Yet there’s more to a really good-handling car than just making sure it doesn’t belong to you. It has to be big. It’s really hard for a girl to get her clothes off inside a small car, and this is one of the most important features of car handling. Also, what kind of drugs does it have in it? Most people like to drive on speed or cocaine with plenty of whiskey mixed in. This gives you the confidence you want and need for plowing through red lights and passing trucks on the right. But don’t neglect downs and ‘ludes and codeine cough syrup either. It’s hard to beat the heavy depressants for high-speed spin-outs, backing into trees, and a general feeling of not giving two fucks about man and his universe.
Now, girls who like motorcycles really will do anything. I mean, really, anything you can think of. But it’s just not the same. For one thing, it’s hard to drink while you’re riding a motorcycle – there’s no place to set your glass. And cocaine’s out of the question. And personally, I find that grass makes me too sensitive. You smoke some grass and the first thing you know you’re pulling over to the side of the road and taking a break to dig the gentle beauty of the sky’s vast panorama, the slow, luxurious interlay of sun and clouds, the lulling trill of breezes midst leafy tree branches – and what kind of fun is that? Besides, it’s tough to “get it on” with a chick (I mean in the biblical sense) and still make all the fast curves unless you let her take the handlebars with her pants off and come on doggy-style or something, which is harder than it sounds; and pantless girls on motorcycles attract the highway patrol, so usually you don’t end up doing anything until you’re both off the bike, and by then you may be in the hospital. Like I was after this old lady pulled out in front of me in an Oldsmobile, and the girl I was with still wanted to do anything you can think of, but there was a doctor there and he was squirting pHisoHex all over me and combing little bits of gravel out of my face with a wire brush, and I just couldn’t get into it. So take it from me and don’t get a motorcycle. Get a big car.
There’s been a lot of discussion about what kind of music to listen to while staring doom square in the eye and not blinking unless you get some grit under your contacts. Watch out for the fellow who tunes his FM to the classical station. He thinks a little Rimsky-Korsakov makes things more dramatic – like in a foreign movie. That’s pussy style. This kind of guy’s idea of a fast drive is a seventy-five-mile-an-hour cruise up to the summer cottage after one brandy and soda. The true skidmark artist prefers something cheery and upbeat – “Night on Disco Mountain” or “Boogie Oogie Oogie” or whatever it is that the teenage lovely wants to shake her buns to. Remember her? So what do you care what’s on the fucking tape deck? The high, hot whine of the engine, the throaty pitch of the exhaust, the wind in your beer can, the gentle slurping noises from her little bud-red lips – that’s all the music your ears need, although side two of the first Velvet Underground album is nice if you absolutely insist. And no short jaunts either. For the maniacal high-speed driver, endurance is everything. Especially if you’ve used that ever-popular pickup line “Wanna go to Mexico?” Especially if you’ve used it somewhere like Boston. Besides, teenage girls can go a long, long time without sleep, and believe me, so can the police and their parents. So just keep your foot in it. There’s no reason not to. There’s no reason not to keep going forever, really. I had this friend who drove a whole shitload of people up from Oaxaca to Cincinnati one time, nonstop. I mean, he stopped for gas but he wouldn’t even let anybody get out then. He made them all piss out the windows, and he says that it was worth the entire drive just to see a girl try to piss out the window of a moving car.
That’s really true. And then about half an hour later the head gasket blew up, and we had to spend I don’t know how long in this dirtball motel although the girl walked all the way to the liquor store through about a mile of slush and got all kinds of wine and did weird stuff with the bottlenecks later. So it was sort of okay, except that the garage where I left the Mercedes burned down and I used the insurance money to buy a motorcycle.