Night Drive

Lenard left the bottle shop with the little box of treasure tucked under one arm. He’d been in a state of lethargy and dark cynicism all afternoon, but his mood was all of a sudden elevated just thinking of savouring the liquid gold he carried. He turned his face up to the sky, letting the soft rain that had been falling all day kiss his face. The short walk around the corner and down the hill saw him smiling softly, the first he’d borne since he saw a young woman trip on a step while he was getting coffee this morning. She laughed too, so don’t judge him too harshly.

When he hopped into the driver’s seat of his old Mitsubishi station wagon, the windscreen was fogged up, presumably from the extra humidity accompanying the rain. “Can’t see fuckin’ shit in this thing,” he muttered to himself, a line from Django Unchained that lived rent-free in his head.

It was strange, though, usually the fog only appeared when he was in the car, a little body heat seemingly enough to steam up the glass. He thought nothing of it and placed the box of treasure on the back seat (he didn’t need the temptation of opening it up should he run into traffic). He turned on the aircon and switched it to windscreen. Surprisingly, the green indicator light below the button did not flash its refusal, instead staying solid. The aircon hadn’t been working for years, resulting in many a sweaty summer drive. He wasn’t mad about it though, just grateful he’d be able to see on the drive home.

Let it Out by Noah Dillon burst out of the speakers after he turned the car on, and his freshly elevated mood soared to even greater heights. The cause of his misery became evident with the line: “If ain’t nobody love me then I’m gonna love myself.”

He was lonely, but his “cold sauvignon blanc” was a bottle of whiskey and the ingredients for a nice rogan josh his “fish and chips”, so he started singing along as he navigated the well-worn route home, unbothered even by the red Golf doing 40 in a 60 zone in front of him. Seriously though, why get a red, sporty-ish car and then do 20 under the speed limit?

The song came to an end as he pulled out of the first set of red lights along his journey. Another upbeat tune followed, a poppy number that wasn’t his usual jam, but he bobbed his head to the beat while he waited for another set of lights to turn green. He had the music so loud he barely heard the thump from the back of the car. If he’d been moving, he would have dismissed it as the loose water bottle he kept under the driver’s seat for emergencies that had a tendency to slide around if he cornered too fast. Since he was stationary, he turned his head to investigate.

A chill ran down his spine and his heart kicked into overdrive, “Who the fuck are you?”

The dark figure wearing a balaclava now lying on the back seat pointed a gun at him, a mobile phone in his other hand. “Doesn’t matter. But I’m going to need you to take the next left.” The guy looked down at his phone, “Wait, the one after. Take the second left.”

Lenard froze, his mind racing, trying to ascertain the best course of action while simultaneously trying to decipher the accent for some clue as to the intruder’s identity. The light turned green, but he didn’t move. The car behind him started honking.

“Go, damn it!”

Indian. Or maybe Pakistani. Lenard had a few mates from that part of the world, but this voice was too high pitched to belong to any of them. They were a bit too tame for this extreme of a prank anyway. Lenard took a deep breath, feeling calmer. Some of his earlier good mood resurfaced when he realised he wasn’t that fussed if he died. At least getting carjacked was a noteworthy way to go out.

“Go! Or I’ll shoot you,” cried the man in the back, waving the gun around.

The frustrated motorist behind Lenard veered around him, honking all the way, the rest of the queue following suit. The light turned red again.

“What the fuck, man? Why didn’t you go?”

Lenard turned to look at the intruder, “Look, I’ll go on the next green, but I’m going to need you to do something for me.”

“I’ll fucking shoot you if you don’t go!”

“Well, you didn’t last time, and I’m relatively confident you won’t this time. It seems like you need me for something. Can you not drive.”

“Yes I can fucking drive!”

“So why aren’t you using your own car?”

“Because I’m going to commit a crime!”

“Like, in addition to this one?”

“Yes! Obviously.”

“What is it?”

“You don’t fucking need to know!”

“Okay, okay. Easy tiger. Now if you want me to go on the next green, you’ll have to open that box next to you and pass me the contents.”

The intruder looked at the box, “It’s a bottle of scotch, you really think now is a good time for a drink?”

“Now is the best time for a drink,” Lenard replied. “I just bought that and if I’m going to die tonight I want to taste it first.”

The light turned green. A more modest queue was backed up behind Lenard this time, but they gave him the same treatment.

“Fucking fine then,” the intruder spat, opening the box and passing the bottle of Laphroaig Oak Select over to Lenard. He rotated the bottle, looking for the pull tag to strip the foil off the cork.

“Can you go now?”

“Hold on, you didn’t take the foil off.”

“The light is going orange again, I’ll fucking shoot you right now if you don’t go man!”

Lenard found the tag, lifted it, and pulled the foil wrap away, tossing it over his shoulder. The light went red, and Lenard slammed his foot down on the accelerator. The gunman nearly fell back into the boot from whence he came, having left the back rest down. Lenard swerved around the first car as it began to pull out into the intersection. A chorus of horns erupted as he sped through the cross roads. Once the dial on the speedometer hit 70, he eased off the accelerator and brought the bottle up to his mouth. He popped the cork with his teeth as he took a sharp bend one-handed. The aroma of peat smoke, oak and vanilla spice filled the car.

“Oh yeah, that is good stuff,” Lenard sighed.

“You’re fucking crazy, man,” the gunman said as he pulled himself upright.

“You’re the one who snuck into my car with a gun.” A thought occurred to Lenard, “How did you get in, anyway?”

“The boot was unlocked.”

“Oh, whoops. Truly never thought that would come to bite me on the arse with a car like this.” Lenard secured the bottle between his knees and spat the cork into his left hand, then tucked it into his breast pocket. A street on the left came into view.

“Take this turn,” the gunman commanded.

Lenard took a swig from the bottle, ignoring the intruder. He let the liquid sit for a moment, feeling the burn on his tongue. He swallowed, then exhaled so the burn would pass out through his nose and mouth, rather than cause a coughing fit. “Ooh, yes, that is good,” he said, speeding past the turn.

BANG!

A hole appeared in the ceiling above the passenger’s seat. Any reservations Lenard had about the gun being fake evaporated.

“Shit, man. Chill! That’s a one way street, you want to draw more attention than we did at the intersection?”

“You’re the one who ran a red light!”

“You’re the one who threatened to shoot me if I didn’t go.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you too. You said the second left anyway, remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” the guy actually sounded a little sheepish.

“Where are we going, anyway? Might help if I knew so I can navigate more smoothly.”

“I know where we’re going.”

“Yeah, sure, but you don’t seem to have a very good idea of how to get there.” The intruder didn't respond. “Look, man, this is clearly not something you have much experience with. You’re not going to rob a bank, there’s no way you’re getting at their cash deposits after dark. If you were going to hold up a servo you’d just nick a car once you were done. So what are we doing? I hope it doesn’t involve ripping off drug dealers, because that’s a good way to get killed.”

“Just drive, man,” the gunman was starting to sound tired.

Lenard took the next left, then took another swig of his scotch. The gunman directed them through a series of turns until they were on one of the main roads heading north. The atmosphere in the car had calmed enough for Lenard to take note of the radio again. The announcer’s jolly voice cut in as an ad break finished. “Alright, listeners. It’s 9 PM and you’re in for a treat. I’ve got an hour of classic rock lined up, ready to transport you wherever you need to go tonight. So get your singing voices ready and tune up your air guitars, because here we go.”

The opening bars of Aerosmith’s Janie’s Got a Gun rolled out of the speakers and Lenard couldn’t help but laugh. “Hey, is your name Janie?”

“What? No, it’s…” he cut himself off. “What are you asking my name for? You trying to report me to the police?” his voice was rising again.

“No, I don’t care what your name is really. It’s just the song.” Lenard dropped his voice, trying to emulate Steven Tyler’s gravelly tones as the first chorus came in. “Janie’s got a gun. Janie’s got a gun. Her whole world’s come undone…”

“Shut up, man. This isn’t Carpool Karaoke.”

“Oh lighten up, mate. It’s been a shitty day for me, I’m just trying to make the most of the situation.” Lenard sipped his whiskey again.

“Stop drinking that. You’ll get drunk and then we’ll crash and we’ll both die.”

“You know, for someone who’s committing armed theft you’re kind of a pussy,” Lenard said.

He felt the gun barrel touch the side of his head. “Fuck you,” the gunman said, pushing the cold metal into Lenard’s temple before pulling it away. Lenard stopped singing.

About 15 minutes and some ripping tunes from Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath later, the gunman had Lenard pull over out the front of a little jewellery shop at the top end of a row of shops. The street was well lit but currently empty of pedestrians, although Lenard wasn’t confident it would stay that way. They’d passed a bar a few hundred metres back with a reasonable crowd inside and some patrons smoking on the footpath.

“Leave the car running and get out,” the gunman commanded. Lenard did as he was asked and the gunman followed him out onto the street. “Now see if you can find a rock or a brick or something to break the glass with.”

Lenard didn’t even bother scanning the well-kept street for anything so rough. He stooped and picked up a loose piece of gravel from the road, holding it up to the light. “You know, I reckon if I threw this hard enough, maybe on the thousandth time I could crack the window.”

The gunman hit Lenard’s hand with the butt of his pistol, cracking his knuckles and causing him to drop the pebble. “Be serious, there’s got to be something around here we can break in with.”

“You could shoot the glass.”

“Yeah? And wake up the whole neighbourhood?”

“It’s like quarter-past nine, no one is asleep yet. You couldn’t have done this later in the evening?”

The gunman ignored him, looking around hopelessly. Lenard’s eyes landed on the large mobile phone the gunman was still holding in his left hand. It looked as though it had one of those tradie cases on it, making the thing nearly as durable as a Nokia brick and twice as heavy. “What about your phone?” Lenard said.

The gunman looked at Lenard, “How about your phone?”

“Nah, mine isn’t heavy enough.”

Lenard could see the cogs whirring in the man’s mind. Then he stepped onto the pavement, cocked his arm and let fly. The phone whizzed out of his hand and slammed into the window. It bounced off and clattered onto the concrete.

“Damn, that’s some arm you’ve got. Think you’ve got to throw it harder though.”

The gunman retrieved his phone and threw it again, same result. A thought occurred to Lenard, and he opened the passenger door. “Hey!” shouted the gunman. “Don’t you get in that car.”

“Chill,” Lenard said, reaching into the centre console to retrieve his stainless steel water bottle. “I just remembered this.” He tossed the bottle to his captor. The guy inspected it briefly, then pegged it at the window. A giant crack spiderwebbed out from the centre of the glass, and one more throw saw the bottle punch through into the shop’s interior. No alarms sounded, much to Lenard’s surprise.

“Quick, help me widen the hole,” called the gunman, using the butt of his pistol to break away the shards around the hole. Lenard didn’t move. His captor stopped and pointed the gun at Lenard. “Help me. Break away the rest of this glass, and then you’re going in first.”

Lenard decided to call the bluff. “Nah man, I don’t have a balaclava and there’s bound to be cameras in there. I’m probably already on that one,” he pointed behind him at the camera under the corner of the shop’s eave.

“I will fucking kill you if you don’t break into that damned shop.”

“I don’t want to get more implicated in this than I already am. But I will say that I’ve actually found this night quite exhilarating. I swear to you I’ll stand out here and keep watch and be your getaway driver, but I’m not going in that shop. Shoot me if you want, but if you do I doubt you’ll escape. The window breaking has probably already attracted a lot of attention, time is ticking.”

Lenard stared down the barrel several more seconds, then the gunman gave in. He broke away some more glass then gingerly stepped through the hole. The sound of more breaking glass emanated from the shop as the thief smashed the jewellery cases. The minutes stretched out into what felt like hours, yet miraculously no one came walking down the footpath. A few cars passed, but must have been too intent on the road to notice what was happening. Finally the thief reemerged, gun in hand and his jacket pockets bulging with gold and silver. “Go, go!” he hissed at Lenard.

Another 20 minutes later and Lenard was parked outside a small suburban house on a quiet street. The gunman had jumped in the passenger seat when they sped away from the jewellery shop, told Lenard to listen to the Google maps lady, then started sorting through his haul. He sat across from Lenard still, holding an emerald teardrop pendant on a gold chain, seemingly lost in the depths of the gemstone. Lenard thought he knew what was going on now. “Come on, off you go,” he prompted. “You’ve done the hard part, go and give it to her.”

Lenard’s passenger took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, then got out of the car. Lenard leaned down to watch as he walked up the garden path, tucking the gun in his waistband. He mounted the steps and knocked on the door, the balaclava still covering his face. Apparently remembering just in time, he ripped it off and stuffed it in his pocket just as the porch light turned on and the door opened. A woman stood in the doorway, her features obscured by shadow. The thief looked as though he wanted to go in for a hug, but the woman didn’t move from her position in the doorway. A presumably awkward conversation ensued, eventually the thief brought out the beautiful necklace and presented it to the woman. Lenard realised he’d been holding his breath. Was he really rooting for this lovesick idiot who’d been threatening to kill him not even an hour ago?

Her reaction seemed promising to begin with, her hands went to her mouth and then she took the necklace, holding it up to the light. She put it to her chest, seeing how it looked on her. Then she shook her head, passing the necklace back to the thief. He pressed it to her chest again, but she shook her head harder and stepped away. He fell to his knees, the necklace in his upraised hands, but the door closed in his face and the porch light went out.

The thief came plodding despondently back to Lenard’s car and collapsed into the passenger’s seat. His youthful features were weary, heartbroken. He threw the necklace on the floor to join the pile of jewellery already there. His hand went behind his back and pulled out the gun. “What’s the point?” he said, putting the barrel in his mouth.

“Oi! No!” Lenard cried, slapping the gun out of his hands. “You’ve already put a hole in my roof, I don’t want to clean your brains out of my car.”

The young man threw back his head and began to cry. Lenard took a swig of the scotch, then passed the bottle over to his passenger.

“Chin up, bud. You gave it a shot, that’s more than I can say.”