Oddball Update

A comment I just submitted to my last entry reminded me of an old post I started writing several years ago, but never got around to finishing. It’s a post that’s spiritually tied in with that big entry of yesterday, the one about impulsiveness, the freedom to roam, and winding one’s way off the beaten path just to enjoy the stories the old back roads have to tell.

The old entry, which revolves around a backroad adventure I accidentally undertook several Halloweens ago, was never finished — and it shall remain thus — but I thought it somehow relevant, if not terribly meaningful, so…I fished it out of my backups and, well, here it is.

Halloween night, 2003.

It was a beautiful and cool Halloween evening yesterday. After wrapping up the work day with an involved prototype review meeting, I was ready to head home. Some of the 30-somethings from the office were going to tour the neighborhood behind the office and actually go Trick-or-Treating back there. I may be a kid at heart, but not to that extent. So I packed up and left around 5:30, wanting to get home and eat dinner so I could go back out and finally get KITT’s new hatch shocks.

I called up a Discount Auto Parts in the neighboring town about 10 miles up the freeway. They had two of the supports I needed in stock. Moreover, they actually went and physically got them so I was ensured that I wouldn’t be treated to another disappointment once I actually got there. Fine, I said. I’m coming up to get them right now. Prior to leaving, I looked at the Discount Auto Parts website and got a map of my destination.

Then off I went, KITT’s wild exhaust rasping away. I jumped on the freeway and headed north toward the next exit, listening to AM radio since the FM stations down here play little else but crap and my CD player is broken. Got off the freeway at the next exit and turned right — the map had shown that the store was just a short jog east of the interstate, past a road called “Bonita Grande.”

It was dark that night, and while it was only just going on eight o’clock, it was black as pitch thanks to the recent time change. The roads were completely devoid of traffic. The perfect atmosphere for a Halloween night. The half-moon hung in the sky, but inside the cockpit of my Formula it was a black hole, lit only by the surreal vermillion glow of the instrumentation. The exhaust hummed away as I drove on, passing a supermarket, and then…the road dissolved into nothingness, the lights melted away behind me, and I felt as though I’d just been plunged into an episode of Knight Rider.

“KITT,” I muttered, “where the hell are we?”

The two-lane road twisted lazily through pitch-black foliage, flanked by sleepy gated communities that showed no signs of life. On my left, a small complex of low-lying buildings went by, and a floodlamp in their parking lot cast light upon a group of guys playing basketball. I drove still further, passing strange-looking agricultural-type warehouses and still more lightless pavement. Finally, I saw some signs coming up. But once I got a look at the letters stenciled on them, I realized something must have gone wrong. They said PAVEMENT ENDS and END COUNTY MAINTENANCE.

My Formula growled to a halt, dust rising up through the volumetric beams cast by its headlights. Directly before it, reflector-studded warning signs blocked the road, which tapered off into nothing but grassland beyond them.

There was definitely no Discount Auto Parts out this way.

I eventually found my way back to civilization — and the auto parts store, which was only about five miles off its actual location on my accursed map. And yes, I did get KITT’s hatch shocks. But what stuck most in my mind was that strange, surreal world that opens up before you the instant somebody turns off the lights. There may not actually be anything mysterious or otherworldly about it, but it sure is…inspiring.

Categorized as Cars, Cars/GarageBlog, Cars/Knight Project