Chapter Thirteen
There and Back Again
by
Larry Van Zandt
Fred Baggins again darted a glance at the right handlebar-mounted rear-view mirror, and began to panic.
They’re still following me.
It was at this point that Fred paused in his feeling of dread, to curse his choice in transportation one more time, wondering what idiot thought it would be a great idea to use a cranky old Vespa scooter as daily transportation. Anyone who has driven a car anytime during the last century knows that the Italians couldn’t build a dependable machine to save their lives, as proven by hundreds, if not thousands of Ferrari, Maserati, Lancia, and Fiat owners and the legions of horror stories emanating from their near-legendary inability to travel five miles without something breaking, catching on fire, or rusting in half.
And for the eighteenth time during the short chase that Fred Baggins now found himself involved in, he neglected to answer himself as to who that ‘idiot’ was that suggested he buy a Vespa, which silently spoke volumes as to name the identity of said idiot.
Nine black Mini-Coopers loomed large in both of Fred’s mirrors, and the lead Mini was close enough for him to clearly make out who was driving it: The Man in the Origami Hat.
They must want the blueprints. That’s the only reason why they’re following me.
Fred extricated a shaky hand from the left handlebar grip of the Vespa, to reach into his front shirt pocket, and verify that the blueprints were still tucked away inside, also protected by his special-edition, “Lord of the Rings/Frodo Baggins Elven Cloak,” which in the book series, the cloak is supposed to make whoever is wearing this near-magical outerwear disappear into his surroundings. However, in this case, all it did it in current-day, rather-sunlit Florida was billow in the wind behind him, making him stick out like a sore thumb to those in close pursuit of their quarry. Perhaps if Fred could find a woodland area to disappear into…however, given that he was still well within the city limits of Daytona Beach, Florida, the chance of a conveniently-placed woodland popping up somewhere in this urban setting was about as likely as a sudden blizzard appearing out of the skies (especially considering that Florida is considered to be something akin to God’s Left Sweaty Armpit), or the elderly drivers that plague South Florida miraculously developing driving abilities rivaling those found in a common, household-variety, blind five-year-old.
Given that Fred had an attention span short enough to be considered non-existent by most medical professionals, and that the scenery was rocketing by at almost walking speed, of course his mind began to wander to other things as he attempted to outdistance his foes, namely how he just happened to have the last name of “Baggins”, and that he now found himself being chased by nine men in black Mini Coopers…just like in the book, AND the movie!
Well, maybe not exactly like the movie, because he was riding a piece-of-crap Vespa, and the guys chasing him were driving what appeared to be base-model Mini’s (and not the more-expensive, turbocharged “S” model, but hey, evil minions have to save money just like everyone else, right?), but they were indeed modern metaphorical representations of the black horses that the bad guys rode during the famous chase scenes in Fellowship of the Ring, while his Vespa was obviously not a very accurate modern-day version of the white elf horse that easily outran the nine servants of Lord Sauron.
If anything, the scooter metaphorically resembled more an old, arthritic mule which had slowed down to the point where it needed to be put down by an annoyed, but understanding cowboy.
And his mind wandered on, as the mile(s) passed slowly by, taking Fred back a few years to when he still lived with his parents, who were so into the Lord of the Rings and J.R.R. Tolkien in the late 1960’s, that they legally changed their last name to “Baggins”, and attempted to name their lone child “Frodo”, only to be rebuffed by the mightily-annoyed State of Florida department of vital statistics employee who, upon leaving for work that morning, having already had a long fight with his wife over her gambling and cocaine habits as he attempting to extricate himself from his wife’s evil clutches (he was really pissed about the gambling), was in no mood for any funny business.
Unfortunately for the Baggins couple, the application for certificate of live birth with one “Baggins, Frodo” hastily scrawled on the very top happened to cross this very same angry man’s desk, was quickly grouped into the mental file, “Business, Funny”, and was summarily rejected and denied by said man, adding the final nail to the parents’ baby naming coffin, with “…with extreme prejudice” added in the blank space for notes at the bottom of the form, which is always reserved for state office workers only.
“Baggins, Frederick” was penciled in above “Frodo”, the red, puff-faced office worker threatened to call the police if Fred’s parents had even the slightest idea of objecting to the impromptu name change, and the newly minted parents were the ultimate picture of dejection as they slowly shuffled out of the office, their hopes and dreams of their first-born being the eldest child in a long line of modern-day, correctly-named ‘Bagginses’ being trampled like wheelchair-bound participants of Spain’s annual “Running of the Idiots.”
“Frederick”, due to parents throughout time immemorial never seeming to have the intestinal fortitude to waste on the clearly-Herculean effort of pronouncing their children’s first names in full, became “Fred”, and Fred eventually became a grown-up, somehow managing to fall through the pins of a galactic-sized game of real-life Plinko, random chance bouncing him back and forth, eventually placing him on the path which led to today’s bizarre sequence of events, and the wild chase that Fred Baggins was currently spacing off as his attention wandered elsewhere.
The Vespa striking a large pothole frighteningly snapped his attention back to the present, and also violently yanked his left hand away from fondling the mysterious blueprints and back to the handlebars. Since potholes always happen in pairs, Fred immediately spotted the next one, darting first to the left, away from the second cavernous, sinkhole-in-waiting which was also conveniently placed directly in his path, just like the first one, he was then forced to heave the overburdened scooter back to the right, as the large landscaping truck with “Guido’s Lawn Service” gaudily painted on the side, going 20 mph over the limit, shot by on his right side as Fred evaded the pothole, with the nine Mini Coopers still hot on his tail.
It should point out that Fred doesn’t have the slightest idea as to how to actually ride the Vespa. It was cheap, supposedly got excellent fuel mileage, has a three-speed manual transmission, however, it’s been in second gear the entire time he’s owned it, meaning it’s almost impossible to accelerate from a dead stop, but he also can’t keep up with traffic going anything faster than 30 mph. Therefore, pretty much anything else on two, three, four, or even 18 wheels (or even on two legs) goes at least 20 mph faster than Fred on city streets.
He knows that there is a gearshift lever somewhere on the Vespa, however, given that he can barely just manage to get it started in the morning, he thought it best not to tempt fate, and start pushing other buttons or pulling levers. In addition to the Vespa being stuck in second, the right-turn blinker has also been on during his entire term of ownership, indicative of Fred’s complete cluelessness about how to operate the Italian Menace.
Also slowing Fred’s forward progress was the two-hundred or so pounds of luggage strapped to the front and rear of the Vespa scooter. Once he discovered that The Man in the Origami hat had discovered his home on Hillshire street (once again, fate plays a cruel joke on the hero, it was the only place he could find to rent), his thoughts went immediately not to his own safety, but to the wellbeing of his expansive Lord of the Rings memorabilia collection, an expensive, and girlfriend-alienating habit inherited from his parents.
Among the items stowed away in the giant suitcases were three pairs of ‘Hobbit feet’, reportedly worn by actor Sean Astin (he played ‘Samwise’, apparently), or at least the onli
ne auction that Fred bought them from stated thus vociferously. He also had enough replica swords secreted into the luggage, that should he have wanted to, he possessed enough weaponry to gain immediate access to any of the area’s department of motor vehicles counterpersons, and be granted the first spot in line.
I’m almost there.
Fred was attempting to flee to his uncle’s house. Originally, the idea was to sneak over to his uncle’s home as unobtrusively as possible (or as unobtrusive as a man with an Elven cloak and two-hundred pounds of luggage strapped to the front and rear of a smoke-spewing, violently-wandering Vespa could be), and this stratagem was further cemented by the sage advice granted to him by his ‘Lord of the Rings’ special-edition Magic Eight Ball, which unknown to Fred had been dropped 316 times by its previous owner, and was now broken, always revealing the words, “Yes, Definitely!” whenever someone attempted to use it. And of course, the mystic, rotund, and composite advice-giver revealed the same, fateful message when he wisely asked it for advice yet again.
As he slipped into yet another musing session, Fred began to wonder why this magic eight ball was always so supportive of his ideas, however, a large expansion joint almost pulled the Vespa’s handlebars out of his hands for a second time, forever delegating this observance to the “Forgotten until next time” mental file.
As suggested by Shakespeare, in that the “best-laid plans of kings often go awry”, Fred’s plan to run over to his uncle’s home was shot to hell the moment he saw the black Mini Coopers parked at the end of his street.
What to do…what to do…???
Fred thought about the layout of the neighborhood for a moment, and then recalled that there was a closed grade school two streets over, and that he could sneak his Vespa and his precious blueprint cargo past the barricade at the end of the street which led to the playground, but the black Mini Coopers, as small as they were, would have difficulty passing even their diminutive bulk through the steel and concrete trap.
I could ride through the school yard, and come out on the other side. Uncle’s house is only a block over from there.
He put his plan into action, darting through a gas station parking lot, attempting to shake the predators that clung to him like lampreys to a whale, or how welfare children are glued to really large women. The Mini Coopers were forced to remain on the street, however, due to the Vespa being stuck in second, the Nine simply sped up and made the right turn normally, so when Fred turned back onto the street, he was still directly in front of those who gave chase.
Fred then darted left on the second street over, and rode as fast as his overburdened and wildly-buzzing Vespa would travel. The end of the street rapidly approached, and to his dismay, he realized that several abandoned/stolen shopping carts blocked the barricade to the school playground.
Oh, crap. This isn’t good, this is definitely not good.
Behind him, the Nine, seeing that Fred had nowhere to go, slowed to a crawl, and fanned out behind him, idling their cars along the street. The haggard young man locked up the pathetic, Italian-engineered brakes, and slid to a halt within a foot of the first abandoned shopping cart.
As the Minis inched along, creeping towards him, Fred chanced a glance rearward, and clearly saw that the Man in the Origami Hat was still the lead car, and his lead pursuer now had a sadistic smile on his face. Fred, now thoroughly panicked, jumped off of his bike, hurriedly put down the center stand, struggled to get the overweight Vespa onto it, and then began shoving shopping carts out of the way, to uncover the gap in the barricade that beckoned like, well, a doorway to freedom, sort of like Han Solo in the movie “Star Wars”, when Chewbacca and Solo dove through the rapidly-closing blast doors, shooting the wall panel as they ran.
Fred pauses for only the most minute of moments, once again easily distracted from his task, unsure as to why a Star Wars reference is popping into his head right now, because he is mentally picturing himself being in a story with a heavy Lord of the Rings theme, and on top of that, the barricade rails weren’t rapidly closing like the blast door inside the Death Star. The only reason he could fathom for thinking of Star Wars might have been the shopping carts that Fred was tangling with were rolling back towards him, like wire-basket ‘blast doors’, after he shoved them out of the way, the street was lower in the middle, so water runoff could hit a drain in the curb…and carts would roll back to the center of the street, aided by gravity.
Wait, aren’t I supposed to be fleeing from someone?
With the last cart cleared, Fred, facing his pursuers, could see that the Mini Coopers were now parked about twenty feet away from his Vespa, and that the driver’s door of the lead car was slowly opening, as the Man in the Origami Hat began to extricate himself from the vehicle. Fred launched himself toward the Vespa, jumped into the saddle, shoved the bike off of the stand, and at the same time, in a feat of manual dexterity rivaling any number of Parkinson’s-riddled senior citizens or an equal amount of drunken stroke victims, he clumsily managed to somehow peg the throttle, start the bike, launch the bike forward without stalling it, kicked his feet backward to help himself get moving, slowly shot through the gap in the barricade, and rode out onto the overgrown grass of the school playground…which was rather wet from the rain that had just fallen two hours ago.
Fred never looked back to see if the wicked men were following him, lest he turn into a pillar of salt, or worse, a biblical-sized pallet of Lord of the Rings memorabilia. He kept the throttle pinned, and although the front wheel washed out several times, he somehow managed to keep the Vespa upright in the slippery grass.
He finally cleared the playground, got through the open front gate, shot through the parking lot (“goddamned speed bumps!”) and went through an alley that led directly towards the street on which his uncle lived. As he turned onto the dead-end avenue, and what might be his sanctuary (sort of like the mystic Home of Elrond Half-Elven, except his uncle’s house is quite a bit more…uh…crappy and decrepit looking), his heart dropped when he glanced, by instinct, first into the right-hand mirror, and saw nothing but Mini Cooper reflected in his gaze, slowly inching towards him. Switching his view to the left-side mirror, he confirmed that there were indeed several cars behind him, completely consuming his rearward view, as if some imaginary black hole, made up entirely of black Mini Coopers had opened up behind him, pulling in everything, including the sunlight.
Oh no. I’ve led them to my uncle’s house, and this time…there’s no escape.
Fred continued accelerating towards his uncle’s home, but then nailed the brakes upon arriving at the far side of the small bridge that crossed a tiny creek next to his uncle’s home, forgetting to pull in the clutch, stalling the bike in the process, sealing his fate, because it took a month of Sunday comic book conventions to get it started again. He then finally looked behind him, sensing his doom approaching.
How does this end?
The Man in the Origami Hat, leading the pack of nine cars that were approaching from the rear of Fred’s beleaguered Vespa, pulled within five feet of the scooter, applied his brakes, shut the engine off, applied the emergency brake, carefully removed his seatbelt (Safety First!), checked his ‘bad guy’ makeup in the vanity mirror embedded in the sunvisor, and upon checking his teeth, discovered a bit of salad or something left over for lunch, so he paused a moment to worry the offending bit loose with a fingernail, chewed the extracted food particle, checked his teeth again, found nothing, put the mirror up, accidentally nailed his nose with the sunvisor, muttered a curse word, composed himself, took a deep breath, counted to ten, and then finally exited the vehicle.
The remaining eight Minis bunched in behind the ominous one, shut off their engines, but remained in their vehicles, while the teeth-cleaning drama unfolded in their leader’s automobile.
The Man in the Origami Hat closed the car door of his personal conveyance, and walked around the nose of the Mini Cooper, stopping when he was even with the license plate bracket, and turn
ed to face Fred. He then folded his arms behind his back, looked directly at Fred, smiled in a manner devoid of any humor, and began speaking to his imperiled prey.
“Hello, Fred. You have somesing zat belongs to me. I vould like to have it returned, so I can leave zis rather boorish and oonsightly neighborhood, and return to my home.”
Fred was a bit startled, initially because the Man in the Origami Hat disturbingly spoke with an incredibly thick German accent, and secondly, the said blueprints which Fred’s nemesis were seeking was written entirely in German. He knew how to speak this often-difficult language, thus he immediately understood what ramifications the blueprints held for the auto racing world…and humanity in general.
He then replied in an explosive manner, which offered a release to the pent-up terror that had had been building since the pursuit began.
“Do you have any idea what these car plans will do to the sport of NASCAR, the biggest auto racing series in the world?!?”
The Man in the Origami Hat replied in a smooth, confident, yet polite manner.
“Zese plans vere not meant for mortal, or at least non-MBA-degree-possessing eyes. Ve vill take over ze world, vun racing series at a time. Now, Fred Baggins (and vhat a dumkopf name zat iss), you shall give me zat which I am seeking”, and with that statement, the smile disappeared from the nameless terror facing Fred, to be replaced by an evil stare of menace, the man’s gray eyes boring a hole into Fred’s soul with the intensity of his gaze.
It was at this time that Fred noticed a rather large and incredibly decrepit tenement on wheels to his left, in the form of a multi-colored, thirty-five-foot-in-length Winnebago motorhome parked against the curb, in all of its rather-non-sparkling, faded-paint glory, looking more like a an old, abandoned building in a fairly-recent issue of National Geographic than a mechanized home away from home.
And as comprehension of who this vehicle belonged to began to manifest its gravity, another figure from the depths of his memory banks jumped from around the other side of the abandoned-looking recreational vehicle, and jumped over to stand directly next to the driver’s side of the rear bumper. Fred’s uncle had arrived to save the day…or at least Fred thought so.
This uncle also shared Fred’s devotion to Lord of the Rings lore, but given his advancing age, the only character he had anything in common with was…
“Uncle Gandalf!” cried Fred, relieved to see a potential protector.
Uncle ‘Gandalf’ stood six-foot-four, had a scraggly, gray-shot beard that would impress any homeless man, wore an eye patch (which never seemed to be covering the same eye) was dressed in tattered, gray robes, and was currently in possession of a rather large wood staff, holding it in both of his impressively-gnarled hands. He spoke, and his voice was synonymous with thunder…or at least someone shaking a large wood saw blade back and forth that was making metal-warbling ‘thunder’ sounds…and the focus of his vocal rage was directed, uh, directly at the Man in the Origami Hat.
“You…shall…not…pass!” screamed Uncle Gandalf, in almost a primeval fury.
The Man in the Origami Hat must have recognized the new addition to the party, because his face immediately took on the countenance of a snarl, and he hissed out the German-accented word, “Snarl!” to really emphasize the point that he was indeed snarling at the real-life, South Florida-dwelling version of Gandalf, the White Trash Wizard.
Uncle Gandalf then whirled around, swinging his iron-tipped wood staff in a wide, fast arc, connecting with a large, black plastic cap that covered a large, black plastic tube that ran underneath almost the entire length of the square-tube rear bumper of the Winnebago. Having connected with the cap, a large cracking sound could be heard, and then Fred was grabbed and pulled away from the edge of the bridge by his uncle.
The Man in the Origami Hat froze for a moment…to his detriment, as his inaction would cost him dearly. The black plastic cap exploded from the tube, and shot out horizontally, skipping off of the bridge railing, and sailing far away, to land in the creek hundreds of feet downstream. This small explosion was followed by a torrent of old, heart-of-darkness brown, raw sewage erupting from the sewer pipe of the Winnebago, reminiscent of the Hoover Dam spillway opening, and millions of gallons of unspeakable terror launching from the mouth, sweeping anything in its path away downstream, and this is precisely what happened to the Man in the Origami Hat, his car, and the rest of the Nine Ringwraith metaphors: The monumental and epic discharge of raw, pressurized sewage, the human waste collection from a thousand road trips, and ten thousand Indian Cuisine restaurants simply lifted Fred’s pursuers from the bridge, and tossed all nine Mini Coopers into the small creek next to Uncle Gandalf’s house, where they bobbed up and down in the now-incredibly-brown morass that was once the remains of the contents of Gandalf’s Winnebago septic tank.
Fred caught his mouth hanging open as he stared at the nine formerly-black Mini Coopers floating away downstream, and then felt someone staring at him to his left. He snapped his head around to meet his savior, but whatever joy he just felt from being saved from his pursuers, nausea, caused by the unholy stench of the sticky goo that had exploded from the depths of the Winnebago, and shock from seeing nine cars just be casually tossed by the Strong Arm of God’s Septic Tank were quickly displaced by a sense of shame, receptive to the look of abject anger that now crossed his uncle’s face.
“You idiot!” his uncle bellowed, “Now they know where I live!!!”
Fred began an apology, but his uncle quickly cut him off.
“Shut up. Push your scooter into the driveway, and come into my home, immediately!”
Fred did as ordered, and then darted into the house, where his uncle was standing. He began to speak, but once again, was curtly stopped by Uncle Gandalf.
“You took the plans, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes, but...”
“Shut up! I didn’t ask you to speak!”
“But you just asked…”
“Shut up! We don’t have time to chit-chat idly, or reminisce about old times, and eventually get around to why you decided to show Management of NASCAR where I freaking live. Those blueprints you stole from the corporate technical center are of something that looks like a racecar, but all of the words are in German?”
“Yes, but…”
“Did I give you any indication that I wanted to hear you talk? Shut up!!! Those plans are for an all-new race car that NASCAR, the people that you work for, they’re going to unleash this new car on the world, sort of an auto racing version of the ‘ten plagues of Egypt’! Every team will have to use it, the fans will be forced to like it, it will be too expensive to use, will be the ugliest car on the track, and will make NASCAR and the rest of auto racing a complete and total joke! Is any of this getting through???”
“Well, no, but…but wait, what about the firstborn of NASCAR?”, replied Fred, sounding incredibly frustrated and confused, desperately attempting to access his mental hard drive for the location of the logic strain which would allow him to see how to tie the secret plans together with a biblical plague, and failing to do so.
“I don’t recall asking you to answer me! You have one thing to do, and that’s final! Take these plans to the summer home of Brian “Sauron” France, CEO of NASCAR, and toss them in his swimming pool heater!”
“Uh, why…uh…” stammered Fred, now completely lost, stumbling around for comprehension, like the captain of the Exxon Valdez did upon discovering he had just somehow managed to not miss the entire coastline of Alaska, and caused a bit of an oil leak.
“Shut up!!! The short version is this: Those car blueprints were found at a German secret weapons test lab at the close of World War II, and they’re of a suicide attack vehicle which failed miserably, simply because it was….stupid-looking. The Americans saw one coming once, and simply laughed it away…and the Germans thought it was pretty stupid as well. Brian “Sauron” France, CEO/Evil Leader of NASCAR, found these plans in a German exercise book called “Da
ncing with Strudel!”, but couldn’t read German, and also couldn’t read the technical notes at the bottom of the page which declared the car a complete failure…but he saw the blueprints of what appeared to be a race car…so he built it, and now everyone in NASCAR is going to use it: He calls it the ‘Car of Tomorrow’, and it will be the downfall of NASCAR…and eventually, the rest of the world will follow!!!”
Realization slowly dawned upon Fred.
Yep. I didn’t see it until now, but my uncle is bat-shit crazy.
“Okay, uncle Gandalf”, Fred said, resignedly…”what does this have to do with a…pool heater?
“You don’t have time to talk!! Go to his house, and destroy the One Plan! You will be tempted to use the One Plan, and it will consume you!! The plans are made out of a mysterious Egyptian papyrus, and only the perfect temperature and PH level of Lord Sauron France’s swimming pool heater tank can destroy the blueprints!!”
It was at this time that the front door of uncle Gandalf’s house flew open, and a man wearing a resplendent black suit of armor came striding in. The wearer of the armor must not don it very often, because the weight of the large, plumed helmet and faceguard pulled his head off-balance, and to the right as he walked.
Uncle Gandalf cried out, “Lord Sauron France!”
“Yes, old foe, it is I, CEO and Lord of NASCAR, Brian “Sauron France! You will hand me the One Blueprint to Rule Them All, Fred Baggins!” declared Lord Sauron France in a half-nerd, half-rather-declaratory manner.
“Don’t do it!” yelled Gandalf, “Lord Sauron France will bring about one thousand years of Auto-Racing darkness!!”
It was about this time that Fred had finally had enough. He hated his job at the NASCAR tech center anyway, they were all pretty much concerned about nothing but corporate-sounding terms such as ‘Official Sponsor Of…’, and ‘Corporate Synergy’, and to be honest, NASCAR racing was going downhill anyway, simply because most of the tracks were the most boring design imaginable, and nobody wanted to watch, their attention diverted by new technology such as ‘Smart phones’, and ‘Dancing with the Stars’.
Fred began this day thinking he might save the world. At the end of it, however, he discovered that he had undergone a personal transformation from Hero, protector of the auto-racing innocent, to Advocator of the Apathetic, determined to make the world a better place…by letting someone else do the heavy lifting. And as Gandalf began whacking away at Lord Sauron France, flailing away uselessly at his nemesis’s metal armor, understanding finally took root in Fred’s consciousness, and he reached into his front shirt pocket, pulled out the blueprints, tossed them onto the dining room table, where Lord Sauron France and Gandalf’s attention was suddenly directed, and they both dove around Fred for the ancient text, as he left their bizarre battle behind…and rode the Vespa home, finally discovering how to perform the complex mental ballet dance of being able to use the shifter and the clutch at the same time, but still not figuring out how to switch the turn-signal of.