“You wished for a great video, a good time, an experience? Then yes, my friend, surely then I can provide you with something unique. Hold on!”
They fell like a bullet, turning into sharp turns ahead with feverish grace. Around them, the Cascadian landscape rained by, the deep pines, the scent of waterfalls whirling past in their own fast sluiceways. Jim did all he could to keep from breathing in through his fingers, the car taking the inclines with ease.
Beside him Andre was still droning on.
“This is the McHooster Rx, kiddo. Show car. She has built-in supercharging, extra torque, automatic stopping if you take your hands off the wheel, automatic parking, accident detection, collision detection and of course, a top of the line undercoating. Yes yes – all the convenience of modern travel, only ½ the time!” Jim sat there, nonplussed.
“She?” Was all he could manage.
“All cars are to be named She, my boy, for they always try to stomp or buck you off.” Jim merely staired ahead as Andre laughed aloud, out to where the road was now running beside steep cliffs. The McHooster seemed to pass only inches from their sharp flanks as they neared, the burly Italian meandering between the whites and yellows of the road lines.
Above them steep cliffs remained studded with the remainders of last years growth.
“That last one was a joke kiddo, a jest – here, watch this.” They rounded another bend, hard, shockingly close. Jim held fast to the handrail as the wheels hugged the far line, the hood gleaming in the sun. He had mapped their course out ahead of time, had watched closely to their trip on the GPS as the rest of the team circled above overhead, yet it was still startling to see the pace they were keeping. All told the trek from Greenwater to Elbe was nigh shy of eighty miles. Or should have been. Before they had left the GPS had told him a ‘normal’ car, maybe a family of four in a minivan, lollygagging, taking their time on this bend could make the trek in just under two hours. The way he and his driver were going though, he supposed Kentucky Derby finalists might be turning green. He had been startled to see how much progress they had made in the last half hour, had wondered too if they would beat the old record.
Beside him, the Italian was merely laughing, as if he could read his mind.
“So you see, this is the perfect car. And the perfect road for the perfect car, for the perfect day.” They shifted around another bend, a giant ‘falling rocks’ signs on both sides flying by on the right. To the left a ‘keep out’ totem gleamed.
Yet over them all, the mountain continued to loom, monstrous in the harsh afternoon sun.
Jim tried to glance up at it from time to time, yet it was hard to take his eyes of the road in the whirl and rush.
“You think so?” Was all he could managed. They twisted around another sharp jolt, flailing his elbows hard. He did his best not to loose his lunch, kicking himself again for dining on the offered prawns at lunch.
Why did he have to push himself so?
“All roads are perfect roads, bucko, if you know how to read them. Besides,” Andre was saying, his hand pulling tight at the gearshift again, countering left, right, up center, then back down, “nothing is too hard if you know where to look. The key is timing. See?” They passed beneath another tunnel, old thin trees lining its crown, their root edges seeming as if barely holding on to the dry soil. The sun winked as they passed, then went out for a moment as the dark mouth opened wide. Headlights snapped on just in time - in a flash they blew out the other end.
“Woa.”
Jim had come to cover the latest push to create a ring road encircling the mountain, another attempt to increase attention to the Northwest Parks. The NPS had been kicking around the idea to compete the encriclement for almost a dozen years before Mt. St. Helens had blown, then had given it up out of fear that Tahoma itself could follow before construction could commence, let alone finish. They had completed only a half the run on its southern end that they were blasting over now, before turning their sights further south.
Still, the area around Puget Sound had seen exponential growth in the last twenty years, clogging up the 410 and Route 2 for hours each weekend. The locals and nearby ranchers grumbled, all while the politicos shrugged. Meanwhile Mt Hood, and the Three Sisters each had seen their own ring completed. Neither had the traffic Rainier now held. There was talk of Mt. Adams to the south being opened up next. Even Mt. Shasta, way down in California was on its way to seeing its own competition - so why have a lodge, a half-road, a viewpoint called “Sunrise” if you couldn’t have its western twin? Why not show the public the beauty of a sunset, from something new, some 21st Century icon?
“Neat,” was all he could say into his whirring camcorder. The little recording light gleamed.
As part of this, Andre had offered his time and his car as part of the fundraising promotion, suggesting to make a record setting run that would match dollar for dollar any attempts at private development, or perhaps helping to further sway the statehouse. He and Jim had set off after a banquet lunch, film crews and idler well-wishers sending them off, their main battalion taking to the skies above them to debate and film. Andre revved the engine further as they passed yet another group of cameramen, making Jim wonder at it all. He did his best not to drop his camcorder, pushing the ‘off’ dial for a second to get his bearings.
“Thank god its you, and not me driving this thing.” was all he could think to say.
Still, as kind as he was, he couldn’t help but think of Andre as fairly reckless as they pushed the McHooster further and further towards its limit. Another group of tourists flew by on their right, far too close for his own comfort. He sought a distraction in a different type of direction, while the Italian beamed.
“Yet you’ve never thought about taking it to the Autoban? Or the Swiss Alps? Somewhere with less…people? Less crowds, or major urban centers?” Another group, this one seemingly comprised of boy scouts waving a tall banner as they blasted by.
“The Alps? Pah, look at this landscape. Gorgeous. Beautiful. It is hard to believe that your government would have left this road as unfinished as it is. Still, let us see if we can change that.” As Andre spoke, they veered around another incline, watching the trees above waiver as they passed. Above the mountain watched all, guardedly.
“They built a footpath, the Wonderland Trail back in the early teens as a consolidation, if it helps. It rings the slopes further up. It has nice camp spots. I’ve been on it once or twice.” He thought of his boyhood again.
“Pah – a footpath? That is nothing like a road, a real road me-boy, campgrounds or no. Our Roman forefathers knew the difference between a simple ‘footpath’ and a road, a true road, rest assured. Have you not heard of our Appian Way? Soldiers do not defend a simple footpath with their lives, rest assured. Stories do not get written of footpaths.” He seemed to spit at the world. “Only a road, real road can get blood to boil in a mans chest, can bring out the zeal and the poems to inspire a generation. Can lure the drivers. Do you American’s not have your Route 66? With Andre Bersetti at hand, we will make this road the stuff of legends, rest assured.”
“Do you think this promotion will work then?” Jim stuck his head by the window, watching as the observation helicopters swooped closer, filming them all. He could only imagine what they must see above all this thick canopy, the sights beamed back out to Washington, Olympia, the world. Maybe in time his name could be carved somewhere on a plague, or place card.
“With Andre Bersetti at the wheel, but of course! Who else can it be? Leave it up to us Tuscans to solve all the world’s problems, show you how to think of the world. Besides, my people would love to clear our mountains of all you summertime touristas. Get our own roads, the clear air of the Dolomites back all to ourselves. Drive them each weekend as I drive you now.” He kicked the clutch as if in response, sending them in a roar across a strait flat that now rose ahead. The trees beside, dangling above rushed by in a whirl.
“God’s, do we have to go so fast?” Jim berated again, glad for the five-point harness, his helmet, both.
“Does Apollo, when he takes his morning run?” The burly Italian smiled sideways to him as he took another sharp turn, another up and down that mimicked a taunt rollercoaster.
“The only pity with this road, is that it is not so wide. How will your American minivans transverse the mountain, I wonder? Ha ha, I kid about you potato people! With luck, your videos and persona will help change that.”
With luck too, they will name the new road after me, his eyes seemed to suggest.
“Strata-volcano.” John tried to correct him.
“This breast of a hill then, fine. Yes. You Americans are all the same, mere children compared to our tradesmen’s hands. Hold tight then.”
They passed beneath another spindly row of pines sticking out at angles, each hanging quite low. The Italian upshifted gears again, making them quiver as they passed. He turned for a second full to face Jim, curious himself.
“So once a year they close the road off for this? Invite your speed racers by which to visit. This is good – I shall have to come back”
“Sadly, yes. I’ve been fighting hard to make it twice a year, or even get my own chance to make a single run at it. Snowboarders can have their own half-pipes built in the mountains for them, yet you roadsters must get by on donation. Ah, such is life.” Beside him the Italian merely shrugged.
“The only thing that surprises me is that nobody ever seems to take the time to clear those things. What do you call them? The fir-Dougs? The pine conifers? In my country we do things proper. We take our time, know how to connect with the land, its many curves. You see?” He pointed up ahead where a single dead pine hung out over the road, seemingly defying gravity. They had seen a dozen of these matchsticks in the last twenty minutes, all wavering. It was amazing their roots could hold them at all.
“That I would use for kindling in my own camina.” In a moment they blew past it, swerved passed yet another reporter who seemed to be milling about by the roadside.
Andre beamed.
“Can I trouble you for a wine at this time, Senor?”
“Wine?”
“Sure! Yes yes! Look there beneath your seat. A courtesy gift from my people to yours, for your hospitality, I should say – for another chance to make the jaunt, the lighting run in record time.” Jim looked down, surprised to see the Italian was not wrong. A small box he had not noticed before lay at an angle below his feet.
“Should I, you, anyone drink when their doing a run like this?” He replied. He felt perturbed, unsure if he could even reach the floor in such an agitated state, let alone grasp or open the bottle.
“Ah, how do you American’s say, a ‘pick-me-up’, yes? Ha, no. When I am driving, really driving my boy, competitive like, no drop of the vine will touch these lips for a week beforehand. Maybe two. I take after your American bobsledders in that regard, or the Irish boxer.” He seemed to gesticulate with his eyes as his hands circled the wheel. “Perfection is only reached by diligence, by control. See – see this? See what a lifetime of work will get a man?”
To the south of them the Tatoosh Range was now flying by. Jim remembered visiting one of their visitor centers there as a kid, curious how fast that weathered range, the lodge would fly by now. Beside them, lake after lake was seen, offing only a scanty glance of a mirrored twin of the mountain above as they passed. Rainier the white men had named it. Tahoma, it would always actually be know, be called. Its bald head gleamed.
“So you think they will manage to get a highway loop, how do you American’s say ‘scenic byway’ done, by the end of this (or even next) century?”
“I’m not really sure,” Jim replied. He thought over how the course of events were going back on the mountain. Andrea took another hard turn, making him almost drop the bottle.
“It’s just one of the weirder ones of the area. They made a
“The whole area seems…strange, yes.” The Italian was saying. “Far more rain than my Tuscan bones enjoys. Yet the wine was good.” Jim was uncertain if he should offer a reply.
“Are you getting bored, or should we try to end this trip early?”
“You can go faster?” The reporter gulped, looking again at the tall firs whipping by. On all sides, the terrain seemed mere inches from them. He supposed if their had been a big enough ramp, Andre would have even tried to jump the gorge, or the mountain peaks to their left. Instead he gulped as the Italian beamed at him.
“Are you kidding? Here buck-o, I hope you enjoy this.” With that the Italian became otherworldly, pushing his foot to the floor before John had a chance to answer. The grace at which they had been flying by before quintupled, until John really did wonder if the old gods could bestow mortals with something of an Olympian Ilk. Each turn felt predestined, known better than a man better than his lover. Jim gripped harder and harded on the restraints, while beside him Andre laughed menically.
In a flash they were slowing to their former speed, Andre having made several flashy and certainly unnecessary swoops.
In time, Jim’s breath began to slow.
“Aren’t you worried about deer, or of elk at least?” Was the best he could stammer out. He remembered seeing herds earlier in the day, had been fearful of their jeers and snorts as a kid. They always seemed so big in the dark.
Beside him, Andre merely laughed, indicating again for the wine.
“American Bambi, at this time of day? Pah. I would worry more of a falling boulder lad – that would squish us flat before we even had a chance to hear a rumble, a fall. Far more risky, well beyond our control. Besides,” the man was saying, looking jaunty, “you are right sir, quite right sir to question these things. It will add to your paper, your video, the how-do-you-say, story if I do? (If WE do find ourselves in such a ‘situation’, he corrected himself.) But can you imagine it? I, Andre Bersetti killed by a simple stag? Yet I have trained these eyes to see left and right unlike no other, to connect with the road and the lanes better than any other man who walks this earth. Ha, look at me, this fool. He that drives, truly drives his chariot on the morning light has taught me well. No, we shall be fine. Until God sends his bolted lightning down, or a wide fist, no man shall claim or outrace me. Try me I say. Tempt me. Both.” Jim looked at his GPS, gulping again at their progress. At this pace, they would be in Elbe in another half hour – twenty minutes ahead of schedule. He could only imagine what the vloggers would say, the sponsors, his own production crew. He had insisted cutting the mic feed for a bit, to build anticipation.
Above them the drones and other helicopters whizzed. Anticipation seemed to build all around.
“What is sad, is that if I did not enjoy so much of your Cascadian wine yesterday eve, I suppose I could have shaved five minutes off our final run time. Here, let us have some fun.” He motioned to one of the side roads, curious.
“Your hungover!?” The words were out of his mouth before Jim had a chance to think of them. He felt scared, truly frightened for the first time that day. Andre seemed just about ready to reply when the events begun.
Jim had been turning to look closely at the man, trying to determine if wine could make out a ruddy wine complexion, or if Tuscans normally seemed so robust. He honestly wondered if it was all a joke or not, when the nearest stag stepped into the road.
Ahead of them though in the road were some deer. At least two, and perhaps an elk to the one side. God’s knew how many could still be in the underbrush, waiting behind any of the number of thick northern pines. Jim only saw them as a flash from the corner of his eye, the shock from the rush of adrenalin seeming to slow the pacing.
“My…” was all he had time to think, to blurt out.
Still, the skill of the Italian remained supreme. Instead of hitting the breaks, the man beside merely accelerated into the worst of the thick, seeming to anticipate the movement of each beast on each and every sides. Jim swore he had time to look from the nearest deer, back to the chocolate eyes of the man beside him, only to see a look of mad determination set in. A treat, a real challenge for the ages, his brow read.
Ahead of them the deer merely stood, as if caught in their own slack-jaw wonder.
What the nearest must have thought as this blue-orange bullet rocketed from the roadside, or the camera crews above was anyone’s guess. Jim merely had time to turn back to truly face the road, had only the fantast inkling that he had somehow crossed himself, or cures, or had gripped tight to the handles on each side of the chair frame as they passed the first doe. The one on the right leaped sideways, while the two on the other side seemed torn on what next to do.
Meanwhile Andre slid in the space where only a moment before a beast had shifted from foot to foot. Ahead of them more shapes were just starting to shift in respectable directions, hooves and antlers seeming all around, bleating, screaming.
Through it all the burly Italian flew.
“My god, my god, my…” Jim heard himself now saying, uttering over and over. On all sides the herd seemed to open up, hard bodies drifting by in ghost fashion. He swore he could see one jump clear over the roof of the car, swore too that as he looked to his right he could see his own face reflected back from the deep center of a bucks eye. It was a big one, its antlers grown thick from the deep summer suppers. He knew that each one would kill them instantly, even the slightest clip of an atler enough to throw them from the road.
For a moment he saw a drop of frothed snot fall from its nostril, head shaking.
Then a flash it was over, they were past the thick of it. In a moment more they were alone on the road, Andre alone laughing manically, the asphalt zipping by.
“Ha ha! See, we have our fun, do we not?” The Italian beamed in a way that shook them both. Jim didn’t have time to think, his hands white on the supports. He had dropped the wine bottle, had heard it bouncing on Andre’s knees, threatening to slide down his shin to the accelerator. He thought for a minute to grab for it, yet Andre had already pulled the cork end with his teeth, gulping, relishing.
Below, the engine rumbled on.
Jim made a motion as if to puke. Andre leaned over to him, to pat him on the back, gesturing to one of the barf bags as they and the car shifted minutely right.
“Relax my country friend, all is well. Now for serious you must have at the wine, give Andre a good dollop when you are through!” He was handing the bottle back, ignoring the taunt clench of Jim’s fingers, protesting so.
“So as I was saying…” the Italian blustered on, seemingly unawares.
Jim was about to thank him, scold him, both, when events truly turned.
When things really happened, they appeared to occur in slow motion. One of the hundreds (perhaps thousands?) of hanging pines they had passed since starting out from Greenwater ahead of them suddenly gave way, arcing beautifully in the Augustine sun as it descended. Whether the roots of that matchstick had finally had enough of the heat of summer, or else had been pried loose by the weight of the few crows that had just landed on their perch was unknown to him. He was too spellbound to say anything to Andre, who himself was so focused on the road, the bottle, the wine, on the twist of the tires below that he appeared not to look up at all. He was still saying something about grapes, or else telling a tale of a similar encounter somewhere outside the Black Forest in the heart of Bavaria when the sapling hit.
Perhaps he was still thinking of his achievement with the deer, his own veins flooded with a drivers anathema to notice, or care.
Regardless, the tree lanced through the windshield taking the man in the chest, causing blood and vomit to explode in a gigantic spurt. Beside him Jim could only gasp, his face instantly splashed in an arc of the warm grease heat, the deer and wine all but forgotten. Andre’s mouth opened into one final grin before he puked blood out from between his own smile, his hands clutching harder for a moment on the wheel before he tried his own screams, pawed at his own face.
Yet unlike the tens of millions of other ways this accident could have gone, the gears, the apps, the engine was already turning round. Jim had unconsciously braced for an impact, was attempting to prepare himself for the car to flip end over end before it went tumbling down the near precipice before he noticed the car begin to slow. The McHooster RX lived up to its engineering, its ingenuity, making thick hum and spark noises as its driver folded backward into his own chest, pawing fruitlessly at the twigs and branches seemingly snarled in his hair. The violet purple of the machine began to slow as he let go of the wheel, seemed to counter adjust for any of Andres last flails and foibles, centering itself on the road due to unseen cameras. Its mechanics seemed immune, impervious to the blood that was pooling it its creases, screens displaying only minute warnings, while beside the counsel Jim merely stood gaping. Above them the helicopters continued to whirl, the men’s earpieces suddenly alive with questions and shouted curiosities.
Meanwhile, the car had continued to slow, its doors beginning to slowly open upwards, a kindly voice prepping the occupants for countermeasures.
“Thank you for riding in the McHooster RX 7 Series,” the machine was replying, as it came to a complete stop at the side of the road. “Be sure to rate us online, at www.dot.......” The rest was becoming a blur, as Andre’s head fell off to the side, his eyes dilating, knees jackknifed out to each side.
Beside him, Jim could only begin to scream and scream and scream. Above them all the helicopters whirled, the cameras gulped, and the day continued on.
