Cindy and Mary Started Screaming and Moose Was Begging Me to Slow Down...
Part 5: Cindy's Tight-Fitting Pink Halter Top Had Every Guy in the Bar Bug-Eyed and Gulping Hard..
I stumbled as I walked around the Lincoln and then struggled with the driver's door before getting in. It felt strange, being totally wasted and told I had to drive, that everybody else was too drunk…
I started the car and put my hands on the wheel at 10 and 2, just like I was taught when I took driver's ed five years ago. I gazed out over the steering wheel and squinted at all the city lights glaring back at me. The girls took hits off a joint in the backseat and then passed it to Moose, who passed it to me. It didn't matter that I was driving; I was still included. The car was full of smoke, so I cracked the windows to clear it out just before we took off.
Biscayne Boulevard was well-lit, even at 2:00 am, and there was a fair amount of traffic, most of which were drunks leaving bars, like us. I figured there had to be lots of cops on the road ready to pull people over who were driving drunk. My plan was to take it easy and get us home in one piece without getting pulled over.
As soon as I got my driver's license, I was driving drunk. I used to say I could easily win "The Drunk Indy 500", so I was well prepared for this moment. When I was in high school, and we'd get pulled over by local cops in Massachusetts, they'd confiscate our beer and tell us our parents could come down to the station and get it, knowing we would never tell our parents we got pulled over and had beer in the car. Then, the cops would follow us home and wait until we were in our houses. It was an effective way of getting us home alive. Gotta appreciate that. Rumor had it that they took our beer home and drank it themselves. And why not?
But this was different. We weren't in Massachusetts dealing with local cops, and we weren't in high school. We were in Miami, and I was driving my father's Lincoln Mark IV with Massachusetts plates straight down Biscayne Boulevard, and nobody would've cut me any slack. I knew that.
I started down the Boulevard at normal speed, but then I started going faster, and I wasn't doing it intentionally, either. I had absolutely no clue how fast I was going. Cindy and Mary started screaming like they were on a roller coaster. Then they ducked, thinking they could survive a high-speed crash by staying low. I could see them hiding in the rearview mirror. Moose was begging me to slow down, but I couldn't comprehend a word he was saying, and I continued going faster. I was doing at least 95, according to Moose. Shit, I mighta hit 100…
We had only been in Miami for a week, so I wasn't sure where the turn for the condo was. I was just about to drive past it when Moose yelled, "Turn here!"
I stomped on the brakes hard, spun the wheel, and just barely negotiated the turn. A trail of gray smoke from the burning rubber, like contrails behind a jet, was visible in the rearview mirror. Then, without slowing down, I turned into the underground garage, where I was forced to let off the gas momentarily to make a right-hand turn.
There were huge concrete pillars throughout the garage with several numbered parking spaces between them. I stepped on the gas and headed for my father's space.
I was picking up some speed when I suddenly saw his space right next to a concrete pillar; that's how I remembered where it was. I immediately stomped on the brakes hard. Everyone was screaming, ducking, and covering their heads with both hands.
The ass end of the car went full ninety degrees, catching up to the front end. The screeching tires echoed through the silent garage, rubber burning, but I managed to get the Mark IV into the space in one shot. Several seconds after the car came to a complete stop and was idling in park, my three passengers looked up, surprised to be alive, and that's when I said, "We're home!"
It had been an exhausting ride for them, but not so much for me. It actually sobered me up a bit. We stumbled out of the car and remained pretty quiet while we waited for the elevator. I nearly killed us all…
I was still confident, though, that once we got upstairs, I still had a chance with Mary…
Let me sleep all night in your soul kitchenWarm my mind near your gentle stove
To be continued…
*All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental…