Ethan's Gang : Unholy War : Book I

Chapter 11 - Entering Manhattan

7:55 AM, Near Elizabeth, New Jersey

     The Cadillac Fleetwood tore down the New Jersey Turnpike at 90 miles per hour, weaving in and out of traffic as it passed cars, busses, trucks, hearses, motorcycles, and even a rocket-propelled unicycle.  The madman riding the bizarre unicycle-contraption, however, soon lost control and wiped out against the rear end of a semi trailer, exploding.  The truck caught on fire.  The truck was loaded with dynamite. The resulting explosion destroyed 38 cars, killed 97 people and 3 hermit crabs, caused a 280 car pileup, and blocked all 8 lanes of traffic for over six hours.  Fortunately, Ethan and his friends had already passed the rocket-powered unicycle before it wrecked, and thus left the catastrophe behind them in the rearview mirror.

     "Well," Ethan said, observing the multiple car crashes in his rear-view mirror, "That's a good sign.  Normally, we would have been right in the middle of all that."

     Blue Oyster Cult's CD, "Imaginos", was playing on the car's stereo.  It was a concept album so dense and twisted and multi-layered and pompous that it ultimately made no sense at all, as well as meaning everything, both at the same time.  Guitar magic wrought by the mystic magician of the six-string, the incomparable Buck Dharma, a.k.a. Donald Roeser, filled the car, and Ethan began to sing a demented Caribbean voodoo incantation. 

     "Unlickable boys / before I leave your eyes / Twin in the mirror, then we said it's dawn! Then the animation, before I leave your eyes, world in the mirror, waters of amnesia rise!"

     "What the hell does that mean!?" Brandon demanded comically.

     "I'm just singing along with it, I didn't write the damn lyrics!" Ethan blurted.

     At that moment, a 400 pound Honduran woman in a silk bikini jumped off an overhead highway sign and landed on the road in front of the speeding car. 

     "What the HELL!?" Ethan shouted, twisting the wheel.  The car missed the fat lady, who looked dead, and instead sideswiped a nearby Chevy Camaro. The driver of the Chevy screamed as his car was forced brutally off the road by the oversized Cadillac, crashing into a light post at 70 miles per hour.  The concrete post didn't budge.  The Camaro was cleaved in half, with the driver's corpse remaining stuck to the light post for a few seconds before sliding to the ground.

     "That stupid fat bitch!" Ethan shouted, "I bet there's a goddamn DENT in my car now! Haaargh!!"

     "Hey man, don't worry." Brandon said, "It coulda been a lot worse.  Besides, we can buy another car any time you want.  We're the richest boys in the world, remember?"

     Ethan considered this for a moment before smiling and saying "Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say THAT, my golden HawkBoy, but yes, we ARE rather well off.  Mwa ha ha ha!"

     To be precise, Ross was carrying $50,000 in his Paperboy Bag.  Ethan had double that in a suitcase under his bed back home, and each of the other guys also had five to ten thousand dollars in "spending money".  All of that pales next to Ethan's secret Swiss investment account, which contained over 5 million dollars, earning 40% annual interest.

     "Okay, alright." Ethan said to Brandon, "I guess I WOULD have to be a skinflint tightwad sonofabitch to gripe about a dented car when we've got millions of dollars, especially after we basically murdered that poor stupid bastard in the Camaro back there."

     "Ethan!!" Buranden playfully gasped, "You feel GUILTY about that!? Say it ain't so, pappy!  Say you haven't gone soft on us!"   Buranden was being hammy.  He grasped at Ethan's shoulder and playfully shook him, looking at him in an amusingly beseeching manner.