Aloha from Hell

I take my basket of donuts, candy, chips, refrigerated burgers, and barbecue sandwiches up to the clerk. He’s red-eyed and bored, trying to hide the Hustler he’s been thumbing through the whole time I’ve been in the store. I let him take the stuff from my basket. My hands could get diabetes and a stroke just from touching the wrappers.

I say, “Throw in a carton of Luckies.”

The kid sighs. I’ve ruined his day by asking him to turn around and pick up something.

“We don’t sell cartons. Just packs.”

“Then sell me ten packs and leave them in the box.”

He thinks this over for a minute. I can hear the gears turning. The factory that runs his brain is spewing copious amounts of ganja fumes. Finally, he thinks of something that won’t make him sound too stupid.

“You have any ID?”

“Do you really think I’m underage?”

He shrugs.

“No ID, no smokes.”

I take two twenties from my pocket and slide them across the counter to him.

“There’s my ID.”

He has to think again. The workers are fleeing the factory. The boiler might blow.

The kid holds up the bills to see if they’re counterfeit.

“Yeah, okay. Don’t tell anyone.”

“Who am I going to tell?”

He considers this for a moment, like it’s a trick question, but it soon fades from his resin-clogged brain along with the state capitals and how to do math. He drops a carton of Luckies onto the pile of death snacks and rings them up, setting the well-thumbed Hustler on the counter as he counts out my change. Then realizes what he’s done. He freezes. It looks like he might stay like that for the rest of the day.

I pick up my bag and say, “Keep the change. I respect a man who reads.”

I go back to the Bonneville and set the bag on the passenger seat. Time to talk to the one person who might be able to help me get Downtown. Mustang Sally, the freeway sylph.

EVERY CITY HAS a Mustang Sally. Every town and jungle village with a dirt path. She’s a spirit of the road, an old and powerful one. If you add up all the freeways, the county and city roads, in and around L.A., it means Sally controls twenty thousand miles of intense territory. And that doesn’t even count the ghost roads and ley lines.

I steer the Bonneville onto the shoulder of the 405, the freeway that runs along Sepulveda Boulevard, the longest street in L.A. I break open the carton of Luckies, take out a pack, and slice it open with the black blade. I slide across the front seat and get out on the passenger side. This would be a lousy time to die.

Traffic blasts past at sixty per hour and no one even glances in my direction as I walk behind the car and scratch Mustang Sally’s sigil into the freeway concrete. When I’m done I stand in the center of the mark, take out a Lucky, and light up. Passing cars pull the smoke in their direction, like it wants to follow them down the road. I smoke and wait.

Mustang Sally has been cruising L.A.’s roads twenty-four/seven since they were nothing more than mud paths, horse tracks, and wagon ruts. As far as I know, she never sleeps and never stops except when someone leaves an offering. For the last hundred years she’s been through every kind of car you can name. Of course, she never has to stop for gas. Sally eats, but only road food. Things you can find in gas-station markets and vending machines. She doesn’t need to eat. She just likes it. It’s like me and stealing cars. Sometimes you just want to feel ordinary. Like a person. She eats. I drive.

Twenty minutes later, a silver-and-black Shelby Cobra pulls onto the shoulder a few yards behind me. I stomp out of her emblem and hold the Lucky out to her.

Sally is taller than I remember. Taller than someone who spent all day and night comfortably in a compact sports car. Her hair is dark. Maybe jet black with blue highlights. She’s dressed in a white evening gown and the highest spike heels this side of the Himalayas. I don’t know how she drives in those thiwaiin thosngs. She walks over to me slowly, sizing me up. She’s running the show, and making me wait is part of it. She has on a pair of soft white calfskin driving gloves. From one hand dangles a small clasp purse rimmed in gold. She’s every bit a goddess except for one thing. She’s wearing what looks like a pair of round glasses with smoked lenses; the kind the blind wore a hundred years ago. They break up the goddess look. Like the Mona Lisa with a lip ring.

When we’re just a couple of feet apart, she stops, peels off the driving gloves, and drops them into the clasp bag. She takes the cigarette from my hand and inhales deeply, letting the smoke drift slowly from her nostrils.

“Unfiltered. You sweet boy.”

I wonder what’s behind those dark glasses. I swear, even in daylight I can see a faint glow from underneath the lenses. She could be sporting twin suns or headlights back there. You would not want to aim your road rage at this woman.

Mustang Sally cocks her head and stares at me for a few seconds.

“I know you. The charming Frenchman introduced us.”