Chapter Thirty One

The cab driver did not like Killer at all. He didn’t like those stupid dogs some women felt compelled to carry in their purses. He didn’t like cats. And, he just discovered, he did not like birds. He discovered this fact about himself only seconds before Sarah and Killer had gotten into the cab, along with Hep and Scroat.

Shortly after Scroat had given the driver directions to their destination, Killer made his presence known by saying “I’LL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL!”

The cab driver forced a laugh, and said “That’s some animal you’ve got back there.”

He figured he could tolerate the bird long enough to get a decent tip. But then Killer kept talking and carrying on, as an excited parrot is known to do. The racket drove him crazy. He started to think the bird was actively trying to irritate him. The little shit. Then the bird screamed. A 110 decibel bird scream in the confines of a taxi is, to put it mildly, uncomfortable.

Halfway to Joe Anderson’s house, he pulled off the freeway onto a side road and told them all to get out.

“What the fuck?” Scroat asked.

“I can’t take any more of that goddamned bird. Get out of my cab!” the driver said.

“Did you lose your mind?” Hep asked. “We’re not even close to our friend’s house.”

“Well, you’ll have to call him and ask him to pick you and the fucking bird up, then. Get the fuck out of my cab!” The driver said.

“I don’t believe this shit,” Scroat said as he opened the door and got out of the cab. Sarah and Hep got out behind him. Hep slammed the door and told the cabbie to watch his back.

“Fuck you!” the cabbie yelled, and sped away from the curb, throwing up a nice spray of grey slush which made the whole experience that much more pleasant for Hep, Scroat, Sarah and Killer.

Sarah wrapped a small blanket around Killer’s cage and said, “So. What now?”

“Now we find a phone and tell Joe to get his ass over here and pick us up,” Hep said. He started trudging north, away from the off ramp and towards – or so he hoped – a gas station or some other establishment with a heater and a payphone. Sarah and Scroat followed along behind him.

Traffic whipped past them, showering them with a nearly constant spray of dirty water and snow. They walked two blocks before they reached a sidewalk that was reasonably clear of snow.

“Now I remember why I moved to the desert,” Sarah said.

Hep struggled to keep from falling over on the slippery patches. Ice was hard enough to walk on as it was, but it’s really not any fun when one has two gimpy legs and shoes not meant for the cold.

After walking a few more chilly blocks, a gas station came into view.

“Phew!” Hep said.

A few minutes later the three chilly walkers (and one cold bird) opened the door and went into the gas station. There they bought three large cups of coffee and tried to warm up a bit. Given the short notice for their trip, none of them were dressed particularly well for the weather.

After he’d finished his first cup of coffee, Hep dug a couple of quarters out of his pocket and went to the payphone to call Cyrus.

The phone rang a few times before someone picked up, and Hep heard Cyrus say “Hello?”

“Hey, ‘Joe,’ we need a ride,” Hep said.

“I thought you guys were going to take a cab,” Joe said.

“Yeah, we did too, until the dink cabbie threw us out. Come get us,” Hep said.

“Can’t you get another cab? My car is put away for the winter,” Joe said. He really didn’t want to expose the Challenger to the winter roads. Too much salt, and chunks of stuff getting thrown up from other cars.

“Come. Get. Us.” Hep said.

“OK, OK, I’ll come get you, you big baby,” Joe said. “Where the hell are you?”

Hep told him where the gas station they were currently hanging out was located. Joe told him he’d be there in an hour or so, since he’d have to get the mothballs out of his car.

“Whatever. We’ll be here,” Hep said.

Hep got himself another cup of gas station coffee (“Best in the Mid-West!” said a sign next to the pot of roofing tar they called coffee), and went to hang out with Scroat and Sarah again.

“He’ll be here in an hour or so,” Hep said.

“Oh. Nice of him to hurry,” Scroat said.

“Yep, he’s just a hell of a nice guy,” Hep said.


Joe spent a couple of minutes trying to come up with a way to avoid taking the Challenger out. Sam wasn’t around, and it was unlikely he’d loan Joe his car anyway. His other neighbors were all at work. He began to wish he’d kept a beater around, for circumstances like these.

After pacing around his kitchen for a few minutes, much to the delight of Nubbins who enjoyed seeing Cyrus in distress, he realized he was just going to have to suck it up and take the Challenger to get them.

It only took him a few minutes to get the car down from the jack stands and hook the battery up again. Nubbins poked around the car a bit to torment Cyrus.

“Oooh, what’s this do?” he asked, and Cyrus ran around the car to see what the little demon was doing. Nothing, as it turned out. He was just standing there with a shit-eating grin.

Cyrus opened the garage, got in the car (Nubbins hopped in the passenger seat), and turned the key. The engine roared to life, as it always did, the first time he turned the key. Cyrus had always hated getting into a cold car. Somehow, being cold in a car was much worse than being cold out in a howling snowstorm. He backed the car out of the garage, pushed the button on the remote for his garage door opener, made sure he had the directions to where Hep, Scroat and Sarah were, then backed out of his driveway, and pointed the Challenger in the direction of the freeway.

If it had been a warmer and less icy time of year, Cyrus would have then stomped on the gas pedal and smiled widely as light bent around him. However, it was currently a jillion degrees below freezing (at least, that’s how it felt) and the roads were nice and evenly coated with ice and snow. Cyrus had to be extremely careful not to give the big V8 too much gas lest both rear tires spin wildly and send the car, along with its occupants, into the closest snowbank or ditch.

Cyrus drove with extreme caution, and it took them five minutes longer than it really needed to in order to get to the freeway. When they reached the on ramp, Cyrus accelerated slowly, getting up to the speed of freeway traffic just as he reached the end of the ramp, to the annoyance of all the drivers stuck behind him. Once on the freeway, he stayed in the right lane and stayed far, far behind the car ahead of him.

It took him about twenty minutes to reach the exit he needed to pick up Hep, Scroat, Sarah and Killer. Two minutes later he arrived at the gas station they were waiting at.

“For fuck’s sake, man, it’s been two hours!” Scroat yelled at Cyrus when he got out of his car.

“Well, if you guys hadn’t pissed off the cabbie, it would not have been a problem, would it? Fuck, I had to get my car off of blocks, and now it’s all covered in road salt and sand. Jesus, how hard is it to get along with a cab driver? Just sit there and shut up, and...” Cyrus paused there, as that’s when he noticed Sarah staring daggers at him.

Sensing an opportune moment, Killer said, “FUCK YOU!”

“Right. Get in the damn car,” Cyrus said. He put the front passenger seat down, and Scroat and Sarah climbed into the back. Hep waited for Nubbins to get in. Nubbins, meanwhile, stood glaring at Hep.

“Get in the fucking car already,” Nubbins said.

“What? You don’t have bad legs, you get in the back,” Hep said.

“Fuck that, he’s my pet human, you have to ride in the back,” Nubbins said.

“Son of a bitch,” Hep muttered and climbed into the back seat along with Scroat, Sarah, and Killer.

“Damn, these cars are pretty roomy,” Hep said.

Nubbins got in to the front seat then, and slammed the passenger door. Cyrus got in on his side, and fired up the car again. Then he set off at the same creeping pace he’d used to get here.

It took a solid fifty minutes for them to get back to Cyrus’s house. He had kept such a long following distance on the freeway that a plane could have landed between him and the car in front of him. He carefully yielded to any car anywhere near him.

They arrived back at his house, and he stopped the car in his driveway and sighed with relief. So far as he could tell, there was no new damage to his car. He’d just have to wash it right away, and it would be good as new. He clicked the remote for the garage door opener, and once the door was all the way open he slowly pulled in to the garage.

Had he pulled in a little faster, the coming disaster might have been avoided.

Just as the windshield passed under the garage’s overhand, one of the huge icicles fell and landed on the windshield. The glass spiderwebbed, and then collapsed in on itself.

Hep, Scroat, Sarah and Killer were all stunned into silence.

“What. The. Fuck?” Cyrus yelled and stared out the hole where his car’s windshield had been seconds before.

He looked over at Nubbins, who looked back at him with a huge, defiant smile.

“What? I didn’t do it,” Nubbins said.