Green Machine
All this rain has gotten me feeling nostalgic. My thoughts pinball through my mind. Childhood love of playing in the rain. Twig races in rain swelled gutters. Jumping from one puddle to another. Trying to get the biggest rise from mom by coming home sopping wet...yeah, that's a good memory.
Finally, the pinball of nostalgia lands on the "Green Machine". Wow, I haven't thought of that car in decades.
It was a late 60s model Chrysler that belonged to my friend Kevin who lived down the street. He inherited it from his grandfather. All throughout high school we'd drive around in that thing. Now the funny thing about "Green Machine", that's what we'd call it because it was painted green (I know, very original), was that Kevin's grandfather had converted the fuel system to propane during the 70s oil crisis. There was a 50 gallon propane tank strapped down in the trunk of the car and every time Kevin would be a bit too sharp in his turns, you'd hear this great "thump" as the tank would shift from one side to the other. Each rear panel was completely dented with these perfectly rounded bulges. I don't think it would pass any safety tests today and thank the road gods that we were never rear-ended, which was a distinct possibility because Kevin wasn't a particularly good driver.
But back to the rain. It brought back the time, oh, wait I forgot to mention that with the propane system the car didn't really growl per se, instead whenever Kevin floored it, it kind of whined and whizzed which perplexed pedestrians whenever they were around. This is important to the story.
So on this particular day in Southern California, after an atmospheric river which had saturated the ground for over 2 weeks, we were driving to school. The water level filled half of the street and spilled over the curb. Down the street, before hanging a right into the student parking lot, you’d pass the tennis courts and the 20-foot high fence that lined the sidewalk for 100 feet or so. It's 8 a.m. and as we drove down this section of road, saw some students tredging their way to school ladened down with heavy backpacks, when Kevin and I both looked at each other with the same thought. A slow evil grin appeared on his face as he gunned the engine and veered "Green Machine" inches from the curb.
I've never, to this day, seen a rooster tail of water this tall and complete. The wheel well not only sent the water up 15 feet into a perfect arc, but it also sent it straight out. There was no escaping it. To boot, the high pitch whine of the car stopped everyone in their tracks as they were all curious and unfamiliar with the sound. That pause was their soggy doom. They saw us too late, in a haze of mist, barreling down towards them, with a torrent of water coming their way. A few reacted with a "Spider-man" jump onto the tennis fence and hung on for dear life. They only got partially out of the way and were wet from the waist down after we’d passed. But the others were instantly drenched from the double shot of the arcing water and the straight blast as they were thrown back against the fence. We couldn't believe our luck. We'd nailed a dozen of 'em, at least. Awesome!
And we were naive enough to think that no one would ever find out who we were. Never even crossed our minds. And you know what? No one ever did. Maybe it's because we came at them too quickly or the water and mist surrounding the car didn't allow for positive ID or the high pitched whine of the engine caused short-term memory loss. I mean, we parked the car right there in the lot. No hiding. It was right there and we were never called out. Crazy times. Now in retrospect, sure I feel bad but, man, was that a fun ending to an otherwise dreadful morning commute!