Ride or Die

It was a sweltering day in the small regional town, the sun glaring down somewhere in the middle of Australia. But inside the local church, the cool smell of stone mixed with the sickly-sweet jasmine and carnations festooned at the end of each pew. People sidled along the wooden benches to take their seats. Ladies fanned themselves with the Order of Service pamphlets and the men dripped sweat into their suits and boots, bald spots becoming shinier with every passing minute.

Rob was standing at the altar, his polyester pale blue suit sticking to his thick thighs and a bead of sweat trickled behind his ear. He noticed grease under his his fingernails from working on his car this morning, and knew he’d be in trouble from Tiffany.

‘Working on that bloody car again!’, she would say. ‘If that car was a woman, people would think you were having an affair!’

And she would almost be right, thought Rob. He loved his car, more than he knew he should. It was the perfect set of wheels – a 1973 VJ E48 Valiant Charger with a high-performance Hemi engine, alloy mag wheels, and finished in original bright red paint with a full black interior. Rob called her Roxanne, and she was like a strip joint on wheels with some powerful grunt under the hood.

All good things happened in Roxanne.

Rob drove Roxanne to his first Bush Doof¹ with his friends in the back seat, completely high on drugs, beer and youth.

When Rob cruised the quiet country town in Roxanne, just for the hell of it, his best mate Kev would always ride shotgun; their elbows on the edge of the windowsills, Winfield cigarettes dangling from their hands and George Thorogood’s brutal ‘Bad to the Bone’ twanging from the tape deck.

Roxanne was the chariot that took Rob to his Year 12 formal²; sitting with Tiff in the front, the smell of his Lynx deodorant cologne and Tiff’s Impulse body spray mingling with the faint smell of diesel and vinyl. Although she complained he was driving too fast (no such thing as ‘too fast’ in Roxanne, thought Rob), Tiff had looked hot and he was her knight in (red) shining armour.

Tiffany had wanted this wedding and what Tiffany wanted, she usually got. She was the Queen Bee all through high school and even though she had a sting to match, Rob always felt she was a little bit too good for him.

Tiff would make cutting comments about his footy³ playing (“loser”), his job (“grease monkey”), his friends (“no-hopers”), and his car (“too loud and almost embarrassing”), but she smelt like a mix of coconut, bubble-gum and candy floss. Her long, (fake) tanned limbs were like a bronze snake when she wrapped them around his torso. And those rosebud lips, man, what she could do to him with those frosty pink lips…

‘Careful, mate, Russell the Love Muscle is making an appearance’ said Kev who had stepped up to be Best Man, like he always would.

Rob looked up suddenly and turned to his friend, clasping his grimy hands quickly in front of his bulging groin. Kev had been there next to him in the good times and the bad: the day they lost the semi-final of the local footy match, Kev leaned on the bar and matched him beer for beer. Kev was also there the day Rob’s dad was taken in an ambulance from the smash repair shop after suffering a heart attack while he was at work; and when Rob took Roxanne home for the first time, Kev was there for the inaugural ‘cruise’.

Kev understood Rob’s obsession with Roxanne. For years, Rob had torn pages from car magazines with this model and sticky-taped them all over his bedroom wall. Rob’s dad found Roxanne when she was brought in a little worse for wear after the teenage driver had smashed her into a tree. Too expensive for the teenager to fix, Rob’s dad offered to take Roxanne off the kid’s hands and gave her to Rob. Kev helped Rob tweak Roxanne until she was almost perfection. Long hours after work at the mechanics shop where they’d both found jobs, Kev and Rob would drink beers, listen to AC/DC and tinker away through the night.

Now standing at the altar, if ever there was a time when Rob needed Kev by his side, this was it. Kev had called it ‘the beginning of the end, but it was something that everyone else told Rob was a good idea.

‘Time to grow up, mate’ his dad would say.

‘I’m so proud of you, darl⁴’ his mum would say.

‘We need to get married, Rob, or there’s no point. There are plenty of hot men out there who love to make me their Mrs’ said Tiff.

And so it was decided, and this was The Day.

Suddenly the opening riff of AC/DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’ snarled out of Kev’s breast pocket. He fumbled into his jacket pocket as if he wasn’t sure how the jacket worked. He finally dug out his mobile phone and pressed hard on the answer button, silencing the jarring rock and roll in this holiest of places.

‘Hello?’

Rob watched his friend, as Kev’s look of confusion was replaced with a furrowed brow and he tucked his chin down, pressing it against his big bow tie.

‘What do ya mean?’

Rob stared at Kev, his breathing echoing in his ears.

‘Who is it?’ Rob whispered hoarsely, with a hint of desperation.

‘Tiff’ mouthed Kev.

Kev turned away and faced the back of the altar, pacing in small circles.

‘Are you sure? But we’re here waiting. Everybody’s here!’ Kev hissed.

Rob tried to catch Kev’s eyes but Kev kept spinning around, his rat’s tail hanging over the back collar of his blue suit.

‘Tiff, talk to your dad. You gotta try! We’re all counting on you.’

Rob’s heart started race like he was about to run onto the playing field at the start of a match.

Rob finally caught Kev’s eyes on a turn and raised his eyebrows desperately.

‘Mate - what’s going on?’

Kev shook his head and averted his gaze as he kept forcing his voice down the phone, whispering loudly.

‘Tiff, you can’t give up. Please, love, just try’, he implored, ‘Rob’s waiting and he’s been counting on this. You can’t shatter the man.’

With these last words, Kev looked at Rob and held his gaze, as if the two of them could solve any problem together.

Rob felt like he’d ‘gone the doctor’⁵ and put his life’s savings on a dog that was running dead last in the final leg of the race. Sweat was now smeared around his collar and his mouth was dry. Rob’s throat felt like it had swollen and the bowtie was choking out his last breath.

Kev continued, ‘Okay, well, we’re here waiting. You know what to do and we’ll see you soon, yeah?’

Kev took the phone from his ear, pressed the end call button and dropped his shoulders. He threw his head back and stared up at the cloistered ceiling of the church, letting out a slow sigh as though he’d just run a marathon.

‘What the fuck, mate, what’s happening? What did Tiff say?’

‘We’re not sure she’ll make it, but I did the best I could.’

But it was the first time Rob doubted Kev. He felt like his future happiness was in Kev’s clammy palms and he wasn’t sure Kev was up to the job.

Kev sidled over to the priest who was standing ram rod straight and looking through his floppy bible, a small trickle of sweat inching its way down to his stiff upright collar as well.

Kev muttered into the priest’s ear and there was solemn nodding and whispered responses.

Kev took his position next to Rob and stared at the church door, ignoring the tension building as the buzzing congregation got louder and more restless.

The heat was stifling, and flies swirled above everyone’s heads, dipping and swooping, hovering near windows in a futile attempt to escape. The organist played hymn after hymn, grinding tuneless notes which steamed out of the burnished pipes.

Then there was slight movement at the front door to the church, the light shaft flickering almost imperceptibly. A soft shuffling grew louder, and Kev raised his eyes. Rob followed Kev’s gaze and squinted at the bright sunshine beaming through the open doors.

Little girls in tutus scurried around the vestibule like kewpie dolls who had escaped their sticks, as they were shepherded by a shimmy of bridesmaids in satin dresses and clattering stilettos.

And finally, there she was – Tiffany Jones, resplendent and triumphant in The Wedding Dress. She looked like a fluffy meringue, punctuated with a trailing bouquet of the best red roses and baby’s breath that money could buy. Her blonde streaks were in shiny coils and her face looked like a store mannequin; sea green eyeshadow, pink lip-gloss and a frosty expression.

Tiff hooked her arm through her father’s wiry elbow and smiled at him with gritted teeth. They started down the aisle, slowly stepping to the Bridal Chorus as though they were part of a military parade, and just slightly but annoyingly, out of time.

Rob looked down the aisle, and to the congregation, the focus of his attention seemed to be the vanilla vision that was his bride. But no, the object of his affection was beyond Tiffany and her cloud of tulle.

It was Roxanne who truly held his heart. His Perfect Lady, his ‘Ride or Die’, his reason for being.

The call Kev took was about Roxanne – she’d had some engine issues and wouldn’t start. The searing heat had caused her starter motor to play up and Tiff’s dad had nearly flooded the engine trying to get her to the church with the bridal party.

But at last, all was right with the world, thought Rob. He was about to marry Tiff and she’d be happy – for now.

But the lady sitting on the kerb outside the church was the one for him. Roxanne – glinting and rosy in the sun. White streamers were tied, stretching from under the centre of her bonnet to each of the front passenger windows, and underneath the ‘Just Married’ sign, a kaleidoscope of tangled beer cans tied to the rear bumper.

He’d had a fright when Kev took the call, but deep down he knew - this was the lady he was waiting for, and Roxanne would never let him down.

^1.             Bush Doof: a type of outdoor dance party generally held in surrounding bush or rainforest in remote country areas of Australia.

^2.             Year 12 formal: End of year ball for high school graduates, similar to proms in the United States.

^3.             Footy: Australian rugby league football game, like American grid iron but with key differences. It’s said to be ‘a game of almost cartoonishly violent collisions—without the benefit of pads’, tends to be more brutal.

^4.             Darl: short for ‘darling’, a typical Australian colloquialism.

^5.             “Gone the doctor”: When a player bets everything they have on a single (and usually final) bet.