An old friend of mine named Joe Schenkman happens to have just written me a letter about another thing you can do to wreck a car. Joe’s on a little vacation up in Vermont (and will be until he finds out what the statute of limitations on attempted vehicular homicide is). He was writing to tell me about a fellow he met up there, saying:
Of course, it’s a shame to waste young lives behaving this way – speeding around all tanked up with your feet hooked in the steering wheel while your date crawls around on the floor mats opening zippers with her teeth and pounding on the accelerator with an empty liquor bottle. But it wouldn’t be taking a chance if you weren’t risking something. And even if it is a shame to waste young lives behaving this way, it is definitely cooler than risking old lives behaving this way. I mean, so what if some fifty-eight-year-old butt-head gets a load on and starts playing Death Race 2000 in the rush-hour traffic jam? What kind of chance is he taking? He’s just waiting around to see what kind of cancer he gets anyway. But if young, talented you, with all of life’s possibilities at your fingertips, you and the future Cheryl Tiegs there, so fresh, so beautiful – if the two of you stake your handsome heads on a single roll of the dice in life’s game of stop-the-semi – now that’s taking chances! Which is why old people rarely risk their lives. It’s not because they’re chicken – they just have too much dignity to play for small stakes.
Yes, but where does it all end? Where does a crazy life like this lead? To death, you say. Look at all the people who’ve died in car wrecks: Albert Camus, Jayne Mansfield, Jackson Pollock, Tom Paine. Well, Tom Paine didn’t really die in a car wreck, but he probably would have if he’d lived a little later. He was that kind of guy. Anyway, death is always the first thing that leaps into everybody’s mind – sudden violent death at an early age. If only it were that simple. God, we could all go out in a blaze of flaming aluminum alloys formulated specially for the Porsche factory race effort like James Dean did! No ulcers, no hemorrhoids, no bulging waistlines, soft dicks, or false teeth... bash!! kaboom!! Watch this space for paperback reprint rights, auction, and movie option sale! But that’s not the way it goes. No. What actually happens is you fall for that teenage lovely in the next seat over, fall for her like a ton of condoms, and before you know it you’re married and have teenage lovelies of your own – getting felt up in a Pontiac Trans Ams this very minute, no doubt – plus a six-figure mortgage, a liver the size of the Bronx, and a Country Squire that’s never seen the sweet side of sixty.