Rambler Classic

Hucston. Just who in the hell had heard ’o’ Hucston? I can tell you to save from counting. Nobody. Nobody but the inhabitants, which numbered about two hundred, and then there was me.

Since arriving in this nowhere-town, with its closed-up gas stations and abandoned lots, shop fronts all boarded up, bored youths flicking knives going nowhere fast and old johnny law patrolling the main drag like it was the only thing he knew how, I was getting the awful sinking feeling in my gut that the last of my luck was fixin’ to run out. 

That was, of course, until I turned off the main drag into a side alley and banged my knee straight into her bonnet. She was a 1964 Rambler Classic 770 and just about the most smoking set of wheels I’d laid my eyes on in this shambles of a town.

The passenger door was unlocked, which floored me. I sidled over to the driver’s seat and as I did, I caught a whiff of that gorgeous new leather smell, like a cross between that new hair pomade and the sharp scented lotion the barbers use after a genuine cut throat shave. The smell enveloped the whole car and I damn near swooned. 

Everything I know about cars, I’d learned from White Mike, my cellmate back in San Quentin. I’d served a short stretch there in ’58. Named for his albino complexion, White Mike was a lifer. Murder and grand theft auto. I’d be damned if there was anything about the delicate art of the modern car-jacker that he didn’t know. The man was a con’s walking encyclopaedia. 

White Mike put me wise to the greats - Coltrane, Mingus, Ellington, Monk, Cannonball and the irrepressible Miles Davis. It was the way they played the blues that got me thinking about my life, the what-ifs and could-have-beens. Hell, if some of those thoughts didn’t come rough and hard at a man every now and again. Especially when cooped up in a 4 by 6 cell, eating that rat-arse poison prison food. Knowing all the while I’d left all those pretty ladies, dolled up in their finery, dancing and twisting their sweet stuff, back in my native San Fran’.

So when I did get out, I got myself dressed up in a second-hand suit, ran a comb through my hair with a dab of brilliantine and hunted out a jazz club. There were plenty, if you knew where to look. Like I said, White Mike had put me wise and damn me to hell if jazz didn’t turn the ladies out, straight up and down - they did look fine.

And that’s how I met Val. Slinky li’l Val. Val never stepped out in less than a high-class low-cut silk number that clung to her body in a way that left me in no doubt there was a higher power. What I’d done to deserve such blessings I didn’t stop to ask. It was the way she smelled that first took me in - feminine, full of dark allure and irresistible.

She and I spent our nights cloistered in a back booth, slamming whiskey shots and pumping the mini-jukebox with quarters, keeping the jazz numbers coming, waiting on some cool West Coast act to make its way to the stage. 

Val damn near got me shot tryin’ to steal a wad off her ol’ man, Duke. This was not just any wad, this was nearly five grand we were talking and, my oh my, was Duke connected. I should have stuck to the motor caper; stealing cars had never seemed so safe. 

After we’d bolted, every town we hit, there was talk of this man who’d stolen Duke’s girl and made off with a whole load ’o’ dough. Word was that Duke had a bounty on the man; would pay handsomely if anyone came by him or his (now) ex-lady friend, Val. 

Three days ago, Val upped and left in the middle of the night. I should’ve seen it coming. Any gal cold enough to leave her sugar daddy of 6 plus years without so much as a good-bye kiss wouldn’t think twice about leaving a beat up ex-con like myself, jazz affectations aside. 

She’d been thoughtful enough though to make off with what was left of the dough we’d stolen. Real thoughtful. I didn’t even have enough to make the hotel rent that next morning, so when I woke, pounding whisky hangover thudding at me like a clamouring landlord that just won’t quit ‘til he’s got his fingers on the rent, I just walked out the door and hitched me a ride out of town quick smart. 

A whole day and night later, I found myself in glorious old Hucston. I arrived with the shirt on my back, less than a nickel to my name and a hole in my left boot that was getting bigger every step I took. I’d even pawned my suit jacket for a pack of cigarettes.

Now I had me some wheels and a half tank ’o’ gas, it looked to be farewell Hucston. The place was starting to get to me anyhow. Creepin’ locals, their critter-eyes-a’buggin’ when they first clapped eyes on me at the local bar. The bar tender hit me with a whole bunch ’a questions, I said I’d sooner have a drink than tell him my life-story; wasn’t much there to tell anyhow. I figure any ’o’ the bars in these parts that play all the country music and none ’o’ that good wholesome blues and jazz is smoking the wrong stick ’o’ tea. 

I scrabbled about under the dash, detaching a lead here, splicing another one here, until I had the two I needed. I touched them together and on the third spark the engine roared into life. I turned on the radio and Chico Hamilton came over the airwaves. I tapped the accelerator; got the fuel working through the pistons. Leaning back, I lit my last cigarette then turned up the dial and let Chico Hamilton serenade me as the afternoon deepened and the sun dreamt up long shadows in the eddies of the lane ways off the main drag. 

I rolled the Rambler down the main street, the window down, elbow out, one eye out for johnny law, enjoying the last of my cigarettes as Coltrane’s My Favourite Things came on. And that’s when I saw Val bold as love, stepping out of a local Macy’s, more bags than she could carry, all decked out in a new fur coat, smoking a cigarette from one of those cigarette extension devices the movie stars like. 

My, did she look fancy. Fancy with all that sweet dough trickling through her fingers, and not a second thought spared for me, left three towns back with only the shirt on my back.

I should have just kept on driving, put my pedal to the floor and left Hucston for the archaeologists to find in another millennia. But my hurt pride and sense of damn righteousness got the better of me and I pulled the car around, following from just behind as she strolled along, not a care in the world. 

She didn’t see me at first, the Rambler sidling along the pavement as she walked by, her attention on the more important things in life, like keeping hold of all her damn parcels. Miles’ version of Summertime came on and I turned it up, loud, the muted high trumpet clear as day and she must have recognised it, must have triggered some memory of an earlier, happier time.

She looked up in the direction of the music, peered straight at me like it was nothing and I couldn’t help but smile as I watched it dawn on her that it was me, right there, staring back at her, shit-eating grin on my face. That’s right darling, I’ve come to collect what’s due. 

One bag hit the pavement and toppled sideways, depositing a single leather high-heeled shoe that just looked forlorn and then she stumbled backwards, taking these little nervous steps until she bumped up against the storefront window. Then she turned and ran. Full tilt, down the alleyway. I jerked the car to a standstill and bolted out. I’d half expected to give chase. She’d have to know I wasn’t going to be the happiest man in Hucston after losing my retirement savings. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charles Lidgard has self-published two novellas - A Forming Destruction and The Subversion of Richard. His work has appeared in American Feed Magazine, Babel Magazine, Double Dare Press, Melange Magazine, Slinkster Ezine, The Australian Reader, and The Surface Literary Magazine. He regularly updates a blog on Australian jazz, and is working on a cyber-noir thriller. He lives in Melbourne, Australia.