It was close to 4.00pm, hot and my air-conditioning wasn’t working. I didn’t care, I was tripping on an adrenalin high. I was on my “circuit”, and I was weaving about with my beat-up car.
I was oblivious till I saw her in my rearview mirror. Black Toyota Vios, black suit, Chinese: an Oriental Psylocke with wisps of hair trailing and waving like black flags in high wind, only in slow motion. A frown, piercing eyes and pert lips pursed in irritation, I thought. The lights were still red, and the satria I was trailing threw out a few revs in anticipation.
A quick glance in my rearviews, and I saw her don her shades. It was a trick of slow-motion, maybe a trick of the sun making its way to its own grave: she was a picture of calm as the shades went on. An explosive, orgasmic being getting primed for some action.
It was my “circuit”, and I smile everytime I think of it as my “circuit”. My car’s really not fit for circuits, a little too top heavy, a little too risky on the angles and turns. Nothing special, not souped up but the transmission’s been taking some beating recently, what with all the high revs. I call it my circuit because I’m not driving a circuit-worthy car, strangely enough.
My “circuit” was a 5-minute stretch of road, but it served.
I can only play pretend like the rest of the human race, and make small animal offerings to the Schummies and smarmy race-car types of this world. We can’t have everything, I often tell myself. We can’t all go up in flames, I tell myself. Dreary self-consolation, for sure.
All I want is some time on a couple of twisty roads going 100, 110; to feel your transmission start to give under the weight of your foot; to feel the steering get dangerously soft and the engine scream a ragged, edgy tune.
I remind myself how I don’t know a damn thing about racing, how 12 hours (total) of time behind the joystick flinging my Gran Turismo 4 3D car about just doesn’t cut it in the real world.
But who the fuck cares, sometimes?
The lights went green, and I geared in ‘first’. I could hear it again, and I smiled. I could hear my metronome clicking to its own regulated time, I could feel the speed build up in the engine, already screaming like a banshee.
And then it was go, first, second gear, drag it, drag it. Then third, past the lazy Merc, driven by a an ‘uncle’ in 70s retro. Fourth and the satria was in sight; lane-change, lane-change, and the image of my car in splinters and tortured metal hung in my mind. Fuck, why am I doing this? I thought to myself over and over.
She wasn’t far behind. She wasn’t a bitch on wheels in my mind. She wasn’t one of those women who would tekan the gas pedal but couldn’t control her ride of choice. She was a bombshell in a jet-black machine and she was coming up close.
I grinned.
Red light green light green light go: I took the corner on the left lane. My tyres screeched and I cursed. Fucking Vios had tyres like glue on the roads. The satria in front swerved to the right, and the back of a truck loomed large.
Brake, downshift and swerve left. Bitch was still trailing me, and my palms were losing grip on the steering. One more traffic light, one more.
“If you can’t tell me what it’s for, I can tell you just how much you will get: nothing,” I said, pushing across a sheaf of papers with grids and numbers strewn about like so many blots of ink.
“Is that supposed to be my problem,” she said. Bloody hell, if not your’s then whose? I thought. I could only smile. If I couldn’t convince her, I’d be dead in the water in two minutes, and she just trumped me again. I didn’t have to like it, I just had to acknowledge she was right.
“You can’t tell the difference. I can’t tell the difference. Your manager can’t tell the difference. I think my bosses won’t be able to tell the difference. So what do you think my bosses pay for being vague?” I said, sitting back.
“So what do you suggest,” she said, looking me in the eye.
Green light. The clicks in my head speed up. Vague musical terms float outside my head, and I laughed, wild-eyed. Fuck this shit, let’s go.
Satria takes a right and zooms past the lane of cars now stacked up by a road hog. I dispense with signals and become a nervous wreck with my sideviews. Right, left, right-left. Cavity to be filled, and my steering wheel spins.
A winding curve in the road made it difficult to exert what control I have over my car, and the Vios pulled up beside me.
You read about people having frozen moments. She turned, shades and all, and looked at me. She looked unreadable, like royalty, like divinity. Then she was past me.
I slammed my wheel with both hands, “Ah, fuck this!”. And looked on in awe as I glimpsed the sleek, black ass of her Vios speed past the satria and past the red light. She was soon a live, black thing hurtling down the road.
“Unacceptable,” she said. She had this way of smiling, one upturned corner of her lips. Glossy, more real than plastic, moist.
“Call it a tax on ambiguity,” I laughed.
“And RM 30,000 is not daylight robbery?”
“Depends on your perspective, Gerry,” I said.
“It does, doesn’t it?”
