In the short time I'd known Lucky, I'd become very attached. The way one had to climb aboard via the trunk and back seat; the way the rear power windows would go up and down spontaneously; the way the license plate would fall down & attract police attention. It was difficult to abandon poor Lucky in Junior's wrecking yard. Maybe I'm being overly emotional, but at least I'm not delivering a panegyric over a battery.

It was also logistically difficult to give away Lucky. A power of attorney was required because this Michigan car, whose title was transferred to me in Indiana, and is on its way to Arizona, was not registered in Illinois. What I think we really need is more government. A guy can't even give away a good American car any more! "Power of attorney" ends up consisting of a piece of scratch paper on which I write, "I, Doc, did not take possession of this 1974 Pontiac Grand Ville." That was that. Lucky was mine no more.

One thing was lacking: a sense of finality.

Just before I was born, Papa Hemingway, perhaps sensing the emerging competition, sucked BBs out of a shotgun barrel up in Idaho. Therefore, in such situations I like to ask, What would Ernie do? The answer in this case issues from the muzzle of Burford's 9mm in the form of a six-bullet coup de grace through poor Lucky's smiling face and into the engine block. ("Here, Lucky! Come to PAPA!") Earlier, Lucky seemed to have a problem with the unleaded. You want lead, Lucky? "EAT HOT LEAD, YOU SON OF A BISCUIT-EATING MELON FARMING SO-AND-SO!" (That's not an exact quote -- Burf's a Marine, you know. Blue word subs courtesy of A&E's dub of Repo Man.) Though this probably wasn't the lead additive Lucky had wanted, Burford's six-gun salute does provide a kind of symmetrical closure: six holes up top to match the six holes in the oil pan. As above, so below. Two sixes on Route 66. Cosmic resolution. Comic resolution. Which is to say, a punchline.

Evening. Still at Hardee's.

I am become Death, shatterer of rods. And Santa's X Magazine back issues have become crying towels and calling cards for hotel desk clerks, car salesmen, tow truck drivers, and anyone else who has to endure our hard luck story. "Don't worry," say the X staffers via cellphone. "It's a GREAT STORY! It's ALL FOR THE STORY!" (That's probably what they told St. Sebastian, I think.)

For us, All For The Story means sitting in Hardee's hour after hour with all the stuff we could salvage from the Lucky expedition piled around our booth and Pat's beloved DieHard in a garbage bag perched atop the USA Today machine outside. I've eaten all the crappy fast food I can take -- especially from Hardee's. The shift manager delivers within our hearing a two-hour discourse on the minutiae of The Food Service Life. Cholesterol and boredom levels have reached saturation point, the bored-o-meter is redlined. We are
Evan Dorkin's Milk and Cheese express the rage of LUCKY!
praying the X crew is living the Hardee's slogan: "Hurry On Down To Hardee's!" But, we find out later, they're having car problems of their own: Liz's car slides on the ice & smacks into a wall. Then comes a flat tire. The elemental forces of nature have arrayed themselves against the forces of the North Pole, & guess who's winning?

I occupy myself by further stoking the Foncard bill with calls to airlines, Amtrack, The Bringer of the Vest, and multiple calls to the X Magazine cellphone. Burford ventures back to Junior's junkyard to rescue the X Magazine copies from our Fisher-Price car. The Fisher-Price Little People airplane/hood ornament stays with Lucky. Fisher-Price car, Fisher-Price camera; hmmm...I smell a LAWSUIT!