Fire of Unknown Origin

Chapter 3

Chapter 3“Final boarding call for flight A758, 10.15 to Chicago, gate 25. Final boarding call for flight A758, 10.15 to Chicago, gate 25.” The message resounded over the speakers all across the torrid Sunport airport in Albuquerque. Three young men in their late twenties, fresh off the direct flight from San Antonio, were descending via the long escalator toward the main hall, armed with their Ray Ban glasses and small duffel bags. Dressed much more by raw money than any rational style, but all evidently in good physical shape, the men were grinning and elbowing one another while spewing a string of friendly insults. As they approached the exit door, the tallest and biggest of the lot, Connor, asked the two shorter guys:

“What’s the name of the dude who’s supposed to pick us up? Christopher told me yesterday, but I can’t remember now. I can’t be bothered to go through my bag.”

“You’re retarded.” quipped the short-haired blonde young man called Steve, dressed in jeans and a grey, completely unbuttoned shirt and then continued: “How would we know? Aren’t you the leader of this trip?”

“Shut up, idiot.” countered the tall fellow. “You happen to remember?” Connor asked and steered the chat toward the third guy while trying to remember details of the conversation and the name of their contact in Albuquerque. The third young man by the name of Jim, a freckled, ginger guy with a distinctly squared jaw and somewhat creepily blank grey-blue eyes, was ransacking his pockets in search of a lighter, having prepared a pack of “Camel” cigarettes to fire up during their trip.

“Silky Steve’s got a point. Yesterday you spent two hours bragging how you took care of everything. You and your deranged buddy Christopher. Put you two together, you still wouldn’t have one whole brain.” Jim replied and groaned. The huge surface of his square face emphasized his mouth, which was exceptionally weirdly positioned and seemingly constantly distorted to the left.

Slightly offended but still aware of his omission, Connor tried to turn the conversation into another joke.

“Don’t be a grumpy asshole.”

“Your sister is an asshole.” Jim said, evidently lacking a less vulgar option and obviously intent on demolishing some family values. The tall fellow just calmly replied:

“Hey, you know the rules regarding insults aimed at family members. You’re buying the first round once we get to Chihuahua. And don’t badmouth Christopher, he hooked us up for this thing. If you’d rather sit home and watch the d**k Cavett Show while wearing your dad’s slippers, just go ahead.”

All three of them sniggered and stepped through the main airport exit, where they witnessed a sight which momentarily unraveled the mystery about who was coming to pick them up. A lanky figure in his early fifties, with thin straw-like hair and an unusually dense, light and bristly mustache was standing a few yards from the door, holding up a big cardboard piece with the words “JIM CONNOR STEVE” subtly written on it in blue paint. The man was wearing dusty jeans whose original color had long been devoured by the New Mexico sun, while a half-smoked cigarette was balancing from the edge of his thin, cracked lips. Contrasting the three well-born and fresh young men, his face had withstood the full fury of the local climate and had successfully began resembling a desolate desert landscape through the years. The overall decrepitude of the dusty old timer was showing the most in the layered, wrinkled corners of his depressed blue eyes, completely unprotected by any kind of sunglasses or at least a hat.

“Looks like you’re our driver, old man.” Connor yelled.

“You’re Christopher’s friends, then?” the mustached, lanky character voiced lazily.

“Are we going now, or what?” Jim jumped in sharply and flew right by their veteran driver, although he had no idea which way to go and where their car was parked.

“No reason to rush, fellas. We got everything covered… You guys from the big city sure like to sprint and run. Follow me, the car is over here.” The older man waved his hand and started walking down the street toward the parking lot.

“We need to stop by a*****e for liquor and smokes. Where can we get some kitchen scales?”, Connor asked after a hundred yards of walking.

“Kitchen scales, huh? I reckon we could find some near Woolworth’s, in that place that sells home appliances and such.”

“Head there first. Where the hell is that car of yours? And what’s your name, man? Didn’t hear you say.” Connor said.

“You didn’t ask. I thought Christopher told you my name. That’s the way it usually goes…”, the sandy fifty-year-old replied and scratched his mustache with his bony fingers.

“Ford. Ford’s my name… and the car is about seven yards away from us in this moment. No need to yell.”

Ah, yes. Ford. Connor had finally remembered the name. And truthfully enough, right about seven yards in front of them there stood a car, or at least something that used to look like a car a long time ago. A long, black, half-decomposed station wagon with three rows of seats, reinforced with makeshift plates covering its worn-out sides. Corrosion was slowly consuming it, while its left tail light was partially fractured. The three fellows simultaneously thought how that old rattletrap surely couldn’t even move, except maybe with a wild push downhill. “What kind of horror is this, man? This car is older than me. Maybe even you.” Steve said mockingly.

“She’s old, that’s true, but she runs just fine… she has still to let me down. Also, everybody at the border knows this car and the man driving it. Nobody will be giving us any trouble.” said Ford peacefully and kept going: “You got plenty of space for your bags and two cozy rows of seats. You can make yourselves comfortable, it’s gonna be quite hot today.”

“You got no air conditioning? How do you even drive around in this thing?” ginger Jim chimed in on the insults, frustratedly throwing his duffel bag on the asphalt. “A rusty bucket on wheels. Fred f*****g Flintstone’s got a better car than you. Connor, is Christopher screwing with us? Who the hell did he send, goddammit?”

“I’m used to the breeze, I guess.” the mustached man said and entered the vehicle, forcefully slammed the hoary door, and then quickly started the engine. “I’m too old for this, fellows. Are you going, or not? If not, I’ll let Chris know that you’ve bailed, but I ain’t giving refunds. You can catch the next flight to San Antonio in an hour, if you want.”

The three young men stood there before the battered old station wagon and debated in loud whispers, regardless of the fact that Ford didn’t really care whether they would eventually decide to go with him. He was even kind of hoping that they’d pack up their stuff and go back so he could head home to grab a decent meal and watch “Fantasy island” on TV, instead of driving 500 miles to damn Mexico. Still, he had been co-operating with Christopher for quite some time, and Chris had paid for everything in advance and insisted that Ford take the boys for a Mexican adventure. Doing the job dutifully was the right thing to do, since Chris was also fair to him. For a moment, Ford thought about perhaps letting his associate, Joseph, take over the tour, but he didn’t really want to risk losing an employer like Christopher. Furthermore, Joseph was still probably in Mexico driving the previous group, and it was questionable whether those three boys would be willing to wait for another driver.

Connor’s deep voice directed toward his two other companions burst out through the dense cloud of black smoke which was actively spouting from the exhaust of Ford’s wagon:

“I don’t give a crap that it’s a wreck, get in! We have nothing better, and we paid good money for this thing. We’ll be in Chihuahua in a couple of hours, quit bitching.”

“Come on, it’s not that much money, my uncle will –“ Jim started hesitantly, but his imposing friend quickly cut him off, shouting:

“Your uncle better not ever find out where the hell we’re going and what we’re doing, you dimwit. You think he’d find it interesting if someone started dragging his family through the press and yelling how his nephew is doing drugs and scoring whores in Mexico? Come on, let’s go.” Connor swiftly put his bag into the trunk and leaned into the first seat behind the driver’s, stretching his legs across the entire width of the car.

“You two sit in the back, I need space.” he said to the shorter guys, which were somewhat reluctantly placing their luggage in the trunk. A few seconds later, Jim and Steve sat down on the third row of seats, behind Connor. Ford’s black wagon was roomy enough, if nothing else. The radio came alive and the creaky, dusty interior of the car became resonant with the voice of Willie Nelson, to which Steve started to giggle wildly, consumed with disbelief.

“Come on, man… Can you possibly be a bigger dinosaur? Willie Nelson, this car, this whole thing...” Connor and Jim joined him in laughter, and even Ford himself chuckled once he saw them in the rear-view mirror.

“That’s how it goes here, boys. There are certain rules when you drive and we only listen to serious music. Now, you said you needed booze, smokes and scales? Let’s go shopping then.” he finished lazily and rumbled the gassy, rusty chariot down the road. They stopped for a couple of minutes in front of a nearby convenience store, where Connor and Steve bought two bottles of “Jim Beam”, several packs of “Camel” cigarettes, a bag of potato chips, some sandwiches and a few bottles of water for the road. After that, they got two somewhat bigger kitchen scales in the shop next door, paying everything in cash.

“We got all we need, old timer.” Jim whooped, while drowsily putting his sunglasses on and gesturing with his hand that it’s time to go. “How long till we’re in Chihuahua?”

“I reckon some seven hours, maybe eight… There shouldn’t be any queue at the border. I’ll stick to the speed limit, just so that patrols don’t give us a hard time. Hoping for a clear road ahead. It’s too hot for cops to camp out near trunk roads and outside of populated areas.” Ford replied as his voice softly cracked and grated, after which he pulled down and gently adjusted the wooden necklace hanging from his mirror. The rusty rattletrap roared once more and the peculiar expedition with three city boys and one older mustached man began its journey toward Mexico, defying the burning May sun and the inhospitable desert scenery.

“Cool, cool…”, mumbled the ginger, square-headed Jim, stuffing a handful of potato chips in his mouth and leaving copious bits of food all over his expensive jeans and the old seats. “Tell me, what’s the deal with these rickety seat covers? s**t, did you happen to steal this car from a junkyard?” The words were laboriously forcing their way through the mush made from the potato chips and the saliva in his mouth, which Jim quickly flushed down with a sip of bourbon and then wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

”The covers are there to prevent things from getting dirty. It’s easier to keep it clean like that. Plenty of passengers, plenty of food. Things get spilled.” Ford said calmly as he glanced slowly over his shoulder before turning his eyes back to the road.

Although they refrained from openly commenting on it, the lads definitely thought how the old seats beneath must’ve probably been dirtier than anything that they could possibly spill over them, even if it were the contents of their bowels. In that scenario, the covers weren’t such a bad thing after all.

“What car is this anyway?”, ginger Jim continued while crushing the chips over himself and his nearby surroundings.

“This is a 1960 Ford Country Squire, son.” replied the driver, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a small towel that he kept on the armrest.

“Ford. You have the same name as your car?”

“Ford is my last name. My first name is Jacob. Everybody calls me Ford. I didn’t choose my name, nor my last name. It was given to me.” said the driver pensively, more to himself than actually expecting to have any one of the boys answer him. Of course, the block-headed ginger just kept going, slating again the mustached man’s name and his old house on wheels.

“Perhaps you can’t choose your name, but you can choose the car you’re buying. Ford driving a Ford. That’s retarded.” Jim gawked.

“That is true, no doubt.” responded the skinny gentleman holding the wheel. “You know what else can a man choose? He can choose whether he’ll be a spoiled, loudmouth i***t, or not. That should be a pretty easy choice, but apparently isn’t for some.”

The three spoiled, loudmouthed idiots momentarily looked at each other and burst into deafening laughter, further augmented by the effects of alcohol.

“You’re alright, old man. Alright. A true comedian.” Jim said at the end of it all and returned to his bourbon, deciding to ease up on the insults a bit.

Ford did not say a word and just slowly started whistling to the tune coming from the radio, trying to keep the conversation with his passengers to a bare minimum. It was easier like that. Nobody knows much and they’ll all make the best out of it if anything were to go wrong. Certainly, there was a limit up to which this evasion of conversation was possible, and it greatly depended on who was sitting on the rear seats. In this case, Ford wasn’t very lucky. The crew of three was blabbering intensely, making the occasional bad joke along the way on the account of Ford’s car and the conditions they were travelling in, but at one point after approximately two hours of driving, they almost completely eliminated Ford out of the conversation and turned to their own topics. They were making plans on how much of everything each of them was going to snort and how many Mexican girls they would bang during their “tourist trip” to Chihuahua. Inspired by their arrogant behavior, Ford glanced over his glove compartment box and thought for a second how he could simply stop the car somewhere in the desert, and then introduce his esteemed passengers to his .38 caliber which he kept there for protection. Strictly as an exercise in manners, in the spirit of proper American upbringing and the fundamentals of hospitality. He could never really hurt someone, but these fellows represented a true temptation. “It’s going to be a long trip”, Ford said to himself and exhaled.