Read Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America for Free Online

hollers humorously, meaning him and his car. I want to go, too. Almost magically, as if he could read my mind like Kreskin, he smiles that sexy gold-toothed smile and leers in a friendly growl with a faint Southern accent, “Wanna ride in the car with me?!” “Sure,” I stammer, wishing I were wearing those slip-on “fronts” I had made for my teeth in Baltimore with JW in fake jewels. “But are you allowed to have passengers?” I ask. “Hell, no,” he replies, “but since when have I done what is allowed?” “But it will be late night if I stay for the race and then I’ll have to hitchhike in the dark and I’ll be nervous,” I admit with shame. “Stay with me, Snake,” he hisses with a male friendliness that is confusing in its undefined sexual connotations. “I’m custom-fit, hammered, and bent just like your boy Homer!” I gulp. “You’re gonna be my good-luck charm,” he announces with a flirtatious grin.
    I am swooning with excitement when we finally get to Marengo, Indiana, having so much fun riding with Lucas that I barely notice it’s already night. We’ve come a long way as we pull up at the Crawford County 4-H Fairgrounds. “Maniac Night” sounds even better when you read it off a weatherworn wooden marquee. Especially with $1,200 PRIZE added below. Lucas knows everybody! There’s Anteater and Doo-Doo, two scary grease monkeys who obviously idolize my new best friend, and they help him get Whiplash off the flatbed truck and up near to the pit gate. I see a lot of other junker cars with souped-up names such as Ratrod, Gunthunt, Hatchet-Head, and Head-On Hard-On (which, it was explained, will be disqualified because of its un-family-friendly name). There’s even one named Whitney Houston. I don’t know about Lucas, but I’ve got a winning feeling building inside me.
    As our heat approaches, Lucas sneaks me in under a fence and I climb in through our car’s front passenger-side window because the doors are now welded shut. He hands me goggles, a helmet with WHIPLASH hand-stenciled on the front just like his, and a crumpled jumpsuit to put on over my usual low-key Comme des Garçons outfit that I have chosen to wear for the trip. “Material’s fireproof,” he explains, and since the family business my dad started is fire protection, I feel relieved as I struggle to suit up. As he slips into his own matching outfit, he catches me peeking at his naturally toned chest and winks. “Watch,” he says as he pours lighter fluid all over his jumpsuit. “Go ahead,” he orders me as he hands me a box of kitchen matches from under his seat, “set me on fire.” I hesitate, then strike one and toss it on him. His outfit immediately goes up in flames, but he just laughs, feeling no pain. He waits a full fifteen seconds before he smothers out the blaze. Lucas is my action hero.
    There is no glass in Whiplash. The windshield and the rear and side windows have been removed. Most of the interior has been dismantled, and the gas tank is now in the back where the seats once were. As I reach for the safety belt, Lucas snarls from behind the wheel, “Seat belts optional,” and looks down to his crotch and points to the seat-belt buckle that once was on his driver’s side but has now been redesigned into his belt for fashion. Being the wimp I evidently am, I slip on both the helmet and the seat belt that is, thank God, still attached on the passenger side.
    I look over the dirt oval track with all the junkers’ taillights facing each other and see Ratrod, a seventies Dodge Charger with its disgusting slob of a driver inside taking a big gulp of whiskey from a bottle, which I’m sure is against the rules. He glances at me and then catches Lucas’s eyes, too, and begins making mock kissing noises with his brittle, chapped lips. I avert my eyes as Lucas snorts in derision, grabs his own dick, and squeezes it in the excitement of possible revenge. “That sandbaggy asshole,” he growls, “always