They hit the east and west ends of the compound so hard that the gates bowed inward, hinges ripping off of columns made of iron-hard railroad ties so violently that they shot the two-inch wood screws out like shotgun slugs. The gates collapsed and the horde was through. It took five seconds to defeat a barricade that took a week to build.
He looked at her. She looked at him. Without a word, they slung their rifles and ran for Dozer, their tricked-out post-apocalypse Chevy Tahoe wreathed in iron bars and extended running boards. They called it “Dozer” because of the very after-market snow plow on the front. When you absolutely had to clear the road of the zombies, it got the job done.
Everyone who stood and fired into the mob of undead pouring through on both sides disappeared into the rotting tide of slavering undead. He tossed her the keys—she caught them with one hand—and dove through the open passenger door and crawled into the driver’s seat.
He did a running jump to the top of the all-terrain run-flat tire and alleyooped himself to the rooftop gun turret. He was firing the .50-cal before he had even settled in.
“GO!” he screamed over the screams and gunfire.
She turned the key. The engine roared. Dual rooster tails of dirt coated the zombies that were already leaping for the rig. In seconds they were carving a path through the undead and heading for open road.
She was his ride-or-die.
Todd, the Uber driver with the mightiest mullet you’ve ever seen, craned his head left and right. His passenger was nowhere to be seen, but the blinking dot said he was right here.
Suddenly, from the left side of the car, he saw a man sprinting toward Todd’s car. He weaved and bobbed through the clustered traffic grinding around the Columbus Circle outside of Union Station.
Then he did something Todd had only seen in the movies. He leaped into the air, legs forward like Liu Kang-style, and slid across the hood of a Toyota Camry.
He held onto the briefcase like it was attached to him. Wait—it was attached to him. Todd could see the silver handcuff chain glinting in the sunlight.
Is this really happening?
Todd opened the door and stood up. That’s when he saw the other guys. At least six of them, weaving through the mass of traffic just as Guy did, a couple of them jumping onto car hoods, roofs, and one guy even doing some kind of ninja parkour thing over the bed of a pickup truck.
They all wore black suits, black ties, black sunglasses. It was no mystery who they were after.
The guy’s eyes bored into Todd’s even as he pumped his legs, freaking bolting toward Todd and his sensible Prius.
Todd didn’t know what was happening, but he reached down, almost casually, and opened the rear driver’s side door just in time for Guy to dive in. The dude had been airborne before Todd got the door open.
“LET’S MOVE!” he roared.
Todd got behind the wheel, yanked the door shut, jerked the wheel to the right, and tested the limits of Prius engineering by hopping a curb, doing a 180 on the stone in front of the Columbus statue, the rear bumper catching one of the pursuers in the kneecap.
“Nice,” Guy said.
“Where to?” Todd said, on this, the most exciting day of his life.
“The White House.”
“Hell yeah, brother!” Todd said, and tossed Guy a complimentary mini bottle of water.
Todd was Guy’s ride-or-die.
Emma waited in the school pick-up line for her Daddy. Becky called her a fart-knocker again.
Emma didn’t know what “fart-knocker” meant, and she didn’t think Becky knew what a fart-knocker was either, but Becky had five older brothers and probably heard it from them.
It hurt her feelings and worried her. What if she was a fart-knocker and didn’t know it?
“Hey fart-knocker, fart-knocker, fart-knocker!” Becky taunted from three kids back. She and her pack turned toward each other and giggled.
Emma stood and looked straight ahead. Her Daddy told her it wasn’t worth responding to the trogs, whatever those were.
Daddy must not have told Mrs. Harrison that, though. “Becky!” Mrs. Harrison said, loudly. “Young lady! That is uncalled-for.”
Oh no… Emma thought. Teachers just made it worse. Teachers never did anything about the bullies. They send them to the principal’s office sometimes, but the bullies only got more sneaky. Emma just hoped that Mrs. Harrison didn’t say, “fart-knocker.”
“Fart-knocker is a rude and inappropriate word.”
All the kids in the line howled. Mrs. Harrison said it! She said it!
Emma kept looking forward.
She would not cry…She would not let the tears fall…
“Sorry, Mrs. Harrison,” Becky said with grandiose sincerity. And then obviously apropos of something, she said, “Does anyone else smell that?”
Emma felt the puffiness in her eyes now. A swelling reservoir that was going to burst. It was unavoidable.
Her vision blurred. Her lip trembled. Her cheeks tightened. She was going to bawl right in front of Becky and her…her…mean friends.
Mean. It was the worst invective Emma knew.
At just that moment, that perfect moment, her Daddy pulled up to the head of the line in his great big monster truck. He put it in park, got out and walked around the front to hoist her up in a big-ol bear hug like he did on his pick-up days.
The smile on his face disappeared immediately.
He saw the tears forming in Emma’s eyes and saw her desperate, pleading look—Please, Daddy, get me out of here—and saw Becky and her friends trying not to laugh.
He got it.
Instead of picking up Emma like usual he casually walked down the line to Becky and her friends. Mrs. Harrison, alarmed, followed him down the other side of the line of first-graders.
Emma risked turning her head ever-so-slightly to see what was happening. She didn’t want Becky to see her tears, but something different was happening.
Daddy stood there, looking at a smirking, but somehow less confident Becky, and smiled as sweetly as you please. Then he bent down, sniffed Becky—actually sniffed her—and stood back up quickly.
“Gross, Becky! What’s that smell? Did you poop your pants again?”
Becky’s friends’ mouths dropped. The other kids howled. Mrs. Harrison fairly shrieked, “Mr. Kohlson!”
Becky opened her mouth to speak, but the only thing that came out, after a weirdly long pause, was a bawling howl.
“See you, Kate,” Daddy said to Mrs. Anderson. Like they were old friends, Emma thought. And then Daddy scooped up Emma, backpack, trombone case and all, and dropped her into the passenger seat of his monster truck. He strapped her in, shut the door and walked around to his side of the truck.
Daddy got in and started driving away. “You’re my ride-or-die, baby girl,” he said, and offered a fist to bump.
“You’re my ride-or-die, Daddy,” Emma said through happy tears.
That was fun. Obviously it could use some polish—maybe lose a trope or two—but it was fun.
It’s not what I meant to write. This is post #100. It was supposed to be a reflection on “lessons learned” during such an endeavor. On writing. On audience building. Et cetera. For example, I know I use too many ellipses. Far too many sentences begin with the word “But” or “And.” Grammar Nazis high up in the Grammarsicherheitshauptamt tell me that’s okay now, but Herr Bruner drove it in pretty hard that we shouldn’t.
That was back in 1988 or thereabouts. You could still buy black & white TVs back then, so who knows?
But (!!!) as often happens when I think about composing these things, some idea or snippet of language completely derails the point. Every time. In this case, it was what somebody wrote on Twitter:
“That person isn’t your ride-or-die.”
Great phrase. You know exactly what it means at first hearing. It expresses an symbol essence. (Thanks, Keats). The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I’ve really learned just one important thing over the course of the last couple of years of chipping away at this:
A man can think himself to death.
When you want to do something, just do it already. Ride or die.
More than that, it’s important to have buddies on your rides and your last stands. At this point, close to two years of piddling around, this publication has lost about as many subscribers as its gained, but the core group has remained. I’ve been grinding it out, trying to find the point, sometimes writing more consistently than not, and you keep showing up.
So, thank you. That’s what this should have been about. Just a thanks. I’m so grateful to have you along for the ride.
tk
💯!!!