Chapter 2

Mr. Filbert shoved a box toward me. It was full of doughnuts. “Open this up for me, will ya? Want to keep a hand on the wheel here, you know. “Help yourself. Pass me one of them cream-filled ones.”

We determined where he was going and that I was going there with him, all except the last few miles. Actually he was going a lot farther, he said, but he had to stop at his mother’s first, about an hour’s drive away. He said he’d let me off as he left the highway, and did I want to know why he had to go to his mother’s?

My mouth being full of chocolate doughnut, I nodded, since he wasn’t watching the road anyhow.

“Well since you ask,” he stated, glancing back at the road. “You’re a nice looking kid,” he added. “You aren’t in trouble with the law, are you, ha-ha?”

I shook my head.

“You’re not—selling anything, are you?” He glared at me suspiciously.

I gulped. I shook my head frantically.

“None of my business anyhow,” Phil said cheerfully. “But why buy milk if you already have the cow? Or something. Anyhow, okay here’s the story, son. This is my mother’s car. I’m supposed to use it to take her to her doctors’ appointments and church and shit like that. Her church, not mine. Anyhow…” With this, the hands both came off the wheel. He turned the radio up. “Do me!” the radio shrieked. I gulped. My imagination went from selling to cows to what the hell, what did ‘do me’ mean? Was I about to learn?

But Phil was stuffing his face and rattling on. “So I took her to her docs yesterday and for that I got a free home-cooked meal and a bed for the night.” He grimaced. “And I get to use the car again the next day. Now mind, I never did like this piece of shit, but it’s only had two major recalls…so I’ve added a few things here and there. Did your folks ever tell you that if you don’t like something, you can do what you can to make it better? Yeah, you have a right to do that. Maybe even a responsibility. Too bad it doesn’t work with people. Though we can change ourselves if we try.”

I scarfed down another doughnut. I opened my mouth to say something but didn’t get a chance. No worries about conversation here.

Around a third doughnut, spitting sprinkles everywhere, Phil continued. I could see how he might enjoy making sermons. “This here car is, at today’s value, a fifty thousand dollar piece of crap. It did have a V-6 engine, but when I was a kid I yanked that out and upgraded. Yep, used to be a real good mechanic. Now this thing…”

I tuned out. A car started, stopped, played music, and looked cool. That’s all I wanted in a car. Maybe a big back seat. Some fine day.

I watched the scenery. We were going through a small backwater town, somewhere. Right in the middle of town was an old building that looked like it was ready to collapse.

Phil nodded, “See that? That’s the Black Pussy Cat Café. Not the original, of course, but like this car, it’s been new and improved for decades. Except for the whole wood rot thing. And of course, it having been a whore house in the old days. Man, speaking of black cats.” He cleared his throat and turned to make sure I was paying attention.

Of course I was. I tried to look rapt. I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Get some Cokes out of that cooler behind ya, will you? One for me and one for you.”

I did as requested. “Damn good stuff. Now, you remember the Black Plague, don’t you? Ha-ha of course neither of us were there, were we? Ha-ha. Now listen to this. I do sermons about this all the time. You know, how you make a change thinking it’s for the better but decades later you find out you really fucked up? Yeah, I know I just said you should change things to better when you can. And that’s exactly what this Pope Gregory the Something or other thought he was doing.”

I got out, “But…”

“Listen up, hear? This idiot was a lousy Pope. He tortured people, caused crusades and inquisitions, and believed that black cats were from Satan. He had his morons, I mean minions, killing cats by the gazillions. Sort of like your present day morons and gay people. Anyhow a hundred or so years passed and—whoops!—let’s pass this moron in the black Porch, er Porsche, bigoted entitled assholes all of ‘em. A nice Camaro, now, that’s different. But these Porches, ugly things. Where was I?”

All this while passing the ugly, expensive ‘porch’ at full speed, over a double yellow line. And back into our own lane. I breathed again, wondering if Phil was going to yell yee-haw, but he didn’t.