Twice Removed | 2 | Car Park

Want to avoid spoilers? Start at the beginning.

As the door opened, their dad slapped Chip on the leg. “Come on, buddy! You’re going to love this! This is the real deal here. This is from back when they made everything with metal, well, some plastic, but this is back when you could actually feel the engine!” He looked at the car park as if he was peering into a photograph come to life. They stepped out of their pod and stood, looking at a fleet of four-wheeled vehicles ranging from what looked like colorful bubbles to towering buses with the old British flag painted on them.

“Yep, these are nothing like the antiques that are still on the road.” His father pointed to a small, grey car. “Dodge. That is what your grandpa said he drove as a kid.” He started walking towards it, wondering aloud, “Is this one available? Hmm, looks beat up.” His words were barely audible over KC Kasem’s artificial voice blaring from a small, tinny speaker hung under the awning of the office.

A man standing near the gate approached them with a limp. “Hey there! Y’all wanna drive something?” The brothers giggled to each other, and their dad shot a quick glare to which they promptly quieted. “We’ve got all types of the oldies ‘round here. Pontiac, Dodge, hell, we even got a yellow school bus!” They burst out laughing and ignored their father’s plea to remain civil.

“I’m trying to get my kids here to know what it was like for people back before everything was neural-this and that- hell, with the way the world’s headed, I just want them to use their eyes.” He looked back at Chip and smiled while he rubbed the top of his head. “He’s a good boy, don’t get me wrong. I just want him to experience something that isn’t simulated.” The two boys stood and looked at the park manager uncomfortably with forced smiles.

“I think I’ve got just the trick.” He pointed to a disheveled Jeep with the doors and top removed, leaving a black and dusty workhorse of tires and roll bars. “This brute is a 2007 Jeep. Nothing digital about it. This thing actually started out with a manual transmission before we had to make it automatic since nobody knows how to drive stick anymore. Yessir, this here’s tried and true.” Their father feigned understanding with a snort and subtle nod of the head. “It’s the safest thing I’ve got in here too. We put in a governor last year, so she doesn’t get to even 80km/hr nowadays. That and them bars up top will keep y’all safe in here.”

After a short tutorial, they were on their own. Their father jumped in the driver’s seat, and after a short game of enie, menie, miny, moe, Chip got the passenger seat, leaving Isaac in the middle. The Jeep lurched forward, and they headed down the repurposed tarmac, following the painted signs leading to the dirt track. Their father was beaming. “Isn’t this fun? Can you believe how loud the engine is?” They nodded in agreement. “I feel like my voice is going to give out if I keep yelling like this.” Isaac raised his eyebrows to the proposition which went unnoticed by their dad but made his brother smirk.

He reached for the volume knob and turned it up until the noise coming from the mono speaker threatened to rupture it. He yelled out, “How could they even listen to music over this? It’s all the way up, and I can barely hear anything!” Chip shouted, “Well, I think they at least had doors in. When was this made? 2007?”

“Haha! Yeah, I guess you’re right!” He reached over and poked Chip, chuckling.

He reached for the air knob and turned it back and forth without any indication it was connected to something. Isaac placed his hands over the vents and shook his head. The detached doors didn’t help much with the air circulation at this slow speed. They were starting to sweat in the intense summer heat. Isaac reached out to a different air knob in front of him controlling the driver’s air. “Hopefully one of these knobs was more important than doors.” He turned it, and nothing happened. “Nope.”

His father swatted his hand away. “That man said not to touch anything!”

He rubbed his hand. “He said don’t bother touching anything.”

They neared the end of the tarmac, and their father brought the Jeep to a stop. He stared uncomfortably at Isaac as he began, “Chip! Why don’t you take the wheel, son?”

He lit up. “Really? Awesome!” They traded places and buckled in. “Can I go in the dirt?”

“Sure! You heard him say that it was an off-road vehicle, didn’t you? To the right there, that’s the start of the off-road track. This is going to get bumpy.”

Chip slowly put on the gas, and the Jeep lurched forward a few inches before jerking to a steady roll. Isaac slid in his seat and had to readjust once they got moving. They approached the off-road area, which consisted of a large, dry field studded with a few beaten-up vehicles dispersed between a half dozen shade trees. They slowly weaved their way through the obstacles and kicked up dust as they crept along.

After waiting patiently for Chip to drive a few laps, Isaac asked his dad, “Can I drive yet?”

“Just a second. Your brother is just getting the hang of it. Let’s give him a few more minutes, and after he takes a timed lap, you can drive.” Isaac crossed his arms and slumped down in his seat.

Chip drove to a large, flat white chalk line between two trees that was barely visible due to the day’s wear and tear. As he brought the Jeep to a stuttering stop, Chip began coughing. His dad reached for the inhaler, and Chip shook his head, and stopped coughing. “I don’t need it. Just a little dusty.” In front of them lay a circuitous route through the trees and cars indicated by chalk arrows.

“Alright big man. You ready?” Chip nodded, and his father counted down. “Three. Two. One. Go!” This time, the Jeep jerked and sputtered noticeably from the sudden burst of gas, but Chip held control. He rounded the first few turns just fine, but the path turned back in on itself and led them through their fresh dust cloud. Chip began coughing, and his pace slowed. On the last turn, his coughing overwhelmed him, and his grip weakened on the wheel. The Jeep left the turn and bumbled in a jagged line toward the tire wall at the far end of the property.

“CHIP! Grab the wheel, buddy! Are you alright?” His dad shouted as he reached for the inhaler with one hand and the wheel in the other. “Hit the brakes!” He fumbled and struggled to press the brake pedal with too little time to avoid a collision. Their father reached over and jerked the wheel to the left, and they barely avoided hitting the wall squarely, but bumped and slid along until they were brought to a violent stop once when the front bumper finally caught a stack of tires. Chip and his father were held in place due to their seatbelts, but Isaac flew forward into the dash.

Isaac sucked in air through his teeth and slowly stirred. Luckily, his forearm and shoulder took most of the impact, but there was a slight scratch over his brow that was starting to bleed. His entire arm hurt, and he could hardly put weight through it to push himself up from his seated position on the floor under the dash.

In the cloud of dust, sputtering engine noise, and Chip’s coughing, his father shouted, “CHIP! Are you alright?” He looked around on the floor. “Where is it? Isaac! I dropped the inhaler! Is it down there? Isaac!” Isaac offered only a dazed stare in reply. Noticing the edge of the inhaler on the floorboard under his leg, he moved Isaac aside with his elbow, ignoring his moans, and grabbed the inhaler rushing it up to Chip. “Here! Take a puff!” As Chip took a puff, then a second puff, the coughing began to give way to tears. Their father breathed a sigh of relief, consoled him, and looked down, “Isaac! Are you alright?” He helped him up off the floor and brought him up to the seat beside him. Isaac nodded in a daze.

He turned back to Chip, whose breathing was starting to overtake his tears as he calmed down. Isaac sat back in his seat and wiped some blood from his eyes. “Ah!” He wiped the blood on the seat and held his arm, which was what caused him to sound out in pain.

“Okay, this was a mistake. I should have never brought you here. We’re going to get you home.”

Isaac sat up straight. “Can I drive back?”

Their father’s emotion betrayed his composure. “NO! Look at you! You are in almost as bad of shape as Chip!”

They rode back to the entrance in silence, their father’s eyes on them almost as much as forward. As they lurched into motion, the engine shuddered and let out a pungent gasoline smell. Their father took the smell as a personal offense under his breath, “Old, stupid engine…” Chip and Isaac hung their heads low as they approached the old man at the entrance to the park. He grew more furious when he tried to stop the vehicle, eager to deliver his anger to the old man, but stalled by his lack of experience with manually parking a vehicle and turning off the engine.

The old man approached the Jeep, a scowl on his face, “What in the hell happened to my Jeep?”

Their father got out of the Jeep, looking sheepish, “I’m sorry, we had an accident. I’ll pay for the damages, of course.”

The old man shook his head, “You can’t pay for the damages, it’s irreplaceable. That Jeep’s been in my family for generations. But it’s not the Jeep I’m concerned about, it’s your kids. They could have been hurt or killed. You shouldn’t have let them drive if they don’t know how to handle a manual transmission.”

Their father looked down, “You’re right. I just wanted them to experience something real, something different from their virtual reality world.”

The old man sighed, “I understand, but there’s a reason why we have regulations and safety measures in place. It’s to prevent accidents like this from happening.”

Their father nodded, “I know, and I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

The old man looked at him for a moment with misty eyes, “Just take your kids home. We ain’t been able to make this thing pull a profit for a long time anyways. We were one setback away from, well… where we are now.”

Isaac asked sheepishly, “So what are you going to do?”

“Only thing I can do, I reckon. There’s this city boy been asking to buy up all my old parts. Wants to put ‘em’ in a warehouse and I guess show ’em off to his friends. We just been patching ’em for years anyhow.” His compusure started to crack, “Y’all get on out a here. Close the gate on the way out.”

They all got back into the pod, the air thick with tension and the smell of gasoline.

Isaac spoke up, “Dad, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

Their father put a hand on Isaac’s shoulder, “It’s not your fault, son. I’m the one who made the mistake. I just wanted to give you boys a taste of the real world, but I should have been more careful.” They drove home in silence, the events of the day weighing heavily on all of them.

As they pulled into their driveway, their father turned to them, “I’m sorry for what happened today, but I hope you learned something from it.”

Chip and Isaac nodded, both lost in their own thoughts about the day’s events. As they got out of the pod, their father turned to them, “I love you boys.”