The CobraJet had died of a broken cam so Willie and I were reduced to cruising around in an old Mustang six. It was getting dusky and we were in fine shape as we descended a hill on a old two lane road. The Worm was in the seat and I was at shotgun watching the clouds drift by a psychedelic sky. The groove was on. But I'm getting these vibs and I look over at the Worm and he's looking at me like a lost puppy. "What?" That's when he proceeded to inform me of the rusted brake line that had apparently failed resulting in a rapid depletion of hydraulic fluid from the master cylinder leading to long line of slimy residue behind the car and no brakes, to speak of. And we were gaining speed. "Well, put on the emergency brake." "Already tried that." Oh. So I had to stop and consider. Due to a dilation of the local temporal reality I had plenty of time to plan our next move. It seemed we were on a steep incline, facing down. The speedo read about 55 or 60 and was climbing toward the right, so I quickly dismissed the idea of bailing out as I figured I'd scrape up my knees pretty badly at the least. And the seat was pretty cozy anyway. But there was that problem of our increasing speed and the unavoidable conclusion that eventually we would be traveling into another dimension...possibly a flat one if we hit something at the bottom of the hill. Willie was no help. He was just sitting there with the pedal on the floor staring ahead. "How about if you downshift?, I said. "At 60 fucking 5!?" "Sure!" Now Willie was a driver. Very good, not good at anything else, but he could drive. So he pushed in the pedal, revved the shit out of that old six cylinder, slammed the floor shifter into first and popped the clutch. I almost hit the dash as those rear wheels caught. Laid a patch of rubber fifty feet long, or longer, it was hard to tell because of the smoke and linear distortion going on in our brains, as I mentioned earlier.....maybe it was only a foot or so, I don't know. Anyway, that Stang stopped like it hit a brick wall, almost. Once I stopped bouncing around and took note, I realized we were still moving, ever so slowly. Inch by inch, step by step. So I opened my door and started to drag my feet. It almost worked but not quite. We were starting to pick up speed again! "Uh, hey Worm, how 'bout dragging your feet over there, huh?" So he tried, and I tried, and we both tried...but we were still gaining speed. So that didn't work. We closed the doors and proceeded to plan "B". Which we immediately set about developing. A: we had no brakes, B: we had no emergency brake, C: we were already in low gear, D: I forget if we tried shutting off the engine or not; didn't matter we were still gaining speed. E: the road was getting twisty, F: Willie seemed to be fighting the steering wheel more and more, G: the road seemed to drop off into infinity on my right, that wasn't good. H: it rose to a high embankment on our left, I: we were still gaining speed. "Well, Worm, I have carefully considered all of our options right up to the ninth letter of the alphabet, which just happens to be I." "And I think the best thing to do would be to smash this sucker into yonder embankment on our left and hope for the best, amen." "That's it?" "That's all I got." So quick as lickity split he yanked the wheel to the left, we hit the bank a glancing blow, rode along kicking up dirt and sod until he could'n hold it anymore, shot across the road into an old gas station, missed the pumps, slide sideways...and came to rest with the front wheels hanging over the edge of the road which must have been very deep but fuck if I was going to go look and see as I jumped out of the car onto terra firma for once and all. So the car was dead, another one bits the dust, and there we stood somewhere in Poedunkville, with our long hair, bell bottom pants and easy baked brains. This was in the days of no cell phones mind you. And it was getting dark, and as we walked along looking for a pay phone there was that parent lady scooping up her kids and running inside...and that gnarled old redneck with the ax giving us the hairy eyeball. Night of the Living Dead, Deliverance, George Wallace. Well to make a long story short, we found a phone somewhere, and it worked. We called up good old Jimbo and his sister, woke him up as it was some late o'clock by now, or maybe he was just down at the time, if you know what I mean. We had about an hour to wait. I still don't really know where we were, somewhere around Indiana, PA I think. We started walking up the road cause we figured we might as well put some distance between us and ax man, man. We relaxed a little bit when the state cop showed up and trailed us as we walked. At least the ax man wouldn't get us now. Jimbo eventually showed up and slid the door of his step van open and we jumped in. The cop just watched us leave. They were pretty stupid in those days. They actually had to have a reason to stop and search you. Good thing as the van was about one pound heavier then she was allowed to be. The moon was bright and round and neat looking and so it is now but it's not melting like it was back then. _______________ What that's done, now maybe I can sleep.
Yes it happened just that way. I've been in vehicles that lost their brakes four times. All fun since I survived them all. Once was the above. Once was when I ran over a concrete parking space stopper as I didn't see it, if you know what I mean. That one ripped out a brake line as the car frame scrapped along the concrete. Once was for no apparent reason other than a rusty line. Went through a red light and a gas station, if I recall correctly. And once I was going down a steep mountainside on a dirt road toward the Monongahela River in the winter. We had taken a side road to get over the mountain as no one could make it up the hill because of the snow and I knew how to use momentum to climb that dirt road. The brakes blew at the top and I stopped using the e brake, but when trying to descend the e brake was useless as the back wheels would just lock and skid on the snow without slowing the car. So, as there were three of us in the car, we devised a plan whereby I steered and worked the e brake and the other two would throw logs under the front wheels and I would jam on the e brake after the car had moved a couple feet. Then we'd pull the logs and let her roll another couple feet and repeat. Took awhile to get down and there were a few tense moments as there was a pretty steep drop to the right and sometimes the logs didn't quite work or the car went sideways. Then we continued the rest of the ten miles there and 20 back with using the e brake. Oh, I also remember the time someone covered my eyes as I was driving and I hit the brakes so hard I bent a rear brake backing plate as the shoes gripped it and twisted it forward and then the car wouldn't move anymore. Locked that sucker right up. Had to dismantle the one rear brake and replace the backing plate, etc. to fix it.
