By Glenn Goodspeed (1987)
I have a friend at work called Zdenek. He was born in Czechoslovakia, which is where he got the funny name. No one can pronounce it around here, so everyone just calls him "Z."
One day Z's Honda Prelude was in for a lube job, and he asked if he could borrow my '63 Volvo 1800 to run some errands at lunch time. I said "sure," because he's a pretty good driver, and anyway I have a fatalistic attitude abut the car. I mean, if it gets crashed, it gets crashed. The chances are excellent no matter who's driving (just ask your insurance company), so I try not to worry about it too much.
Besides, Z is a big tease, and he's always poking fun at my old finned Volvo. Whenever we go anywhere in it, he makes some crack about raising the landing gear or checking the wing flaps. Once when I visited him at home, he tried to tell his three-year-old daughter that I drive an airplane, but even little Dominique knows an old sports car when she sees one.
I was glad to let Z have the 1800 for an hour just so he could see what he's missing in his rice rocket. Little did I suspect that he would drive my car much further in an hour than I have in five years. He gave this strange account of his lunch hour journey:
"Glenn, you are not going to believe this, but I have to tell you anyway."
"Zdenek, did you wreck my car?" I asked.
"No, no nothing like that, but I sure was afraid that you would never see it again. I was going to the cleaners to pick up my new overcoat, which I spilled coffee on yesterday. I took Forest Park drive out of downtown, where it zigzags down by the river.
"Well, by the time I got to the cleaners, I wanted only to drive your little airplane some more. I went right past the shop, headed out of town on highway 377, and took the first farm road east. It was beautiful out there in the late fall weather. The sun was shining, the road was smooth, the car responded like a dream.
"I stopped at a roadside stand for some fruit, and when I got back in the car, I felt that something was different. It was weird, as if I had never seen the controls before, although they hadn't changed. I looked at the inside of the car carefully, trying to figure out what was different. Then I found, under the dash, a panel I had not seen before."
"Oh, yeah," I said, "the choke, fresh air, and interior lighting, right?"
"No, no, this was up further, behind that panel. It had two toggle switches. One was labeled 'wings,' and the other said 'boost.'"
I know better than to argue when Z starts talking this way, in a low voice with his brow knit and eyes focused somewhere behind me, so I just sighed, folded my hands, and waited.
"Of course," he said, "I had to try them out. I accelerated quickly to highway speed and flipped the 'wings' switch. I heard a low whine like hydraulics, then a 'clunk,' then nothing. I was disappointed, but I thought that any switch labeled 'boost' ought to do something, so I flipped that one, too.
"What happened next was so fast and so incredible I couldn't believe my senses. As soon as the switch clicked, an enormous rush of power shoved me deep into the seat back. The force of acceleration stretched my face like an astronaut's, and the sound and vibration reminded me of watching the space shuttle lift off at Cape Canaveral. Needless to say, I was terrified.
"The sensation lasted a few seconds, and suddenly I was aware of only a dull roaring noise and a steady vibration. I looked out the window not knowing what to expect, and I could never have anticipated the astounding view that met my eyes.
"I was soaring far above the earth, far above everything. I could see the farm road, I could see Fort Worth and Dallas and the hazy horizon in the distance. As I looked down, I saw that delta-shaped wings had emerged from the sides of the car. I turned around and saw my contrail following behind great flashes of fire that seemed to be coming from where the taillights had been."
"Uh, huh," I said. Z continued without missing a beat.
"As I became accustomed (if you can call it that) to my new situation, I began to wonder how I was going to get back to earth. My hands had never left the steering wheel, and now I tried turning it this way and that. To my relief, the car responded perfectly. If I pushed on the wheel, the car nosed down, and if I pulled, it climbed toward the sky, which was purplish now, because I was so much closer to it.
"I checked all the gauges. The tach needle hovered over the 1,000 mark, the speedometer read less than ten, the oil and water were normal, and the clock seemed to be acting as an altimeter, with the large hand reading hundreds and the small hand reading thousands of feet. The fuel gauge, which as you know showed full when I started, was down to about 3/4. The odometer was spinning so wildly that the tens were barely discernible, and the ones were just a blur.
"Dallas disappeared behind me. I continued east, and as I became more comfortable with the controls, I had some fun. Did a few loop-the-loops and barrel rolls until I got sick at my stomach, then dive-bombed a few farmhouses. Boy, did those farmers ever look surprised.
"I crossed the Mississippi just minutes after leaving Dallas, and was cruising at 30,000 feet when I came up behind a jetliner rather quickly. I stepped on the brakes, and the car slowed down. Then I wanted to see how fast I could go. I noticed that the car was in first gear. I floored it. It accelerated so violently that I narrowly avoided the jetliner. The tach went to the red line as the jet became a speck in the rear view mirror, and I shifted into second.
"By the time I hit third gear, New York City was rapidly joining the horizon behind me, and I slipped into late afternoon as Europe appeared ahead. I streaked across France and decided to continue toward Czechoslovakia, thinking I might visit some old friends before returning home.
"I downshifted and began to slow down, and then I saw a pair of small jet aircraft approaching from the left. I noticed with some apprehension that they bore the red star insignia of the Soviet Union. I let off the gas instinctively, like spotting a cop on the highway, and they pulled up on either side. I looked at the guy on the left.
"He was staring incredulously. His mouth hung open and his eyes bugged out like some crazy cartoon character. I smiled and waved. He came out of his trance and motioned me to put on my radio headset. Of course, there is no headset in the car, but I turned on the radio.
"Oddly enough, the radio was tuned to their frequency. I know enough Russian to tell that they were trying to decide whether to report me to their commander or not. Then the fellow on the left began addressing me in Swedish, which I don't understand very well. I motioned palms up to him, and he tried Czech. I smiled to signify I could understand, but then I realized he was telling me to follow them and land.
"Quickly, I put the car into a steep, accelerating climb and an Immelmann turn. At the top of the turn, I had just rolled the car over and was trying to shift into second when I missed the shift. If you think grinding gears make a nasty noise, you should have heard the racket this thing made. My airspeed, low already, dropped to below 10 on the speedometer, which I had deduced to mean I was going less than the speed of sound. The car started to lose altitude, but I finally jammed it back into first gear and put the hammer down, so to speak.
"About this time I noticed the fighters had turned and were right on my tail - uh - bumper. The radio crackled. I heard the Russian order to fire rockets. As soon as I got the car into second, I looked in the rear view mirror. Although the planes were receding, I could see four small sparking rocket trails heading for me."
Zdenek stopped to take a sip of now-cold coffee. I was cleaning my nails with my pocket knife. I looked over the desk at him.
"You got my keys, Z?" I asked. He ignored me and continued.
"I didn't look back again until I was halfway over the Atlantic. I had lost the rockets, but now I had another problem. The fuel gauge was near empty, and I still had a few thousand miles to go. I put the car into a shallow climb, and even though I was only doing Mach 3.5, I dropped it into fourth gear to conserve fuel.
"The flight became monotonous, and pretty soon I must have dozed off. I felt only vague rumbles and wind noises and occasional turbulence. You know, that car must have a tremendous autopilot, because it seemed like only a few minutes went by before I woke up again, and the car had already landed itself at the very same roadside produce stand where I stopped at lunch time."
"Z, I have work to do," I said. "Did you really run it out of gas?"
"Oh, I imagine there is enough left to get you home," he said, smiling. He handed me the keys.