Chet & Floyd vs. The Apocalypse: Volume 1 (8 page)

Chet laughed from behind the car.
“I never did like that Steve Jorgenson to tell you the truth.” Chet’s laugh had a more-than-slightly insane quality to it. His injured hand burned, sending waves of shock and pain to his brain. “He was too
rational
for his own good. What good it logic? Logic is no good. His logic told him to hold an armed grenade in his hand and count to three. That sort of thinking is not for me. I choose to live full throttle and off the cuff. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Chet looked over the car to see the smoke and bits of man all over the road.
He laughed again. “It’s not polite to answer a question with silence. What has become of this world?”

Chet sat back down on the asphalt and held his wounded hand.
He rocked slowly back and forth, lost in his own thoughts, until he realized he was rocking to the sound of oncoming footsteps.

He looked over the car to see Floyd
, looking worse for wear. His clothing was torn, skin scraped up and he held one hand over his ribcage like he was protecting a particularly injured part of himself. He was looking at the splattered bits of flesh and gagged a bit at the smell.

“Kind of like Steve Jorgenson?”
Floyd said.

Chet nodded.

Floyd walked around the car and sat down next to Chet.
Chet put his injured hand on Floyd’s shoulder.

“Floyd, I would like to begin my three part apology by saying that I respect you as a person…”

Chapter 17

Their friendship mended, Chet and Floyd spent the next week in hiding.
Their bodies had taken too heavy a toll to be strutting around a post-apocalyptic world. They needed some quality rest to heal their bodies and minds. Most of the time was spent in deep sleep to speed along the healing process.

Chet and Floyd’s wounds turned into scars that
crisscrossed their bodies, making a kind of tapestry. Of the two, Chet had the worst of it. His first few nights were spent in abject agony from cauterizing his finger stumps.

As happens with all things, time heals all wounds.
Their aches and pains subsided, and they began plotting to move on .

They
took their belongings out of the VW, left it at the roadblock and walked a couple miles down the road, making camp in an old abandoned barn. There was decaying hay to sleep in, a loft which made a good lookout and they had the dog meat to sustain them.

It was day eight in the loft when Chet and Floyd began to get antsy.

Chet was up in the loft of the old barn. He lit up the tobacco in his pipe and inhaled deeply. He puffed the smoke out of his nostrils in short torrents. It billowed down the front of his clothes and caressed his face as it dissipated in the atmosphere. Chet smiled a sweet smile of bliss.

“I love smoking!” Chet slapped Floyd, who was sitting next to him, on the back.     “Smoking is great!”

“You should quit,” Floyd said. Chet was shocked.

“Quit!” Chet exclaimed. His mouth fell open. The pipe fell out and landed on the concrete. “Sweet mercy!” Chet picked up the pipe and took a long drag. He took the briar out of his mouth and looked at it. “I will never drop you again my baby. Never. I love you.” Chet made a kissy face and took a short drag. He blew the smoke in Floyd's face.

“You should quit,” Floyd said. “Smoking gives you cancer.”
“Only the best cancer of all Floyd.” Chet took a long drag blowing out the smoke while spinning around.

He stopped his spin
and faced Floyd directly. Mid spin Chet had produced a pouch of Half and Half from his pocket. “Want a smoke?” Chet asked.

Floyd shook his head.

“
You should smoke. Man must have a vice. You have no vices Floydy my baby.” Chet jittered in place.

He dumped out the ash in his pipe, repacked it and lit it up again.
“Cancer you can earn Floyd. Cancer you can earn. Do you want to wake up one day at fifty-five and find out you have prostate cancer?”

“
No,” said Floyd.

“
I don’t either! Do you want to wake up one day at fifty-five and find out you have lung cancer?” Chet asked. He poked Floyd in the stomach.

“
No,” said Floyd.

“
I don't either! Which one would you rather have?” Chet jumped and spun.

“
Come again?”

“
Would you rather have prostate cancer or lung cancer?” Chet asked.

“
Neither,” Floyd said.

Chet yanked Floyd in front of him and clutched the sides of his face. Floyd could feel the heat from the pipe between Chet's fingers.
“That’s just it my little Floydums,” Chet hissed. “You don't want any type of cancer, but sometimes you don't get a choice.”
Floyd pushed Chet away.

Chet paced and ranted.
“You wake up and—POW! You have prostate cancer! What did you do to get it? Nothing! You just have prostate cancer, and you’re probably going to die. It’s not like everyone will give you a hard time telling you it’s your own fault for putting all those carcinogens into your prostate for all those years.”

Chet stopped and looked at Floyd sideways.
“Unless I am mistaken. Floyd, have you been putting carcinogens in your prostate?”
Floyd shook his head no.

“
Okay. Now let’s say you wake up and—POW! You have lung cancer. What did you do to get it? You smoked like a California wildfire for decades and decades. Grave-dancing people will give you a hard time about it, and they will be right. You put all those carcinogens into your lungs, and you’re probably going to die.”

Chet took a long drag off his pipe and said,
“Cancer is cancer is cancer. People are living so long now that we’re all probably going to die from one type of cancer or another. The odds get better every day. At least I’ll be having some fun on the way to mine. Smoking is awesome!”

“Smoking can kill you.” Floyd nabbed the pipe out of Chet’s mouth and threw it off the loft.

“
My pipe! My precious briar!” Chet screamed and dove down the ladder after it. He nabbed it off the ground and re-lit. “Oh, sweet, sweet pipe. Oh, sweet, sweet tobacco.”

“
You should quit.” Floyd called from the loft.
“Quit!” Chet exclaimed. The pipe fell out of his open mouth and landed on the dirt floor of the barn.

“
Sweet mercy!” Chet shook the cobwebs out of his head and called up to Floyd in the loft. “We’re stuck in a rut here Floyd. We have to get out of here.”

“I agree
,” Floyd said. “You said something a couple weeks ago about getting back to your roots.”

“Indeed.
I have been thinking about it again myself, and I still need to get to the bottom of Chet. We’re going back to that Preschool of mine. Maybe it will help me get in touch with myself. Bring me back to center.”

“I thought you were a Zen
master now,” Floyd said, lighting up a Rocky Patel Vintage 1992 Toro.

“Even Zen
masters need a little grounding every now and then. They put on such airs. I thought you wanted me to stop smoking?” Chet said.

“I like to point out other
’s vices without any reflection as to my own,” Floyd said. “It’s a hobby of mine. Let’s go.”

Chapter 18

Floyd had
ripped the skull bug engine out of the back of the Super Beetle. The bullet didn’t destroy the engine, but its impact threw off the belt and caused a mess with the timing. Floyd popped the distributor cap back in place and tightened the spark plugs in their sockets.

“You just had to let him shoot the engine
,” Floyd said. “Why couldn’t you have blown him up earlier?”

“Because I have faith in you Floyd
,” Chet said. “That you can fix anything. When will she be ready?”

“Soon enough I think.
There isn’t much to these things,” Floyd said.

Chet took a look at
the engine and dusted off the oil pan. “Looks pretty crappy to me.”

“It’s a little beat up, but it runs.
Some cars just don’t know how to die. This is one. We hit the jackpot on this baby.” Floyd reconnected the air flow hoses and wiped his hands on his jeans.

“All done?”
Chet said.

“I think so.
Let’s get her back in.” Chet and Floyd wrestled the engine back in place under the jacked up vehicle.

They had the bug frame propped by pushing it down the sharp embankment.
The front end was so low and the back end so high that it didn’t take much to get enough clearance to drop the engine. With a little grunt work, everything was back in place.

Chet and Floyd roughly shoved the beetle the rest of the way down the embankment.
Floyd winced as it jarred to a stop on the level surface.

“No more time to waste
,” Chet said. “Let’s get going.”

Floyd put a hand on Chet’s chest as he tried to walk past him.

“You are not allowed in this car. This is my baby,” Floyd said.

“What are you talking about?”
Chet asked.

“You are not allowed in this car.
You do not respect this car,” Floyd said. “When we found this car, I rebuilt the thing from nothing. There is nothing in this car that has not had my hands on it at one time or another.”

“If you’re trying to pick me up Floyd the answer is no.
You will
not
put your hands on me. I will not be your little man toy.” Chet put his hands on his hips. “I do not pay for my passage this way. You are redefining our relationship, and I will not have it!”

“You are the biggest dumbass Chet
,” Floyd said. “I’m tired of telling you I don’t like it when you call our friendship a ‘relationship.’ Your way with semantics creeps me out. Please stop. I don’t want to put my hands on you. Okay?”

“Okay.
But I’m going to keep my eyes on you lest you try something,” Chet said.

“You just keep watching.
What I mean is that you treat this car like it’s indestructible. You treat the inside like a trash can. You let some jerk put a bullet into the engine compartment. Let me tell you something, Chet. You don’t give our ride any respect. You think this thing will keep running forever? That’s ridiculous. We have to take care of this car. It has been good to us, and we have to be good right back.”

“Let me in the car Floyd
,” Chet said.

“No.
You are not allowed in the car. This is much more my car than it is yours.”

“You know what your problem is Floyd?”
Chet said.

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me
,” Floyd said.

“You just gave me a whole speech about your precious car.
This car you claim as yours is just as much mine. You may have had your hands on all the precious gears, but the experiences in this car belong to the both of us. I have lived, loved and bled in this car, just as you have.”

“You’ve ‘loved’ in this car?”
Floyd asked.

“You don’t know her.
You were asleep anyway.”

“I was there when it happened?
That’s sick,” Floyd said. Chet shrugged.

“That is not the point here Floyd
,” Chet said. “The point is that you’ve come to love things over people. A car is just a thing. It can’t love. It can’t feel. It can’t experience.

“
I can Floyd. I can do all those things and even more. I do all those things and you don’t even have to fill me full of petrol every 250 miles or so. When you look into my eyes you will see my soul. Those headlights on your sainted car have nothing behind them. Now stand aside, and let me in the damn car.”

Floyd stepped away from the door.
Chet shoved him aside and got in, closing the door. Floyd tapped on the glass and Chet rolled down the window.

“I’m sorry Chet
,” Floyd said.

“Shame on you Floyd
,” Chet said. “Shame on you.” Chet rolled the window of his car back up. Floyd went around to the driver side and got in. He sighed, started up the car and drove it back onto the road and down the highway.

“How long are you going to be mad at me Chet?”
Floyd asked several minutes later.

“I don’t know yet.
I’m still hurting inside,” Chet said.

Floyd took out his
pocketknife and stabbed it into the dash, cutting a long furrow into the plastic mold. “That’s a start, but I’m not sure I wholly believe you. There may be a time where you have to choose between me and this car, and I hope you choose me.”

“Choose between a person and a car?
Don’t be stupid Chet.”

“We will see Floyd.
We will see,” Chet said, and he proclaimed the car to be a silent place. Floyd, remembering the grenades in Chet’s pockets, went along with the decision.