Drama Queen

Fear not Trakker; Jamal Johnson is here.

Jo’s lungs seared as his hands shook. Trakker pulled himself up and walked back to the road. Jo followed quickly behind but stopped. He picked something off the floor, a scrap of metal and plastic. “My cell…”

Trakker’s feet slipped on a fresh sheen of excrement as he beheld his dream Camaro. The car, with its beautiful curves, broad roaring engine and flawless green paintwork, was now inorganic pizza. Shards of glass glittered in the moonlight. He could not comprehend what had happened to the car he bought, as a teenager, from a dodgy salesman named after some Latin American country. The cowpat glowed again as Trakker sank down onto a spared piece of verge.

Jo, camera in hand, sat down next to Trakker. “My uncle always said; you can trust a car where you can’t trust no woman.”

“Your uncle’s full of s**t.”

      “Well so is your car. And the truth of the matter is; we’re stuck out here less you gonna retrieve that cellphone of yours.”

      “No, you do it.”

      “No way am I getting s**t all over my hands. I’d rather walk home,” he fell silent for a few moments longer than usual. “What do you think made that big ball?”

      Trakker shrugged. “Not much for caring right now.”

      Jo nudged his friend. “Aren’t you in the least bit curious?”

      “I guess,” Trakker stared across the road. “The only thing I know that makes big balls like that are those African beetles…”

      He was interrupted by a pair of lights appearing down the road. Jo stood up and began to wave his arms about. Trakker stayed on the verge, unmoving, thinking.

      The headlights momentarily drowned out everything in the vicinity almost as if the driver wanted to seem in essence; divine. Loud pumping hip-hop reverberated around their eardrums along with screeching breaks as the sleek blue Subaru Impreza skidded to a halt. Steam rose from the tires as the beatboxer hit five more and one final boom.

      “Well, I am not believing, what I know, I am seeing!” A familiar voice gloated. “We have, here, the supreme mechanic of my number one rival driver, sitting beside a squashed lump of metal that used to be his green nineteen-sixty-seven Camaro.”

      Trakker looked up to see the new star of American racing, Jamal Johnson pulling off his shades. “My day is complete.”

      Jo, excited to see one of his new idols, quickly told Jamal what happened. “Yeah, we saw it too. But my car is gleaming new still and yours is… well, a heap,” he looked around. “Where ya’ll heading?”

      “Guthrie,” Jo answered.

      “Now, I don’t want anyone to say that Jamal Johnson kicks a man when he’s down; specially when there’s a camera rollin. So, when you’ve got your s**t together Trakker, come ride with Small Packet and me.”

      Jo’s eyebrows popped over his head, rolled around his chin and resumed their natural posture. “Small Packet is here?”

      “Yeah; we’re making a song together; blastbeats, beatboxing n lots of hot chicks,” Jamal put his arm around his shoulder. “Now tell me why you have this camera coz I’ve seen you on the circuit and I know you ain’t seen my best side yet.”

      Trakker pulled himself up. He’d lost a lot of things in his life; and in the end the Camaro was just a car. He got into Jamal’s car. “Who’s Bling-boy and the Asian chick?”

      Jamal smiled with one hand over his wheel he began to drive off. “Small Packet, don’t expect a guy like you to know him and that’s his gal, Junko Fukai; picked her up on a tour in Tokyo.”

      Small Packet nodded. “Yeah man. Do you know how many extra albums I sell over there just coz of got a Japanese girlfriend?”

      “Same goes with movies; guaranteed seller,” Jo agreed.

      Trakker turned back to see Jamal staring at him as the car swept along the road. “Shouldn’t you be looking where you’re supposed to be driving?”

      “What caused this Trakker?”

      “Dung beetles,” he replied.

      Jamal looked at him in disbelief. “They are tiny; right?”

      “Sure,” Trakker conceded.

      Jamal nodded. “They are too small to roll up such a big Indiana Jones style ball and launch it down the road. And it’s unlikely that they’ve formed a collective and are tryin’ to kill us all.”

      Trakker did not care much. “What do you think then?”

     Jamal smiled. “It’s some kind of new European farming technology gone wrong. You know? Like those machines that stick hay together for cows. That’s it,” he hit the dashboard. “Mark my words; European technology. Well it don’t matter much does it? Coz I am only taking you guys as far as Guthrie and nowhere else. If you want to work this s**t out; you walk.”

As they drove on up the hill the road became more uneven. Junko clung to Little Packet and said nothing. Jo used his camera to interview the rapper. Trakker looked in the mirror, saw the trees either side of the road wavering and turned to Jamal. “I don’t mean to sound stereotypical, but… are you packing?”

      “Glove compartment. Under the NRA posters. And you know what? It is stereotypical because we African-Americans are less likely to own guns than white boys like you…”

      Trakker listened intently as he pulled out a shoebox. Inside the shoebox under a pair of ripe insoles he found a single colt .45 revolver. Next to it was a box of shots.

      Jamal looked at him nervously. “What you means to do with that?

      “If I am right then there’s a giant bug out there that’s not gonna be swayed by harsh language from a fat rapper; no offence.”

      “None taken; in Japan a big belly is a sign of huge generosity of spirit,” Small Packet grinned.

      Jamal laughed. “Is that why they is all thin?”

      “No matter; judging by those balls these bugs are gonna be out of this world massive,” Trakker brought them back to the point.

      Jo nodded. “If it wasn’t so uncool to say it; I would say uber-massive.”

      “Now, I still don’t believe you. But, if you are right, where did they get all that s**t?” Jamal asked. “A giant herd of heifers? The national congress of horses?”

“Washington?” Jo chimed in.

      They laughed as they continued along the road nervously. The car bumped along. They all looked around them; seeing the trees sway. Occasionally one would fall behind them. There would be a faint sound of timber ripping and leaves crashing to the ground. Up ahead they saw a crashed car. It had not been crushed by a McSlurry ball; however, instead a huge hole had been ripped through the roof. The car seemed empty.

      They passed the wreckage in silence. Over a small hump in the road they felt the ground began to rumble. A roaring sound came from before them. Jamal looked around nervously as he avoided a large clump of crap sitting in the road. Trees stopped swaying around them; “The calm before the storm,” Jo intoned into his camera.