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Category:
Drama
Publisher: Lulu
ISBN-10: 1435711866
Type: Fiction
Pages: 296
Copyright: March 23, 2008
ISBN-13: 9781435711860
Price: $1.99 (eBook)
When a troubled medical courier's job, marriage and dreams simultaneously implode, his road rage fantasies begin to literally bleed over into reality.
Calvin Wheeler is an American dreamer in a triple threat cage match with his two biggest adversaries-everyday life and himself. His marriage to the woman he believed to be his soul mate is rapidly evaporating before his eyes. The book he’s been working on for over a decade is slipping through his fingers as he struggles to complete it. As these pressures grow, Calvin compensates by conjuring up outrageous road rage scenarios in the multiplex of his mind. To make matters even worse, he drives for a living. As his life, job and dreams simultaneously implode, his wild fantasies begin to literally bleed over into reality. Now with a gun in one hand and a steering wheel in the other, this distant runner-up in the human race feels empowered for the very first time. At least our boy’s finally found a purpose in life. Red Asphalt tells a violent, tragic tale with darkly humorous touches and pointed social commentary. And the moral to the story? Traffic can be murder...
Excerpt
I needed to get back on track, so I took Highway 99 heading toward Modesto and floored it, still stewing in my own angry juices. Attempting to blow off some steam by driving it off was a total contradiction of what I used to teach, but that was not my concern. I had a raging mad-on and I had to get rid of it somehow. Unfortunately, the road ahead of me had not been clear. In the fast lane, being the wrong place at the wrong time was an elderly gentleman in a Mercury sedan, traveling way below the speed limit. Semi-trucks occupied the other lanes and there was no way around him. Naturally, in the crazed state of mind I found myself in, this brought me to the boiling point once again. It became necessary for me to encourage him to pick up the pace, right on his rear bumper.
“Excuse me, sir? Sir? You are in the FAST lane. You’re supposed to drive FAST. Why are you driving SLOW? LET’S GO! TOO SLOW! LET’S GO! Would you like a PUSH, HMMMMM????”
I slowly accelerated my vehicle so that it could kiss the rear bumper of Old Man Driver. From fifty to fifty-five to sixty to sixty-five to seventy in mere seconds, I could see him grasp his steering wheel in a death grip. We locked fenders and I pushed the outside of the envelope even further as I took Chuck Yeager here for a blast from the past.
“Mach one!” I cried.
The sound barrier broke as we screamed down Highway 99.
“Mach two!” I bellowed as the glass from the instrument panel exploded into a thousand shards.Sparks sprayed from all sides of our conjoined cars and I laughed as only demons can. Old Man Driver was frozen in fear. It was all he could do to keep his Mercury in control. The stupid old fart! Didn’t he know that I was in control?
“Mach three!” I cheered as I slammed on the brakes, separating our vehicles and Old Man River was set free.As if shot out of a cannon, his car was propelled on its own and at even greater speed, veering off to the right and onto the off ramp of an overpass. Up it flew like a raging comet as Old Man Driver and his Mercury ignited into a giant fireball and launched into space, sailing into the heavens like an authentic Mercury astronaut. Jetting skyward toward the edge of the earth’s atmosphere, Old Man Driver suddenly exploded into a Fourth of July display.
Observing the spectacle from below, I led the crowd in a chorus of “Ooh! Aah!”
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