Andrew J. Kingston

1974

Test Drive

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I hadn’t been having much luck. Selling the van - or more to the point, not selling the van - wasn’t the whole story.

 

Far from it. Things going not-so-well at school, I’d missed Ten Cent Beer NIght - what with it being on the other side of the country and all - my mom and dad were rowing, things weren’t going so well with me and Dolores, the English chick…. well, with things weren’t going well with lots of things.

 

Compared to all that, the van was a minor problem. I needed the dough, but even after taking the price down much lower than I thought I ever should, the damned thing wasn’t moving Until things seemed to start taking a turn for the better on Saturday afternoon.

 

“Hey dude,” Dennis called, “some broad’s out front, checking your van.”

 

I looked out. Dennis was, as Dennis tended to be, on the nail. I wasted no time looking for presentable footwear and grabbed the nearest pair of sneakers - Dennis’s and half a size too small - then bundled through the screen door.

 

“Can I help you lady?”

 

The ocean breeze should have been refreshing but an oily smog only briefly stirred up from the grinding, rumbling gridlock city.

 

The woman paused, turned and smiled. At least I think that’s what she did, although her face plainly wasn’t the smiling type. She may have been suffering some kind of stroke. I hoped not.

 

“The van’s for sale,” I said, trying to help her and move things along.

 

“So I can see.”

 

She sounded more acerbic than sassy. Dolores the English chick was safe. I ‘d seen this dame’s type before, every day of my life. Not necessarily the type who’d buy a van - she looked more the hard-nosed home builder struggling past the first flushes of condo-living, needing more sleep, more attention and less coffee.

 

“A bit steep, isn’t it?” She nodded at the improvised cardboard price marker I’d trapped behind the van’s windscreen wiper. “Think it’s worth that much?”

 

“Take it or leave it.”

 

Another pause before she adopted a more conciliatory tone. “Look, why don’t you and me take a test ride?”

 

We pulled off sharply and she crashed the gears. Just the once, mind; after a block we turned right then slowed down to stop. She - we hadn’t yet introduced ourselves on first name terms - wound her window down and called out to two people hanging around on the other side of the street. I didn’t much like the way things were panning out - they looked as if they could do with a hot bath and a hot meal.

 

“My friends. Well, my brother and a friend. Mind if they come with us?”

 

I looked out of the porthole windows on the van’s back doors. We’d drifted past, but the two friends were bearing down on us, the woman’s brother unshaven and holding onto a filthy baseball hat on, the woman slightly less inelegant, steadying huge sunglasses as she jogged alongside. They looked as if they were on a mission.

 

“I’m Emily, by the way. My friends are Bill and Tania.”

 

“Look, I guess your friends can come along…. “ I quickly interjected, even as Bill and Tania had reached us, trying to give some semblance of being in control of a situation rapidly slipping away from me.

 

“Nice van,” Bill said, opening my door. “Kid,” he addressed me, “mind if I ride shotgun?”

 

I made a face as if I was considering, but didn’t think it was a good idea to procrastinate too long.

 

“Ride in the back. Keep Tania company. There’s a good lad.”

 

Bill held the door open and I squirmed under his arm, wary that they might make off without me. I told myself not to let my mind run away with itself.

 

“Hi,” I said, clambering into the back to sit next to Tania on one of the tea chests I’d put in for passengers. Bill and Emily had been odd; Tania looked off the scale and a little out of it.

 

We started off again, Emily’s more assured, though still juddering gear changes.  Bill put his elbow on the back of the front bench and turned round. He glanced at Tania, picked his teeth then looked at me.

 

“So, we can go down by the harbour. There are some good climbs round there,” I said, realising I sounded lame, but trying to engage with Bill, who I assumed was in charge.

 

“No. I thought we’d drive up into the hills,” he replied, before casually producing a gun and putting it down on the the dashboard as if it was a bar of chocolate.

 

I swallowed hard. The gun was a brutal statement of intent; every bit as disconcerting was the handcuff dangling round his wrist which somehow I hadn’t seen when I was maneuvering on the front seat and getting into the back.

 

“For Christ’s sake honey, don’t flash the piece around,” Emily said. For the first she seemed to be showing signs of sense and intelligence.

 

For the half an hour we jostled and hopped the freeway then pottered round the hills trying, unsuccessfully, to find a rendezvous, I concentrated on keeping myself together. The mood in the van became more tense the longer we struggled to find whoever it was Bill, Emily and Tania were looking for. After a brief exchange, the van stopped and Emily went into a hardware store in the middle of nowhere and emerged with a hacksaw and blanket.

 

“Blanket?” Bill asked once the hacksaw had been put to use and Emily had cut the handcuffs off his wrist.

 

“For laughing boy in the back there.”

 

Bill turned round. The removal of the cuffs seemed to have put him in a good mood.

 

“You’re right honey. He’s probably seen enough already. Tania; anything back there we can tie him up with?”

 

Tania looked back, steadying her sunglasses and pushing her hair back. It moved back much further than it should have, indicating she was wearing a wig.

 

“There’s a couple of jump leads. Something with crocodile clips anyway.”

 

Bill seemed to think of something, but let it pass.

 

“OK. Now listen to me, man.” He’d leaned to me, reaching back vaguely to where he’d put his gun down. His breath fwas like an old grain store, soaked and dried out, then peppered with cheap tobacco and the grease of a thousand deep fryers.

 

“Whatever you’re thinking is probably pretty close. We’re not on the LAPD’s Christmas list no more. Not sure we ever were. Most people who know about us would rather they didn’t and rather we weren’t so, let’s say, ‘operational’. You’re no real concern to us. No offence. You came with the van. If you’re a good lad and don’t give us any trouble, we’ll let you go at the end of the day. Maybe with the van. Maybe not. You understand?”

 

“So you’re interested in buying….” I stammered.

 

Emily rolled her head back to look at the ceiling and pushed onto the steering wheel. A financial transaction didn’t seem to be on anyone else’s mind. Just mine, apparently.

 

Tania tied the blanket which felt coarse, though she didn’t do so as tightly as she might have. Emily and Bill started talking about how hungry they were and making contingency plans for eating once they found somewhere to park up. They talked about some nearby holiday chalets which may be empty and which might have cooking facilities. ‘And a bath’, Tania chirruped.

 

We drove a little longer though it felt like we were doing so aimlessly. Bill and Emily’s conversation swung from being mundane, to slightly terse, then back again. Tania was quieter, until once again, the van stopped and the engine was switched off.

 

“Tania,” Emily called to the back of the van, “what do you think?”

 

“Let’s have a closer look,” Bill said. He and Emily got out of the van. I could hear them muttering and the snap and crunch of leaves and branches under their feet becoming less audible as they evidently moved away from van.

 

Tania and I were alone. The stillness quickly turned from welcome to a little creepy. Neither of us moved or made any sort of noise.

 

“Do you think you could perhaps let me out from under this blanket?” I eventually asked. Tania shifted her weight, presumably to assess the situation. “

 

“It’s pretty hard to breathe.”

 

I wasn’t really ready for her response.

 

“I’m trying out cyanide tipped bullets,” she blithely informed me. It wasn’t the answer I’d either been looking for, or expecting.

 

“Oh,” I replied. “How are they going for you?”

 

There was a pause. I didn’t know how to read it. I don’t know how to read anything. I couldn’t tell or had no inkling whether my life was seriously in danger or not. Dennis - whose shoes were pinching and making my feet sweat - had recently developed a line in juvenile pranks, but this was taking things way too far.

 

“Don’t worry, they’re not going to kill you. We’re not going to kill you. We just hit some problems on our last and we’re trying to find a place to hide out.”

 

Premature or not, this unrequested talk of my impending death wasn’t welcome. I asked Tania about the bullets.

 

“Oh, I don’t think there’s enough poison on them. Not to be fatal.”

 

The noise of a clip being taken out the replaced back into a gun was deafening, as if it was right next to me. A cold, mechanical clunk which paralysed me for a moment.

 

“Are you okay honey?” Tania asked.

 

“Sure,” I replied after taking a huge breath and uttering as breezily as my terrified voice would let me.

 

“Jesus Christ. What are they doing out there?”

 

I later discovered the hideout was a half derelict barn.

 

“We’re looking for a place to lie low for the night, not a bloody family home. Crazy sons of bitches. You sure you’re okay?”

 

I felt the tea chest move as Tania shifted weight, then could feel her close; her breath through the thin, scratchy blanket.

 

“I’m ok.”

 

“Good. These crazy fucking s.o.b.’s are an acquired taste. Bill and Emily. But they’re on a righteous mission. We’re on a totally righteous mission.”

 

Talk about the cyanide bullets had been easy. Joining in, let alone keeping up a conversation about the merits of my kidnappers was more difficult. “They don’t seem bad people,” I managed.

 

Tania then appeared to do an about turn. “They’re pretty bad. Bad enough to have kidnapped me.”

 

“They kidnapped - ”

 

“Sure. For a ransom. If kind of worked; kind of didn’t. Some people got fed who wouldn’t otherwise have got fed. More didn’t.”

 

“Fed?” I asked, confused. Something I’d heard in the news was coming back to me. “You feed people?”

 

“Sure. I told you; a righteous cause. Not that we directly fed people. Directly, Bill and Emily are more likely to shoot. It’s a bit of a problem they’ve both got. They like their guns.”

 

“You too, by the sound of it,” I said, despite myself.

 

As Tania moved to the back of the van, more light came in through from the portholes. I couldn’t make out shapes - not exactly, but the darkness wasn’t an absolute cover anymore; there were lighter and darker patches.

 

“Right, well, finally,” Tania sounded relieved, like a child being told she was near the end of a long car journey. “I think they’re ready to settle in.”

 

She opened one of the back doors and I felt the cool of the early evening, or what I assumed to be the early evening air on my face.

 

It wasn’t the most comfortable night I’d ever spent, but the police ranger who found me late the next morning wasn’t too concerned.

 

“A few scrapes and I’ll bet you’ve got a sore backside. We’re going to have to ask you to come to the precinct with us. I believe your story, totally; but some think everything’s all a little too convenient. There’s a load of petty crime going on at the moment and some think your story and the link to Patty Hearst is all a bit far fetched, convenient, or both.”

 

I had my van keys returned with a note the ranger showed - holding it up to me in a clear folder - but keeping it as evidence. ‘Thanks for the ride’, the note said. ‘Bill, Emily and Patricia (Tania).’

 

My van was impounded. Then swabbed, dusted, photographed, part-dismantled and put back together. It came back looking exactly the same as it had when I’d agreed to the test drive with Emily - a hastily cleaned, rickety pile of iron. On the plus side, Dennis had taken a message from someone called Thomas. Thomas appeared keen and arranged to have a look one day when I was at College, trying to sort out my semester which I’d royally screwed up.

 

Thomas sniffed, said Dennis, who thought he’d lost him. Then he - Thomas - paid up, the full amount,  without quibbling. Perhaps he was getting a bargain; I’d knocked another few hundred off the price.

 

“Not,” Dennis said caustically, “that he was either a ‘Doubter’. Or that I asked him if he wanted a test drive.”

Based on an incident involving Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army