Fiction Fix Nine

Tucker | Reckless Abandon
After the movie let out, we high tailed it back around the block and
discovered that the Mustang’s glossy, Turtle-waxed finish had lightning bolt
key scratches around its circumference, and a hole gaped in the dash where
the radio had been. Horror struck, we jumped in, locked up, and made the
forty-five minute drive up Woodward in silence. The joints we’d smoked
earlier, to maximize the special effects on the big screen, had worn off, and
that’s when I figured it out – Tipp and I had nothing to talk about. After
our outburst of swearing over the paint job and radio heist, it was quiet as a
tomb in the car.
A low-cloud ceiling blankets Detroit from November till May, and
there were no stars or moon to be seen that night. Forty degrees felt warm
to us as native
Detroiters, so when
we cruised north of
Eight Mile Road, we
put the top down.
I’d been studying
Sartre’s Being and
Nothingness, for an
upcoming test in my
Honors Lit class,
and the dark fluff
swirling in the sky
aroused thoughts
of empty blackness
in my twelfth grade
mind. "So what do
you think of Sartre?"
I asked Tipp.
"Who the
hell is that?"
"You know,
Jean-Paul Sartre, the
Existentialist."
Tipp flashed
a snide grin, "Oh
give me a break. My
dope’s worn off and
I’ve got a headache."
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