Prompt Ramblings - 14. Prompt 316 - Photo of a Roadster

The roadster's engine roared as my foot pushed the pedal to the floor. My knuckles were white on the steering wheel as I weaved between cars, tires squealing and horns honking. Wind sliced at me from the open windows and I found myself trying to keep my lunch down. Attempting not to get us killed, I couldn't even look over in Eddie's direction.

“Are they still following us?” I'd lost track of how long we'd been running.

“Did you ever know a fed that gives up, Tom?” Eddie shouted over the engine.

I tried to push the gas even harder. I jumped across the median to pass a slow moving car, barely getting back over before we kissed the oncoming truck.

We were so busted. When Eddie and I came into town, work was hard to find and we didn't have any money. We'd been traveling from town to town scraping up a dime here and there, barely making enough to eat between the two of us. Things got desperate and we took a job with the wrong kind of people. It was Eddie's idea. We didn't really want to, but what choice did we have? First it was one little delivery, then another and now we're in so deep there's nowhere to go and three cars full of feds are chasing us through the city.

I took a sharp turn and cringed at the sound of all those bottles clinking together in the back. If that bootleg gin in the back cracks open, I won't have the feds to worry about. The Marconis will kill us both and that's not an exaggeration. We picked up this whole batch on Lake Michigan that came over from Canada and we almost made it to Chicago before they showed up. Someone snitched and now we're fucked unless I can outrun the law. I wasn't going to get pinched with Eddie in the car with me. We've both been in too much trouble in the past.

“Keep driving!” Eddie shouted. “I'm not going back!”

Eddie grasped my shoulder and kissed my cheek. There was a panic to his touch and no comfort in the gesture as his fingertips grazed my jaw before pulling away. I chanced a look back at my handsome partner, his eyes wild and glossy, as he climbed over and reached behind the seat.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm not going back, Tom! You don't know what they do to our kind in the pen!”

I gasped as he uncovered a Tommy gun and leaned out the window.

“Eddie! No!” I reached out to stop him but had to grip the wheel suddenly as I swerved to miss a car in our path. Eddie pulled the trigger, the chain and flash of gunfire sent an ugly spear into my spine and chest. Our futures together were suddenly dwindling. The image of waking up next to him was becoming faded and distant.

In the mirror I saw smoke spilling from the engine of one of the sedans chasing us. It slowed while the other two continued. I watched the effect of Eddie's gun shred the hood of the second.

A bullet hole zinged through our rear window as the feds returned fire. Several more shots rang out before blood spattered across my windshield; Eddie slumped and fell out the window.

“Eddie!” I screamed and reached out after him, unintentionally turning the wheel. At the speed I was driving, the roadster immediately rolled with nothing to hold me in place. The world spun; I was helpless in its momentum as I went off the edge of the bridge.

“So what do you think of her, bud?”

I turned my head at the gray-haired owner of the car I was sitting in. It was a beautiful black Prohibition-era roadster with red pinstripes and whitewall tires. It was the kind of car I always imagined mobsters and bootleggers would drive. It took a moment to gather my wits. I seemed to have lost myself in the daydream. It left me strangely sad for some reason.

“It's gorgeous. I've never seen anything like it in person. Is it for sale?”

The owner smiled, the fine lines creasing the corners of his eyes as he shook his head. “'Fraid not. I love this car more than my wife. Just don't let her hear me say that.”

I laughed and nodded to him as I climbed out and looked around at the various cars lining the street at the Antique Motor Fair. More styles and vehicles out of ages far more interesting than my life could be seen everywhere. Crowds of families and car aficionados sifted down the fairway, touching, looking and sitting in the driver's seats. People came from all over to see this collection, to take themselves out of their dreary existences for just a little while and give their dreams a charge. I was no exception.