Ten Words No. 10:
Dragstrip Porsche
A Short Story
by Angus Verspeeten
Editor's Note: Angus Verspeeten felt that Jerden Purmort cheated
in 10 Words No. 9 by saving all the random words
until the last line of the story. Angus asked if he could have a go
at the same 10 random words. "Dragstrip Porsche" is the result.
(See 10 Words Intro for an explanation of the concept.)
The random words:
charming, dishwashing, compassionate,
orderly, blockading, circumlocutions,
perjure, backaches, Kant, spaceships
charming, dishwashing, compassionate, orderly, circumlocutions, perjure, backaches, Kant, spaceships
charming,
charming,
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Far down the dragstrip I could see people chasing a dog that had come out of nowhere. The midengine Porsche was thrumming happily under my foot, eager for the big run of the day. We’d done all the usual: 0 to 60, 0 to 100, the standing quarter mile, braking, cornering g’s. The only thing left was 0 to 150. For that the whole length of the track had to be clear, blockaded, and secured. Waves of heat came off the asphalt, but I could see they were having a time catching the mutt. No matter. The longer I got with the Porsche, the happier I was. Having spent most of the day in the car, I felt bonded with it, a high-spirited machine as close to perfection as any car manufacturer had come. The driver’s seat fit perfectly, smoothly, sensuously, and reminded me of other long days in lesser vehicles whose only lasting impression was the memory of overnight backaches. I inhaled. Leather, yes, rich leather, but also faint overtones of purebred automotive engineering. Mixed in were the slightest odors from what you knew were expensive chemicals—lubricants, anti-aging compounds applied to various parts of a purebred engine, rare metals perhaps in rare alloys to lighten here, stiffen there. Some cars are definitely masculine and have to be mastered and trained, like a stallion. Driving a Porsche correctly at very high speed is like the best sex. No dominance involved. It is a wholly cooperative undertaking. You and the machine both want the same thing, and you have total confidence that, if you proceed in a reasoned, orderly fashion, the machine can match any skillful maneuver you care to undertake. I glanced to the side. My crew, all fellow staffers from the magazine, were crouched around the radar, laser, and telemetry gear, ready to record our numbers. One had binoculars trained on the end of the strip and was talking in a cell phone, shaking his head. My notebook was open on the seat, filled with thoughts from the day’s testing. A good day for me as car freak, but a less good day for me as car writer. Over the years we’ve tested dozens of Porsches, some less impressive than others, but all, always, the product of designers and engineers who set themselves the highest goals. Now, when we run a new Porsche story, we know we will get two kinds of letters: charming, appreciative messages from people who share our enthusiasm for well-designed, well-built machines at the cutting edge of what is, let’s face it, an old technology; and less charming missives from people who swear we are sellouts in the pay of Ferdinand Porsche’s descendants and happily advise us we would be doing the world a service if we’d take up some other occupation, like, say, dishwashing. All day, in the back of my mind, I’d been trying to think of a new hook, a new way to approach and write yet another Porsche story. I stared at my notebook, and it stared back at me, giving nothing away except numbers, and the usual string of superlatives. I was at a loss. Looked like I was going to write about another blah day in automotive paradise. Like, what kind of postcards do you send back to the mainland if you don’t just visit Maui but actually live there? Maybe, I thought, I could perjure myself, write something full of vituperation, about what a piece of shit the newest Porsche is, and we hold it till the spring and run it as an April Fool put-on… People at the other end of the track were waving, the telemetry guys were giving the thumbs-up. Everybody was ready. I could go anytime, the computers were on and watching. Rpm’s at torque peak, flick the Tiptronic lever, and we’re off with a huge only moderately loud whoosh, the same big hand pushing against your back that you feel in a sparsely occupied 777 on take-off. But with a big difference: this one, this insistent shove you were controlling. Flick-flick-flick, the speedometer sweeps easily past 100. The Porsche is happy and, God knows, I am too. We’re both doing what we were born to do. Over 100 the wind noise quickly drowns the engine noise and the feel is very much that of flying on the ground, which slips past in a blur, with only what’s directly ahead in focus. What happened next did not appear in the story-as-published, that’s for sure. I’ve never written about it before, never tried to write about it before. But I want it on paper, to see what it looks like. The story that I wrote included only one extremely veiled reference, such a circumlocution that nobody could possibly guess what I was really talking about, and I included it, I think, as a reminder to myself, to be sure I didn’t forget. Somewhere in the ten seconds or so between 100 and 150, time stopped. No, that’s not exactly right. I was still aware of the car, of driving, of the increasing speed, but all that became distant background. The sky suddenly changed, still blue sky and big white clouds, but it somehow shifted as if it had acquired an added dimension that we never see. Hovering in this strange invisible matrix I saw two spaceships. Yep, your classic flying saucers. Hovering. Watching yours truly barreling down a dragstrip. What the fuck. No fear—I somehow understand they were no threat, and also I very strangely had no doubt about my sanity. They were, how to say this, realer than real, whatever that means. Let’s try it like this: they were compassionately real. Like: as a kid, you’d stand outside school at 3:20, waiting for your mom to drive up, and you’d see her car coming around the corner. No big deal, but very real and comforting in a way you never questioned or even much thought about. Sounds crazy, but that was the feeling. The seconds are still ticking, the Porsche’s still accelerating magnificently, all in the background, and here I am communing with a couple of UFO’s. Wait, it immediately got weirder. They had windows. And you-know-who’s watching out the windows. Complete with the big dark eyes. Big dark eyes definitely looking at m-e. It ended very quickly. As the Porsche soared past 150 and it was time to brake, I was still in a state of double visual awareness, or whatever the hell was going on. In last moment, a voice inside me head—please, try to believe, as real as the Porsche, as real as you reading these words—spoke. The voice spoke, not loudly, but loudly enough. The saucers vanished, I was back in one world, smoothly braking that lovely machine. I stopped the crew rushed up, and I could tell immediately that I was the only one who'd seen anything out of the ordinary. Zipped lips time. And now I have to tell you what the voice said. You’re not going to like it any more than I did. But this is my story. I’ve thought about what I’d do when I got to the place where I finally wrote it down. I could, I thought, hoke it up, dream up some "peace in our time" kind of save-the-world message. I can’t do that now that the moment is here. Coupla UFO’s from God knows where checking out a Porsche test, getting the hooked-on-cars driver’s attention but good, OK, driver to UFO, in contact, ready to receive, let me have it. And they did. Let me have it. Fluffy clouds, blue sky, black track, whooshing Porsche at 150 mph, and these emissaries from Galaxy XZ-1583q77 coolly informed me: "Kant was wrong." Go figure. That’s what I’ve tried to do. Let me know if you come up with something. END
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