The Cadillac Hymn

The cherry red Cadillac screamed as it shot across the long black highway, throwing up great clouds of dusty tarmac as it went.

In a future where all that was left were endless, stretching black roads, the car was the king. And in it rode its courtesans.

Snake smoked a grey cigarette listlessly, steering the Cadillac idly with one hand, drumming the ash-coated dashboard with the other. He was bored. When Snake got bored, people noticed. Snake made people notice.
He reached across to the man curled up in the torn leather seat beside him. Snatched the book out of the man's hands without taking his eyes off the rolling road ahead. The Nevada desert fell away about them, always replaced in its turn by yet more sandy stretches.

"Whatcha readin', ped'?" Snake asked, his usual phlegm-laced smoker's drawl forced into a mock sing-song voice.
"It's Koont," the passenger called Judas spat. "It's a fucking classic. More letters in it than the whole fucking alphabet. Give it back."
"Nuh," Snake grunted. He shifted, switching the book from hand to hand, leaving the wheel as it was, and dangled the book over the open road as it roared along beneath them.
"Snake, don't be a ped', man," Judas whined. The arms that bunched under his faded bomber jacket must have been as thick as Snake's denim-clad legs, but the passenger hulking on the side did nothing. Snake was the Driver, after all. All car-crews had to follow a driver.

"Snake," Judas repeated. The pleading was forced. They had gone through this charade before.
"En't nothing to me, man," Snake shrugged. "I never got learnt to read. Got learnt how to drive."
A voice from the backseat. "Give the man back his book."
Snake sneered, flicking his gaze to the mirror. All he could see was the smooth black of the back-passenger's leather jacket. The back-passenger sat silently.
Wearily, and with a slight red tinge growing across his chapped cheeks, Snake spat on the plastic cover of the book and threw it back.
Judas caught it easily, and sank back into his reading.

"You're lucky I likes the Guitar Dude," Snake grunted, his fingers once more drumming on the ash-coated dashboard of the Cadillac. A tuneless solo.
The back-passenger, the one they knew only as the Guitar Dude, did nothing.
"You're lucky I listens to him," Snake insisted, weakly.
"Sure, driv'," Judas agreed, not taking his eyes from the book. He was making slow progress over the tiny black-and-white mess that sprawled across the page.

The Guitar Dude just sat there, silently. He wore a tight black Tee, and over it heavy black leathers. Black jeans clung smartly to thin, drainpipe legs, and his feet rested bare on the Cadillac's moulding carpet base.
Underneath a mass of unruly deep brown hair, giant mirrored shades hid the Guitar Dude's eyes.

Truth be told, their silent back-passenger terrified his fellow car-mates, backseat or no. Had hitched a lift without a word a gas-station they'd called at four weeks back. Hadn't said a word, he just hopped on in.
They called him the Guitar Dude for the weary electric guitar that he carried in his hands. That the guitar was a livid pink and decorated with lime floral patterns meant nothing to the front-seat pair.
They had seen what the Guitar Dude had done to the two guys who had once taken up the Cadillac's backseat. He'd unstrung the guitar's one string and quick as a rattlesnake, slit their throats with a twist of his keen steel string and left them twitching in the oilspill even as he'd slipped into the Cadillac's broad backseat.
They'd been big guys, too. One had fists like hams.

That was how he'd hitched his lift.

Snake drummed his solo restlessly for a moment more, then reached into the pocket of his mock-suede coat. It was frayed and gritty with wear, and Snake shuddered when he thought of the cool smoothness of the Guitar Dude's black leathers.
He found the grubby white tablet he'd been rooting for among the pocket crumbs and swallowed it thoughtlessly. Caffeine. Yeah. Quick rush. Stay on the road longer.

Judas frowned, turning the page with child-like care at long last. He treated the thin yellowing pages with reverence as his meaty fingers struggled to hold it delicately. He looked at the words on this new page, frowning, and with patient care turned back again.
He suspected he'd missed something.

Snake fiddled with the Cadillac's busted radio dial, feeling the druggy jitter kick in. His fingers tip-toed about the dial for a moment and then spun it up and down the wavelength.

The car blared out an angry static for a moment, and then began to clarify. Snippets of patriotic cheers could be snatched through the garbled wail, addresses made by the deep machine-like voices of the super-human heroes who supposedly ran the State. They spoke of Loyalty, and Duty, and Bravery against the Foreign Foe, and Snake ignored them.
You grew used to tuning out such lies after awhile on the road. You saw the country for what it was, and all it was was roads.

The static fought for control for a moment more, and then gave way. Johnny Cash drawled suddenly and violently out from the Cadillac radio. Snake whooped.

It was old, but so was all transmitted music nowadays. At least it was music. The television, such as Snake knew from bar-rooms in roadside haunts, could be relied on for nothing but grave-faced Workers Proud to Do Their Bit for the State, as well as looped mocked-up black-and-white clips of the Fatherland's Sons at War with their Dastardly Enemy, always Triumphant but always in need of more, more Sons to sate the State's insatiable victory roll.

They listened to Cash until the hot Nevada sun grew dark, and the road became all but invisible in the grey flatland beyond, and on the Cadillac king rolled, and its courtesans followed with it.

-

A gas-station, built like a fort, and a cherry red Cadillac rolls in.

The two in the backseat lie twitching on the rough, torn leather upholstery, a pool of gloopy scarlet blood running slick on the floor of the open-top car.

The driver, a man in mirrored shades and smooth black leathers, steps out, restringing his guitar. He closes the Cadillac door with his foot, and makes for the barricaded station.

The Cadillac is out of gas. He hears a roar, faint but growling, and spots a sky-blue Mustang screaming up the highway.

He steps out and waits for the car to pull in. Gas is precious, after all, and hard to come by in these parts. You stop where you can, and then you drive on, always on, never stopping and never looking back.
Driving where the State can't get you, where the Man can't find you. Always driving.

Slowly, he sets about unstringing his guitar once more. The sky-blue Mustang looks like it has a full backseat.

The Guitar Dude needs to hitch his lift.