The beat down bitch is burning oil into blue smoke, the engine knocking louder than your hangover, and you’ve still got the prom to look forward to.

“I can’t take you anywhere.”

Kitten DeMilo gives with a cross look, but you’re not talking to her. This is between you and the car. The Lumina. It’s seen better days.

But then again, haven’t we all?

“What do we gotta drink?” Kitten asks.

You pretend not to hear; you’re holding that engine together with sheer will power. There’s a crease in your forehead like a dog-eared page.

“Baaa-beee-”

“Fer Christ’s sake,” you scream, “it’s a high school prom. There’ll be plenty ‘a booze!”

Kitten looks assured, slinks back in the seat. It seems your quick thinking is what keeps her around. Or maybe it’s low self esteem. After all, Kitten Demilo is a rare woman, the kind born without any hair.

“But neither that nor my Crone’s Disease kept me from being Miss Teen Idaho,” she told you six
months ago over a raspberry margarita, beneath which a soggy napkin read ‘The Pink Camel Gentleman’s Club, one hump or two?’ Three drinks and twenty minutes later she was graduating to Mrs. Teen Idaho, and you were offering more than a handshake and a crown. Follicaly-challenged or not, Teen Queen Kitten DeMilo could turn your head like a doctor demanding a cough.

You blink, and it’s back behind the pedal of a sedan screaming eighty-miles an hour into serious malfunction. This is no joke. This is a gig. This is the Isobel High School Senior Prom. Easy money. And there’s no way you’re walking fifteen miles with an amp in one hand, a bass guitar in the other, and a pissed off lady friend three shakes behind.

The car drops an O ring, and so do you as a piston yells “fuck this shit” and cracks free of the engine block. Kitten startles easy. Before you can grit your teeth she’s got five sharp nails railing into a thigh. Your thigh.

You pull the ride to the side, but don’t worry, this lonesome stretch of two lane blacktop sees less traffic than a nun’s panties.

“Shit-God-Damn,” you say, and it really sums up the situation.

Outside it’s darker than a blind man’s ass at midnight. Kitten crawls out of the car and into her fake mink coat, nervous as hell that you might sell her ass to the first trucker with a bag of Corn Nuts and a sense of humor. Worse yet, you’re not sure that’s such a bad idea.

“We could build a fire,” she pleads, “and make smoke signals, like the Indians, and all the ancient people before them.”

Most body heat is lost through the head, and without a single hair on her body, Kitten DeMilo gets cold in a hurry. Good. You’re feeling very Alpha-Male, out there in the wide open spaces, and foraging for dry wood sounds pretty damn appealing.

However, before you can play Last of the Mohicans a set of fast moving lights flare up in the distance. Two shakes later, Kitten is atop the Lumina, jumping spread eagle in the air like an aerobics instructor.

The thought strikes like good Teamsters: Kitten might be bald, but you’re a dirty punk with more blue hair than a retirement home, and this ain’t exactly San Francisco. Quickly you pop the trunk and dig for the tire iron. Kitten glows brighter and brighter in the speeding lights. Your hands taste metal. Whether Hekyl or Jekyl, it’s time to man up and make a call: do you blackjack this hick and steal his ride, or are you gonna stand on the kindness of strangers?