Truckin: 04/01/2008 - 05/01/2008

April 2008, Vol. 7, Issue 4

And we're back...!

1. Bong Hits with Rachael Ray by Paul McGuire
My body sinks into the couch as soon as Rachael Ray comes on the screen. Rachael Ray's smile is intoxicating and any mentioning of EVOO sends orgasmic chills throughout my entire body. And when she grabs a fistful of meat, I wet myself.... More

2. Magpies Are Better Than That, All Wright? by Sigge S. Amdal
Birthdays never set well with me. Today so many days ago I was shoved head first through the vagina of a woman I didn't even know at the time, radically interfering with her and her husband's sex lives, economical situation, causing nothing but general dismay for half a year before they finally got used to me... More

3. Skinny Dipping for Christ by Betty Underground
At the other end of the pool a barefoot young woman, steps to the edge of the pool. Slender. Blonde with alabaster skin. Flawless. Angelic. She steps out of her skirt and pulls her t-shirt over her head. Standing naked, starring down into the pool, still lit from below... More

4. Axel by Kajagugu
My plea trailed off at the end as he put the car in gear and we took off. He pulled a quick left hand u-turn out of the hotel taxi line across six lanes of traffic and barely missed a young lady on her bicycle... More

5. Happiest Place on Earth by Grand Master Pants
Anyone can toss singles onto the stage, but she'd already mastered the art of tipping with style by stuffing dollar bills down her shirt, where the dancers had to be a little more, uh, creative in retrieving them... More

What a Long Strange Trip It's Been...

From the Editor's Laptop:

Welcome back to your favorite literary blogzine. This issue has several of your favorite writers and a debut piece from Grand Master Pants. Returning authors include Betty Underground, Kaja, and everyone's favorite Norwegian writer Sigge S. Amdal, who amazes everyone since he's writing in English, which is not his native tongue. And yes, even I have a sultry tale about Rachael Ray.

Please tell your friends and family about your favorite stories. It takes only a few seconds to pass along Truckin'. The writers certainly appreciate your support.

Also, feel free to shoot me an e-mail if you know anyone who is interested in being added to the mailing list.

Thanks again to everyone for wasting your precious time month after month with Truckin'. And many thanks to the writers who exposed their souls to the world and spilled blood to make art. And, they did it for free. Thanks for inspiring me and taking that leap of faith with me.

Be good,
McG

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." - Alvin Toffler

Published by Truckin' Staff at 4/07/2008 07:51:00 AM | Permalink | Send Comments

Bong Hits with Rachael Ray

By Paul McGuire © 2008

I'm fascinated with Rachael Ray. It's not like stalkerish fascination where I'm digging through her garbage, tapping her phone calls, or breaking into her apartment when she's at work taping 30 Minute Meals and riffling through her underwear drawer. Well, it hasn't gotten to that phase yet. It might, because as each day passes, I can't stop thinking about Rachael Ray. She has infested my mind like a scorching case of herpes.

Life is made up of small simple pleasures. If scientists wired me up and monitored my inner happiness levels to determine which of my daily routines brings forth the most emotion and joy... without a doubt, the results would be off the chart when I do one of my favorite things... ripping bong hits then watching 30 Minute Meals.

My body sinks into the couch as soon as Rachael Ray comes on the screen. Rachael Ray's smile is intoxicating and any mentioning of EVOO sends orgasmic chills throughout my entire body. And when she grabs a fistful of meat, I wet myself. Large stains of semen and Rachael Ray love juice stream down my leg as I lose all control of bodily functions. Her mere appearance turns me into a blathering zombie and all I want to do is eat.

Eat. Eat. Eat.

No one sane can explain happiness or guilty pleasures or why certain things appeal to some people and the same thing totally disgusts others. For me, Rachael Ray has become a state of mind. I often wander the streets of foreign cities with a growling stomach in search for food wondering, "What would Rachael Ray do?"

Rachael Ray has influenced my everyday vernacular more so than Snoop Dogg did in the 1990s, even though I still randomly interject "wizzle" and "Shiznit" from time to time. However, with my recent emotional attachment to Rachael Ray, I can't wait to get into conversations with snooty high society types and drop Rachael Rayisms like "Yum-o!" and "Sammies."

Don't be confused. This is not a sexual fascination. I don't want to fuck Rachael Ray. I don't think anyone can actually fuck Rachael Ray because she gets off, way off, on simple things like produce and spices, how the hell can someone expect to bring someone like that to an orgasm? Maybe if you shove a few chorizo sausages up her ass and pull them out really quick.

I'm turned on by Rachael Ray's knife work. She has her own line of knives. I always wait to see if she slices her finger off. That would be one of the most talked about shows ever... the one where she loses a tip... and doesn't stop. The show must go on and even with 9.8 fingers, Rachael Ray manages to whip up some sort of pasta and cheese concoction.

Before this year, I had never bought a cookbook in my life. I have read cookbooks and borrowed them, but I have never actively purchased one for myself or as a gift. I have now bought five different Rachael Ray cookbooks and given them as gifts. Mostly everyone is sort of curious about her so they get excited when they find out that I marked a special moment (birthday, Christmas, or Kwanzaa) with an authentic Rachael Ray cookbook.

I love to share the love. And no one cooks better love than Rachael Ray.

I find myself thumbing through her cookbooks whenever I'm at a bookstore like Barnes and Noble in New York City or at Borders in Hollyweird or at a random bookstore in some random airport. I flip through the pages and look for pics and it's like I'm reading porn magazines. Food porn. And Rachael Ray is my Traci Lords. OK, so maybe I do want to jack off on Rachael Ray's tits as she makes me a mushroom burger.

Paul McGuire is a writer from New York City.

Published by Truckin' Staff at 4/07/2008 07:51:00 AM | Permalink | Send Comments

Magpies Are Better Than That, All Wright?

By Sigge S. Amdal © 2008

I lost a good friend recently, and you know how it is, you mourn for a period of time and then you pick up your life and continue without. Do your best to cope and so on. I found him again in a record shop two stores below looking for the latest Radiohead album. He told me he wanted In Rainbows so I suggested the hippie store by the central station where they've got all the Shangri-la stuff you'll ever need. He was annoyed and left.

After I finished my window shopping without deciding on what to buy I felt as if a weight had been put on my shoulder. It turned out to be the hand belonging and connected by arm and shoulder to another friend of mine. He was also angry with me.

"Do you have any idea what day it was yesterday!?"

I could easily imagine that today was a Friday or a Saturday. No hello? Not today of course, the day that this happened, but I couldn't name two prior days because it would be a silly reply to a specific question. I landed on Thursday. In most cases Saturdays are just Fridays prolonged.

He called my bluff and put his hands on his hips. I couldn't understand why he was mad, so I quickly added that it might just as well have been a Friday all things considered.

"Do you have any clue as to today's date at all?"

At this point we were getting a lot of visual attention from security which was a bad thing, given that I forgot to close the bird cages in the pet store after window-testing. I took him down to the first story which happens to be next to the wine store in case you go there. It sells and ships wine, fine wines and cheaper ones, regardless of my story.

"So?" he demanded.

I came clean and told him how my calendar had never really worked.

"It doesn't work?! What the hell are you saying?"

"It came with all the dates and everything, but apart from that it's nothing! There's no way of telling what date it is, and since one's just as good as the other, I usually just pick one that I like."

He rolled his eyes conveying that I'd probably missed out on something in the instructions.

"Yesterday was my birthday!" I knew the instructions were faulty.

"What?! And now you tell me!?" I crossed my arms angrily, which felt really awkward being that the both of us were now equally pissed off and I was wearing a stiff and bulky leather jacket one size too big for me.

"So why are you angry at me?" I asked.

"You never showed up! I even began to worry. And here I find you in a shopping mall?"

"You could have sent an invitation," I remarked poignantly.

"I did! Don't you ever check your mail?"

"Not since two months ago. Damn bird snatched the key. Why?"

"And your cell phone?"

"Cut off, since I never paid the bills in the mailbox. It's a positive thing, really, if you take away the candle light expenses. And finding enough driftwood this time of year? Forget about it..."

He said something about disappointments and how they disappoint upon coming to be, while he reluctantly agreed that I'd actually made his next birthday a whole lot better given that we'd both survive to see the day, and granted I'd be present to congratulate him.

Birthdays never set well with me. Today so many days ago I was shoved head first through the vagina of a woman I didn't even know at the time, radically interfering with her and her husband's sex lives, economical situation, causing nothing but general dismay for half a year before they finally got used to me and gave me a name. A natal event best forgotten.

Like my grandfather always used to say: "If you can't remember something it might as well be worth forgetting." He had Alzheimer's before he caught a fatal case of death.
And then there are those who start talking gibberish the moment you hand them a balloon. But I like having the option of turning down the invitation.

When I was half-way home it began to rain heavily and the temperature dropped a milestone. My teeth started clattering, and it struck me how much worse it would have been if I'd been a hamster or a squirrel. Not checking my mailbox in the entrance hallway I ran into a neighbor, a girl who lives next door.

"Sorry," I said, and helped her up. She joined me up the stairs.

"Have you ever had this pain that shoots from the spine and causes your eyeballs to hurt like they've been plucked out, rolled in sandpaper and put back in again but the other way around?"

"No, never!" she exclaimed.

"Lucky girl," I mumbled.

"Why? Are you all Wright?"

"I guess I am."

"Are you in pain?"

"No, I'm not aware of any. Why do you ask?"

She didn't reply, but I could tell her games a hundred miles away. I knew she was studying to become a librarian – which can take a whole lifetime depending on the number of books and the size of the building – and everybody knows that most librarians are moderate nymphomaniacs. It's all about sex to them, indiscreetly indirectly, which is why they do the book thing. Reading. It helps.

The librarian at the elementary school I went to was always fondling her necklace when it was the boys' turn to sit down and not read. When I was nine I got my brother to ask her for the Kama Sutra and she had a nervous breakdown right there in front of us. My brother was six. Still hasn't learned how to read.

She closed the door keeping an eye on me, and I gave her a nod and a grin. Grins are well-meant when they come from the heart, which constitutes a good grin by definition. Bad grins come from the liver, or the bottom of the lungs where you collect all the dust, and nothing is felt when you flash one, except for maybe a little spite. Or a chunk of food stuck between the teeth. I thought about it for a while until I got tired of all the people passing by glaring at me. Neighbors are weird. Normal people always live like two blocks down.

I turned on the light and it was off. Sometimes, after a thunderstorm, some say that you can find wandering pockets of free energy climbing on top of the electrical grid, like a power python making love to a fire hose. The benefit from such an occurrence would outweigh the energy spent flipping the switch manifold.

Anyway. The cat was present.

The cat was not a cat, it was girl, a deceased woman from a caustic love affair. I never knew what became of her after I left, but I knew that this cat was she, so she must have died somehow. I had asked the cat about it on previous rendezvous, but it never replied. It had clearly come to kill me.

I had an uncle who always wore stereophonic headphones and used to breathe more smoke than actual air. He never connected them to anything though; the jack just ended in a curl in his pocket, because he wanted to find out what other people were saying about him when they thought he wasn't listening. And if you spoke to him directly he would pretend he couldn't hear you.

He was an electrical engineer. He put electricity to dead animals to re-animate them. They would jolt around the table, eyelids would shut and open, and sometimes he'd even get the heart beating again. His dream was the electrical embalmed brain, kept alive by nourishing fluids. He called it the Think Slave and he owned several patents for it. The idea was that you could lay off the burden of solving complex problems by feeding them to a brain that had nothing better to do. I asked him how he could know that the brain wouldn't just dream all the time, after which he refused to see me again.

She reminded me of him when I met her. She was obsessed by an idea, and she would avoid or destroy anything and anyone she perceived to be in her way. Given her general paranoia that list included quite a few.

She didn't want an electrical brain though; all she wanted was the perfect family. The Perfect Family. This may sound innocent enough until you begin to appreciate the razor sharp edges of the dome of perfection with which she was supposed to lethally separate between places, pieces and people based purely on prima facie whims or mere spurs of the moment.

She fell in love with me after I had convinced her that her body was more bacteria than human cells.

I once met a baby who had a grown-up's head judging by the proportions. Many babies have this problem, which ultimately leads to an early death.

"You have a very big head," I said, and the baby called me dada.

"Who's your daddy?"

"Dada!"

"Who's your daddy?!"

"Dada!!"

And its mother blushed.

The cat stared at me. There was no distracting it. I knew it would kill me once I fell asleep, so instead I just kept myself awake. It was dark anyway, so closing the eyelids was kind of redundant.

It didn't move for four hours and I was the first one to give in to the urge.
Nanyanette was her name, if I recall correctly. Lucille was someone else and maybe from a dream. There are more muscles in the trunk of an elephant than there are in the entire human body, and I was glad I wasn't an elephant, ‘cause it would have hurt more than it did.

"Come, kitty kitty, come kitty."

Sigge S. Amdal is a word wanker from Oslo, Norway.

Published by Truckin' Staff at 4/07/2008 07:50:00 AM | Permalink | Send Comments

Skinny Dipping for Christ

by Betty Underground © 2008

The poolside bar at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel had closed. The guests of the surrounding cabana rooms were continuing the party from their patios. A long way from retiring.

At the other end of the pool a barefoot young woman, steps to the edge of the pool. Slender. Blonde with alabaster skin. Flawless. Angelic. She steps out of her skirt and pulls her t-shirt over her head. Standing naked, starring down into the pool, still lit from below. Into the water like a ballerina. Extended legs. Toes pointed. Each step erasing her body from the night.

Flashes from the balcony. From the patios. Camera phone paparazzi. Her breasts still exposed, she walks deeper and dips under. Blonde locks floating on the surface for an instance. The crowd waits. Silence fallen over them. Her body gently piercing the still water. They watch. Lap after lap. She holds her breath from one end of the pool to the other. A breath taken, but never heard, and she dips under. The lights bouncing off her young, perfect body.

She exits from the steps. Again, slowly. With purpose. They are mesmerized. Forgetting the photo opportunity and becoming lost in her motion. An audience under her spell. She bends down for her clothes. The flashes ignite the darkness again.

When she turns back, now dressed, she sees him. At the edge of the far patio, starring at her. Summoning her to him. She sits next to him. Her legs extended the length of the white terry cloth covered lounge. Pulling her hair to the side to twist the water from it. Soaking the front of her t-shirt. The water pressing it to her breasts.

"Hi, I'm Sunny."

"That you are." He chimes with a cocky confidence. Not offering his name in return.

They chat. He is there visiting his sister in from New York. The room is hers. Not much is learned before an older man. Early 40s approaches to fetch her. Not a lover. Not a relative. A handler of sorts. Before she leaves she offers an invitation for the next evening. A group of her friends have rented a house off Mulholland Drive. She scribbles the address on the palm of his hands and leans to kiss him on the cheek.

He chuckles as she glides out of sight, "Only in LA."

_______

The next day he contemplates bringing a friend with him. No. He will go alone. Not unusual. He is confident in all situations and prefers to not have anyone running interference. Or reducing the opportunities.

Dressed in black. A dark horse. He gives nothing of him away. The devil. No disguise.

The house is thumping. Music from every corner. All the windows and doors thrown wide open. In the kitchen he stands with Sunny. Trying to focus on her. A parade of beauties coming from all angles. Passing by him. Waving. "Hi Sunny." None of them stopping. Carrying his gaze along with them as they move past.

In the rooms beyond him, more women. A few men. Mostly young and fashionable. Your typical Hollywood types. Over extended credit cards cowering under the purchases of True Religion Jeans. The older man from the night before he recognizes and becomes momentarily uncomfortable as he makes eye contact with Sunny.

Jasmine, dripping from the pool grabs his eye. The first one to take his attention from Sunny. She approaches and asks for an introduction. "Hi, I'm Wag." The first time Sunny has heard his name. She is equally stunning. Only with dark hair. A more exotic look. His type. Perfectly profiled.

They find a quiet place to chat. The conversation strained. Her eyes unfocused. Not altered. Just distant. The man from the night before sits with them. Asks about his religious beliefs. This is the wrong discussion to have with the devil. He is challenging of their questions. Rapidly realizing why he is there. He watches one of the young strapping bucks persuade a beauty to go into the nearby room with him. She is coy. Playful. Denying his advances. The older gentleman gets up to separate them.

Wag takes the opportunity as an out. Begins to say his good-byes. First to Sunny. She asks him for grocery money. He chuckles. Kisses her on the cheek and walks to the door with Jasmine. It is all clear to him. The adventure is only beginning. The one he will guide.

He agrees to come back the next night. To take Jasmine on a date. To dinner. Show her Hollywood.

_______

The next night he is prompt. Good manners. Dressed again in black. Jasmine keeps him waiting and when she is finally ready has a request. "Can a friend join us?"

"Sure." His hopes of a second lovely are dashed when a scrawny man, barely 21, appears to join them. He rolls his eyes. Not hiding the obvious scam being pulled. A meal ticket. Anyone else might have darted then and there. He decided it was lesson time.

Down into Hollywood. To Santa Monica Blvd. To the Pink Taco. Hip. Trendy. Perfect.

They order a round of drinks. No one reaches for their wallets. He waits. An inordinate amount of time as the tab is ignored.

Jasmine asks, "Why do they call it Pink Taco?" This is what he had hoped for. He summons the less than straight waiter. "Can you tell her why they call it Pink Taco?' The waiter laughs. He is happy to explain the origin of the Pink Taco. At full volume to the naive Jasmine and her scrawny man-child. You could tell, gay waiter boy lived for these moments. It is possibly the most rewarding part of his job. "Well duh honey. It is referring to your pretty pink snatch! You know, your pussy."

Mortified. Perfect. He tips gay waiter boy.

Their table ready, he settles up.

He suggests the appetizer plate. Just enough for them to get their stomach juices churning. He eats more than his share. Asking, "Can I have the last one." Not finishing his question before it hits his lips. Then he leans back in his seat. Forces his stomach out and declares, "Man am I stuffed. Wow, I could not eat another bite. I am done." Tosses his napkin on the plate. The "throw down", signifying the end of the meal.

"You guys full? Because I am. In fact, I am not sure that last tamale is sitting well with me. Do you mind if we got out of here?" He is up out of his seat before they can answer. Tosses the few bills to cover the food on the table and heads to the door.

In the car, he fills it with the smell of his flatulence. A skill any devilish mastermind needs. Rolling the window down and apologizing profusely. "Do you mind if I just drop you [burp] off?"

Barely rolling to a stop. Jasmine asks again if he can pitch in for groceries. The party the night before having cleaned them out. Not having eaten at dinner. She thought she was owed. Shameless. Unaware of what she was doing. Acting as she was asked to. Taught to.

God will bring food to her, but she had to ask for grocery money.

He suggests she try the pool at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. "Just be sure to make sure your mark is not a local, honey."

_______

Skinny Dipping for Christ. Only in LA

Betty Underground is a writer from Northern California.

Published by Truckin' Staff at 4/07/2008 07:47:00 AM | Permalink | Send Comments

Happiest Place on Earth

By Grand Master Pants © 2008

Even though my bank account was getting dangerously close to "E," when Natalie asked me to accompany her to Las Vegas, I knew I'd find a way out there. Something about a hot 22-year old blonde asking me to accompany her to Sin City just struck a chord within me -- probably in my pants.

And when she told me she'd never been to a strip club and wanted me to take her to the Crazy Horse Too, I sounded just like Jules Winnfield: "Shiiiit, ne-gro, that's all you had to say!"

I was in my normal Saturday morning daze when Natalie showed up. We hit the bank to withdraw the remaining pennies from my account and began our journey listening to Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger." A montage of previous trips to Vegas played in my mind while we talked and took turns playing DJ.

It was a beautiful day and it would soon turn into a beautiful night when the booze was flowing, the cards were being dealt, and the strippers were taking my remaining dollar bills.

We made pit stops at Del Taco in Upland and Bun Boy in Baker (home of the World's Tallest Thermometer!) before descending upon my favorite city in the world. Like a football player going through his pre-game rituals before the Super Bowl, I, too, have certain things I do before hitting Sin City: singing along to Tenacious D, eating the exact same meal at Del Taco (cheeseburger, two tacos, chili cheese fries, small Mr. Pibb), and popping in the Swingers soundtrack as soon as we roll into town. I was glad Natalie hadn't been scared off by my Vegas road-trip idiosyncrasies. At least not yet.

At the Excalibur, we met my cousin and Natalie's friends. I was feeling a bit antsy, seeing that almost 30 minutes had passed since we'd been in Vegas and I hadn't had a cocktail or made a single bet.

Luckily, before I passed out from a lack of drinking and gambling, I found myself in the Excalibur poker room. It's a new and spacious room, obviously put together in response to America's recent obsession with poker. The lighting wasn't that great, but the service was excellent. Within seconds of sitting down, I had the first of an endless stream of vodka tonics.

The cards weren't falling for me and while I wasn’t winning money, I wasn't losing much, either. That's poker. I was having a good time with my fellow players, who were a mixed bunch of locals and tourists. The drinks were flowing, the laughs were plentiful, but I knew I had to eat soon before I ended up plastered and face down in some random Vegas gutter. Again.

My cousin and I grubbed down some fast food before kicking it at the bar. We caught up on each other's lives: life had thrown some curve balls at us, but we were still in the batter's box, taking our swings. And even though we hadn't seen each other in a few years, our brotherly bond had us joking and laughing like no time had passed at all.

We pounded a coupla more cocktails before heading to the greatest strip club on the planet, the Crazy Horse Too. I don't care what Disneyland says; for my money, the Horse is the Happiest Place on Earth. Whenever I'm there, I have a smile on my face that goes on for days and days. It only disappears when I check the dozens of ATM receipts from the night.

We kicked it near the bar before Natalie and her friends showed up. We were short a chair and I asked the guys next to us if I could take one of their unused ones. They said yes and as I was moving it to our party, I recognized one of the guys as John Dolmayan, drummer for System of a Down. I've seen plenty of celebrities at the Horse, but he's the only one I felt the need to say "I'm a big fan" and shook his hand.

Adhering to Strip Club Etiquette 101 (Thou Shalt Not Talk To Guys Who Aren't Your Friends For More Than 30 Seconds), I left him alone and returned to the party. Soon, Natalie and I moved to center stage for a better view of the action. We were making references to the strip club scene in Beverly Hills Cop when Vanity 6's "Nasty Girl" started blaring through the sound system. We were cracking up and I checked to make sure nobody was wearing trench coats inside the club, although I doubt the Horse's security force would have any problem handling any two-bit crooks that showed up.

The dancers were showing Natalie a lot of love, among other things. As I threw back drinks and watched stripper after stripper grind, fondle, and lick* Natalie for her dollar bills, I was reminded why I love this town so much. The World's Tallest Thermometer might be in Baker, but that night, it was in my pants.

Like a Jedi Master's pride in his padawan learning how to use The Force, I was beside myself at how quickly Natalie had taken to her strip club lessons. She knew when to tip, but, more importantly, she knew how to tip. Anyone can toss singles onto the stage, but she'd already mastered the art of tipping with style by stuffing dollar bills down her shirt, where the dancers had to be a little more, uh, creative in retrieving them.

Obviously, this was the Greatest Night in the History of My Life.

At 3 AM our stack of dollar bills was gone and although it was still early, we decided to call it a night. After a few hours of sleep I was back in the poker room for breakfast, which consisted of more Texas hold'em and no food whatsoever. Natalie showed up around noon and we said our goodbyes to my cousin and her friends.

It was another legendary trip and, much to my surprise, I'd had a few hours of sleep, I wasn't in jail, and my wallet still had some money in it.

Booze, poker, and boobs: when you absolutely, positively got to have a good Saturday night ... accept no substitutes.

*Okay, I didn't actually see any licking, but a guy can dream, can't he?

NOTE: The Crazy Horse Too is no longer the Happiest Place on Earth, ever since they were busted for having ties to organized crime. It was the worst-kept secret in town, but somehow the Feds finally got some charges to stick. Long live The Horse.

Grand Master Pants is a divorced, unemployed 37-year-old who lives with his parents. He surfs porn 12 hours a day, eats Krispy Kremes by the dozen, and drinks Jack Daniels by the gallon.

Published by Truckin' Staff at 4/07/2008 07:46:00 AM | Permalink | Send Comments

Axel

By Kajagugu © 2008

His name tag said Axel Pfeuffer and he looked like a clean cut, well groomed, educated fellow. He was kind and polite, held our doors open and put our bags in the trunk. That all changed when he finally got in and took his seat in front of the wheel.

"Buckle your seat beltz, bitte!"

It was more a command than a request. The thin horn-rimmed glasses came off and a pair of space age Oakleys took their place on a slightly twitching nose. He popped his neck once to left and twice to the right and cracked his knuckles. Then he put on a pair of fingerless black leather driving gloves and I knew he meant business.

"Where to and when do you need to be zere?"

The first part was understandable, but the second half made me tremble with fear. What taxi driver asks you a when/where question? Crap.

"Estrel convention center and take your time. We're in no hurry. Please..."

My plea trailed off at the end as he put the car in gear and we took off. He pulled a quick left hand u-turn out of the hotel taxi line across six lanes of traffic and barely missed a young lady on her bicycle. A little verbal hissing at her for being there in the first place and he floored it.

The first light we got to was red but as I quickly realized, apparently the Oakleys filter out that part of the visible light spectrum.

Then we hopped the curb in an S-shaped intersection. While we were in the air you could hear the engine revving up and the wheels spinning above ground. We landed with a thud and the G-force hit us as we zoomed on. It was kind of fun.

Fun in the Grand Theft Auto sense of the word because it felt completely surreal. Handbrake turns, squealing tires, narrow maneuvers through standstill traffic, back alley shortcuts. I could taste the metallic flavor of adrenaline in my mouth. Yumm-o.

I was about to say something but then just decided to let it go. He's obviously channeling Jason Statham in The Transporter right now and this doesn't look like it's his first time either. How often do I get to live an action scene like this?

The rest of the ride was a complete blur. I noticed it was not the same route we had taken the last few days. We actually drove through some depressed parts of the city and if I remember correctly through a farmer's market at one point.

When we made it to our destination the meter showed about a half Euro less than we payed the day before. The gloves came off and the horn-rimmed glasses took the place of the Oakleys again. He was out of his seat in a flash and opened our doors. He had our bags ready on the curb. We quickly paid him and said our thanks.

"My name iz Axel. What time should I be here to pick you up?"

Kajagugu is a wannabe poker player and veteran world traveler who now lives in Atlanta.

Published by Truckin' Staff at 4/07/2008 07:43:00 AM | Permalink | Send Comments

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