the road. I'd done little visible customization to his appearance so far.

His interior was a sickly white, forever dingy from whatever the heck the previous owner had done with him. I couldn't get the interior to look better no matter what I did to it.

He'd received virtually zero hot rodding modifications but for traction bars, due to my need simply to get him running and presentable after purchase-- and then running and presentable a second time after three different crashes took their toll. Ouch! But I had been gaining experience driving him at speed and trying a few practice versions of maneuvers I read about in car magazines.

Surprisingly, the three bad crashes I'd had with him so far had not involved any of those practice maneuvers.

So anyway, the night of the game mob Shadow was sporting the best look he'd had in quite a while. Completely restored body work, fresh paint, and all. It'd cost me a small fortune to put him right again like this.

Steve of course had lost his Boss 351 sometime before, and so was presently dependent upon me and Shadow for most of his running around.

It was fairly dark in the school parking lot as it didn't offer many light poles across its span. But at least we could see something. And the semi-darkness had helped in the retrieval of Sienna and Vicki from the midst of the angry crowd.

I was taken aback when we reached my car to discover we'd been pinned in by other vehicles in the lot since arrival.

As the parking lot lacked much in the way of guidelines or markers, people had parked in a largely pell mell fashion. There was still a narrow corridor running half a dozen car lengths directly behind Shadow which we might navigate to get out-- but it appeared at least slightly too constricted in spots. Agh!

But the situation was serious. I was positive somebody was going to get hurt before that mob was satisfied. And I didn't want it to be Sienna and Vicki.

The mob of course was now between us and the gymnasium. So there was no escape there.

We couldn't open Shadow's doors due to the closely parked cars on either side, so I had to help Sienna and Vicki slide in through the open windows. As the two of them were wearing dresses and fairly proper in their ways, it was an uncomfortable experience for both.

Nice for a teenage boy though!

And yes, Steve and I had left the windows rolled down in the parking lot for some reason. Mostly because we were young and inexperienced and taking lots for granted I suppose. Partly because we hadn't yet suffered the thefts and vandalism we would later on.

But it was lucky we'd done so that night. Otherwise we might not have been able to get away at all.

I'd take a lesson from this night, and after that always seek a parking spot at the periphery rather than the center of things. Yes, that means more walking as a byproduct, but walking's good exercise anyway!

I slid into the car too after the girls and cranked up. Sienna was in the front passenger seat, Vicki in the back. I figured I'd better start trying to back out of this place immediately in order to increase our chances for escape.

But gosh, it was an agonizing task. The smell of my new paint still made itself known to you every time you got in. Now I was going to be scraping it off to get us out of the lot.

All that bodywork and paint had cost me a fortune.

I wished Steve was there to help.

And suddenly there he was! Sliding into the passenger side window, urging Sienna to climb between the front seats and into the back to make room for him.

Prim and proper Sienna was helped motivated to action by the fact Steve was still naked, carrying his clothes under one arm.

Being an immature American male, the sight of squeaky clean girl-next-door Sienna turning her head to be confronted so seemed the height of naughty hilarity. I even wondered if somehow Steve had planned for that to happen.

Sienna blushed mightily I'm sure at that-- for I'd seen her do so before with far less provocation. But I don't know for certain because of the dim lighting and the hurried circumstances.

I had to strongly restrain myself from laughing aloud in order to spare her further embaressment. But there was no way I could keep from smiling fiercely.

Shadow still had a back seat in those days. Or at least what Ford called a back seat. In actuality it was something less than that. But technically it would hold two adults of slightly less than average stature in cramped style. And more, if inflicting various degrees of misery upon your passengers wasn't a concern.

Once he realized the need Steve partially disembarked from the car again, sitting naked on the window sill of the passenger side door, trying to direct me through the parked car maze with a minimum of damage to all concerned.

I had my head out the window on my side trying to do the same. But the other cars were so close our efforts were largely futile. Plus Steve and I weren't well practiced working together yet.

That moment would have made a good sight gag for such classic slapstick as one guy giving the other the go ahead in maneuvering a vehicle until the sound of a crash was heard, at which point he yelled "stop!".

The noise of our passing was awful. Like the ultimate scraping of fingernails on a chalkboard-- only the nails being of metal. Punctuated by an occasional sound of metal rending or popping, or the glass in a side mirror busting to sprinkle the ground.

We scraped cars on both sides through maybe three or four of the rows to get out. Yikes! Amazingly (to me) my driver's side door mirror didn't get ripped off along the way. I had no passenger side mirror at the time.

But we felt we had little choice about our actions. No sooner had we emerged from the horde of parked vehicles but here came the gang with murder in their eyes.

I had to drive backwards at a fairly rapid clip entirely through and out of the parking lot and around a winding drive as the gang threw bottles and other things at us and tried to pull us out of the car as we passed.

I tried to go slowly enough to give everyone a chance to get out of the way, but if someone had insisted on it I would likely have run over them in that moment. Luckily nobody challenged me that way.

I think Steve punched one or two of them along the course (he'd slid back completely into the car once we'd escaped the scraping metal gauntlet). Me, I pulled one guy's grasping hand off me as we passed through.

Though there was quite a noisy commotion at the time I could still make out gasps and little shrieks coming from Sienna and Vicki in the back as we proceeded. And Steve cursing, of course.

A glance through the windshield indicated some of the gang going for their own cars in our wake.

"Looks like they're coming after us man," Steve said in a low voice he seemed to be hoping Sienna and Vicki wouldn't hear, even as he hastened to get dressed once again.

"I know," I replied the same way.

"What are you going to do?" Steve asked me, as he continued donning his clothing. Although Steve was usually the leader between the two of us, I was the one driving at the moment, in my own car. And on occasion I had a decent bout of creativity in such situations.

But being already busy I couldn't do much ad hoc formulation. So I was open to suggestions.

"Don't know yet. Any ideas?"

"Let me think about it," Steve answered in non-committal fashion. Heck: Steve had done his job of distraction. Now it was my turn to get us out of here!

But first things first.

"Everybody put their seat belts on! You're going to need them!" I ordered everyone. As I was pretty occupied with the steering wheel Steve helped me get myself belted.

I got to a place I could turn around with minimal hassle and did. I wasn't yet skilled at fast on-the-fly 180 degree turns in this stage of Shadow ownership.

We approached the intersection of the main highway with me wondering which way would be best to go. Toward town or away?

Both directions offered some scary curves to traverse at speed. But toward town we'd also encounter cops during our high speed run, and likely have to high tail it onto a whole different highway out of town soon after. I wasn't sure we could get through the shortest route to Sienna's house on that course.

In the direction away from town lay a long, mostly winding road eventually leading to Gatlinburg, the biggest local tourist trap around. About three-quarters of the way though were some decent straights where you could cover lots of ground fast, and usually see way ahead of time someone threatening to pull out of a side road into your path.

Of course you didn't have to go to Gatlinburg that route. By simply not turning right at a certain intersection you could head up into the mountains towards Cherokee country instead. But that might mean Steve and I having Sienna and Vicki out way past the curfews we knew their parents had on them.

Yeah, I guess it sounds funny about me worrying over curfews under such circumstances. But in some ways I was personally almost as respectful of parents as Sienna herself. I guess I was also maybe too confident about escaping pursuit. For now that I had the girls on the road, I felt like it'd be difficult for any pursuit to delay me that long, if I was truly doing my best to get away.

My subconscious nudged me to the left, and we took the more dangerous course, tires squealing as I briefly floored it to build up some speed fast. If we could get out of sight before the first gang car emerged they'd have to split their forces and try both routes.

Alas, I'd forgotten that this road for the next half mile or so sort of ran around an elliptical valley with a vast field of grass sunk down in the middle and no tree cover to speak of there. So even at night like this our tail lights were still clearly visible for a long ways afterwards.

I realized this as I watched in my rear view mirror every single car pulling out behind us heading in our direction.

This was before I had a wide-angle rear view mirror in Shadow. So I was having to manually move my factory interior mirror around to see what was happening behind. As well as get verbal updates from Steve.

Well, let them come, I thought.

I wasn't yet an expert driver. But I was working on it. And frequently practiced on this very road, among others. So I was maybe a little ahead of the game driving it fast at night than our pursuers might expect.

Plus Shadow was plenty fast. And handled pretty decently too. Despite being factory standard in everything suspension but for wheels and tires.

1969 Ford Mustang Mach Ones were set up for a surprising amount of derring-do right from the factory-floor. But it'd be a while before I realized my dumb luck on that point, in choosing such a car in the first place.

Well, I had added traction bars. But to combat wheel hop during hard acceleration and deceleration. I doubted they'd help much on anything else.

We raced around somewhere between a half dozen and a full dozen curves, all four tires squealing from the lateral G-forces, as I sought to build up a lead our pursuers couldn't overcome.

Then I saw it: I'd forgotten about the parkway! At least consciously. I needed to make a sharp left.

"Hold on everybody!" I yelled, just before I stomped on the brakes. Shadow made a drastic deceleration to maybe 30-40 mph and I veered to the left onto the parkway in a tiny power slide (it was a 90 degree turn).

Then I got heavy on the gas again to try getting out of sight before our pursuit came around the previous bend of the highway. I hoped the sheer suddenness of the maneuver would surprise them as well, making them not even consider the possibility of such a turn.

But I knew I shouldn't count on it. So I powered up the inclined roadway which normally offered tourists a scenic route through the forested hills here. The place was also something of a local make out spot, with several locations where up to twenty or thirty cars could park at once. But rarely did you find more than a handful anywhere, even at the height of the tourist season and in the middle of the day.

Steve and I had actually discussed our desire to bring Sienna and Vicki up here to park a bit, once or twice in the recent past. But never gotten the chance so far. Now here we were, but we didn't dare stop.

The parkway was fairly curvy itself in spots, but the asphalt was deliciously rough. Almost perfect traction-wise for taking curves at speed. When I say rough I mean the general texture; there were few if any potholes or other such annoyances to speak of.

Alas, there was little banking on the curves though. For the road wasn't meant for rapid transit.

I knew the parkway even better than the previous highway. So I fluctuated between 40 and 80 mph along its length, reaching its connection to the interstate within only a minute or two. No way the gang could catch us now I thought, as we wound around the fairly radical interstate entry ramp at the parkway's end.

And radical was the word for it. Even experienced racers capable of breaking records on the parkway itself might find themselves crashed here in the final turn. For the curve was tight and wound around maybe 270 degrees to enter the interstate.

It was neat! One of my very favorite curves in the whole area! I could never get enough of it! Too bad you had to traverse such a lengthy out-of-the-way course to get to it. The entry ramp's mate-- the interstate exit onto the parkway in this location-- was much more of a normal track, and so not nearly so much fun.

I turned out to be correct about our pursuit. I'd lost them with that turn off onto the parkway. But even if I hadn't there were few around who could have caught us after that, with the lead I'd built.

But there's always things going on behind the scenes of which you're unaware. Or else stuff you don't consider, but should.

Naturally Steve and I didn't afterwards speak much about that brief chase, for lots of reasons. Heck, that chase had not been much different from our usual routine-- but for ruining my paint job and the girls being involved, that is. But Sienna and Vicki did talk about it, apparently. And not just with one another.

And that eventually led the gang responsible for instigating the mob in the parking lot right to me.

The gang hadn't really gotten a good look at either Steve or I that night (face-wise I mean). But they had gotten an idea as to Shadow's make and model. And pieced together the whole scraping escape thing. Which also made the scraped evidence along Shadow's sides a handy identifying marker for them. It wasn't much of a leap to figure we were students from the same school as Sienna and Vicki, either.

And yes, I was a teenager. Completely oblivious at times to even the most obvious of things.

For instance, I didn't realize that I should immediately buy a dollar can of black spray paint and make the most obvious scrapes on my car disappear. No, I figured I'd have to drive it like that for several months while saving the money to have the pros do the enamel thing for me again. You know? Vanity? Teenage high school vanity.

So between my unthinking behavior, Shadow's telltale battle damage, and good old girlish gossip, the gang was able to set its sights on me.

Surfing to beat the band

I'd met my friend Ben at his car in the school parking lot after school to trade a tape of music. I'd known Ben since maybe the second grade, and for a while in high school he was probably my very best friend. Until Steve came along, and rapidly took his place.

Basically Ben was too much like me. Steve was much more outrageous and adventuresome and fun than either Ben or myself. So as the weeks passed, I spent more time with Steve, and less with Ben.

During the time of the scraping escape, I was in mid-transition friend-wise, I suppose.

Ben had a very nice light green pearl painted 1967 Camaro with black vinyl top and front and rear spoilers. Maybe it had a 327 motor in it-- that's difficult to recall as Ben wasn't into racing like me. Though his Camaro was older than Shadow, it'd been much better cared-for by its previous owners, and it showed. It seemed almost like new both inside and out.

It wasn't raining at that time, but it had been earlier in the day. The ground and air seemed well drenched with moisture. That was the first time I saw Lindsay. She was standing with her back to my car, leaning against the driver's side door, some distance away from us. She seemed to be waiting for somebody. But I figured it surely wasn't me. For I'd never seen her before in my life.

"You mean you know her?"

"No. I've seen her before though. Or I think I have."

"So why the dire warning if you don't know her?"

"Just things I've heard, is all. But I could be mistaken."

"Well, she's not budged from my car, so I guess I'll have to go see what the story is."

"Be careful Jerry."

Ben turned out to be right of course. But I just had to find out for myself.

I walked up and introduced myself, and learned her name. Lindsay Finch.

Lindsay was hoping I'd give her a ride home.

"Why me in particular?" I asked.

"Sienna York knew I needed a ride today and told me to ask you. Said you'd helped her with a lot worse trip and figured you'd do the same for me."

"You're a friend of Sienna's then?"

"Not exactly. I met her during the beauty pageant."

"Oh! You were a contestant too?" Darn if she didn't seem to qualify from what I'd seen so far!

"No," she smiled. "I was just there with friends. But I did meet Sienna there."

"What else did Sienna say about me helping her with a trip?" This was the first I'd heard of Sienna telling others about our little escape from mob-ville. For some reason it hadn't occurred to me to worry about the girls talking about it.

"Nothing much. Just said it was a little scary but turned out OK."

Well, that sounded all right.

"Where are you needing to go?"

"Up Crosby way. Past Pyles apple orchard."

Wow. That'd take me a little while. I checked my watch. Well, if I didn't make my usual stop over at the house before work-- and stepped on it a bit-- I might not be late for my job. If we left right now.

"OK. Hop in," I told her, nudging her aside to unlock and open the door, then reaching across to the other side to yank up the lock button there, as she rounded the front of the car.

"Better strap in. I'm going to have to hustle to get back in time for work," I told her. She dutifully belted herself, as I did the same. Then I cranked up Shadow and we were on our way. A light misting rain would be apparent off and on along the route.

Lindsay was going to guide me to her place in those spots I wasn't familiar with. In-between those aids though we made small talk.

Something was bothering me.

"So you go to Brewster High?"

"Yeah. But not long. Just the past week or so. My family moved recently."

OK. That made more sense. For I was certain I'd have noticed a looker like Lindsay at school over past months. There were only some 1200 kids at our school, total.

"So where'd you go to school before?"

"Crosby."

A little alarm bell went off in the back of my mind, but I ignored it, figuring it was just a coincidence. Then Lindsay told a surprisingly dirty joke that made me laugh and forget all about her previous admission.

After we turned off the main road we encountered several miles of rough asphalt. By that I mean it'd been patched to death and still not enough. Potholes abounded, and had to be avoided where possible due to their severity.

The poor state of the road slowed our progress down some.

Following her directions I soon found us entering a big junkyard resembling an enormous fort built of trashed cars, with its own maze of like walls inside. I started getting uneasy despite Lindsay telling me her dad ran the place and so their home was nearby.

"So how come you switched to Brewster from Crosby? It seems Crosby would be closer here." I observed.

"We're right on the dividing line between school districts here so we can choose which school to go to. I chose Brewster after we moved," Lindsay told me.

Well, she'd explained it. But still I was getting a bad feeling about all this. And Ben's words returned to me: ...she's bad news. I'd stay away from her if I was you.

"How much farther is it?" I asked. I was now wanting to drop her off and get out of there, quick. All the dead cars stacked around us seemed ominous for some reason.

"Just a couple more bends..." she encouraged me.

We turned a corner into a large open space which came as a surprise after the cramped maze. I could see several junker automobiles still sporting wheels and sitting on the ground in the space, with a few guys either sitting atop them or leaning against them, like they were taking a break. Or waiting for something.

The wheeled cars were parked along the footing of a wall of stacked junkers, which seemed to form a rough circle around the open ground.

The place strongly resembled an arena built of mangled machines.

The handful of mobile wrecks parked around the circle had numbers painted on their sides. But their bodies were so battered it looked like the numbers had been applied ages ago.

There was a tiny shack to one side of the place, and Lindsay indicated for me to stop there.

I headed for the shack fairly slowly, nervously checking the place out by turning my head first to one side and then the other. That's when I noticed it.

Behind us-- the way we'd come-- one of the previously parked junkers moved to block the exit.

Oh shit.

I sped up to cross the muddy expanse looking for another way out, thereby alerting the crowd that I was now wise to their trap. Lindsay began yelling she wanted out, but I was now afraid to stop at a place not of my own choosing. I figured I'd let her out anywhere but the little shack.

Then I noticed all the guys I'd previously observed taking it easy getting into the other parked junkers.

I'd apparently driven straight into a home-grown demolition derby arena, by arrangement of some of the Crosby school gang members Steve, Sienna, Vicki, and I had escaped from weeks before.

I could find no obvious way out at the far end of the arena, and so spun around to a stop there.

I turned angrily towards Lindsay and ordered her to get out immediately if that's what she wanted. I think I scared her. I hoped I did. She jumped out and I stretched way over to slam the door closed again, then pushed the gas pedal down once more.

Lindsay slipped and fell in the mud in her haste to escape my fate. Maybe Shadow's spinning rear wheels contributed to her new brown coating some too.

Lindsay's mud-splattered form gave me an idea, and I began racing around the arena in an enormous doughnut as fast as I could, spraying as much mud as I could over all the other cars just now beginning to get underway.

I was hoping to blind the suckers. Or at least reduce their visibility.

Thank God for that mud! And Shadow's wonderful mud-throwing capacity! I managed to get in almost a complete 360 degrees run of heavy duty mud-slinging before the demolition cars got to moving too well for the trick to continue working.

Yeah, there weren't any windows to speak of in the derby cars. But I could sure coat the helmets or bare heads and faces of the drivers in many cases. I figured any reduction in their visibility I could affect now would be helpful in what was to come.

And then I saw an even better opportunity. Another exit from the arena not easily apparent until you were right on top of it. It was a place where the inner wall ended on one side but continued on the other, only angling outwards at a tangent, hiding a road which led to somewhere else in the yard.

I felt I had no choice but to try it. So I would.

If I could make it around one more time, that is. For I'd seen it too late in my first pass to exploit it in the slippery mud and with the power slide I was using to catapult brown muck all over my enemies.

The second pass would be tougher. The junkers were all in motion now, and I wouldn't be able to command a track near the outer perimeter this time as I had before. Now it was dodge ball time. With my car! Agh!

It'd sure take lots more than paint to fix anything these junkers did to Shadow!

The middle of the arena was much more treacherous than the perimeter, as your enemies could come at you from all directions there. And it didn't help that it was one unholy mess there, ground-wise. I guess because it'd suffered more traffic over its lifetime. It was not only slippery with mud, but filled with hard humps too. Years later I'd hear Steve refer to hard-packed snow versions of these on ski runs as "moguls".

I'd had a bad experience with dry versions of such humps (accompanied by gravel) in my last crash, which resulted in great damage to my car and a humongous repair bill. But that had come from me not wearing my seat belts and being thrown around inside my vehicle, thereby losing control.

I was belted in now.

Speeding over these muddy humps and splashing back down again on their far side only to then smash front first into the next felt like it was pretty hard on Shadow. But what choice did I have?

Fortunately the humps also helped prevent my attackers from getting a fast and straightforward run at me.

Luckily by that time in my early driving years I had already learned the trick about turning into skids to regain control of a car when needed. I used that one over and over again that day!

Shadow and I played keep away with the thugs for a minute or two, until I finally got close enough again to the hidden exit to go for it. And I did.

Suddenly we emerged from the maze of stacked car walls to see the muddy flats surrounding a big pond. At least a couple dozen or so car lengths wide, left-to-right. Maybe a bit less than that from the nearest shore to its far opposite. I skidded to a stop frantically looking for somewhere else to go. But there was nothing there but the damn pond and various sorts of metal debris as you might expect in such a place. With miscellaneous car junk and some substantial looking trees running right up to the pond's edge and beyond (into the water), there was no way to go around the vast liquid obstacle before me.

I understood now why they hadn't blocked this particular exit.

Here came the ramming mob. One at a time, as the gap marking the arena's exit was fairly narrow.

I was going to have to try running through the pond, I decided. It looked way too deep for that, but the only other way out was ramming my way through multi-ton junked autos and a winding junkyard maze after that...

I couldn't believe what a spot that Lindsay girl had put me in.

Then I felt a glimmer of hope. It was crazy, but it was there.

There was some sort of large wooden framed panel on the shore of the pond. It looked intact, and big. Its flat surface (it looked like it had one) facing down. Maybe it'd once been a piece of a highway billboard sign? Or was one wall of a demolished mobile home? Or a chunk of a prefab house kit? I had no idea of its original purpose, but it was far bigger than Shadow, it was at least partially wooden, and it was somewhat flat.

If nothing else, if I could take that panel with us into the pond it'd cut down a little on the water's depth, plus give us a surface less slick than mud, and so maybe offer us a fighting chance to get to the other side.

If the pond wasn't too deep, anyway.

I gunned it again, but not too much, in order to compensate for the slippery mud. Then I rethought it all and down-shifted to first and tried again. The first damn derby car was approaching on a course to angle ram us in the driver's side as we got underway again.

The junker drivers were apparently experienced and knew our rear end was our least vulnerable spot. Broadsides and ramming of our vulnerable front end were their priorities. After first immobilizing us that way, they could do anything else they wanted.

For a second I actually tried to consciously work out how to achieve what I needed here-- but then realized I couldn't in the time available.

I'd just have to feel my way through.

As we neared the water's edge though my hopes dimmed, as my certainty grew that I'd have to abandon a sinking Shadow in the middle of the pond, swim to the opposite shore, and try escaping on foot.

If I made it out OK maybe Shadow would be safe from ramming in the pond, and I could come back with cops-- or weapons-toting friends-- and get him towed out of there.

Damn it!

I guess I should also mention here that I was being optimistic in regards to making a swimming escape. For the sole swimming experience I had up to that time was a Red Cross course my parents had enrolled me into at the city park pool, maybe five or more years before. I'm not sure if it was a one day affair, or several. But it seems there were something like a half dozen or so stages to the instruction, with each stage more advanced than the one before. I did great in all of them-- except the final one. The last stage involved diving into the deep end of the pool and swimming out, and I guess I panicked in the water. So I didn't pass the course.

Sometime after this junkyard pond experience I'd prove for sure I'd grown beyond the deep water panic of my Red Cross training. But in the moment I wasn't too concerned about drowning, even if I should have been. Maybe the additional years of experience in dicey situations had made me more confident.

I managed to get up a pretty good velocity prior to reaching the panel. Our front tires hit the first rails of the wooden frame like they'd jumped railroad tracks. Ugh! I was sure I'd damaged Shadow in some way with that. It proved even more violent when the rear tires hit, skidding atop and over the thick wooden members. We had to cross other such planks edge-wise too, some at angles. It was awful.

I wasn't sure at all of my timing. But I figured as slippery as everything was I had to stomp on the brakes just as soon as I was sure the rear wheels had landed inside the first framework beam. And hope we didn't bust through whatever material formed the floor of the thing.

It seemed to be working! The whole vast panel-- helped I suppose by the slippery mud and water beneath it-- seemed to be set in motion by our skidding stop atop it, and headed out across the pond towards its far shore.

Hey! We were surfing, man!

For about half a second I thought we had it made.

Then we began diving like a submarine. Holy shit!

I watched the front end of the huge panel slide beneath the water-- with the rest of it following immediately behind.

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Shadow had come to a stop about a third of the way from the tail end of the great sign or whatever it was. So I got to watch a lot of sign go underwater before the liquid reached us.

A look back at the shore showed a mix of dumbfounded and gleeful faces amongst my pursuers as they beheld the spectacle of our pending submergence.

Goddamn it!

The outside water level soon reached the bottom of the doors and began pouring in there. Shadow was still idling, but I didn't know for how long.

Some time earlier I'd flooded him out in a similar situation headed to school after a heavy night's rain, by attempting to drive through a temporary pond at a suburban intersection near my home.

That stranding had proved quite embarrassing for a high school student such as myself, and I'd since tried to analyze what happened and take some preventative measures against future incidents. Mainly I'd made my own fan shroud to replace the one missing on Shadow when I bought him. My dad had helped me figure out how, as I was new to metal fabrication. I figured the shroud would reduce the amount of water thrown over the engine by the fan in high water situations. Later I would do more in this regard, but at the moment that was it.

What could I do now, as we sank? I could rev the motor higher maybe to stave off choking as more and more water made it past the shroud. But when the end came I'd have to shut it down to minimize how much water was pulled in.

Of course that might not matter at all after Shadow sat on the pond bottom for hours-- or even days(!)

I wondered how much it would cost to fix him after this.

Yeah, I suppose I should have been more worried about the beating I might get from the hoodlums if they caught me, but I was accustomed to that due to my daily school environment. I preferred one-on-one combat of course. But you can't always get what you want.

I usually suffered only a matter of days from most beatings. Making the money to fix up Shadow though-- that pain could linger on for months.

Well, the water got high enough to soak my butt in my seat, and Shadow was starting to cough, so I shifted into neutral and revved him some to add more gas to the mix he was drinking. I was holding us in place with the brakes.

Steam began coming out around the edges of the hood and I realized it'd been doing it a bit previously from all around us, as the water contacted the hot exhaust system on our underside.

The windows began to fog up all around too, so I switched on the defroster fan.

The absurdity of it all would have been funny if vehicle loss, possible drowning, and a fierce beating didn't all seem imminent.

Shadow's normal engine sounds changed as the water muffled them more and more into something like gurgling.

We'd made some progress across the pond with our big sign assisted slide, but we were slowing up now, and it looked like it was getting time for me to cut the ignition and bail.

I guessed the pond must be fairly deep.

Then I perceived a possible signal of redemption.

The long forward section of the sign ahead of us seemed to be coming back up again! We were rising! Hallelujah, we were rising!

I didn't know how or why, but our glide through the water was headed up in altitude again.

Then I realized the reason.

The front of the big board was rising because the rear-- where we were-- was descending. Yikes!

Oh man! And we were almost across the pond! So close!

I looked around again and saw and heard my antagonists hooting and hollering at my predicament from the far shore. By that time Lindsay too had apparently made her way to the edge of the arena exit. She was hard to immediately pick out with her new mud covering against the not much different color scheme of the lower arena wall. Damn her. I was too far away to make out her expression. But I supposed she was grinning and laughing along with the rest of them.

Shadow's cough was getting worse, we continued to slowly sink, and our progress towards the shore was slowing drastically. It was now or never.

I let up on the revs to put us back into first gear again, then went for it. A desperate leap for the shore. I gunned the motor.

But rather than go anywhere, Shadow seemed pretty much to stay in the same spot. Offering me a real world example of Newton's laws of motion, as the lighter weight board below us began shooting backwards towards the shoreline we'd just left. Damn it! The only good thing about the action was our progress over the sign's wooden board framework was cushioned a little by the water's buoyancy.

So we basically rolled the long panel out from under us and fell into the water at that point.

Damn it!

But we were tantalizingly close to the opposite shore, and Shadow and I strived mightily to get there before we drowned out.

The water around us seemed about half the way up the outsides of the doors now, with it somewhat lower inside, covering my lap and still pouring in. But our wheels seemed to be touching bottom, so we had a chance. I hoped.

Shadow's engine compartment, being the forward-most part of us, had the lowest water level at that moment.

Our rear tires were doing a lot of spinning, maybe digging too deep into the pond bottom muck. But we slowly-- agonizingly slowly-- made some progress out of the water. Spinning all the way.

I kept on spinning Shadow's tires, and kept his revs relatively high, trying to give him more gas than water as he tried to swim for it.

Horses can swim, can't they? And he was a Mustang, damn it!

Then we struggled onto the shore at last, spinning our wheels the whole way, Shadow's tail end swerving from side to side almost like a big dog trying to shake off water after a dunking.

I was desperately afraid Shadow would die if I let up on the throttle, as drenched as I knew his engine compartment had to be. So once we made the shore I continued on at as rapid a clip as I dared, seeking a further escape from our literal quagmire.

I couldn't afford more than a fast glimpse back at them, but our tormentors no longer seemed to laughing.

Shadow and I semi-skidded along the shore to a spot offering muddy access to something beyond the barrier of trees and brush which blocked us everywhere else on this side of the pond, and drove through it.

I had to keep Shadow revving or he'd die, I was sure. So I stayed in first gear and tried to seek out every opportunity for spinning the tires as I could get, even as I sought more legs to add to our escape route.

Shadow's engine began giving off some awful squealing noises then, denoting what I assumed to be horrible water damage of some kind. And steam continued to come from various body seams. Maybe the cold water had busted the hot block and we were losing compression? Agh! All I could do was hope he'd hold together a little bit longer.

I finally got us onto a way running around the outer wall of the junkyard, dodging about various debris like randomly placed junk cars and parts piles, and over some bushes and saplings.

I was sure the amazingly loud squealing and screaming coming from Shadow's motor would help those inside monitor our progress around their immense playground of automotive destruction.

Then we'd made it around to the main gate of the yard! I could retrace the rest of the steps from memory, getting us back to the main highway.

Shadow was still coughing some, but running good enough to get us out of here it seemed. Except for the squealing like a stuck pig part.

Of course the damn derby drivers had had time to wind their way through the yard maze too by now, and they started emerging from the gate about thirty yards behind us.

I figured they'd try to get us before we reached the main highway, for those junkers were highly illegal to drive there, what with no headlights or taillights, and no glass in their windows either.

Crap! We weren't out of the woods yet. There was several miles of piss-poor asphalt here which would be pretty hard to take at speed even if we weren't still half-choked with water. Hitting the pot holes was like being struck by grenades. The plentiful water still in the floorboards splashed and sprayed across the interior from the shock of some hits, spotting my eyeglasses and windows with beads of water and clouding my vision.

I instinctively turned on the wipers for help, but of course most of the water I needed removed was on the inside rather than outside of the glass. It was a weird and confused situation, with my windows somewhat fogging on both inside and outside surfaces, plus being spotted by water both places too at the same time.

I couldn't believe I hadn't already knocked one of Shadow's wheels clean off the car, or blown a tire, when we ran edge-wise over the two by fours or whatever the boards were in the framework of the sign. And now we were bouncing through sharp-edged craters in the road. Agh!

At least the holes helped a bit to take my mind off Shadow's continued screaming. Argh! I must be doing enormous damage to him somehow, I thought, judging from the weird squalling which wouldn't stop.

Could it be water had gotten into my transmission or something? What on Earth could be causing that awful noise? And with the motor still powering us forward too?

As the pot hole gremlins and their sledge hammers worked on our underside, I did my best to keep us on the road despite the zingers being delivered by the torn up asphalt, our current need for speed, and my strained visibility.

The demolition cars behind us were so badly ravaged by previous sessions I could only recognize a single chassis for its original make: something like a mid to late sixties Ford Fairlane I thought.

The others' original incarnations looked to have been largish cars too, but from what manufacturer even it was impossible to tell.

Their longer wheelbases than ours though seemed to be helping in the present contest, as Shadow and I could cut the corners a little easier. I guess the derby cars' junk wheels and tires were hurting them on that too.

But Shadow's own near-drowning had left him with breathing problems, which made all this much closer than it should have been. He missed and sputtered and gagged every time I allowed him to drop below a certain rev level.

We neared the main highway intersection and I saw a passing car I thought I could beat to put it between me and any junker which followed. If Shadow had been running better there'd have been no uncertainty at all. But as it was, I figured it to be a squeaker.

At the last moment I was having more trouble than I expected and so aborted the attempt. The foremost junker would be on me in moments, so I could ill afford the stop.

Crap!

That stop proved costlier than I expected. For Shadow quit on me! I'd let his revs drop too low when we slowed down!

Here came the first junker into sight around a bend as I wound on the starter, begging Shadow to awaken once more. When he didn't revive even as my battery seemed about to give out I pushed the pedal all the way to the floor and Shadow finally roared back to life.

Just in time too. For no sooner had I begun spinning out of there and onto the highway than the first junker came at us from behind at full ramming speed.

Fortunately he barely clipped us, running straight across the highway and into a ditch on the opposite side.

His clip spun us around into the opposite direction I'd originally been pointing in, but I didn't care, and headed that way, back towards town.

I high tailed it all the rest of the way back to town, not letting Shadow rest until we'd made it to my workplace. I was amazed to find I wasn't late!

Ah. The life and times of Jerry Staute. The TV show, I mused. Rather than think about my hurting car.

Yes, I was personally drenched from the pond dunking. And the pothole induced splattering inside the car. But that didn't matter much as my after-school job was dish washing at a fairly large hotel restaurant. I typically got soaked there anyway. I was able to park Shadow in a cubby hole near the dumpster and back door, where casual passers by wouldn't likely see him and where I could check on him during breaks.

So what were Shadow's total damages from this escapade? Well, he was horrendously dirty just about everywhere, inside and out. There was a quarter-inch of muck inside the car over the carpeting. Apparently the stuff had been suspended in all the water we took on. Of course an extra good washing took care of all that. The carpeting and sound insulation had to be pulled out of him to allow a truly complete drying. It took me a week and a growing odor to understand that. His front spoiler was history. Apparently ripped off his chin as we bounced through the muddy moguls of the arena. Or maybe when we were bouncing through the framework beams of the enormous sign. Or running over the brushy terrain around the exterior of the yard. Take your pick. I'd had troubles with that Ford factory design ever since I'd installed it. It just caught hell down there. After finally losing it in this incident I would not fool around with a factory front spoiler again, but rather build my own more durable version. By some miracle all the wheels and tires and suspension seemed undamaged. At least so far as I could tell. Maybe the front end was knocked out of alignment-- but I'd already found plain old rough roads or rough-housing to do that in more typical runs, both for my car and others. I was sort of stumped about the extreme squealing I'd heard after emerging from the pond. Because it'd gradually quit afterwards, and I couldn't find any hint of what had caused it under the hood. After talking with more experienced drivers though I learned it'd most likely been my fan belts. The water and slime of the pond had made them extra slippery on their pulleys, and so they'd slipped a while until drying out again. That was all. What a relief! The little bump from the derby car at the end had sheared off one tip of my back bumper. I'd eventually replace the whole thing-- but it'd be a while. It turned out Shadow didn't just lose stuff in the melee though. He gained a pound or so too. In the form of a woman's pocket book.

Lindsay had accidentally left it behind when she jumped out.

Ha! That'd teach her! I thought. Yeah, it was pretty weak revenge for an assassination attempt. But it was all I had.

Under normal circumstances I wouldn't have dug around in her bag except to identify the owner and notify them of my find. But Lindsay owed me. Owed me a lot more than a peek into her bag.

So I scrutinized the items one Lindsay Finch felt important enough to carry on her person when setting up an innocent guy to get his car crushed and maybe worse.

The rummaging wasn't very satisfying though. Lindsay had near thirty dollars in her purse. A hand-written letter of apparently trivial content. Some chewing gum. Usual compact, lipstick, etc. Keys. Ha! I hoped she was having a hard time getting by without those keys!

A couple of items I couldn't identify and figured I'd ask my sister about later.

I did learn Lindsay's real address from her identification cards. And some phone numbers, though exactly whose was unclear.

I wondered if she'd try to retrieve her purse. It'd take a lot of gall on her part, sure. But she'd already proved to have no shortage of that.

I figured I might be seeing her again.

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