Way Past Legal by Norman Green Read Free Book Online Page B

white-haired guy with leathery brown skin looked out the window.
     
     
"You evah notice," he said, "they nevah seem to break down anywheyah convenient?"
     
     
"I noticed it this time."
     
     
"Ayuh. Any idea what's wrong with her?"
     
     
"I think it's a CV joint."
     
     
"Now just what in the hell is a CV joint?"
     
     
"Constant-velocity joint. It's what this thing has instead of a front axle."
     
     
The guy shook his head. "Theyah making cahs too damn complicated anymowah. Too many things to get frigged up on ya. Computahs, plastic and metal thin enough to open with nail clippahs. You fellas like a ride?"
     
     
"That would be great."
     
     
"Well, lemme pull off the road heah fore I get run ovah by a pulp truck." He clunked the thing back into gear and pulled behind us onto the shoulder, tail to tail with the van, then he got out and walked back. He looked to be in his sixties, maybe five foot ten, lean, as though the wind and cold weather had eroded away all the superfluous parts of him. He had the letters "USMC" tattooed on his forearm in faded blue.
     
     
Nicky was standing up in the driver's seat. "Hey theyah, young fella," the guy said, going over to the window. "What's yaw name?"
     
     
"Nicky."
     
     
"Who's that guy?" He nodded his head in my direction.
     
     
"Poppy," Nicky said. "That's my dad."
     
     
"Well, I'm pleased to meet ya, Nicky. I'm Louis." He turned in my direction.
     
     
"Friends call me Manny."
     
     
"Well, Manny," he said, "I guarantee you ain't gonna find no CV joint noth of Ellsworth. I'll ride ya down ta see Gevier, an' we'll get him to come give yah a tow." I locked up the minivan and we climbed into the Jeep.
     
     
Louis's truck was even noisier from the inside, but I didn't want to say too much, since it was running and the minivan wasn't. I sat in the passenger seat and held Nicky in my lap. There were, needless to say, no seat belts—such frivolities came along a decade or two after the truck was built. The ride was beyond harsh, and you could see the road going by beneath your feet through holes in the floor pan. And every so often the truck would hit a bump and take a funny sort of sideways hop.
     
     
"That feels a little weird," I shouted to Louis over the clatter of ancient metal. "You feel that, every once in a while, when you hit a bump just right?"
     
     
"Ayuh," Louis said. "She slides around a bit. The old girl ain't much of a piece anymowah. Body sits on the frame like a hat on a bald man's head. Long's we don't go too fahst nor the wind blow too hahd, she be fine."
     
     
"How'd you ever get this thing to pass inspection?"
     
     
"Inspection?" Louis looked at me like I was nuts. "This heah's a fahm vehicle. Kinda like a tractah. Don't need no stickah." He winked at Nicky. "She don't got no CV joints, though."
     
     
"Just as well," I said.
     
     
    * * *
I suppose I really should say something about the way down easters, or some of them, talk, because it is a strange and anachronistic tongue which cannot properly be reproduced in speech or in ink, and if I continue to try, I will drive both you and myself crazy. It is one of those things which must be experienced to be appreciated, let alone understood.
     
     
The most basic element of this puzzle is the complete loss of the letter r , except in places where it does not belong. "Whore," for example, is no longer a simple monosyllabic term with a concrete definition, it is "ho-ah," and you, me, Richard Nixon, and Mother Teresa are all sons of whores, as is your minivan when it breaks down, and your decrepit Jeep pickup when it does not. No judgment, either good or bad, is implied. And while the capital of the state of Maine is Aguster and Hong Kong is part of Chiner, out-of-state yuppies tend to drive Beemahs and a man too tight with a buck is a pikah.
     
     
Certain expressions, as well, like endangered species that may be found here and nowhere else, are best understood in context. For example, if