AMERICA ONE (8 page)

Joe shrugged his shoulders; half was better than nothing for the young guy, and shopping for a fancy car would be fun.

It took a week searching for an Audi R8 VIN could afford, He didn’t want to spend more than half his balance on the car and all the nearly new vehicles were over $125,000. Several days later, an Audi appeared in the Raleigh newspaper. A rather desperate sounding seller had a three-year old model for sale for $99,000. The older R8 had higher mileage than all the others, nearly 30,000 miles, and was silver, exactly the color VIN wanted.

Representing his client, Joe called the man. The older man sounded a little desperate, stating that the value of the vehicle was a few grand more than he wanted for it, but he was looking for a quick sale.

Three hours later, and in Joe’s old Jeep, they drove up the driveway of a comfortable house in North Raleigh. An older man came out to meet them.

“A bit of an upgrade for you, young man, from a Cherokee to an R8! I only want cash for the car,” the old man said.

Introductions were made and the owner, in his mid-sixties, quickly noticed that the younger man who was the interested buyer had on leg prostheses. “I see you have the same legs I used to fit onto many of my patients, young man. I’m retired now and my eyesight is failing. I want to sell up, buy a boat to live on and head down to Florida in the winters and Cape Cod, where my wife is from, during the summers. She has given me three months to sell everything. The house is sold, but I just can’t find anybody who can afford my baby. Victor, you say your name is?” VIN nodded. “Well, Victor, if you can afford her, we can do a deal. My R8 has been looked after better than I look after myself. I purchased her new; she is the eight-cylinder model, not the ten, and I’ve been told the eight-cylinder, 4.2 liter engine, is far sweeter than the larger one. Still want to see her?”

He was a good salesman. VIN’s first look at his new car, lying under a cloth in the retired man’s garage, was breathtaking. He just stood there and looked while the owner and Joe carefully unwrapped the yellow cotton cover.

“I know you will look after her, and once she is sold, we can move. If you have the ability to write me a check I can cash, young man, make it out for $95,000 and she is yours.”

Without a word VIN wrote out the check and gave it to the man. The bank was the same one the retired doctor used and he asked for a few minutes while he went in and checked with his branch. Joe was already on the phone to a car insurance friend of his, gave him VIN’s information, and twenty minutes later the happy old man returned stating that the car was now his, gave him the keys, and Joe’s phone rang saying that VIN was covered.

After an hour of the man showing VIN how to drive the car properly, and several goodbyes, the two men left. VIN drove carefully; he now knew what a wild horse would feel like. His car just wanted to take him and wrap him around the nearest road junction. Driving behind the Jeep, he carefully used the manual gearbox and kept the “wild horse” in control.

An hour later they arrived back to see Jonesy sitting on the outside steps of Joe’s closed office.

“Oh crap!” stated Joe as a smiling VIN pulled in next to him. “I’m sorry, Jonesy; I’m 30 minutes late for our appointment. Please forgive me. I had to help get Victor some wheels.”

“I see that his new wheels aren’t the reason you are late, Mr. Attorney. He could have been here an hour ago,” replied the former Air Force pilot not getting up. “But since his new car looks as sweet as, and the same color as many of the aircraft I used to fly, I’ll forgive you this time. Nice ride, kid.”

The meeting was to be short and VIN sat outside looking over his new ride while the two men did their business. They exited the office together. “Want to join us for a beer, kid?” Jonesy asked.

“Sure, something to celebrate my new ride, Mr. Air Force Pilot. I’ll join you for a drink; I have nothing at the hotel to go back to.”

“You staying in a hotel?” asked Jonesy.

“A Holiday Inn, ever since I left base two weeks ago. It’s a bit expensive, but I plan to move on in a few days; maybe check out Texas, or the mountains, or California.”

Jonesy found the car interesting. He had never seen one before and told Joe to lead while he went with VIN. On the short stretch to the restaurant/bar Joe called his regular drinking hole, Jonesy seemed impressed with the silver bullet, especially with the price of the three-year-old car. Behind the Jeep, VIN couldn’t do much, but to Jonesy, the interior was as close to a fighter jet as he had been in for a long time, and the car sounded healthy.

An hour later they were sipping on brown bottles on the porch of the tavern, each ordering a large steak to go with their liquid; VIN was buying.

“Joe just told me that he thinks my spray plane and job could be in jeopardy next year,” stated the pilot starting his second beer. “I think it’s time to sell the plane, I have a buyer who has wanted her for a couple of years. VIN, maybe you have the right idea, head out and find a new life. Hell, I don’t have much, but with no strings attached, maybe it is time to hit the road. Joe what am I worth if I sell the sprayer?”

“You know that I can’t divulge client information,” replied the attorney.

“Oh bull crap, I’m sure this young marine doesn’t care what I’ve got. I give you authority, or whatever you need, to tell me. I certainly ain’t interested in what he’s got, I’m sure not much after purchasing that car out there,” he stated nodding in the direction of the parking lot, where a group of youngsters with pretty girls were already eyeing the silver bullet.

“OK,” replied the lawyer. “You said that that farmer offered you $140,000 for the aircraft as is. You still owe a hundred grand, so that gives you forty thou. Your stocks, if I cash them all in, are worth about ten grand more. The bonds are set for another couple of years and are paying you out about $3,000 a year. That’s it in available cash.”

“VIN, can you put together fifty grand?” VIN nodded. “OK, we each put fifty grand into a new bank account and head out to see life, and we go Dutch, or 50-50. At least we don’t have to sponge off each other, and since one car and a backpack for me is enough, we can use your new car. What do you think?”

Victor Isaac Noble thought about it for a few seconds and without a word nodded his approval.

The start of an adventure.

It took a few days to sort everything out before the silver Audi left Fayetteville, North Carolina, never to return.

To Joe, it seemed that the two men, one fifty-eight and the other just thirty, argued with each other as much as a father and son; a father who hates to see his son grow up and become independent, and to become a man. Poor VIN, the far more powerfully built person with far more strength in his upper body than the older man, was nagged at by the older more experienced man who seemed to have control over the kid. Joe liked both men, and he knew that their friendship would grow into something worth revisiting as time went by. He was sure that they would be back within the year. He was so wrong.

Without an itinerary, they first headed east. Jonesy wanted to get some fishing in, and they spent a week in the small town of Hatteras, befriending a man with a boat, and got a week’s fishing for a good price. This was the first time VIN had ever seen the rich, blue waters of the Gulf Stream twenty-five miles offshore from the town. They caught well, drank lots of beer, and ate much of what they caught: Wahoo and dolphin fish.

The Audi had only enough room in the small frontal compartment and rear area for their clothing, and they left much of their catch for a pretty restaurant owner Jonesy had tried to befriend in the neighboring town of Buxton. She owned the restaurant and was happy to cook their fish for them. They were allowed to sleep in the restaurant as they were not in a condition to drive home. It was fall, out of season, and the town was empty of tourists. The bar was locked up after the two men purchased a case of cold beers, sat at a table in the darkened restaurant, and told each other their stories.

VIN had had a girlfriend once, he told Jonesy while both men were quite drunk. She was a young corporal back in Baghdad, a pretty girl from New York who seemed to like him. It was against policy to interact with fellow soldiers, but it was done often enough. They had a few weeks together while VIN was healing from a bullet wound in his leg.

When she received orders to be posted to another unit south of Baghdad in Basra, they had their last night together. Once she was gone, he did his best to get back into action. That was three years ago.

Jonesy had never been married, except to his aircraft. Sure, he had had lots of short relationships, but for some reason, explicitly noticed by VIN, the girls always seemed to disappear.

He nearly got married once, when he was a captain at Hill Air Force Base in Salt Lake City. Jonesy explained that he was stationed there for a couple of years testing newly modernized F-16 fighter aircraft with upgraded engines when one of the female mechanics befriended him. It was touch and go for most of the relationship, but when the girl wanted to introduce him to her parents and explained that he might have to realign his religious beliefs, the chances of marriage faded.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he slurred opening two fresh beers. “I love beautiful ladies as much as I love beautiful aircraft, but age seems to get in the way and all the pretty girls tend to go for kids like you these days.”

“Well, of course they do,” VIN drunkenly replied accepting the umpteenth beer. “With my looks, brains, six pack abs, and plastic legs,” he slurred emotionally, “of course they want me instead of you. But I must admit I think the plastic legs are not very helpful in that department. Maybe I have to find a girl with plastic legs like me, or exchange mine for Iron Man’s legs or something?”

“And a plastic head!” added Jonesy, always his straight forward and polite self!

“The Audi sure makes these local girls buzz around us like bees after a pretty flower, but as soon as they see an old man and a guy with plastic legs get out, they seem to run as fast as somebody shouting ‘incoming’ back at base.”

“Who are you calling an old man?” quizzed the drunken older man.

“You, unless you want to be the guy with plastic legs,” slurred VIN.

Jonesy’s first interest, before heading west, was to pay homage to the Wright brothers, and after eating an afternoon meal of burgers from a takeout, and a beer or two at the famous site the next day, they both began to feel better and think more about their trip.

As with men, a couple of beers led to wanting more and they found an open seafood buffet restaurant in Kitty Hawk, Johnny’s, where they ate their fair share of King crabs and all types of seafood VIN didn’t even know existed.

The next morning, after finding a secure motel with a decent place to overnight the Audi, they headed north up to Richmond, bypassed Washington, and then headed west on I-70.

Unfortunately, the Audi certainly held the same type of attraction to Highway Patrol vehicles as it did to young girls. VIN tried his best to keep the silver bullet to within ten miles of the highway speed limits, but couldn’t resist the urge to let her go on any long and desolate stretches of road. He was lucky for the first couple of times, until when entering Ohio, the lights of a patrol car stayed in his rear view mirror for quite a while before VIN slowed to allow the speeding car to catch up.

“Nice car, kid,” the officer stated stepping up to the passenger side of the Audi. “Taking your dad for a death ride I see. Sick of him being around and trying to give him a heart attack? Or is a nice kid like you in the “vehicle-removal-from-its-owner” business, and thinking you can drive at 119 miles an hour without being noticed? I need proof of ownership, insurance and a driver’s license young man.”

Without a word VIN produced what the man wanted out of the car’s glove box.

“Give the kid a break, officer,” stated Jonesy as the man was handed the paperwork. “The poor kid has just come back from Iraq, has two new prosthetic legs from above the knee, and just got the car. It’s his first piece of freedom for a decade.”

“This kid is driving like Daytona, and he has no legs?” replied the officer looking at the kid.

“I didn’t say he didn’t have any legs, I said he has plastic legs,” replied Jonesy minding his attitude as best he could.

“What service were you in son?” asked the officer.

“Marines, Force Recon, sir,” replied VIN.

The officer looked over the paperwork for a few moments, made sure they were current, and handed them back to VIN. “I was also in Force Recon for a couple of years, and my son has just gone into Afghanistan with Force Recon. Kid, stay at or around the speed limit, Ohio is full of Highway Patrol. And drive carefully. Now, get out of here!”

The second forced stop was just before St. Louis, Missouri. This time the officer was not ex-Force Recon, but Air Force, and again they were lucky. The police officer told the man in the passenger seat of the fancy sports car that he had always wanted to be an Air Force test pilot, but had flown C-130s for a decade before losing his perfect eyesight, and didn’t want to fly a desk for the rest of his life.

After three tanks of gas, and the Audi happy to be driven harder than ever before, they decided to stop in “Beer City,” St. Louis for a while.

They visited the stadium and drank a couple of days of beer before Jonesy decided that he’d rather be a Packers fan, and they headed north into Green Bay to check out that area.

After a week of sightseeing, this time eating cheese with their beer, they decided that it looked too cold for a future place to live and continued westwards.

They cut across country, aiming to get back to the I-80 Interstate and find beautiful lonely, long stretches of road the Highway Patrol didn’t seem to know about. After nearly hitting a group of cows on a lonely brow of a single lane highway at over 145 miles an hour, VIN decided to cool it and found the Interstate around Iowa City.

In a major truck stop, Jonesy purchased the most expensive speed-radar detection system that existed. A couple of hundred miles later Jonesy threw it out of the speeding car’s window; with it, VIN thought the Audi undetectable, and drove like a bloody madman.