Twenty Five Things That Make Life Worth Living
2. Fast Cars.
Before starting on an epic journey, one must make several important decisions. Firstly, what kind of journey is it to be? There are the classics, of course; one can go off to defeat one's greatest foe, to stop a great evil from destroying one's village and/or close relatives, to find mythical golden cities, or to conquer whatever small nations happen to be easily accessible. There are also journeys of the more introspective variety- vision quests, "finding one's self," and the like. And who can forget journeys of love? What could be finer than to find one's lost love, family, pet, or possessions? And, of course, popular fiction of the twentieth and early twenty first centuries has provided us with many other options, including retrieving lost video tapes or visiting amusement parks.
More often than not, the purpose of the journey sets its tone, and the tone determines the mode of conveyance. It would be simply gauche to ride off to El Dorado on anything but one's finest and most loyal steed, wearing many layers that can be easily identified when faded and tattered. A journey of the self is usually best paired with a motorcycle or, barring that, psychotropic drugs. Lovers, obviously, must go on foot, for several decades if need be, and those of the last category usually opt for the classic station wagon (wooden side panels a must).
These are but a few of the many considerations that a budding hero must make. Certainly one cannot fight for the honor of one's family in blue jeans any more than one can greet one's lost love equipped with a broadsword. It is imperative, for the benefit of yourself and those who will sing your many praises later, that the total heroic package be considered.
Sophie and Mark, however, chose to eschew these time honored traditions, opting to travel in the most readily available form of transport. This happened to be a 1999 Crown Victoria Police Interceptor. This singular automobile had, until very recently, been a patrol car for the Keplersville Police Department. It drove the length and breadth of that fine city on many nights, racking up as many as fifty miles on the odometer per week. It was the scene of many of the most important crimes of Keplersville history, including the time that those kids knocked over Mrs. Oakcrest's mailbox and the gripping two week police drama that was the arrest of Michael Andrews on charges of vagrancy. It was with a heavy heart and a new coat of paint that the people of Keplersville said goodbye to their beloved patrol car, only allowing Mark to buy it after he promised that it would get a full wax every month and all the warm motor oil it needed to stay strong.
It was only after Mark bought it that the car began to reach its full potential. The CVPI is often chosen by police departments because of its stability, provided by its very strong shock absorption system. The CVPI is often liked by police officers because it is very, very fast. It can accelerate from zero to ninety in the approximate amount of time it takes for a grown man to soil himself. Older model Police Interceptors, such as the one Mark has, do have an unfortunate tendency to explode when hit from behind at high speeds, but, other than that and its lack of romance, it is a vehicle well suited to any sort of modern quest or journey.
This is a very good thing, because Sophie has yet to tell Mark the purpose of their journey.
He's not going to be very happy about it.
--
"I thought we'd stop off at school before we got going," Sophie told him, propping her feet up on the dashboard. "Tim said he could find us a place to crash tonight."
"Works for me, I guess," Mark replied. "I'm not hanging out with Natalie though."
She rolled her eyes. "If Natalie had been a condition of the room, I would have turned it down."
"Last time I was there, she tried to cleanse my chakras, if you know what I mean."
She turned toward him, clearly intrigued. "She came on to you?"
"No, she stood around waving incense at me. She's given up trying to sleep with me, mostly."
Outside, the sun was just beginning to think about setting, casting a golden glow across the landscape. On the trees, the first of the leaves were starting to turn, little patches of yellow and orange appearing amid the still lush foliage. It had rained that morning, and the trees still gave off faint rainbows when the sun hit them.
One could truly believe that, in this moment, the world was at peace.
"So, how many days do you want to take getting there?" Mark asked her, taking in this majestic view. "I figured we'd visit Bradley in Salt Lake, but I've got nothing other than that."
She looked out the window, pretending to be very interested in the trees. "It doesn't really matter, just as long as we're there before the thirteenth."
"What happens on the thirteenth?"
She became very, very interested in a thread that had pulled loose on the passenger side door. "That's when Robert and I leave for Nagano."
--
Another great yet heretofore unmentioned feature of the Crown Victoria Police Interceptor is the fact that it comes standard with ceramic brake pads.
--
Mark sat on the hood of the car, smoking a filterless cigarette that he had found deep within the recesses of the glove compartment, and cursed the trees, the sunset, Virginia, Sophie, Robert, women, and the President (on general principle).
"Mark?" Sophie tried. He didn't flinch, dragging on his cigarette as if it had personally offended him. "I would have told you, but you wouldn't have come."
"You're goddamn right I wouldn't have."
"You needed to get out of the house," she told him, which only got her a "come the fuck on" glance. "Plus I wanted to spend some time with you before I left."
"How long are you staying?"
"Two weeks, but then we're going to Rome, and- I'm sorry, Mark. I should have told you."
He made a scoffing noise. "You want to fucking be with Robert? Let's fucking go see Robert," he said, throwing his cigarette butt down and grinding it furiously under the ball of his foot. "Being with him is its own fucking punishment."
--
Let's leave them for a moment. You're not going to be interested in what happens next, except in broad overview, since they're not actually going to talk to each other until they are nearly at the aforementioned school.
Though Mark hails from this general geographic vicinity, Sophie is originally from San Francisco, California. Having been banned from going to college in her hometown by her father (incidentally, this decision was heavily influenced by the proximity of Robert- some people simply do not learn), she retaliated by placing all of her many shiny solicitations from universities in a big pile, throwing out all the ones west of the Mississippi, then choosing her educational future at random. This flippant yet fateful decision would lead her straight to The Wentworth Miller University of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
The Wentworth Miller University of Liberal Arts and Sciences (never, ever WMU or WUMLAS or TWMUOLAS, and rarely abbreviated past Wentworth Miller University except by the very déclassé) was founded in 1815 by two brothers, DuFresne and Cartwright Wentworth. Borne aloft by the rising tide of the Second Great Awakening, DuFresne and Cartwright set about founding a school for ministers, preachers, reverends, and pastors of all descriptions.
Much has been written about the famous Wentworth brothers, and all of it is false. For starters, they weren't brothers. Hollis DuFresne and Jim Cartwright met in a bar in New York City in about 1803. After that point, they set about trying to get famous by any means necessary. They very briefly had their own stage show, which shuttered after four performances. They invented a patent medicine and took it on the road. They got to Newark before Jim drank most of their stock.
They next decided to their luck at crime. Unfortunately, Hollis and Jim were some of the least threatening looking men that the good Lord ever created. Their first attempted mugging ended in disgrace when the man punched Jim square in the face, knocking out one of his finer teeth. Even the freshest whores were known to laugh right in their faces. They were two men who, quite literally, could not get arrested. Destitute and humiliated, Hollis and Jim moved to Virginia to work on Hollis's second cousin's farm. It was there that Hollis first heard the Good News.
Hollis rushed back from his tent meeting, full of fire and brimstone. It was there that he expounded his latest idea to Jim- they were to become preachers.
They changed their names and bought suits; and within two months, the boys had made it. The tales of the poor, despairing orphans (it is not known what Hollis and Jim's parents thought of their preaching), huddling together and making their lonely way without the light of Jesus, struck a chord with the public, and their altar calls sometimes lasted for hours.
In time, the now Wentworth boys found wives, settled down, and opened their school. After the nation collectively snapped out of its religious furor, Jim managed to keep the school running, relying on its reputation among the many rich Virginians who had passed through before. He adapted readily to his role as headmaster, ensuring that it would stand the test of time. In return for his efforts, the school was posthumously named Wentworth Academy.
Hollis ran off to Memphis with the young wife of one of his students, where he lived out the rest of his days in sin and iniquity, taunting Jim by sending him dirty postcards. At no point was anything larger than a human child named after him, but it is generally agreed that Hollis had much, much more fun.
The school continued its many fine traditions- hazing, binge drinking, suicide, racism- into the early 1980's. At this point, it was discovered that the school was completely out of funding, the majority having been embezzled by the three previous headmasters (Hollis would have been proud to know that the vast majority of it had been spent on younger women and dirty postcards).
It was at this point that the school came to the attention of The Miller Group, an up and coming investment firm which had very recently come into possession of rather a lot of money that needed to be spent as quickly as possible and with no questions asked. In the tradition of all proverbial deals with the Devil, they only asked for a few things in return, including complete control of the curriculum, marketing, school grounds, and accumulated patents.
The Miller Group completed a whirlwind transformation of the school. Ancillary staff were quietly paid off, records were secretly burned, and the ban on females and minorities was very publicly lifted. The (rechristened) Wentworth Miller University of Liberal Arts and Sciences became the place for rich, over-achieving teenagers to assert their superiority. Most importantly to Sophie, it also carried a commensurate price tag. It was here that she met Mark, who, which would not be a surprise if you knew Mark better, ended up there because his mother had been hired by The Miller Group as an instructor.
(As an epilogue, shortly after their successful revamp of the school, The Miller Group was investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and seven of their ten board members are presently in the California penal system. You win some, you lose some.)
Luckily, with only half an hour to go before they will arrive at the dormitories of The Wentworth Miller University of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Mark and Sophie seem to be speaking again, after a fashion, though Mark is still extremely and understandably angry. What this situation clearly calls for is the judicious application of alcohol.