Hells Bells

Todd lifted his head from the crease of a textbook. A blue mullet. I can’t believe I dreamed I had a blue mullet. He shuddered off the idea and thought about the day ahead. That night would be another best night of his life. Fiesta Grande,he thought as he got up and accidentally kicked one of the many Red Bull cans strewn about the floor. The night before had been devoted to studying for his physics exam, after which the greatest party of the year would be held. Fiesta Grande was the best way for everyone to say goodbye until the fall semester, and Todd had been preparing for it for weeks. Just one more test and he would cut loose. He opened another Red Bull and took a swig, then sat at his desk again to practice applying equations. As he gained more confidence with the material, a bluebird surprised him by slamming into his bedroom window, and he got up to see if the bird had survived. It just lay there on the sill twitching. Then the phone rang. It was Crissy.

“A bird just kamikazed my window!” 

“Hmm. Todd, I’m freaking out.” She sounded exasperated. “I broke one of my nails!” 

“What do you want me to do about it? I have to study for my physics exam.”

“I need a ride to the manicurist. She’s leaving in twenty minutes and if I don’t get this fixed, I am just going to die!”

“CRISSY! I HAVE TO STUDY!” 

“Don’t yell at me, Todd, I didn’t break the damn nail on purpose.”

Now on his seventh Red Bull in fifteen hours, Todd fumed as he muted the phone call. “You always do this! I’m sick of it, and I’m sick of that stupid nose job that makes your face look like an elf!” he blurted out, then unmuted the phone.

“You have to be there right now?”

“Well, Todd, yeah, and this nail isn’t going to repair itself. Come pick me up!”

“Fine! I’m coming. But you owe me big for this,” he responded, ending the call thinking about how drop dead gorgeous she looked in the dress he had bought her, even with the elven nose job. 

Todd put on his flip flops and grabbed the keys to his Mustang. The sweat on his Red Bull beckoned for him to drink it fast, but he thought better of it. In fact, with Fiesta Grande looming in the future dusk, he decided to add a couple of shots of Stolichnaya to help him calm down. Test in one hour. Zip to the manicurist and back in forty-five minutes!

His obsession for the simple mixed drink had prompted him to give it a pet name. “Red Russian for the gullet!” he said, and carefully poured the liquor into the Red Bull. He took a sip of the excess vodka that had garnished the can’s rim. P=FV Cosine Theta. This’ll be easy, he thought as he swallowed back an acidy burp, feeling the inevitable change in the weather that accompanied his first drink. 

Outside he put on his favorite classic Ray Bans, and having spent the night in his air conditioned room, could feel the sun’s heat pulling him upward. He knew the day would only get better. V=Delta S over Delta T. He made his way to the Mustang, unlocked it, and looked at the sky. He thought the patchy cirrocumulus clouds looked like the scales on the back of a dragon, which he imagined swooping down to whisk him away into a nest faraway on a mountain somewhere, perhaps in the Himalayas. “That’d do it. No coming back from that one”, he said, and started the car.

Todd had a way of compartmentalizing the excess energy wrought by drinking monumental amounts of Red Bull, letting the adrenaline flow through him instead of trembling and bothering everyone with rapid speech. “Adrenazen”, he called it, and released his nerves to the flow when the energy overwhelmed him. Unfortunately for those close to him, it was far more like living around an agitated bottle of club soda. When he got mad, he could see and feel a burning hot sun in his head and sometimes needed to spend time alone to calm the spinning ball of molten lava.

He drove and sang to Joe Walsh’s “Life of Illusion” as Crissy waited for him in front of her sorority. While he pulled up, he drank half of the mixed drink he had only tantalizingly sipped until then.

“We have to hurry,” Crissy said in an annoying high-pitched tone, “If you knew Monica then you would know she waits for no one.” Todd leaned in to let her kiss him on the cheek, hoping she would catch a whiff of the potent concoction. He loved to argue with her unnecessarily, and often took the simplest of measures to assure her aggravation.

“You’re drinking? It’s not even twelve o’clock. Didn’t you say you have a physics exam?” she admonished him with her eyes.

“Indeed. P=FV Cosine Theta. It’ll be a breeze. Look at the day, look at those clouds!” he pointed. “Fiesta Grande, Crissy!” 

“Yeah, but you started without me,” she puckered her lips pretending to pout. Todd held out the Red Bull can, but she refused it and searched for a different radio station.

“There. There. The Black-Eyed Peas I can stand,” Todd said as he began to sway his head from left to right in upward circular motions to “Pump it”. At a certain interval he inserted his own lyrics. “Inertia is the property of matter by which it retains its state of rest or velocity along a straight line….Werd! Without external force…. Werd!” he kept dancing, sipping on his Red Russian, Crissy laughing and swaying her arms in the air. “Take the mike, Crissy….Theta…Theta Jones, sing!” and Crissy sang the chorus beautifully. “Keep shakin’ that bacon! Werd!”

They approached a red stoplight as the song ended, and Crissy turned down the volume. “I=Sigma MR Squared”, Todd said as a biker pulled up next to them on a loud chopper.  

Bikers are rarely seen as snobs unless you know one. The pride they have for their unique machines is only paralleled by the world’s greatest inventors. Donut had constructed his chopper from several different Harleys and felt superior to most all other bikers because he maintained that his beautiful machine was assembled using the upmost care with parts from the greatest motorcycles ever made. As he revved it up to assure that the carburetor was mixing in the appropriate amount of air, he looked over at Crissy and smiled and nodded. 

Todd sustained his jolting energy by swaying slightly from side to side, wiggling to different song in his head. V=Delta S over Delta T, he thought as he glanced over at Donut, who by then was smiling and nodding at Crissy. And he lost it.

“Hey! What the hell was that?” he yelled, startling Crissy. Donut sat glaring at Todd with a superior sneer. Todd was not burly by any means but did not see a biker. He saw a man that had made an advance toward his beautiful girlfriend, the one he might soon marry or break up with. “Why don’t you keep your eyes on the road! You guys can get smushed easily by a big car!” he yelled as the light turned green, and he accelerated quickly, extending his arm out the window to flip Donut the bird.

“Jesus, Todd! That guy was huge! You shouldn’t have yelled at him! All he did was smile and nod!” Crissy said to him wide-eyed.  

“Crissy, you don’t see things at face value. That guy was probably a rapist and 

a thief, and if somebody doesn’t speak up when speaking up is called for, they will eventually rule the world. He was hitting on you. Clear as day,” he responded, pulling up to the manicurists in a small downtown square where cars parked diagonally in the street. Todd waited to see if the biker was going to stop and fight with him, but he drove past and disappeared into the distance. 

Monica the manicurist had opened the door to let Crissy in after seeing her

get out of the Mustang, and Crissy hurried in to have her nail repaired. Todd waited in the car. After five minutes he checked the time on his phone.

“Thirty minutes and I am at the test”, he said aloud. “No problem!” Entropy is the degree of disorder or randomness in a system. It is unpredictable.

The vodka really hadn’t taken a toll on his mind. In fact, it did have a slight calming effect until the Mustang began to tremble, and he could hear and feel the massive vibrations of an earthquake. Fear that accompanies that realization immediately interrupted his consciousness. Would the building fall on Crissy? Should he help everyone get out into the street? Louder and louder the noise boomed, and Todd looked at the few passersby to see their reaction. All they did was stop for a second and look down the street. The silence amid wind blowing in trees and birds chirping had been interrupted by more than 100 decibels of thunder as Donut wheeled into the the downtown square followed by his gang. 

Since the lunch crowd had cleared out, there was plenty of parking, and they settled in like a swarm of bees to occupy ten of the spots on both sides of the Mustang. Donut parked on the opposite side of the street and turned off the motor to his chopper. Todd exited adrenazen and began to shake uncontrollably.

“What have I done?” he asked himself, knowing the answer. People ask that desperate question when there is the slightest chance that karma might actually tip the scales in their favor.

He looked at his phone to check the time, then into his rearview mirror. One of the bikers had parked directly behind his Mustang, and a park bench stood by his front bumper. People had wisely taken shelter in nearby stores as the motorcycle gang called “The Breeze” revved up their exceedingly clamorous motors, all of them stopping as J.J. Ryder, better known as “Worm”, called for silence with a cutthroat motion, and they turned off their loud machines. He walked slowly to the driver’s side door of Todd’s Mustang and knocked on the window.

Todd was on the verge of his first heart attack.

“Open the door,” Worm said calmly, his face expressionless as his lazy eye drooped low. 

“I’m not getting out of this car, no freakin’ way. I may have been stupid, but rest assured, stupid up and left when you got here.” Oh God. Twenty minutes, he thought, shaking like a Chihuahua in Colorado winter, knowing he would not be allowed to take the test if he didn’t arrive on time.

He noticed a colorful patch sewed onto the back of each of the gang member’s jackets. A dragon in flight, wind trails following in white swirls with “The Breeze” in gothic lettering beneath, then he remembered imagining a dragon snatching him up and spiriting him away to the Himalayas. 

People shake when they are afraid. It’s a response by the mind sent to the nervous system. Anyone who has drunk seven Red Bulls in sixteen hours knows that shaking is that unavoidable response, but Todd didn’t just shake. His movements were all accented by tremors that rivalled every vibration rattling the downtown square as The Breeze had moseyed in. He checked the time on his phone. Seventeen minutes left.

“Open the door,” Worm said again calmly, his large belly threatening with remnants of McDonald’s, or steak, or whatever bikers consume besides beer.

Crissy saw the whole thing from inside Monica’s nail salon, and Monica, having her own schedule to keep, tried to ignore what was happening outside to finish repairing the nail, which she did quickly. 

Life is crazy. And some people get strange, insightful notions out of nowhere that are illogical and improbable, but sometimes a spur of the moment idea pays off. Crissy could momentarily see the bikers for who they were. People. Regular people that, though disappointed, only wanted an explanation or apology. So, she paid Monica, and walked out of the salon onto the sidewalk and addressed Worm in a cordial tone.

“Excuse me. Sir? Is there a problem? That’s my boyfriend in the Mustang,” she said, the corners of her eyes squinting pleasantly, and she crept a little closer to Worm, who looked at her.

Thirteen minutes, Oh my god, I am going to miss the test! Todd jittered in a frenzy. 

“I’m Crissy, and that there is Todd. What’s your name?” she asked tilting her head.

“I’m Worm,” he muttered. “We,” he pointed at his gang, “call ourselves The Breeze.”

Todd stopped checking the time because his chances of making it to the physics exam had faded away.

“My boyfriend Donut called me, crying.” Worm pointed at Donut across the street. “He says your boyfriend insulted him, so we all came to see what the heck Todd’s problem is.”

Crissy stepped off the curb and eased her way to the car door to look in at Todd, who might have felt more comfortable had he been wearing a diaper. His face showed resignation to the fact that he would miss his physics exam. 

“Todd. You heard him. You insulted Donut. Get out of the car and go apologize,” she said, and Todd’s eyes widened, thinking that there had to be a hidden camara somewhere. As he studied the atmosphere, he realized that none of the bikers had angry looks on their faces, that Worm might only want him to show Donut respect. There was no escape, and there was no time left. He would never be able to take his physics exam, so with the daring spirit of the most audacious stuntman, he opened the door to face the dragon he thought he had only imagined. Worm stepped back, giving him a wide berth, and Todd, still visibly shaken, mustered the strength to straighten his legs and walk across the street to Donut on his motorcycle. 

“Mr. Donut, sir. I’m real sorry I flipped you off. I thought you were making eyes at my girlfriend, and I lost my cool,” he stared at the concrete pavement, unable to look directly at the overweight biker. He stood his ground as Donut got off his chopper, knowing there was nothing he could do if Donut decided to punch him. Instead of picking him up off the ground by his collar to yell at him or knocking him out, he lifted Todd’s chin to look him directly in the eyes, then pulled him in and embraced him with his meaty arms.

“It’s ok, Todd. I understand,” he said wholeheartedly. Todd put his hands on Donut’s back to complete the hug, then stepped back, said “thank you,” and walked back to Crissy. The Breeze all started their motorcycles in unison and wheeled away like a synchronized routine at the Olympics.

Even though that might be the worst experience Todd would ever encounter, it would also be one of the best. He was alive, and Chrissy had somehow saved him from what could have escalated into a far more horrific nightmare. Genuine humility often comes after the direst of situations. Maybe someday he would be the best version of himself, but that day he had suddenly become a better person than he was the day before. Now, drained of reckless energy and excitement, Todd got in the Mustang with Crissy. He leaned in to receive another affectionate kiss on the cheek, started the car and switched the radio to his favorite station. The tolling bell intro to “Hells Bells” by AC/DC accented the interior of his car at low volume, and he put the Mustang into reverse thinking that for the rest of his life he would never rev his engine again. He looked over at Crissy, for whom he held a new respect for having the guts to talk to Worm. He looked forward to another Fiesta Grande, felt relieved to be alive, but concerned about what would happen to him for not taking his physics exam. Looking into the rear-view mirror, he slowly backed the car into the street, and said, “Hells bells, Crissy. Hells bells.”