Siren Songs.....

I seem to find time in August to write in this blog for some reason. I don't know why. Right now I am up late because I can't go to sleep. So I decided to craft another episode of my flight of fancy involving Deuce Maverick, Private Eye. If you want to know where he stands right now, you will have to read the previous posts.

Sirens. Did I mention sirens? I hear them. And they are getting louder. Incredibly for some reason my mind begins to ponder sirens. And I don't mean the ones on top of cop cars. I mean the mythological sea nymphs that called a siren song to weary sea traveling men in order to vex their minds and use their bodies for their own private joys and....stuff. I've always wondered what such a sea nymph would look like. Invariably during late night web wanderings I have searched for artist renderings of such creatures and have been surprised at the numerous takes on their appearance. Some have depicted them as birds or ghosts that float by as they sing. I spend more time pondering the depictions that show them naked and barely clothed than I do the avian caricatures. Of course, what most men like me tend to forget is that being possessed by one of these creatures is supposed to be unsavory. I find that hard to believe for some reason. A beautiful, naked woman wants to capture me with her wonderful singing and pleasure herself using my body for all of eternity. Yeah, I'm still not sure I see the unsavoriness of this predicament. It's like the same unsavoriness I feel when I hear about some high school guy banging his hot English teacher at the age of 14. Yeah...

Sirens. Cops. I have a problem with cops. And as I still do not know what kind of predicament we are in, I make a decision. I help Liddy out of the car. It takes a few minutes but finally she makes it. She's got hash browns in her hair which is really gross but I let it go. I know if I say something I will never get her in the taxi cab. I see one coming down the opposite side of the street and I flag him down. He pulls up, cautious like.

"We need a ride."

He looks at the big Euro sedan, crumpled by the side of the road and sitting on it's roof. He looks at me. I'm sure he's seeing the caked up blood on my face and the dirt and grime on my clothes. He looks at Liddy. For a second I think maybe he is seeing the hash brown hair and the streaky mascara from the rain and crying. But who am I kidding. He sees her boobs.

"That your car?"

The question begs some kind of explanation. I don't have time for it right now.

"No."

No lie there. It's not my car.

"We are going to 35th and Vine."

I push Liddy in the car and climb in behind her. As we drive off, cop cars, ambulances and fire trucks converge on Liddies sedan.

The taxi driver looks at me.

"You know it's like against the law to leave the sight of an accident, right?"

I wish I had a gun. Instead, I pull a hundred dollar bill out of my wallet.

"We would really like to get to 35th and Vine sometime tonight and sometime quickly."

I hand it to him. The speed of the taxi doubles immediately and the sirens and flashing lights fade behind us.

And now to check in on Deuce Maverick and Liddy Horne once again...

Sweet Jesus my shoulder hurts. And my back. And my head. And my arms and butt and...you get the picture. Everything hurts. But that's ok. It beats being dead. By a slim margin but it does.

I decide to get out. Now getting out of an upside down car that you are strapped into is no easy task. In the movies, they make it look easy. One second, you're hanging there like a trussed up turkey and the next you roll out of the window and hit the ground running. It ain't like that. Let me tell you why.

You see, you are hanging...from the seatbelt. The seatbelt is the only thing keeping you from falling on your head. So if you release the seatbelt, you fall on your head. Got the picture? Now add the fact that you only have one arm to support yourself since you need one arm to release the belt and you've got quite a hard thing to do. Add to that the fact that severe disorientation sets in whenever you are involved in a flipping, rolling kind of accident and things get really difficult. Throw in Waffle House grease in your eyes and you have right near impossible.

Somehow, I get out. I pull myself to my feet and look around. I see the Escalade, front end smoking like Cruella Deville but otherwise unharmed. The driver is large, African American lady with pink fingernails. It looks like our accident didn't affect her cell phone call at all. I can hear it now...

"And honey, you won't believe what that fool of a man said then (BAM!!!! 2 second pause). Oh, girl I think I just hit a dog. Hang on and let me see..."

I shake my head and see the other cars slowing to gape at me. It's about this time that I realize I am bleeding. In fact, I am bleeding hard from a huge gash in my head. A trickle runs down my forehead and into my eye. I didn't notice it in the car because I was upside down but now it flow freely down my face. I must look like a walking gun shot victim or something. I see a kid in the back seat of a Volvo pass by and she screams. The Vovlo speeds away.

I pick just this moment to throw up. Now you might be thinking I am weak or something. But I'm not. Let me tell you why I hate the sight of blood. But before I do that, I decide to get Liddy out of the car. In my disoriented state I fear that the car will explode and splatter poor Liddy all over this side of town. Of course the truth is that cars rarely explode when involved in high speed crashes. The stats say that only about 3 out of 1000 cars explode this way. In my mind, 3 is a pretty big number right now and I would like to get myself far, far away from this Euro Sedan. It's about that time that I finally hear sirens...

Late, so late...

No apologies again for not writing in so long. I made a promise to update this blog sometime within two weeks however and I am doing it. It seems I have one faithful reader who wants to know what is going on with Deuce Maverick.

So, let's find out.

We've decided to hide out at Liddy's place. You know, get some rest after a long night and escaping our deaths and all that jazz. The drive over there is pretty uneventful with one exception. We almost die in a car crash.

It happened like this. Liddy's driving (it is her car after all) and I am sitting in the passenger seat, flipping through channels on the radio. I've just scanned past Christina Aguilera and hit Jimi Hendrix when we pass under a green light at a huge intersection. Out of frickin nowhere comes an Escalade rolling on 20's and plows into the rear end of Liddy's Euro sedan (still can't remember the name of that thing). The Escalade hits us so hard that the sedan goes into a spin, round and round what seems to be about 6 times before we slam into a guard rail and flip over.

The above description makes it sound like all this only took about 6 seconds. And the truth is, that is about all it took. But I can tell you it seemed like eternity. First off though is the CRUNCH! You haven't heard a horrible sound until you've heard the crunch of cars plowing into each other at high speeds. It one of those sounds that when you hear it, you know instinctively that peoples are probably dead or dying. One time I was on vacation at a friends house and we heard this horrible crash outside. As soon as we heard it, I looked at my friend and said, "Somebody just bought it." We get up and look out the window and these two cars are t-boned in the intersection. Smoke and car parts are everywhere and one dude staggers out of his car and falls to the ground. Cars are already stopped and helping and since the sight of blood makes me ill, we decide to not go out. Pretty soon ambulances and fire trucks are everywhere. Later, we hear on the news that the two drivers were killed.

It's pretty much the sound of death. Meat puppets like us don't last long in high speed metal boxes that get in the way of each other. So as soon as I hear the sound, I figure we are done. I start thinking if there's anything I want to write in my own blood while I am dying. You know, "Love you Mom" or some such crap. I decide I will probably write "Outlaw cell phones while driving" since I am sure the driver of that Escalade was probably talking to his homey when he slammed us. Either way I hope I last long enough to get my last words out. But then I realize that "Outlaw cell phones while driving" is going to need quite a bit of blood and then I remember that I hate the sight of blood and I decide that I might have to write it in my own puke which is not nearly as effective or poetic as blood.

Now I told you it only took about six seconds but I swear I had time to go through all of these thoughts and more while waiting for the final end. It's about this time that we hit the guard rail and airbags pop all around us. And I mean all around us. These euro sedans sure love their airbags. I have bags hitting me in the face and the sides all to the tune of screaming metal and rubber. I feel like I'm in some horrible post apocalyptic popcorn popper and then Liddy starts screaming. I experience a piercing pain in my shoulder and I realize that the seat belt is probably going to cut me in half. Now I am a propronent of seat belts. I do believe they save lives. And they probably saved mine tonight no doubt. But they sure do hurt! I mean, can't we pad these things some way? I decide that my next car, if I have a car other than a hearse, will have sheepskin padded seat belts. In fact, I decide that I will see if any company makes sheepskin padded airbags in case I ever get in a wreck again. I wonder for a second what kind of term to use in my web search and if Googling "sheepskin seat belt pads" will turn up what I want or some horrible porn sight that scars me and my offspring for life. It's about this time that the car screeches to a halt and everything gets deathly quiet, for sure.

I don't know why she did it really. I mean, the food was horrible. Greasy and slick like recently exposed entrails...it was awful. So I can't for the life of me figure out what Liddy wanted to keep her leftover Waffle House. And I especially wonder at the intelligence of such an act right now as the smothered, covered, and diced hash brown residue slides down over my eyes. Unfortunately, I am unable to move at the moment due to a seat belt that has decided to tighten down to torture chamber proportions and the fluff of the popcorn airbags all around me. I like the hash brown stuff off my mouth enough to speak and ask Liddy if she lives.

I hear a whimper and a moan and decide she does. At this point, I realize that we are UPSIDE DOWN, dangling from our seat belts and that explains why they hurt so bad. A second later, a see a pair of brown LUGZ walk up to my window. A young, black man leans down and says, "You dead? I'll call 911 but if you already dead, I don't want to waste the minutes."

I spit hash browns out of my mouth and mutter, "not yet."

He flips open his AMP'D mobile and hits 3 digits. At that moment, we hear sirens and he hangs up the phone. "Somebody beat me to it. Just hang in there, they be here soon."

He walks away.