Yeah, it was a lawnmo-- ahem, lawn tractor after all, here it comes round the mountain, trailing two parallel lines of dust behind it.
Well, it was a lawn tractor at some point, one of the latter-day everything-in-the-world-with-grass-as-a-sideline jobs that came with a roll-bar, power-takeoff and a bazillion doodads and whistles that this thing barely resembles anymore. It’s got a Wankel engine shoe-horned into it (with the little plastic letters W A N K E L on the front, so I’m not guessing), with an absurd “I break for BioDiesel” bumper sticker plastered on the side, right next ones for “Shell” “CBGB-OMFUG” “Europe 2072” “Haul Ass” “Where have I been?” and …
One final sticker: “The Name of this Tractor is Severed Heads.”
It can’t be, right? David Burned? Still doddering about with a passenger in tow?
Oh, yeah. The over-sized chain-mail on the driver, coupled with the dodgy, patched-and-patched-again paper-machie head should have been a dead-giveway. That and, who the f**k else drives a lawn-tractor in this day and age? Even one that’s been souped-up to burn 17 different kinds of fuel, has it’s cutter-blades on extension arms, and can burn down most houses with it’s dual-exhuast/flame-throwers. He may be driving solo these days, but it’s definitely him.
“You’re late” somebody calls out.
“Late?” A familiar voice responds, “Late as in the late David Burned?” And tosses something into the no-man’s land of the stand-off.
When it stops tumbling and the dust settles, we can see it’s a head. Burned’s head, duh. It’s eyes are opened in that angry swirl of marble flesh.
The driver lifts off his head and… it’s a her. G-d stone me blind, but it’s Deadly Harry herself, the ex-offender in the flesh.
The last time I saw her was at the last Tractor Pull, when Mary Margaret Road-Grader caught it in the face from Elmo John Deere (true story!). I look into her face, her eyes closed, and even though I know the batteries have been topped off and the valves freshly oiled, I can feel my heart shattering like a glass snowglobe tossed off a mountain.
Even the backfires are muted as there’s an old-fashioned silence, everybody politely waiting for the other party on the phone to say something. And then she does:
“I’m on E,” Blondie says, “Dagwood and I want in.”
KooKoo for Cocoa-Puffs, same as she ever was.
Somebody backfires, a couple of us rev in response, but we can all hear the highway breathing. Unlike Burned, I hope she knows where she’s going with this.
And she opens up her eyes.
[artwork in progress]
This was my original mental image of "Dagwood’; Deadly Harry not so much. And forget the ve-hickle. The quiff should be sticking up, not curling down.
