Rant

onto some secret mountain of wrecked dreams—Jaguars and Saleens and Corvettes—that people had hired Wax to murder.
    16–The Team
    Echo Lawrence ( Party Crasher): Every Honeymoon Night, I’d wear the same lucky veil. Different nights, I’d wear a long or short wedding dress. A night in late August, driving in a car with no air conditioning, I don’t want to be wearing a thousand layers of tulle with heavy silk on top of that. You can’t find the stick shift in all your petticoats. But wintertime, if you drive into a snowdrift, Party Crashing on icy streets, that same tulle can save you from freezing to death.
    Shot Dunyun ( Party Crasher): The night in question, the team was Echo, driving; Green Taylor Simms was her shotgun; I was Right B-Pillar Lookout. A girl named Tina Something was Left B-Pillar Lookout, but she keeps kicking the back of Echo’s seat, telling her where to turn to find some car that might have a flag up.
    Backseat drivers are bad enough. But from somebody riding Left B, that’s too much. Un-asswipe-acceptable. Echo pulls over, and Green says, “Enough.”
    This Tina Something says, “Fine.” She throws open her door and gathers up the skirts of her pink bridesmaid dress in both hands. She says, “Even boosting a Little Becky beats being your slave.”
    Green and me, we look so swank in our tuxedos, wearing black bow ties, with fake carnations glued to our lapels. We have “Just Married” written down both sides of the car with tubes and tubes of white toothpaste. Those Oreo cookies, twisted in half and stuck on. We have cowbells and tin cans roped to the rear bumper—a clear violation of the I-SEE-U Noise Limitations, but even Daytimers will cut slack for young marrieds.
    Cowbells bouncing and white streamers flying from our antennae, we pull up to the curb, and some guy’s standing there with his hands stuffed in his pockets. Tina Something throws her bridesmaid’s bouquet in his face, saying, “Hey, dude.” She yells, “Catch!” The girl’s silk flowers hit him in the face, but he catches them. He’s quick. He’s a quick guy, and we’re short one lookout. How weird is that?
    I yell, “You!” To the guy, I say, “You got gas money?” It just so happens that guy is Rant Casey.
    Echo Lawrence: Listen up. Getting onto a car team is like the starting position in any sport. If it’s an established team, you’ll start on the lowest rung. That’s Left B-Pillar Lookout, meaning backseat behind the driver. The number-three position is Right B-Pillar Lookout, the backseat behind the shotgun. Number two is riding shotgun in the front seat. Being driver is the same as playing quarterback, center, pitcher, or goalie. The number-one position. The glamour spot.
    Tina Something ( Party Crasher): My old car—I called her Cherry Bomb—she got scored into the gaddamn junkyard, tagged to death. That happens, and chances are you’ll start at that bottom position, behind the head of some other driver with her wheels still intact. Somebody like Echo Lawrence. Don’t think I hate Echo. It’s just that she lies. Ask Echo what she does for a living; if she tells you anything except sex work, it’s a lie.
    Echo Lawrence: Pay attention. “Tag Teams” are crews put together on the street. A “Shark,” a lone driver needing a team for help or protection or company, he’ll cruise around before the “window” opens, looking to draft players off the curb. If you don’t have a car, just stand on some corner with your thumb out. A car will pull over and ask, “Are you playing?”
    You say, “What you got open?”
    They say, “Still need a Left B-Pillar Lookout.” They say, “You got gas money?”
    Some teams looking for a member, they’ll ask you to show can you turn your head around fast and smooth with no popping sound. No point in having a lookout with whiplash or cervical damage from some past crack-up. Having gas money isn’t a must, but it shows your level of commitment.
    Tina Something: Gimps with fused vertebrae, losers known to be night-blind or farsighted, you’ll see them on the curb all night. Maybe some team will take pity and give them a nothing position. In a big car, a loser might get what people call the “mascot” position, the middle of the backseat, where you can’t do much but talk to keep up the mood. Otherwise, they’re totally Misfit Toys. You have a short neck or bad eyes and you’d better bring lots of gas money and pray for a nice team with a