Of Diesel Smoke—Part II

To be read in an ironic, semi-monotonous voice:

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.
Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

For Part I, go here.

I apologize for taking so long to continue this adventure; it's so difficult to get into a routine these days, especially given how exhausted I am at the end of each day.  I've been forgetting to journal altogether, though I am pleased to report I have been solidly working away at my novel.  But more on that another time.

So there we were, in Cassandra Falls, the hour getting later and later, when finally a miracle happens: Bo revs the engine, and with great effort, the car came back to life.  "Elation" doesn't even begin to cover it.  An overwhelming sense of relief washed over me, and when one of the mechanics handed over the keys after a quick test-drive, I nearly sobbed.

Jack was wary—understandably so—and cautiously asked whether there were anything else we should be concerned about: fuel filters, spark plugs, …"breaking down an hour from now?"  But our rescuers shook their heads confidently.  No, everything would be fine, they assured us bracingly.  No reason to expect any trouble from here on out.  Not only that, but bless these gentlemen, they never charged us a dime for all their services, unless you count a few bucks for that first five gallons of gas.

So we piled into that car and valiantly tore down the highway.  We might reach our hotel by 2 A.M., we figured, and while we would get barely any sleep, by God, we would make it to that 8:15 A.M. performance if it killed us!

[Break for coffee.]

[Returning with cappuccino]

Where did I leave you?  Ah, yes, tearing down the highway in the middle of the night.  For about 45 minutes, until, very suddenly, we weren't.  Sitting in the front passenger seat, I was looking out the window watching wave after wave of cornfields fly by, in addition to a rather eerie field of wind turbines, which always frighten me a little bit after dark, ever since watching War of the Worlds.  With an anxious tightening in my chest, I noticed that we were rapidly losing speed.  I turned to look at Jack, praying that he was intentionally stopping for something, knowing in the pit of my stomach that he wasn't.  His face had blanched and his mouth was set in a thin line as our car slowed to a dead halt on a highway int he middle of a cornfield, well after 10:00 at night.

Desperate, we tried turning the car off and on, Jack unable to get us to even 100 RPM with the gas pedal to the floor.  Blinkers on, we tried everything we thought might help, from resting the engine for a good 10 minutes to inching along in Drive, praying the engine would burn through whatever must have been left of the diesel fuel, clearly clogging the filter.

Exhausted and frustrated, I wondered why it couldn't have just been a flat tire as I helped Jack push the car to the side of the road while Jenn took the wheel.  I could have actually done something about a flat tire.  (Thanks, Dad.)

After about an hour of fruitless prayers and stubborn denial that we would yet get out of here, I finally called my father, wanting someone in the world to know where we were, knowing I needed to seize the opportunity, as my cell phone was slowly losing battery life, and none of us had a car charger for our phones.

After explaining the situation, I warned my parents that we might not be in touch for a few hours, as my phone was going to die, and reception was shoddy anyway.  I would call again, I promised, when I was safe in a hotel for the night, and able to charge my phone.

Next, we knew, as a group, that we had to bite the bullet.  We had to call Roger.

"Hello?"

"Roger, this is Dorothy.  I'm so sorry, but I'm calling because the car has broken down again.  We're stranded and there's no way we'll make it to the hotel tonight."  Or the shows tomorrow, though I didn't have the heart to verbalize that part.

There was some violent swearing on the other end.  "I knew it!  I knew Jack wasn't telling the truth when he called earlier and said the car was fine."  More cursing and diatribe in which he explained how he'd known we had destroyed the car and in which I resisted the urge to demand to know why he hadn't called Sunrise immediately if that were the case.

"Jack didn't lie, Roger," I bristled.  "The car ran beautifully for about 45 minutes and then just died on us.  We honestly thought we were going to make it."

I'll spare you his speech about what enormous idiots we apparently are and how expensive the car is.

Temper reaching a boiling point, I attempted to bring him back to the situation at hand as calmly as I could.  "Look, Roger, we feel awful about this.  But right now we're stranded in the middle of the night.  We're miles from civilization, and we don't feel safe."

There was a blank pause in which I waited for him to offer to help somehow.

Biting back my disbelief, I prompted him, "What would you like us to do?"

"I don't have a f*$#ing clue.  You guys are on your own."

"All right, well I have to hang up then, Roger.  My phone is dying and I need to make some emergency phone calls," I said crisply, quickly determining a game plan even as I said it.

"Who are you going to call?" he immediately demanded, clearly afraid I was going to call the rental company.

Those who know me best will understand what a great accomplishment it was for me not to yell at this man.  Instead I answered coolly, "I'm going to call AAA and then I'm going to try to find us somewhere safe to spend the night because we're stranded in a cornfield!" I told him before hanging up, absolutely incredulous that that conversation had actually just happened.

I pulled up the internet on my phone and put out an SOS on facebook, giving our location to the best of our knowledge, in case one of my friends might be in the area or know someone in the area who could help this.  In the end, the only result this ever furnished forth was some frantic texts from my mother.  Jack was busy on his cell phone, calling everyone he could think of that might even be close to us, while Jenn, in the back seat again, tried to think of a solution on the phone with her boyfriend.

Once my SOS was out, I pulled out my laptop, which only had about 30% power, and plugged my phone into the USB port to siphon whatever battery I could.  This was successful just long enough to buy me a phone call with AAA, though the call was finally cut short somewhere in the middle of clarifying that when I said I was stranded in a cornfield, I did mean because of car troubles and not an alien abduction (a response to a hesitant, "I'm…not sure we cover…that sort of thing," on the other end.)

The three of us regrouped as both my phone and the car's GPS bade their last farewells to us.  Under Jenn's suggestion, I used Jack's phone to call 911, who put us in touch with the local police, who eventually sent State Trooper L.B. Love out to find us and wait with us for the tow truck.  After about an hour or so of waiting for both the trooper and the tow, I used Jack's fast-draining cell to dial AAA again, only to discover that because my first call got disconnected—as I had warned them it might—they had never sent the tow.  This time, though, we managed to get it sorted.  Trooper Love eventually arrived and took good care of us until the tow finally arrived.  It was now well after 1:00 in the morning, and we were all bone-tired.  The tow driver took us about 25 miles to the nearest town, dropping us off at a motel and our car off at a local dealership.

The next morning we were left to wait around for several hours, our fates once again in Roger's hands, Roger having finally given up and called Sunrise, though not without first warning us, "f*$#ing idiots" not to mention anything to anyone about the diesel fuel.  We shook our heads as we agreed, knowing that all it would take any mechanic worth his salt was one look under the hood to figure out what had happened.

Sunrise had us a new car by the afternoon, a white 2013 Dodge Avenger which we promptly named Thor, praying that it would really have the strength of the god of thunder.  Or at least Chris Hemsworth.

Coming Soon:  A detailed account of what our first full week of performances was like, which may or may not strongly resemble an episode of Kids Say the Darndest Things.