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Wrap Your Ass in Fiberglass – A Novel by George Miller

Chapter 1: Union Station

"John, you shouldn't drink on an empty stomach. Let's get something to eat."

The evening begins with a simple proposition. John McDowell and Jackie Cessna leave a late afternoon deposition in a Bureau of Regulation conference room. Jackie represents Henry Billotte in his disability claim against the Bureau, and John represents the Bureau. After the meeting Jackie drives John to Washington's Union Station for a quick drink at the bar. Then Jackie plans to return to her Baltimore apartment and John to ride the commuter train up the Potomac River to his home in Western Maryland.

"You know, John, Thursday night is steamed crabs and fried oysters at the Free State Inn. We won't need reservations after 8:00."

The quick drink becomes two, then three, then four. Quick becomes hours. After John misses the last train home, Jackie offers to intercept it in Silver Spring, the first stop six miles up the line. All goes well until they screech out of the parking lot onto Massachusetts Avenue. Only members of Congress, Cabinet Officials, and Supreme Court Justices may exit the Union Station parking lot at speeds in excess of 30 mph.

"John, do you live anywhere near Harpers Ferry? Because I've been to Harpers Ferry. We could go out for crabs. Then I could swing by your house on my way home."

John and Jackie stumble out of the First Street entrance to Union Station and climb into Jackie's Sunbeam Tiger. Then they're in and out of Capitol Hill, and on and off the Southeast-Southwest Freeway, and down to the end of Haines Point and back. Jackie wants Ohio Drive to hook up with Rock Creek Parkway near Georgetown, but she can't quite manage the cloverleaf. When she misses her exit and heads onto the Fourteenth Street Bridge, she decides to cross the median strip back to the exit ramp. The car bounces on its shocks as it crosses the drainage ditch onto the opposite embankment. When they hit the curb, a sharp, penetrating jolt sends the car into the air above the road.

"John, you know we don't have to meet the train in Silver Spring. I could drive you home. It's practically on my way. We could run out for dinner. Then I could swing by your house and have you home by 9:00 or 10:00."

In one instant, the small convertible races insanely across Ohio Drive toward the Fourteenth Street Bridge. In the next, it traces an arc diagonally through the air above the access ramp to the bridge, hurtled by its own momentum from the sure, precious traction of the roadway into the predestined world of ballistics and trajectories. Within a fraction of a second, the automobile has become a mere projectile, a capsule beyond the control of its occupants.

"Jesus Christ!"

The words appear instantaneously on John McDowell's lips. But there's no thought at all behind the words, no cerebral activity. The words are the product of a simple, spontaneous reflex, curses stashed by the nervous system in John's cerebellum, poised for such occasions.

"Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!"

John is vaguely aware of the blasphemies gushing from his mouth, but his mind is elsewhere, lost in a vain effort to retrace the last few seconds. He can't consider the dinner invitation because they're airborne above the access ramp to the Fourteenth Street Bridge.

"Now, I was thinking, John, if you aren't in a hurry to get home, we could run out for a bite, maybe the Free State Inn. That's on our way, isn't it? Don't you live somewhere out there? How's seafood sound?"

John knows where he lives, and he knows the Free State Inn. He lives 20 miles southwest of Frederick, and the Free State Inn is on Alternate 40 near Baltimore, 25 miles east of Frederick. But he doesn't respond. He's preoccupied with the trajectory of the car as it sails through the air.

"Because, if you don't want to go out for crabs, that's fine. I can run you up to Silver Spring put you on your train. I'll find something else to do."

Jackie's soft voice pervades the car. Her small, confident hand leaves the wooden steering wheel and attaches itself to John's thigh. John looks down to the rose-polished fingernails digging into the inseam of his cotton slacks. Surges of familiarity and arousal radiate from the grip. The air is saturated with endearments, "hon", "dear", "baby", "sweetheart".

"So what about it, John? Do you feel like crabs?"

John's orderly mind wants one thing at a time. He'll defer the decision on the crab dinner until the life and death issue is resolved. But he can't stay on task. He can't fend off the crab questions to free his facilities for the life and death issues. He can't maintain a clear perspective. He's mildly distracted by Jackie's hand on his thigh as he attempts to self-administer his last rights. His eyes shimmer with a ticky twitch, an oscillating scan of the tight enclosure for an escape route. His thoughts are furiously rapid and futile. Should he unbuckle and leap from the door? or bury his head in his lap? or claw his way into the half-bench rear seat? A sailor's blasphemy spews from his lips as he fumbles for the appropriate liturgy to placate the deities of the roadway, as he beseeches the deities to relax nature's laws of motion and gravity and allow him to survive.

"Shit!"

Yes, just as the John McDowell quarks and leptons are ready to merge with the quarks and leptons of his ancestors, just as he's blasted from the torpedo tubes into the endless sea, just as he's catapulted from his myopic world of morality and circumstance into the universal states and laws, at the end, on the brink, abruptly and rudely, the car explodes with hyperactive banter.

"Okay, folks, time to get serious here!" Jackie says as she loosens her grip on John's thigh and slaps the heel of her palm knowingly on the steering wheel. She goes into a frenzy of activity. "Don't worry, folks, I can bring this junk heap in safely. Been in the exact situation on many a dark night." Then she's whipping the steering wheel to the left, and then she's down-shifting, and then she's whipping the steering wheel to the right, and then she's double clutching into second, and then she's barking out commands to her passenger, "Lean to the left, folks! Lean to the right folks!"

There's a rhythm to the voice, a confident, steady, repetitive baseline. John finds solace in the rhythm and momentum of the voice. The voice doesn't take the menace seriously. It won't die because it has its own version of the laws of natural selection and the laws of motion and gravity. It speaks of a greasy crab dinner at a Maryland fish camp with bolts of brown paper spread across the table, yellow, gill-stained, wooden mallets, long, slender french fries smothered with Old Bay seasoning, red-weave plastic baskets of plump hush puppies, and pitchers of National Bo.

John is a passenger in a car, floating through the air above the roadway. Rude, ugly voices outside the car compete for his attention. The voices scream and whine like a child, "Me! Me! Me!" Strobes have commandeered his brain. Brilliant beams of light control the motion of his eyes. Before him, a man and woman on a motorcycle swerve off the road and skid sideways through the dirt and gravel on the shoulder. The man is shirtless, tan and muscled, grim faced and long-haired. His face is hard and mean, his waist tight and narrow, his chest and shoulders arrogantly erect and proud. The young, fleshy woman clutches the motorcycle tightly between her legs and the man tightly around the waist. They shout "Wahoo" and "We-ha" as they race through the evening toward an seedy Arlington motel room. John is immediately jealous of the man, of his woman, of the raw bond of flesh between them, of their extreme good fortune to have their wheels on the ground. They're in a time and place where they have total control of their bodies, their machine, and the road. They're survivors, masters of the laws of natural selection and the laws of motion and gravity. Eddies of road grit swirl in the wake of the motorcycle. Jackie's wheels hit the ground with a screech and bounce again into the air. The man on the motorcycle twists the throttle on the handlebar grip.

How quickly the adjustment is made. One moment among the living and then John relaxes back into his seat to enjoy the finale of his life, the placid and strange perspective of the end. He stares through the windshield at the white dome of the Jefferson Memorial, at the Japanese cherry trees, at the bridges stretching out across the river. The fragrances hang in the cold night air. The mists swirl in his headlight beams. His is a curious window to the world, an encapsulation, a misty and final panorama, a beauty and a pity.

Jackie's hand is back on John's thigh. As the sensations surge up his leg, he stares at her small fingers cluttered with Polish-grandmother rings and her fingernails chewed to the quick. His eyes track up a sleeve of richly woven tweed to mad, grinning eyes – pin-point, Dexedrine-laden pupils a'slosh in a sea of ethyl alcohol. He yields to the flesh and the tweed, to the urges and the madness, to the hand kneading his thigh, to the incoherent tongue of the chronic conversationalist chatting up the Free State Inn. He yields to the soft voice coaxing him out of his shell. "Okay, crabs it is. Definitely sign me up for the crab dinner."

John turns to Jackie for approval of his newfound sociability, but the manic hedonist isn't impressed that he's chosen to deviate from his day-planner. She doesn't inhale the mock aromas of crabs and beer. Her hand doesn't tighten its grip on his thigh. No, terror has usurped her jolly, rosy cheeks and her mad, grinning eyes. She's finally noticed the motorcycle. She no longer badgers John about the crab dinner at the Free State Inn. Her confidence is suddenly lame, her braggadocio limp.

The man on the motorcycle tightens his grip on the throttle. "Wahoo" he roars. "Varoom" roars his machine. "We-ha" squeals his girlfriend, jiggling as she tightens her arms around his waist. The motorcycle lurches forward, eddies of road grit swirling in the wake. Jackie's wheels hit the ground with a screech and bounce again into the air. John stares at the spectacle, dumbstruck and helpless as he relaxes back into his seat to enjoy the finale of his life, the placid and strange perspective of the end. He stares through the windshield at the white dome of the Jefferson Memorial, at the Japanese cherry trees, at the bridges stretching out across the river.

George Miller © 2009

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