UTG - Chapter 14: Placebo for your Libido
I think I was twenty five years old before I realized that you could use vise-grip pliers for anything besides replacing a broken handle on a car window. You see, I come from the duct-tape, motor- honey, rag-as-a-gas-cap school of shady tree mechanics. Cars I work on are guaranteed not to rust, bust, or collect dust. But in all my days I had never seen anything quite like the sweater incident.
Being late for a Bad Company concert sans Paul Rodgers is not a big deal. Being late for a Bad Company concert sans Paul Rodgers when the opening act is Damn Yankees with Ted Nugent is completely, and utterly, unforgivable. Particularly if you are in your twenties and have been a 'Nuge' fan since you were eight.
Being late exacerbated by being lost. Not completely lost, just being on the corner of Peachtree and Peachtree in Atlanta, which does not narrow it down in any way, shape, or form. It might also not have been helped by the fact that I had somehow fit six grown (physically, if not emotionally) adults in a Yugo. When one is such a situation it is highly encouraged that you keep an eye out for obstructions in the road that a car that is rather low in the first place, let alone weighed down, may not be able to clear. I, however, was too busy looking for the Fulton County Civic Center. Therefore, I did not notice that the intersection had not yet received is final layer of asphalt. Nor did it cross my mind that the man hole cover in the middle of said intersection was at least twelve inches higher than the paved surface that my tiny 20 inch tires were riding on. So I was utterly surprised, as was the girl riding shotgun, when the stick shift flew out of fourth gear and slammed into her leg like rubber mallet on a baked sweet potato. But, alas, before anyone could react to this sudden anomaly, our eardrums were suddenly engulfed with the brain pulsing sound of a 1.1 liter engine that has just lost it's exhaust system on a road named after a fruit bush.
That's when I saw it. The Fulton County Civic Center in all of its faded brown post disco glory. My brother Rick reached up from the back seat (at 6'3 stuffed into the backseat of a Yugo, he didn't have to reach far) and grabbed my by right shoulder, "PULL OVER, NOW! THERE, RIGHT THERE, NOW!!". While I was admiring the wonderfully unimpressive architecture of tonight's venue, Rick was taking charge in a crisis situation and had spotted a parking space in an abandoned lot.
It was amazing how wonderful it felt once I turned off the ignition and the lack of un-muffled thunder ripping through my brain settled upon me. I sat there soaking up the silence until it was overtaken by moans from the excuse for a backseat where my passengers were begging for relief from the hatchback of doom. Those weren't the only moans either. My co-pilot already had a really impressive bruise coming up on her left thigh and I swear I could see an image of the gear diagram starting to appear on her skin like a jailhouse tattoo.
We all piled out and created a pretty sad semi-circle staring at this pathetic, and now crippled, eastern block version of a vehicle wondering how it was ever going to get us the hour and fifteen minutes back to suburbia. All of us, that is, except for Capn' Rick. My brother looked entranced, as if the situation had sent an abnormal amount of adrenaline through his veins and it was somehow shooting from his eye sockets in the form of white hot determination.
He took one quick glance at our sad droopy faces, pulled his sweater over his head, and immediately crawled underneath the car. Knowing little about actual real life car repair, but knowing that I knew a hell of a lot more than Rick, I bent over and was mesmerized by what he did next. Taking his wool sweater under the car he used it to tie the now hanging exhaust pipe to the frame of the car. Now, in theory, the car could make it down the road, albeit rather loudly, and return it's bundle of rock fans back to the land of strip malls and water towers.
Rising, practically floating, up from underneath the car Rick turned and smiled at his slack jawed audience. A wry smile formed and called me over. "Come here little brother." I looked at the rest of the sad-sack crew, hesitated, looked back at Rick, and then silently walked towards this now glowing specimen of raw enthusiasm.
"Tell me lil' bro. Can you do this?" And in an instance his hulking frame spun in the air with the grace of a helipad windsock. His blue jeaned leg rising up, then clear over my head, his shoe forcing cool evening air to rush by my ear lobes providing unexpected relief to my still throbbing drums. His spin concluded with a flourish that would have made Bruce Lee's dad proud.
Having just witnessed a freak of nature, an isolated bend in the universal continuum, I did the only thing that could be done. I accepted the challenge.
Twisting my body in a lighting quick rotation my legs feeling light and powerful I swung my right foot high into the air as gently as a dishcloth on a butcher knife. My boot climbing effortlessly against the star filled backdrop of a fall Georgia evening and solidly connecting with the left side of my brother's head. My follow through was immaculate, taking his entire torso quicker than the legs could follow causing a Gumby like bend that resulted in his feet snapping in the air at the last second and remaining airborne long after his skull had struck the pavement.
The slack jawed crowd sucked a collective gasp. These people were from the inner sanctum. They had witnessed our sibling death matches for years. More than anyone who walked the earth these four people knew the extreme peril I now faced. My brother, Rick B. had a legendary temper on a good day. This was not going to be a good day.
As the crew drew their last suck of spit Rick remained silent. Then, as quickly as he had gone down, he somehow rose to a standing position. Then bouncing from side to side like an Olympic boxer he did the most terrifying thing that I could have imagined at that point. He smiled.
Then the bouncing stopped, his glove less boxing grips loosened, and his hands rose to his sides in mysteriously inquisitive gesture of peace. "Well,....I asked him, didn't I?"
The crew started to breath again. I, on the other hand, waited a bit longer before restarting my own respiratory functions. He wasn't going to kill me. Heck, he was impressed that I got my foot as high as I did.
"Let's go see the Nuge!"
Arm in arm in arm in arm in arm in arm, we headed towards the main event, confident that our transportational issues could easily be resolved once the orchestral portion of the evening had concluded. Heading for the turnstiles we reviled in our durability and basked in the anticipation of the show before us.
That's when things really started to get interesting............
To read UTG from the begining go to http://b2publishing.blogspot.com/p/under-gun.html
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