Waltz across Texas with a Shoe and a Fart (WALTZ ACROSS series book #1)

Chapter 3: Drear Window

Driving onto the freeway ramp, they became aware that the rear window was missing.

"Whoa, man! You're missing your back window!"

"I can hear that, Captain Obvious! Man, and this thing is brand new, too!" Barnard was banging on the steering wheel while rubber-necking back and forth between his side mirror and left blind spot. Pulling into the right lane of I-10 and headed west, the roar from the back of the car occluded the CD player.

Not one to miss a moment like this, he reached for his phone and came up empty.

"Where is my phone, Audie? Do you see it anywhere in the floor?"

"Right here, B-man. I've had it ever since you gave it to me at the club last night."

"Okay, genius, so go ahead and get a pic of that back window. At least I can log something. We're a fourth of the way through this thing and I don't have anything to show for it. Then I'm going to have to figure out how to get a new window in there."

"Oh, ye of so little faith, Barnyard," Audie said focusing the phone's camera toward the back of the car. "I got awesome video of you dancing on tables at that bar last night and you did a funny video piece about kickers and strippers. I uploaded it all before I got too wasted to know what was going on. I also caught most of that back there with Sid's truck blowing the back axle. And now ... start talking about the back window, dude." He moved the camera to Barnard.

"Um, wait, you've been photographing our trip so far?"

"Yeah, but talk about the window, man. I'm streaming this up now."

Barnard stared at Audie a few seconds and then spoke. "Yeah, well, the window, as you saw, is now missing from my new Smart Car. We evidently lost it back there at Reliant Stadium. We were kidnapped by these two cowboys, Sid and Donnie, who tried to force us to rob the stadium's box office for them, but we managed to make a fast getaway. Our thanks go out to the beer drinking guys who dogpiled Donnie and Sid and enabled our escape, whoever you guys are. Sid was the mastermind behind the whole thing and when we find out his last name, we're going to turn in that son of a ..."

"Biscuits!"

"What?"

"Biscuits! Pass the Biscuit! I haven't seen one of those since I was a kid!"

Barnard stared at Audie blankly, who was still holding the recording iPhone on him, wondering if he'd been mistaken and his moron best friend wasn't actually from this planet. His stomach immediately derailed this, though, to the reality that this was a pretty decent suggestion.

"Exit exit exit! Now!"

Barnard slung the wheel to the right, barely missing the water barrels on the ramp, both of them shouting panicked expletives all the way to the light at the bottom. Panting over the steering wheel, Barnard sputtered a question.

"You got all that?"

"Yep. Just now stopping and ... bingo!" Audie stuck the phone into Barnard's shirt pocket. "Good thing you got 4G. So? We going to eat or cause a traffic jam?" Gruffing out a frustrated "hrrumph," Barnard stepped on the gas.

Once in the parking lot of the restaurant, they examined the damage to the car, Barnard cussing most of the time until looking into the back seat. What was most obvious was the lack of broken glass. They looked at the opening for over a minute, folding and unfolding their arms, sticking their thumbs in their back pockets, and considering what this must mean. Audie put his hand on the bottom of the window opening and felt the top edge of a window then spoke.

"Dude, did you know this window would roll down?" Barnard grunted something, shaking his head sideways with his arms again folded. "The side windows were down when we got in, too, weren't they?" Another grunt from Barnard, this time with jerky up and down head nodding. "Hmph. Sid must have been trying to save gas, then, and rolled down all the windows." More of the same from Barnard. "Well, hey! Look at the bright side! You still have a back window, dude! The worst is that your baby is a little scratched up. Let's eat!" Audie left Barnard standing at the car, went in and ordered biscuits and gravy for both of them with scrambled eggs, and got to the table about the time Barnard finally decided to come in.

"We're not going to talk to anyone about this, are we, Audie?" Barnard said while salting and peppering his food.

"Be kind of tough to do that, my man. Video's already up on your site."

"Crap. At least I'm not making it public as in like talking about it on facebook and all that." Audie felt that as clouded as Barnard's attitude was, this would not be the time to remind him that he had linked his YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter accounts so that everything would be public and advertised from day one. Frustrated that his trip was not going according to his vision, Barnard was latching onto anything for a complaint. "By the way, can you stop complaining about your damn boots? Why wear them if you you're going to be so afraid of scratching them up or something?"

"Hey, where did that come from? I wasn't complaining about my boots!"

"Yeah, you were. You complained in the back of their truck that you might get them scratched by getting my car out. What was more important? Screwing up your boots or letting them screw up our faces?"

"Leave me alone about my footwear, man! My Aunt Jeanie gave these to me. You decided on the Texas theme for this excursion so I thought I would add some flavor. In fact, you should get yourself a pair."

"No. I may have been born and raised in Dallas, but I'm more of a tennis shoe guy. You stop bragging and complaining about those things and I'll leave you alone about them, deal?"

"Yeah. Well, hey, we just won't bring it back up and move on from here, how about that?"

"Sure." They ate in silence until nearly finished when Barnard's phone chirped with a Star Trek communicator sound. "Wow, my mom never sends me a text. I hope she's okay." Checking his phone, his face fell and he slowly looked up at Audie. "You're not going to believe this. She's already seen the video and she's pissed that I screwed up my new car. This trip is already FUBAR, man."

"Hey, you know what?" Audie replied back with renewed invigoration, still not wanting to tell him. "Yeah, it's totally FUBAR, dude, but did you want a boring trip across Texas, man? No! You wanted this to be cool, on the edge, and that's exactly what it is! You nearly got us both in a lot of trouble and maybe killed and you totally owe me on that one, but we're good now. Just tell your mom it isn't as bad as it looks, we're both just fine, and that we're hamming up the videos to make it more fun. Okay? Just tell her that, let's finish up, and then let's boogie on to the Alamo."

Barnard was amazed by Audie at times like this. Usually the downer between the two of them, Audie sometimes had the indomitable capacity to pull both of them up at the worst moment and turn bad times into something cool.

"Sorry I griped at you about your boots."

"No sweat. I knew you needed to eat. Now we need to roll on to fame and fortune!"

Barnard stuck the last of his food into his mouth in one fork-full and said, "Yir rah, man, ash shackee wha whir doin'!"

They high-fived each other,Barnard sent a text back to his mother, and they lit out of Pass the Biscuit toforge new trails in their waltz across Texas. They ended up driving most of themiles to San Antonio with the windows still down, however, since something inthe sausage gravy resulted in severe lower abdominal distress, even for Barnard.Audie's IBS forced them to stop a few times with great urgency. Undaunted bythis, the two of them drove with renewed hope and a brave sense of adventure.