The Van Pact

4: Valerie

We were stopped at a red light, and I was straight bopping.

"What are we listening to?" Stevie darted her eyes from her phone to Gus's cassette deck. She fiddled with the volume knob.

"The smooth vocal stylings of Daryl Hall." What can I say? I have a soft spot for eighties soul. Before I picked up Stevie in the morning, I found my mom's old Hall and Oates's Greatest Hits tape in Gus's center console. Right next to a Huey Lewis and the News mixtape and Peter Gabriel's So on cassette. For all my mom's faults, she's got great musical taste. Gus can't play CD's (don't even think about mp3 jacks), and who would prefer the EDM shit on the radio to such classics as "Out of Touch," "Hip to Be Square," and "Sledgehammer"? Only plebs.

"Does your van have radio?" Stevie clicked off my music.

"No," I lied. The light turned green. I decided to hit the gas somewhat harder than I should. Stevie jolted forward.

"You're a maniac," she gripped the oh-shit handle above her head.

"You're a pleb," I clicked back on my Hall and Oates tape. "The radio's all commercial this time of day anyway. I guarantee you turn it on and it's gonna be BIG ALADDIN'S CARPET EMPORIUM-"

"Blecch," Stevie stuck out her tongue. "That stupid sitar riff is the worst."

"You mean this one-" I hummed Big Aladdin's jingle, which is just a sitar cover of "Stairway to Heaven." I wobbled my head like a Bollywood dancer.

Stevie boxed me in the ear.

"Oy," I swatted her fist away, "don't punch the driver. SAFETY FIRST." To really drive home my point (hehe) I took the turn onto our street a little more quickly than Stevie was comfortable with. She hissed at me, and clicked on the radio in retaliation. This was a stupid move on her part, because BAM, blasting out of Gus's speakers was:

BIIIIIIIIGGGGGG ALLLAAADIN'S CARPET EMPORRRRRIUM IN OUR DOWNTOWN LINDEN VALLEY SHOWROOM. OUR SILK THREADS ARE OF WONDEROUS GLORY, HIGH QUALITY PERSIAN CARPETS! FRIENDLY PERSIANS! WE DIDN'T DO NINE ELEVEN THAT WAS SOMEBODY ELLLLLLLLSSSE

and that sitar earworm in its natural environment.

You'll never again see Stevie flick on a Hall and Oates cassette so quickly. Revenge is a dish best served cold, indeed. I pulled into my driveway, parked, and turned my key out of ignition. The stereo went off. I watched Stevie absently pry open the cassette deck.

"I'm gonna buy you one of those cassette converters so that we can at least stream Spotify or something," she examined my tape like it was an excavated fossil, "then we can play actually good music-"

"You wanna scrap Daryl Hall and John Oates," I snatched the tape and put it back in the deck, "so you can listen to what, some dopey rendition of Danny Boy?"

"Danny Boy is an excellent song," Stevie protested.

"It's a punchline." A punchline that always made me picture a middle-aged chub-meister in a satin suit, red-nosed from years of whiskey consumption.

"It's about the Irish diaspora!" Stevie slapped Gus's dashboard, "it's emotional!"

"Hey, hey," I grabbed Stevie's arm. "Don't take your ancestral suffering out on Gus."

"At least know what you're talking about," she lifted her phone off of her lap. "Watch this-"

"Hard pass," I reached behind my seat for my book bag.

"Val, just look at him!" Stevie had already pulled up the video on YouTube, and shoved it in my face. I couldn't escape. I twisted back around and looked at the crooner on Stevie's phone screen.