Daily Driver
A High-Speed Pilgrimage For A Better Childhood...
The first day of anything was always rough, but the first day of Bette Garret with her newborn was rough in a way only the red-furred redneck could manage. With Rod back in the war effort, and little Harry growing fast, it was time to socialize him and help him make friends.
At first, her work at the swim-hole seemed a natural place. And while plenty of grownups liked the kid well-enough, Bette was puzzled as to why no one his age had come around. If it wasn’t couples who hadn’t any kids, it was always out-of-towners who had kids way older than her one-year-old, or who were left home with a babysitter. Until she got a chance to chat with one of her regulars.
“They started a daycare of sorts.” a black-furred swimmer remarked. “It’s on the other side of Ronan’s Gulch from here. Basically a big ol’ hens club for ladies & their bundles. Been a hard week working the road, so my Missus joined the club for today.”
The good news about the gulch was that you could go around it. The bad news was the chaotic route. Opportunistic drag-racers who never heeded the Duellist codes of honor, packs of raiders looking for loot, all manner of thuggery imaginable.
Fortunately for the red wolven mother and her brown pup, Papa Rod had treated Bette’s sunshine-yellow pickup to quite the spruce-up. Avalon now sported reinforced bull-bars, the protective sealant General Godred was now using, and a good old-fashioned tune up. And the results were a lean, mean war machine that made the little brown pup giggle with each rev.
With her mobile fortress on wheels and a Smith & Wesson on her hip, Bette loaded up her little brown pup into his car seat and went on a daily drive around the gulch. He didn’t bat an eye as Mama slapped the pedal down, and bolted through the brush and weeds off-road. Anytime she was shot at, rammed into, or the fools tried to hop inside the truck bed, she knew when to hit the brakes, gun the pickup, or take a shot herself. Even with the five-alarm ruckus going around him, Harry seemed completely content. And fortunately, he didn’t see the gleam in Bette’s eye if she had to run one of the idiot’s over. Couldn’t have him pick up any bad habits after all.
In the end, after the battlefield was traversed, the journey was worth it. The clutch of chatty wolven mothers, gathered at a cozy wooden cabin with a large backyard, were a welcoming bunch. Harry, to Bette’s relief, came alive in the company of the boys and their armada of dump trucks and toy trains. She was always asked about the splotch of blood and the dents in Avalon’s grill when she arrived, but Bette’s answer was always the same: “the traffic’s hell, but it ain’t nothing my daily driver can’t fix.”
After a month of attendance, Harry had plenty of pups his age to play with. And after a month of Bette Garret’s devil-may-care driving, crime around Ronan’s Gulch had practically vanished. While it did make the drive quite boring for the brown-furred pup, his hot-rodding mother was relieved to say the least.
Hot rods are cool. I want to see a hot rod with the irresistible whine of a supercharger!