Rant
driver’s door of a coupe, a faded artificial Christmas tree still tied to the roof. With one finger, she punches a button on the stereo, but nothing happens. She punches it again, hard, and a disk pops out. “My favorite chase mix,” she says, waving the disk for Rant to see. Echo goes, “I thought I’d never hear it again.”
From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms: Approaching Thanksgiving, the simple misplaced-coffee-cup theme would expand to include papier-mâché turkeys, painted and varnished to a glossy brown. Sloshing stemmed goblets of red wine. Salt and pepper shakers. And tall white candles in brass holders, their flame bulbs glowing, battery-powered. A display of this extent usually signaled the last event in which a team planned to drive a particular automobile: Mounting dishes of yams and green beans required drilling dozens of holes through the roof and headliner.
For these elaborate vehicle send-offs—known as Funerals or Final Runs—teams arrived at the event grid, or field, no less than an hour before the window. Until the play officially began, these cars would parade and model their decorations, bidding one final, grand farewell before the night’s play would leave them in a junkyard.
Shot Dunyun: The script artist inside me still looked for events worth out-cording. I’d reach back and touch my port, ready to switch it. Maybe out-cord an interesting moment of my awareness. The way a rusted car looked. Or the way Rant smiled at Echo when it’s just her ass end stuck out from under a half-open hood, her voice muffled by grease and sheetmetal, saying, “This butterfly valve is fucked.”
A few wrecks away, a bashed hardtop sits up to the rims in mud. Written across the trunk lid in bright-pink paint, sparkle-pink fingernail polish, it says “Cherry Bomb III.” Next to the wreck stands Tina Something.
When Tina’s fingers curl into fists and she starts stomping through the mud, advancing on Echo’s ass, I switch my port to out-cord the carnage.
From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms: As I’ve mentioned, for sheer spectacle nothing surpassed Tree Nights. At those rare events, cars old and new arrived early to show off. The original idea had been to tie an evergreen Christmas tree to the roof of your vehicle, as if you were a happy family bringing it home from the corner lot or the forest. But, like the simple coffee cup that evolved into the feast, soon a plain green pine tree wasn’t sufficient.
Teams used artificial trees, of course, tied lengthwise, usually with the stump looming above the car hood and ropes holding it secure to the bumpers. Beginning with the original Tree Night, teams draped their branches with silver tinsel. Teams wired bright stars to the crown that hung and bobbed above the car’s trunk. People glued or wired shining ornaments among the needles. As early as two hours before a Tree Night window, Party Crashers will parade; atop their cars, their trees twinkle with colored lights, and a cord trails through a window to their cigarette lighter or vehicle wiring harness. Christmas carols will boom from every car stereo.
The moment the game window opens, those Christmas lights go black. The parading cars go silent. Teams scatter, and the real hunting begins.
Shot Dunyun: The auctioneer is saying, “Forty dollars. Do I have forty dollars? Come on, folks, it costs more than that to fill a gas tank. Do I have thirty dollars…?”
Echo’s still leaned over, with both arms buried up to the shoulders in engine, her face cheek-to-cheek with a valve cover, when Tina Something comes to stand behind her, saying, “Hey, whore!”
Rant’s planted both elbows on a front fender, peering under the hood at Echo. The auctioneer’s saying, “Do I hear twenty-five? Twenty-five dollars…?”
And Tina says, “You, stop calling bogus fouls on me.” Talking to Echo’s butt, Tina says, “You foul me out and I’ll phone in fake shit on you.”
From the Field Notes of Green Taylor Simms: With their Christmas lights extinguished, the Tree Cars become black, shaggy, scratchy…monsters. The soft tinkle of swinging glass and crystal drops, a faint clue. A team might drive past any dark hedge or bush only to see it blaze into a hundred colors in their rearview mirror. A squeal of tires, and that mass of sparkling light and color will sideswipe their vehicle and again vanish into the night.
Shot Dunyun: The auctioneer is saying. “Twenty dollars? Can we start
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