The Journey to Freedom: Path to WW3

Chapter XXXVI

The fact is I don't drive just to get from A to B. I enjoy feeling the car's reactions, becoming part of it.

Enzo Ferrari

"This is Jessica?! She is beautiful!" She exclaims.

I tell her that I got her for 3 grand and that I took her apart and put her back together with basically everything new. It took my grandpa and I around 3 years to build her the way we wanted her to be. Jessica was a 1981 Special Edition Turbo Trans Am. That body style and engine was made only for those two years. She was my prized possession. My grandpa gave me the keys and told me that he gave her an oil change and that she was ready to go. I gave Eve the keys and asked her if she wanted to turn it on for me. She was surprised that I asked and says sure. I tell her to turn the key only and then to push the window switch up. It will unlock the kill switch on the car. My grandpa starts laughing and tells Eve to not get scared when she turns it on.

She looks at him and asks "No entiendo."

I start laughing and tell Eve to turn on the car and she'll know what he meant. She sits inside and adjusts the seat to fit her and turns on the car. Jessica gives out a loud roar. And Evelyn gives out a loud yelp.

"You missed me, didn't you baby?" I tell Jessica.

The car idles almost in a way that it answer me back. Evelyn gets out of the car asks if the car is supposed to be that loud. I tell her yes because I redid the engine and added a few extras. I lean down, pop the hood and raise it up. There was a 301 engine inside and originally stocked it carried 210 ponies. But after putting a four barrel, high density carburetor and the original turbo. That's all that Jessica needed.

"My brothers had corvettes in the past but they weren't as loud as your car." Eve tells me.

I move the throttle and Jessica roars loud. You can see the chassis move from the force of the engine. Then I go to the inside the car and turn it off.

"Se escucha bien padre verdad?" My grandpa asks.

I tell him yes and that she sounds even louder than usual, and he tells me that he took her to get her mufflers fixed and added a new type of performance muffler.

"La voy a correr en el freeway para ver cómo corre." I tell him.

He starts laughing and tells me, "Nomás no vayas a hacer carreras otra vez porque después van a venir todos a buscarte para hacer carreras y apostar también."

I laugh at him and tell him that all that racing back then paid for the engine and his Hummer.

"You're grandpa has a hummer?" Eve asks.

I say yes and point to the brown tarp. I tell her that it runs, but it needs a lot of work. I also tell her that I kind of stole it from the Army because it was totaled and we had to rebuild it, we did most of the job by hand and with our own fabricated parts.

"We also had to get rid of all identifications from the old hummer and buy a old beat one from the junkyard and put those Identification tags on old hummer, just to make it look legit. Then we chopped up the old one and that's how Vanessa was born. Technically she's legal but not legal if you understand what I mean." I tell her.

She sort of understands and I tell her that I will explain it to her later on tonight. I tell my grandpa that I am going to the mall and that I would be back in two days and then we can have a cook out and tell him everything that's been happening. I open the door for Evelyn and she gets inside, I see her putting on her seatbelt and I walk over and get inside the car and ask her if she's ready.

She gives me this sort of evil smile and says "Let's go baby!"

I look at her say "That's my girl!"

I turn Jessica over and she roars and the car engine shakes the whole car. I put her in drive and leave slowly and my grandpa waves bye to us and once we are at the red light close by his house a Mustang Cobra pulls up next to us and tells me that I have nice car. I tell him thanks. He also tells me that I have a nice girl and Eve looks at him and thanks him and then tells him that he has a cute looking boyfriend. The guy's smile drops and says that they are not dating.

She tells him, "You could've fooled me since in this beautiful car there is a guy and girl, in your car there are two guys, so I just kind of thought that you were gay for driving him around trying to show off the car."

I start laughing and the guy puts on a serious face and tells me that I have a funny girl. I tell him that she's my wife and that the car is my girl.

He then says, "you need to put on a choke chain on your bitch. Her mouth could get you and her in trouble."

I tell him that we should settle it on the highway. "A race from this light, all the way up to where K-Mart used to be. That's about 5 miles. First one there wins. And if you lose and try to get away, I will get that car and make you look stupid in front of your boyfriend."

He gets angry and yells, "he's not my fucking boyfriend!!!"

Good, he's angry, this will be a lot easier than what I thought.

I tell Eve, "hold on babe, get ready for a wild ride, I promise this will be over in 6 minutes."

She looks at me and tells me that she trusts me. The light turns green and we both take off, the muffler roars loud as we bass by a few cars. I start to slow down and the mustang flies by me.

"Babe, what are you doing? He's getting away!" She tells me.

I stay focused on the road and then see the mustang screech to a stop and I pass by him. The left turn that we took, it's a 90 degree turn, I don't care how fast or slow you go, you have to turn it at exactly 20 mph to keep the momentum going but not to slow that you can't go back into 3rd gear and take off again. I get on the highway and look in the rearview mirror and don't see the mustang. About two seconds pass by and I see the mustang right behind me. I tell Evelyn to flip the switch on the arm rest, she looks at it and flips, the turbo turns on and you can hear a high pitched hissing, the car starts to move faster. I see the speedometer go past 100mph then it goes past 110. I turn off the turbo and slow down to get off on the exit to where K-Mart used to be at, I see the Mustang pass me by and I just slow down and don't even worry about it.

She asked me where he was going and I said that he wasn't going to keep his word, so it was just best that we went to the mall to go and have fun. She tells me that the race was fun enough, she says that she always saw people drag race but never been inside of one. I tell her that I was drag racing and street racing since I was 16. I start driving towards Arlington, Tx. And tell her that Parks mall was my favorite mall. It had everything. I go up to valet and tell them to park it close and to watch the car, I didn't need it scratched again. The guy assures me that he'll keep it close.

"Do you always do valet?" Eve asks.

I tell her "no, but that I haven't seen my baby in a long time she deserves to be pampered."

"Why do you guys always call the cars by girls names and treat them better than women?" She asks.

I tell her because cars treat us better and get us where we need to go, and that they don't cheat on us and don't treat us bad when we look at other cars. She starts to laugh and says that it makes sense. We get inside the mall and its full of people. Evelyn looks around says that its not that different from the mall in DC.

"Really? I never went inside the mall there, I just wanted to be with you the whole time." I tell her.

She tells me that I am so clingy, I apologize, and she says that its ok because most guys would ignore her days and its nice to know that she's number one in someone's life. I smile at her and kiss her on the lips.