Ran over a squirrel today on my way to work. I was pretty sure I missed him, but when I came home, there he was. That got me to thinking. My neighbor Woody keeps a thermometer in his truck. If he sees good roadkill while he’s driving, he’ll stop to take its temperature and see how fresh it is. If it’s still good he’ll take it home and cook it up (I’m not kidding.)
It also reminded me of my roadkill story:
My first car was my best.
It was a '73 Buck Centurion. I paid $250.00 for it. It was up on blocks. My buddy Kevin and I fixed it up.
It was absolutely huge, a convertible with a 455 engine in it, colored shit brown, and rusting in the quarter panels.
We bondoed the panels, used duct tape to fix the vinyl top, and my friend Kevin taught me everything I know about cars as we fixed he up. We dropped the tranny, and had her rebuilt for $300 (that was why it was on blocks.) With a little TLC and another $100 in parts we got the engine running like a fat tomcat. “Glub, glub, glub.”
We put Streetmag tires on it, and classic Buick Ben-Hur hubcaps, the kind that looked like they had cutting blades sticking out. We drilled a hole in the exhaust so we could turn a knob, drip gasoline, and flames would shoot out, like the Batmobile.
We took the blower from Kevin’s wrecked Camaro, cut a hole in the hood and installed it, hooking it up to a button that said “Warp Speed.”
What was left was to paint flames on the hood and sides. We had a friend who was good with an airbrush. He did a nice job. As a bonus, on the driver’s side he had a picture of a knight with a sword slaying a dragon. The knight had a stylized picture of my face on it. On the passenger side was a picture of Kevin, also as knight, slaying a sea-serpent.
We needed a motto. After much consideration, we settled on “Never back up,” as suitable of our joint personal philosophy. We had this airbrushed in bold letters down both sides of the car, and again on the trunk, so you couldn’t miss it.
This turned out to be an unfortunate choice, as everybody who saw the car thought it meant that there was something wrong with reverse gear. We’d park headfirst in a spot, and people would ask us how we were going to get it out of there.
“It’s our motto,” we’d say haughtily.
Suffice it to say that every cop in NJ became magnetically attracted to the car every time we drove it. My father actually liked it, as he assumed we’d never have the chance to get in trouble or speed with it. He would tell me that he envied it for its “subtle stealthiness.”
About 6 months after we put it back together we decided to take it to Florida. Kevin’s Grandma had a trailer in Palm Beach. She was away, so it would be a cool place to party.
My friends Kevin, Schnibbie, Dave and I all headed down in my car.
We left at 5pm. Dawn the next morning found us cruising down the perfectly flat, straight, and level I-95 in Florida at about 100 MPH. The road was deserted. While the car had ungodly power (you could spin the wheels at 80mph by turning on the blower,) all the suspension was original and the huge beast would shudder and sway over the slightest bump, or gust of breeze.
Up ahead, I spied some dots in the road. Maybe a mile away. I took my foot off the acclerator.
“What are you doing?” said Kevin.
“Looks like there’s something in the road up there. I better slow down.”
Kevin squinted. He wasn’t wearing his glasses at 6 A.M. “Those are just vultures eating something. They always move at the last second. Don’t bother slowing.”
“If you say so.” I brought her back to 100 mph.
As I got closer, these didn’t look like your ordinary vultures. They looked gigantic. Prehistoric. They were Florida vultures.
“I dunno. What if they don’t move?” I asked taking my foot off the accelerator.
Somehow sensing the tension, I heard Dave and Schnibbe moving around nervously in the backseat.
“Trust me,” said Kevin. “We used to come down here all the time as a kid. They always move right at the last second. They know the road. They know cars. If you slow down or stop, they’ll just stay there, and you’ll be stuck waiting for them until somebody rams you from behind. You don’t want to be an idiot, do you?”
I didn’t want to be an idiot.
I brought her back up to 100MPH in silence.
“Glub. glub. Bllaaaaaaah!” said the engine faithfully as I gunned her. Swaying slightly we tore steadfastly through the Florida dawn.
At about a quarter mile away, I figured the vultures had maybe 5 or 6 seconds to haul ass out of the way. They showed no signs of doing so. I wasn’t going to be an idiot though, so I maintained pressure on the pedal and tightened my grip on the wheel silently.
“Ummmmmm…” Came a voice from the backseat.
When it seemed that collision was certain the vultures scattered. One took off to the left. One to the right. Apparently one hadn’t had his coffee yet, and tried to take off coming straight toward us.
There was a horrible instant of defined certainty. I looked at the vulture. Kevin looked at it. Dave and Schnibbe looked at it. It looked at us. All our gazes said the same thing.
“Shit.”
At a combined velocity of perhaps 115MPH, Mr. Vulture impacted the top of our windshield, right at the cross. brace. I didn’t have time to wonder what became of him, but he left a good part of himself behind. The rest I assume got punted by the windshield much like a football.
Red and black goo, and feathers, smeared all over the half caved in windshield. Worse still, he made enough of an impact to bend the cross piece enough to create a gap between the vinyl top and the windshield.
Air rushed into the enclosed space, and suddenly my car was equipped with a parachute.
The latches that held it to the windshield were far too strong. It ripped from where it joined just before the trunk, and 100 pounds of vinyl and steel flapped from the windshield like Supeman’s cape, threatening to beat the living shit out of the four of us.
Hardly able to see, I did the smart thing. I hit the wipers. Blue fluid smeared the windshield, as the mangled wipers twitched convulsively. It didn’t help.
I did the next smart thing. I slammed the brakes as hard as I could.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH.” We all screamed in unison as the loose suspension fishtailed the car, and it slid sideways, crashing through the shoulder guard like butter. We slid a quarter mile through the muddy field, before coming to a stop.
It turned out to be a great trip. We took the top apart, and stowed it for later repairs, and went on our way. The car was essentially undamaged. The windshield got fixed in Palm Beach (it always leaked thereafter from the bent frame,) and we drove home without a top (it rained, but over 60 MPH the slipstream effect protected the occupants.)
We never heard from the vulture.
