The Hot Wire Mentality

IT IS COMPARATIVELY EASY to hot wire an automobile, if you have the necessary equipment and a modicum of courage, or need, or the correct disdain for societal conventions, as it were. Bell had all that, plus the aching of an adolescent hand for a shift in his fingers, a lever with which to move the world.

His uncle had the vehicle: a 1952 Chevy pick-up bought run-to-death for $180 in 1956 when Bell's uncle received his Korean bonus. The previous owner had been a rural mailman famed for his flying delivery service, driving his 85-mile route in under two hours over bad West Virginia roads, slinging packages and newspapers at rotting front steps in the nascent mountain morning, steering with his knee, one hand on the shift, one slinging, and two wheels off the ground. The radio, Hank Williams or Lefty Frizzell, turned all the way up: "Hunny jes LOW me nother chance, tooo fowl in luv with yoooo..." The man also ran moonshine in a beautiful super-charged '49 Merc, same style, until one misty pre-dawn 4 o' clock he came powersliding around Left-Hand Hill, head full of twanging country music and yellowjackets, to meet broadside the combine of an early-morning farmer who was pulling it across the road. The Mercury, little more than engine and gasoline and mason jars full of 145-proof alcohol, immediately ignited. People down in the valley whose bedrooms faced the hillside rose, wiping sleep from their eyes and wondering at the false dawn. The Baptist congregations got a cheap and predictable sermon on the wages of sin, and Bell's uncle got a beatendown truck, also cheap, from the cracker speedfreak's daddy.

Bell ignored this gory history as he crawled over a cement driveway to the truck which sat under his uncle's bedroom window. He raised the hood carefully, swearing at the rusty hinges which sang painful cat songs as he propped it up. A light snapped on in the house. Jesus, thought Bell, and groped for the distributor cap, fastening his alligator clip to it and grounding the other clip to the engine block. He slammed the hood and jumped in, put a cautious foot on the gas, and felt the engine pull itself to life. He began to back out, concentration on the rear view mirror and not looking at the window where the voice said, "Odd hate to hafta git mah gun." He was halfway down the drive before his uncle, an ex-Marine sharpshooter and lifetime member of the NRA (at a cost of $200) began blasting away with his ninehundred dollar 25-06 deer rifle. A tire went fwooo, and Bell clunked along on three wheels. Christ, he's serious, thought Bell, and the rear windshield sprayed glass over him. I wish I was on some Australian mountain range ran through his mind and Bell, who liked Hank Williams but liked Dylan more, bailed out the passenger side, into the lawn bordering the driveway. Just then his uncle, sighting down the Redfield 3x9 that made the truck look like he could sneeze on it, hit the gas tank. The pick-up just rumbled for a second, and there was a dripping sound as gas leaked on to the cement. Then the truck joined its brother the Merc, 20 years late, M-80s--July Fourth--Dealy Plaza--Day of the Locust craziness.

Bell, surprised, picked glass and grass from his hair and stared curiously for a moment. Then he burst into laughter, hugging his knees and rocking, out of control in the dewy September night.