A Little Trunk Music

I’m late.

So what’s new? I’m always late; just ask my boss, my Mom, or my landlady.

It’s always: Where’s the report, Jameson? Or: I thought you’d try to be on time for a change, Bobby. Or: The rent is due on the first of each month, Mr. Jameson, not odd- or even-numbered months as you see fit.

So I’m late today, too, and I need to be back at the office to make the 1:00 with Tristham-Smythe, my insufferable deodorant-ad client. Right now, though, the po-boy sandwich from Ferdie’s is calling my name from inside the brown take-out bag on the seat next to me. A classic Oyster Loaf, heavy on the mayo and dressed to kill, but on French bread so light and airy inside and crusty-golden outside that it takes Slap-Yo-Mama goodness to a new zenith.

But, in the name of all that’s Holy, get me past this car in front of me, so I can have 10 minutes to wolf down God’s Gift to the sandwich world.

Traffic light ahead’s hanging yellow. I’m positive that the dude’ll run it, and me too. Then, he stands on the brakes shy of the intersection and my sled slides right up onto the bumper of his big, black, tinted-window Mercedes, or Lexus, or whatever the damn thing is. Doink . . .I swear that’s the sound it makes, doink, and up pops the trunk lid. Damn! I didn’t even tap him hard enough to pop my airbag.

I’m skewered on the guy’s bumper; my beautiful yet-to-be-savored bit of sandwich Nirvana in the front floorboard, lying there pitifully in the trash I’ve been meaning to clear out. Just then, some ass behind me starts laying on his horn. Like I can levitate my car for him. Instead of rendering the traditional hand salute to the joker, I carefully unbuckle the belt, all the while staring mournfully at the spreading stain on the Ferdie’s bag as my tiny island of seafood salvation leaks its luscious life onto the floormat.

Now I’m pissed. I’m gonna be late again, Tristham-Smythe is going to be steamed, and Big Boss Man is probably going to blow an apoplectic hole in his aorta. Man, that sucker in the lead car has got some serious ‘splainin’ to do, otherwise, there’s going to be a barbed-wire cage-match MMA bout right here in the street.

I start around the front of my old Subaru, looking to see how many headlights I’ve got left, when I hear from the driver of Black Beauty: “Oh my God, are you hurt?”

Huh?

It’s no dude, and I stand there, gawking. It’s Joselyn Jessup, the blond knockout from the movies! (I saw her first big film, “Don’t Call Me Bimbo!” a few years back. That was the one where she played the oversexed and under-loved fork-lift driver in the haunted Sears-Roebuck warehouse. She was drop dead gorgeous in the movie, and ended up dead in it, too; but now, and in living color . . .mama mia!)

I say, “Joselyn? I mean, Miss Jessup; is that you?”

“Of course it’s me, silly, and why don’t you call me JJ,” she says.

Did I hear right? Did she call me silly? The word sounds like enchanted music from the mouths of the Sirens.

“I. . . uh,” I rejoin so suavely. “I mean . . .uh.” My brain is suddenly mushy. Did I bump my head? I suddenly don’t remember. The car horn from behind starts yapping again. Bip-di-bip, beeeeep! I turn and give the guy the chin flick, like: quit buggin’ me here; I’m working.

All the while, JJ is sidling along her car’s back bumper, between me and her trunk lid, reaching up and pushing it down, hard. No dice, though, it just thwangs, and springs back open.

“Here, JJ, I’ll do that for you,” I say.

“No! No!” She almost spits it out, and I think she may be in shock from the stress of it all. She says, more calmly, “I can do it; really. . . uh . . .I’m sorry, what’s your name again?”

I hadn’t told her yet, so she must be shocky. I say, “Bobby . . . I mean Robert, Jameson. But my friends call me Rob.”

She says, “Well I certainly want to be your friend. . . Rob.” Her long lashes flutter a bit as she flashes me a thousand watt smile. Perfect teeth, perfect dimples, Perfect Ten.

Holy crap! She wants to be my friend!

I go to move around her to help with the trunk lid, but she intercepts me, blocking my way with a bodycheck from Heaven, all soft curves, a hint of la dolce vita. “No, really, Rob. I can handle it.”

I’m about to relent, and if she’d asked me to low-crawl over broken glass under machinegun fire, I’d probably do it, but then, I take a peek into the trunk and, “What the hell is THAT?” I sputter.

JJ says, “What’s what?”

“That body in there, JJ, in the trunk; that’s what’s what!”

“What body? Where?” she says.

“Right there . . .there!” I point to the body wrapped in a clear plastic sheet on top of the spare. Is she blind? And how’d a body get in Joselyn Jessup’s trunk, for God’s sake? What’s going on? I take my head in my hands and shake it. To add to the confusion I’m feeling, the asshat behind us just won’t let it go with that damn horn of his. It makes fingernails across a chalkboard sound melodious by comparison. “Shut the hell up!” I shout at the guy.

I hear a door slam, and I turn again to find the long black sedan cruising away, it’s trunk lid flapping in the breeze, and I’m left standing in the middle of the street, horns going off all around me now, wondering if my insurance covers the concussion I must have. I mean, I must have a concussion, right?

Right?