On his mother's birthday, Tony found a metal contraption that inhaled corpses.

   "Hey Tony," Roy yelled from outside the garage. "Ride with me for a minute." Roy was Tony's stepfather: 45 years old, loud, impatient, crude, never had a part in his hair in his life, and obsessed with junk cars. He yanked open the garage door a couple of feet, stuck his head inside, and his eyes surveyed through the refuse until he saw Tony. "I need some help getting your mother's birthday present."

   Tony set his electric guitar in its stand and turned off his amplifier. He walked out of the garage and climbed into Roy's blue Ford pickup.

   "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash was playing on Roy's radio as they drove over to the next town. Near the end of the song they made a left turn onto a highway. Tony looked out his window and watched as a farmer burned off his field. The flames remained low to the charred, black ground and moved slowly toward the remaining patches of yellow stubble. The smoke rising from the fire looked pink due to the sun's rays reflecting off of a line of trees from behind the fire, and Tony thought it was a perfect scene to match the music in the truck: where the deep black and bright yellow met, there was a semicircle.

   "What are you getting mom for her birthday?" Tony asked.

   Roy hesitated, a sluggish smile spread over his face, and he took a pouch of chewing tobacco from the dashboard. He crammed a plug of it into his cheek and worked on it with his tongue. "You'll see." He wanted Tony to be just as surprised as his mother was going to be.

   Those were the only words exchanged during the short drive since Tony and Roy had little in common. They were about as different as French caviar and fried bologna.

   Twenty minutes later they walked into a used car dealer's office.

   "I'll take that one right there," Roy said to the lady behind the desk. He pointed to a small red Toyota setting in the parking lot.

   Tony stood with his hands in his pockets looking around the office. It had freshly painted beige walls, was brightly lit, and seemed sanitary like a doctor's office. There was a large painting by M.C. Escher displayed near a plant in the corner. He walked over and studied Escher's artistic symmetrical illusion. The effect Escher produced with his painting appealed to Tony in the same way the symmetry of classical guitar licks appealed to him.

   After filling out a few papers, Roy took his wallet from his back pocket. The wallet was attached to a thick, 2-foot-long shiny chain, which was fastened to one of the belt loops on his pants. Tony looked down and read the bold lettering on it: "Big Cats Are Dangerous But A Little Pussy Never Hurt Anybody." He turned away shaking his head.

   Roy took $8,500 from his wallet in 1,000 and 100 dollar bills and handed the sum to the sales lady.

   "Okay, sir," the woman said. "Just give me a moment." She took the money and papers with her into a back room.

   Roy picked up a "No Smoking" sign from the sales lady's desk and examined it as closely as he examined the faulty carburetors in his salvage yard. Tony watched Roy put the sign into his right back pocket and cover it with the tail of his flannel shirt. Roy did this quickly before the sales lady returned.

   Roy leaned over toward Tony. "That'll be a good sign for your mom's car," he whispered while smiling.

   Tony's mother was a heavy smoker. He didn't say anything. He walked outside to wait for Roy to finish buying the Toyota, and also to get away from any other illegal activity that might occur.

   A few minutes later Roy came outside and told Tony to drive the Toyota home and he would follow him. Roy handed him the keys and the No Smoking sign and Tony went over to the Toyota and got in. He glanced around checking out the interior of the car. Not too bad, he thought. Then something near the dome light of the car caught his attention: it was a fluorescent purple metal box, about the size of a radar detector, but without any wires. He leaned in for a closer look, but he didn't touch it. On the bottom side was a small white lightning bolt enclosed in a red circle. What the hell is this thing? He started to take it out of the clip holding it, but then drew his hand back. Who cares.

   He turned on the radio during the drive back and listened to "L.A. Woman" by The Doors. He turned the volume up, looked at the stolen No Smoking sign on the dashboard, and pushed the accelerator down a little further.

   A couple of minutes later, Tony saw Roy pull up next to him in the passing lane, honking and waving. He rolled down his window.

   "You better slow that son-of-a-bitch down," Roy yelled. "You're gonna get a ticket."

   Tony nodded, rolled his window back up, and watched Roy speed past him.

   Yeah right, he thought. He doesn't care about a ticket. He just wants to be the first one to reveal the surprise.

   After Roy passed him, Tony's thoughts turned to his immediate future. In two months he would turn eighteen. He'd been practicing the guitar six to ten hours a day, and although he was in a band, they weren't getting paying gigs. He knew he'd probably have to get a job at the foundry where Roy was a foreman soon. And that would mean giving up his goal of being a professional musician. The stress of moving into adulthood was hitting him in the face like a semi hitting a carton of eggs at a hundred miles an hour.

   Tony and Roy drove into town and pulled up in front of their little white house which set in the middle of the block. The stacked railroad ties around the house which served as a fence were still damp from the rain they had gotten that morning. Tony's mother came out smiling.

   Tony got out of the Toyota. "Happy Birthday, mom." He went to the garage, turned on his amplifier, took his guitar from the stand, and began playing the main riff to "L.A. Woman."

* * *

   That night around one o'clock Tony was lying in bed asleep. He heard the engineof Roy's truck roar outside his window -- like an airplane at takeoff -- and woke up.

   Mom and Roy must have had a fight, he thought. He rolled over on his side, pulled back the curtains, and looked out the window. The driveway was empty except for his mother's new Toyota. It was silent again except for the faint whipping of the neighbor's American flag. The earlier roar of the truck seemed like a crime against the darkness. He rolled over and went back to sleep.

   Tony came out of his room the next morning, ready to begin his guitar practice.

   His mother was in the kitchen wiping down the counters, and Roy was still sleeping.

   "Did you and Roy have an argument last night?" he asked.

   "No. Why would you think that?"

   "Because last night I heard him tearing out of the driveway."

   "What?"

   She walked briskly out the back door and over to the driveway. He followed her.

   The truck was in its normal place. She went back inside, retrieved Roy's keys from a hook on the back porch, and went over to the truck to unlock it. Tony checked the truck for damages.

   "Why did you get the keys?" Tony asked. "You know he never locks it. That's how it was stolen in the first place."

   She opened the truck door and everything appeared to be fine.

   Then she noticed the radar detector was missing.

   And there was something in its place.

   It was a fluourescent green metal box, the same size as the radar detector, except it had no wires coming out of it.

   "Look at this, Tony," she said.

   Tony moved closer and she stepped aside. He lifted the box from the clip holder to examine it. On the bottom side there was an inch and a half long yellow lightning bolt enclosed in a red circle. On the top there was a skull and cross bones in yellow. He remembered the metal box in his mother's car.

   "Don't I have something that looks like that in my new car?"

   "Yeah."

   "Well, What is it?"

   "Don't know. Maybe the guy who took the truck left it by mistake."

   "Everything else looks fine."

   "Yeah." Tony set the box back in the holder. He thought he saw the yellow skull and cross bones light up for a second. "Strange," he said. And they went inside.

* * *

   Tony sat on the couch reading a guitar magazine. News from the television droned in the background. Roy had just come in from work. Tony's mother was out running errands but had previously warmed up some beans for Roy. Roy pulled a chair out in the dining room and sat down. Seconds later, Tony heard him make a Whoooo sound, in pain. He turned and saw Roy with his head tilted back, lips puckered, blowing hot steam out of his mouth, like smoke from a train.

   After Roy had recovered from the blistering beans, he said, "I think I know who took my truck last night."

   "Yeah?" Tony said. "Who?"

   Roy stirred the beans, then blew into his bowl. The steam scattered into the air like confetti. "A guy at work told me Jim Bryant steals people's cars and takes them for joy rides sometimes when he gets drunk at night."

   "Oh yeah?" Tony turned a couple of pages of his magazine. "Let's pay him a visit later. See what he says about it."

* * *

   Jim Bryant was sitting on his front porch drinking a beer when they pulled up. Tony watched Jim's expression change from beer-happy to worried-shitless when he noticed Roy's truck pull up in front of his house. Roy walked up Jim's sidewalk with a nonthreatening smile -- he always played the good guy -- and sat down on the porch next to Jim. Tony got out of the truck and stood by the tailgate.

   "Hello Jim," Roy said.

   "How's it going, Roy."

   "Okay." Roy sat down next to him. "I came by because someone took off in my truck last night. Know anything about it?"

   Jim turned away from Roy and stared down the street for a few seconds before he spoke. His expression read that he had been through this scenario before. "There's your truck right there. How did they take it if you still have it?"

   "Well, they brought it back. But I know someone took it because my radar detector is gone. And Tony heard it speed off last night."

   Jim bolted up off the porch and threw his can of beer down in the grass. A spray of foam flew out of it and hit Roy in the face. Jim charged Roy, swinging wildly even though he was so drunk all of his punches missed the target, and he only succeeded in throwing himself off balance so Roy could tie him up. Jim managed to break free, and he charged again. Tony took a large steel pipe from the back of Roy's truck, ran up into the yard, and slammed it against Jim's temple. A jet of blood sprayed out in three different angles. Jim's entire body went limp, and he slammed to the ground like a piece of fallen timber.

   "Shit," Roy said in a panicked voice. "Why did you hit him with that? Jesus."

   "I don't know." He shook his head as if just now waking up. "Damn, I don't even remember doing it."

   "What are we going to do with him?"

   They looked down at Jim's body. Blood was pouring from his temple, and the pool was forming a question mark-like shape on the ground.

   Tony turned to see if there were any witnesses. He noticed a flash of yellow light come out of the truck's cab; then heard music that sounded roughly like "Flight of the Bumble Bee."

   "Where's that noise coming from?" Roy asked.

   Tony walked toward the truck. It started to shake. The volume of the music increased. Yellow vapor floated out of the cab. Tony stepped back as the gas shot out of the passenger window and floated over to Jim's body. The blood on the ground turned to vapor, floated up, and started to mix with the yellow smoke, forming stripes in the air. The red and yellow gases slid under Jim's body, lifted him up, and he levitated over to the truck.

   Tony and Roy stared, awe struck.

   The red and yellow vapors encircled the body and sped up, whooshing faster and faster, the music growing in intensity, until Jim's body began to shrink. It dissolved and the yellow and red fog disappeared into the cab. The interior of the truck brightened and Tony and Roy watched the metal box inhale all the smoke along with Jim's body.

   Roy ambled over to where Tony was standing. "Did his body go into that box?"

   "Looked like it to me. Did you notice there's another box like that in the car you bought for Mom?"

   "No." He took the steel pipe out of Tony's hand and looked at the blood on the end. "Oh man. What's happening?"

* * *

   They climbed into the truck, both staying as far toward their respective doors as possible. The box wasn't glowing or making any noise now. Finally Tony reached up, ripped out the metal box, and threw it out his window onto the street. Then he looked at his hand: nothing. He glanced at Roy: reticent.

   Tony's mother's Toyota was in the driveway when they pulled in. Tony ran over to it in a frenzy, opened the door, ripped out the box, and stomped it until it was only a angle of plastic. He lifted it from the ground. There were no wires or electronics inside.

   Roy was already in the house calling for Tony's mother when Tony came in. But she wasn't anywhere in the house. So they waited.

   And waited.

   Three hours later she still hadn't shown up and they decided to look for her.

   They slammed the doors of the truck, Roy started it, and Tony saw something flashing faintly above him. The metal contraption was back, and the yellow lightning bolt was flaring and chirping out an erratic sequence: dzzt dzzt ... dzzt dzzt dzzt ... dzzt ... dzzt dzzt ... dzzt dzzt dzzt dzzt ... dzzt ... dzzt dzzt dzzt ..., like an eerie version of Morse code. When Roy noticed the box, he kicked his legs and turned his body until his back was firmly pressed against his door.

   But Tony was more pissed off at the intruder than scared. "What a fucking nuisance!" He snatched it out of the holder again, got out of the truck, and hurled it as far as he could down the street. He jumped back in and Roy floored the truck throwing gravel. The squall of the tires against the rocks sounded like Beelzebub clearing his throat.

   They drove everywhere looking for Tony's mom: grocery store, beauty parlor, video store, and even dirt roads she'd probably never driven down in her life. But they couldn't find her.

* * *

   The house was still empty when they gave up and returned. Tony called his mother's sister and a few of her friends, but none of them had seen her. His aunt volunteered to continue the search, but he told her to forget about it, that she'd probably show up anytime now.

   Tony and Roy waited up for her. Roy fell asleep on the couch. Tony fell asleep in a chair.

   Hours later, lights flashed from the dining room like a private thunderstorm. Tony woke up and glanced at an electronic clock on the wall. It blinked 66:66 as if the electricity in the house had been knocked out briefly. He stalked into the dining room where the light was coming from. Roy was levitating on his back six feet in the air.

   Crackles and fingers of lightning surrounded Roy's body. Both of the metal corpse machines were now setting on the dining room table, casting out brilliant spasms of light and electricity.

   A bolt of electricity shot out of the first box and zapped Tony in the throat. He quaked and shuddered, suspended by the millions of volts electrifying his body.

   He fell to the ground.

   The second box cast out yellow vapors, then lifted him into the air.

   The first box sucked Roy in.

   The second box inhaled Tony.

   A metallic voice emanated from the first box, "dzzt dzzt ... We have enough. It's time to leave ... dzzt."

 ©2004 Jason Earls