The horrifying saga of a peaceful Eastern family terrorized by drug-crazed hoodlums in hot cars.

Copyright 1975, 2002 by Bruce Jaeger. All rights reserved.  (Printed in the DNF, July 1975)

     Harvey Flueploster picked up his office telephone and called home. It was December 24th, Christmas Eve, and he was eager to get home to his family. He had many surprise gifts packed in the trunk of his '64 Fairlane.
     The phone rang. His son Bobby answered. "Hello?"
     "Hello, son. This is your father."
     "Hey, pops, you better beat cheeks home!  The old lady's been hollering far an hour 'bout the duck being cold and your goose being cooked!   Or was it your duck being cooked and your goose ...."
     "Never mind, son. I'm coming home right away..."
     "Daddykins?" Sue Flueploster, 17, had just picked up her upstairs extension.
     "Yes?"
     "Did you get what I asked?"
     "Not yet. I'll stop at a drugstore on the way home."
     "Harvey?" It was Mrs. Harriet Flueploster on the kitchen extension.
     "Yes, dear?"
     "Your duck is cooked."

     Hurrying home, Harvey Flueploster was run off the road by a Peterbuilt. The car plunged over a 30 foot embankment, winding up against the side of a temporary construction outhouse after rolling 23 times. Harvey was busted all to hell.
     At the hospital, Harriet asked the doctor, "How is he? Is he hurt?"
     "Oh, nothing that a few months of bed rest won't cure. I prescribe buying a motel out in the middle of the tulies. "'My bro--that is, a business associate of mine has just the place."
     Sue rifled the unconscious Harvey's pockets. "Damn!" she muttered. "He didn't buy my pills!"
     The duck was rotting.

     The Flueplosters borrowed money from all their relatives, sold everything that they couldn't fit into or onto their '64 Fairlane, and took off for the Arizona desert, where they had just bought the Cozy Haven Nook Hotel. They were going to start a new life there. Sue didn't want to go. Since she hadn't received her pills, she'd already start a new life. Bobby didn't care at all, as long as he had his GI Joe doll with the bazooka accessories.
     Harriet Flueploster was driving. No one trusted the old man behind the wheel anymore since he busted up their old '64 Fairlane. The new '64 Fairlane didn't have air conditioning, since they were trying to save money to pay for a creepy motel out in Furleyburg. This caused Sue to get cranky.
     "I'm hot!"
     "So am I!"
     "I'm going to throw up!" That was Bobby, who was regretting having a sardine and jelly sandwich for lunch.
     Suddenly, a '64 Corvette and a hot rod with a '64 Chrysler engine screamed by. A girl with big cans was sitting on the rear platform of the convertible Corvette, and she threw a can at the Flueplosters. She giggled and wiggled.
     "Damned crazy kids!" screamed Harvey, throwing his back out of whack.
     "Yeah!" said Bobby. "That can was empty!"
     "I thought that guy driving was just dreamy!" said Sue Flueploster.
     Suddenly Bobby screamed. "They're coming back!" Indeed, the two hot-rods had turned around, and were coming towards the Flueplosters in the right lane at over 100 miles an hour!
     "Oh, Harvey!" Harriet screamed, clutching Harvey's arm. Unfortunately, she had been driving at the time, so the wheel spun and the oar shot off the road, plowing across the desert.
     "Chicken!" laughed the juvenile delinquents.
     "Oh, I'm so mortified, I could die!" said Sue.

     They finally got to their motel, which turned out to be a genuine '64 flashy-light night-club. There, in front, was parked the '64 Corvette. Sue walked into the club, where everyone was dancing to a guy who had just learned how to play the saxophone, A handsome fellow with wavy, combed-back black hair walked up to Sue.
     "Say," he asked, "Aren't you that good-looking chick riding with that chicken family in the '64 Fairlane?"
     "Yes," she muttered.
     'Well, hi, baby, my name's Bud." He stuck a paw on her shoulder and tried to kiss her.
     "Is that all you ever think of is kissing?" demanded Sue.
     "Aw, what's the matter, baby? Afraid of a little kiss?"
     "No, doofus, I came here to get laid."
     "Aaaa, I think I better go out and check if my carburetor is running a little lean." Bud left. A raunchy, grizzly, stringy-thin old country sheriff walked up to Sue.
     "Young woman, was that polecat bothering you?" he asked, resting a hand on her left buttock.
     "He wouldn't know how," she said.
     'Well, I've got a '64 Plymouth squad car outside that sleeps two," he said, leering and drooling tobacco.
     "Let's go."

     Harvey Flueploster noticed that his daughter was missing from their motel room. "Bobby, where did Suzy go?"
     "She went to the nightclub to see that hot rod feller."
     "If that young punk even so much as touches her!" roared Harvey as he threw his back out of whack.
     "Oh, Harvey, I'm scared!" cried Harriet as she clutched at Harvey's arm. Unfortunately;. he was on the other side of the room at the time, so she fell out of her chair, spraining her left wrist. "Be careful, Harvey!"
     Harvey stormed out of the motel room and into the night club. The saxophone player was still working on the same song. Harvey saw Bud and his friends in the green bottle section eating cheeseburgers.
     "Where's my daughter?" he screamed.
     "She went out with the sheriff, sir!" explained Bud.
     "Oh, in that case, I'm sure she's all right," smiled Harvey. The JDs all laughed after Harvey left.

     Later that night, after the nightclub closed, Bud and his friends were driving home to nearby Eastberg when they ware run off the road by Harvey Flueploster, who was hurrying to the all-night superette to buy some Kaopectate, The Corvette shot off a six-inch embankment, and was totally demolished.
     "Serves you slowpokes right!" yelled Harvey with a maniacal scream as he roared by. Bud and his friends flagged down a passing tow-truck, who towed them to a neighboring boat-repair shop to have their Corvette fixed.
     Meanwhile, Sheriff Maybury and Sue were returning from nearby Second-To-Last Vegas, a small town on the Arizona-Alabama border, They saw Harvey coming. Sue giggled. "Looks like another Kaopectate run!" The sheriff smiled.
     As Harvey and Bobby and Harriet roared by, the sheriff cut loose with his 12-gauge, blowing up the '64 Fairlane's front tire. The car careened off a bridge abutment, then plunged down a 30-foot embankment to land upside down in the Mississippi River. The sheriff and Sue both giggled, then drove away to their new motel.

The End