8/7/23
"Ka-chow." McQueen said with absolutely no emotion in his voice, but an annoyed look of contempt was visible on his face. He didn't even try to hide it. He did not want to be there and was desperate to get away from all the ruffed up, slightly drunk country bumpkins in the tent. Rubes who would rather ride tractors and rusty old pickups through mud pits than actually care about keeping their cars looking nice, clean, and flashy.
He gave a bored wave as the visitors started to cheer for him and started to back up into the trailer for his race car. "Hey, kid." Rusty said, one of the sponsors of Rust-eze who had decided to give the rookie his big break and get him into the world of racing officially.
His brother, Dusty, continued for him. "We love ya. And we're looking forward to another great year. Just like this year!" The two laughed heartily. The rookie put a fake smile onto his face and waved as the door to his trailer lifted up and closed shut.
"Not on your life." McQueen spat quietly to himself, disgust lacing his words like venom. The false smile that had been on his face dropped quick as a flash too. He could feel the engine of Mack's truck stutter awake, and a few seconds later he could feel the trailer begin to lightly sway back and forth as his truck driver began to pull him away and off to California.
"California, here we come!" Mack's voice came through the radio.
McQueen smiled and replied, "Dinoco, here we come!"
The young racer unbuckled his fancy Rust-eze Piston Cup brand jacket, still keeping it on but giving himself a little more breathing room. He firmly placed his hands on the hood of his race car and pushed his body up towards the roof of the car, sliding himself down its backside. With a scoot of himself to the side, he hopped off the back end and landed on the soft, foamy couch that rested at the very back of the trailer.
Laying down with an arm behind his head to help prop his head up and support his neck, McQueen sighed as he basked in the quiet and solitude of his makeshift home. You see, Lightning McQueen lived and breathed for racing to the point where it was a part of him on all accounts, physical, mental, and emotional. He was never seen in public in anything other than his racing getup, and was rarely seen away from his beloved car. He loved the sport so much that he literally lived in the trailer for his car. The truck trailer for his race car.
The trailer at least had everything in it that he needed. A television for watching everything racing and racing news related, wall space to hang his own memorabilia and professional pictures of himself taken in the moment, shelves to hold even more merchandise like little McQueen bobble heads of various sizes, basically full body one-way windows along the sides of the trailer so that he could see outside and get some sunlight but so nobody else could look in and pry, stuff suited for your typical cocky and conceited racer. There was a mini fridge to hold his drinks and small foods, which was stuffed full by the way, a microwave that served especially well for his popcorn and Hot Pockets (not sponsored lmao), a couch for rest, even though he mostly just slept either in his car or on the hood with his back leaned back against the windshield, and the trailer also had a built-in stereo radio system. Typical young adult abode, right?
McQueen, using a small remote, clicked on the radio system and searched through the stations until he found the perfect song for the start of his travels: Life is a Highway. He hummed along to the song as it played, his foot bouncing to the beat as it hung over the arm of the couch opposite where his head rested. He opened his eyes for a brief moment, watching the digital panel on is ceiling covered with an array of LED dots that gradually faded between various colors, almost like colorful stars in the sky. He found it pleasing how the colors seemed to change in tempo with the song.
"Oh, I needed this." McQueen hummed to himself as he closed his eyes once more. One arm still under his head, he used his free arm to reach out and touch his car. With his hand securely placed on it, McQueen was able to fall asleep in peace.
Hours passed, and eventually McQueen was woken up by the sound of ringing. Sluggishly pressing a button on the trailer's remote, he answered the call he was receiving. "Hello?" He asked quietly, his voice groggy from being rested and unused for many hours.
"Is this Lightning McQueen, the world's fastest racing machine?" A perky masculine voice asked.
McQueen smirked. "Is this Harv, the world's greatest agent?"
"And it is such a honor to be your agent and it almost hurts to take ten percent of your winnings...and merchandising, and ancillary rights in perpetuity." His voice was slowly trailing off as he listed all of the ways he made money from McQueen. "Anyway! What a race! Huh, champ? I did... I didn't see it, but I heard you were great." As Harv continued to speak, McQueen brought down the retractable television screen and began to flick through the racing news stations that featured countless clips of the very moment of the tie as well as miscellaneous interview clips or videos of image compositions of either him, Strip, or Chick.
"Thanks, Harv." McQueen said.
"Listen, they're giving you 20 tickets for the tiebreaker thing in Cali. I'll pass 'em on to your friends. You shoot me the names. You let Harv rock it for you, alright, baby?"
"Right! Friends! Yes, there's, um..." McQueen trailed off as he tried to think of someone, anyone. He began to tap his finger on the side of the remote as he did so. His eyes darted all across the trailer but not a single person was coming to mind.
"Okay, I get it, Mr. Popular, so many friends you can't even narrow it down." Harv interrupted the silence. McQueen couldn't help but wince a little at the fact that he realized once more that he still had not a single friend. "Hey! When you get to town, you better make time for your best friend, you gotta break bread with your mishpocheh here."
The racer's face brightened as he eagerly stuttered out, "Yeah, yeah, that would be great! We should totally..."
"Okay, I gotta jump, kid. Let me know how it goes. I'm out." Harv interrupted McQueen and spoke quickly, and promptly ended the call the second he finished speaking. McQueen was caught a little off-guard by how dismissive and impatient Harv had seemed with the end of the conversation.
McQueen sat up and sighed, resting his chin in the palm of his hand as he looked out the window. His eyes widened when he saw a mini van with a mattress tied to the top of it overtaking Mack. "What?! A minivan?!" Turning on the radio to talk to Mack, McQueen groaned, "Oh, come on, Mack! You're in the slow lane, this is Lightning McQueen you're hauling here!"
Mack let out a big yawn and replied, "Just stopping off for a quick breather, kid. Old Mack needs a rest." The turn signal was then heard. Moment after, McQueen began to feel the vibrations of the truck's tires starting to emerge onto the side strips of the highway.
"Absolutely not. We're driving straight through all night till we get to California, we agreed to it!"
"All night?!" Mack asked in a tone that tried to make McQueen feel like a crazy control freak, which he kinda was... "May I remind you, federal DOT regulations state-"
"Come on, Mack. I need to get there before Chick gets to hang with Dinoco!"
Mack sighed as he looked out his window at all of the dormant semi-trucks at the rest stop. "All those sleeping truckers! Hey, kid," he yawned again then continued, "I don't know if I can make it."
"Oh, sure you can, Mack. Look, it'll be easy, I'll stay up with you!" McQueen bargained, purposefully making his voice sound a little sweeter and more friendly. He had now moved into the driver seat of his car, pushing the seat back a little and raising his legs to rest them on the dashboard.
"All night?" Mack asked in shock.
"All night long." McQueen confirmed confidently as he got comfy, leaning back and putting both arms behind his head.
~~~~~~~~
Of course the rookie hadn't lasted long after that. A few hours later he was more than fast asleep in the dark unlit trailer. He slept so soundly that if he hadn't been snoring, one might assume he was dead. His feet were now on the floor, no longer on the dash, and his body had hunched forward to let his head rest on his hands that were curled around the steering wheel.
Poor Mack could barely keep his eyes open. He kept falling asleep at the wheel, the only thing reawakening him being the sound of his obnoxiously loud snores. He cracked his window to get some cold air into the truck cabin, hoping that a small bite of cold would keep him more awake. The cracked window seemed to be doing well in aiding his strife of fighting sleep, but it was all for naught when a group of pesky teenagers pulled up in their fancy cars covered in neon lighting. The one cranked the volume to his radio up and changed it to a very calming and soothing song which sent Mack right asleep. The teenagers cackled at the old man who finally nodded off and drove off.
The trailer slowly drifted to the side of the road, the entire machine trembling as the wheels started running over the rumble strips outside the lane's painted guidelines. With each rumble, McQueen's race car started to slowly slide forward in very small increments. McQueen continued to sleep soundly in his trailer through all of this, even when one of his bobble heads ended up bouncing right off its shelf and onto the pressure plate that controlled the trailer door. It slowly opened, landing on the road and creating waves of sparks as it dragged across the asphalt.
The race car continued to slowly jostle around and out onto the open trailer door. And when the truck eventually hit a large pothole on the edge of the road, which snapped Mack wide awake and caused him to sharply veer into the other lane for a brief moment as he tried to regain control of his truck, McQueen's race car bounced clean off the trailer door and landed in the middle of the road, with its owner still fast asleep inside it at the wheel.
Oncoming cars beeped and swerved to avoid the dormant car sitting in the middle of the road. With the onslaught of bright headlights and loud blaring car horns, McQueen slowly woke up. When he realized his situation, which came to light when he saw the bright headlights of some semi-trucks rapidly approaching him, he quickly shot upright with a startled scream and started his car. Frantically turning the wheel as far as it would go and readying his hand on the clutch, he shifted gears, pulling himself off the road just in the nick of time. Slamming on his breaks to prevent himself from driving too far into the grass, his car skidded to a halt.
McQueen's eyes were wide as could be, now fully awake and body gone completely rigid with breaths frantic. Calming himself just a little, he looked out his windshield to truly understand what was happening. He was no longer in the trailer of Mack's truck, and was instead sitting on the side of the interstate in the dead of night.
"Mack!" McQueen yelled out into the night. He sped back onto the road, flying down the stretch of the interstate and weaving through traffic, trying to find Mack's truck amidst all the many semi-trucks and cars in the road. Unable to see clearly with his lack of proper headlights, since race cars only have cosmetic stickers in place as the tracks are always lit, McQueen yelled out Mack's name to every truck he passed by in hopes of getting a response from Mack himself.
Eventually, McQueen saw a truck with bright red lines lining its back veering off the main road up ahead. It looked like Mack's! "Mack! Mack, wait for me!" McQueen called out, sharply veering onto the exit ramp and rocketing down the long dark road.
As his race car, engine revving loudly, continued to speed down the road, a small light of a strange eerie color started to come into view. The closer he got, the more it looked like a railroad crossing. Looking off to the side, he saw the bright light of a train coming down the tracks. "Oh no you don't!" McQueen declared to himself. He slammed his foot onto the gas pedal, forcing his car to speed up even further and go as fast as it possible could.
The train's horns burst out into the night, piercing through the peaceful silence like a burning knife, but McQueen refused to waiver. Confident in his lighting-fast speed, he tightened his grip on the steering wheel, so much so that his knuckles turned white, and narrowed his eyes as he stared down the mission ahead of him. He kept glancing between the point where the road and rail tracks crossed and the train coming down the tracks. With luck and good timing on his hands, his car ripped right through the crossing section just in time before the train could ram into the side of his car.
McQueen let out an enormous sigh of relief and continued to drive until he finally caught up with the truck, which had thankfully stopped at an intersection with a stop sign. "Mack!" McQueen called out again for the upteenth time that night, but as he got a closer look at the side of the truck's trailer, which was illuminated just enough by the lone streetlight, he saw a splash for recycled batteries. McQueen stopped next to the truck, looking out the window and saying, "You're not Mack!"
"Mack!?" The grouchy old driver at the wheel rasped out. "This ain't no Mack, it's a Peterbilt for dang sake! Turn on your lights, you moron!" And with that, the truck turned and drove off into the night.
"Mack..." McQueen sighed sadly, exasperatedly running a hand through his blonde hair. He tapped his fingers on his steering wheel, thinking for a moment before eventually livening a little as he declared, "The Interstate!" Pressing the pedal to the metal, McQueen turned left and headed down the road. Only, unknown to him, he wasn't heading towards the Interstate, but instead down a quaint road called Route 66.