An excerpt from the day’s scribblings:
“Hello?”
“Hey cowboy, it’s Marie.”
“Hi there, whatcha doin?”
“I just got back from a run, so I’m sweating. What are you doing?”
“I’m reading a book about Ted Bundy, trying not to worry about the weirdo that lent it to me.”
Stefan and Marie were both 26 years old, and trying their best to remain financially afloat without getting tied down to a “real” job. Marie worked at several different coffee houses around town, filling in whenever a regular barista got sick. She could always rely on an infusion of cash from her mother who lived across the country and still felt guilty for leaving Marie home alone for the majority of her childhood. Marie also had a fairly new Subaru wagon and a regularly updated laptop thanks to Mom.
Stefan knew a lot of people who needed things done from time to time and were willing to pay cash for it. If you needed some windows washed, he was there. Did your band have a paying gig where you needed to impress some A&R types? Stefan was your sound man. His most regular gig was working the door at a dive bar in Georgetown, a grungy little part of Seattle, south of Downtown.
“Do you want to go hang out at the Cleaver?”, Marie asked, hopefully.
The Six Pound Cleaver was that dive bar. It was Marie’s favorite watering hole, not only because Stefan was there three nights of the week, but it was only one hundred and sixty three steps from her apartment in Georgetown.
“The Cleaver. Let’s see, I have to work there tomorrow and Saturday, so OK”, Stefan said putting the book down on the coffee table. “I’m sure you’ll be there before I will.”
“You are correct, sir. Au revoir”, Marie said as she hung up.
Stefan got his coat on and pushed some things around the kitchen counter to find his keys. He briefly forgot which vehicle he was driving this month, and then remembered; The Kidnapper Van. Since he wasn’t tied down to a nine to five desk job, Stefan was free to follow his muse in an attempt to garner fame and fortune. His most recent project involved a website about keeping children safe from strangers who might just be driving a windowless, maroon, Chevy van.
The website, http://bit.ly/3aX8yb , had a few pictures and tips for people to peruse, but Stefan was really trying to sell his services as a deterrent to child abduction. For forty bucks, cash, he would drive up to your kid’s party and scare the pants off of them so as to make them deathly afraid of anyone they had not spent at least half their life with. He got this idea from some parents at the mall who seemed to try to shield their children from him when he walked by. He had already done three birthday parties since he put the website up, so he had earned one hundred and twenty bucks. A raging success as far as Stefan was concerned.
Stefan had purchased the van from one of the car dealers up on Lake City Way in North Seattle. The pickup truck that he had driven all summer had spun a ring bearing and he knew it was going to die an imminent, painful death. He drove the pickup to the gates of the last junkyard in North Seattle and asked the guys for fifty bucks.
“You want me to give you fifty bucks?”, the junkman said.
“Sure, look at these tires. This canopy is practically middle aged. I’ll even leave the tape deck in it”, Stefan said with a flourish.
“Thirty, if you have the title.”
“I do have it, and it is yours for thirty dollars”, Stefan said, brandishing the title, already signed.
Stefan walked to the nearest arterial and caught the crosstown bus. He knew he could find something else to drive over on Lake City Way since there were at least forty car dealers on that strip. The bus drove past Northgate Mall and dropped down onto Lake City Way mere blocks from Auto Row. He stayed on the bus until it got to 123rd and hopped off to grab something to eat at Dick’s Drive In. Dick’s was a Seattle institution, serving burgers, fries and shakes the old fashioned way, hot, greasy and creamy.
So, left with twenty four dollars from the remains of his pickup truck, Stefan went on his hunt for a new chariot. When he saw The Kidnapper Van, he knew that he must have it. It wasn’t on display, seeing as it was parked behind the auto dealership, but it was the only thing Stefan could see over the sea of shiny new Kias and Hyundais. Even though he was dressed in dirty jeans and an old VW shop jacket, the salesmen still worked themselves into a lather, seeing an actual human walking onto the lot.
“Hey guy, I’m Jason”, the salesman said, extending his hand.
“Hey”, Stefan replied, keeping his hands in the pockets of his jacket. He still had some chocolate shake and mustard on his fingers and didn’t want to gross the salesman out. “I want that van.”
“Where, do we have a van?”
“It’s in the back, behind the fence.”
“Oh, that van”, Jason said rolling his eyes.
“I have, let’s see, twenty four dollars in cash”, Stefan said with a smile.
“Heh. How about three hundred?”
“Do you take Visa?”
“We do. Let me make sure it’s running”, Jason said as he trotted off to find the used car buyer.
After they swapped a battery from another junker behind the building, the mechanics got the van to roar to life. Someone had traded the van in on a new subcompact the last time they ran the “Push, Pull or Drag your Trade In” promotion and it was only days away from the crusher. Stefan had saved another classic American car, and he felt good about it.
As he drove down the street from the U-District to Georgetown, he got the usual dirty looks. He was used to them, and he should be, it was his own fault. When he started The Kidnapper Van service he scrawled “FREE CANDY” on the side of the van with a flourescent, permanent marker. Every mom in a clean station wagon sped past giving him the evil eye, and every stoner in an old piece of shit car gave him the thumbs up. He saw Marie give him the thumbs up as he parked across the street from the Six Pound Cleaver. It made him feel warm inside.
