A Jukebox at The Diner Prequel: "Year of The Cat" Twisted Metal - Part One
A retelling of the detective series inspired by the short story "Miss Jackson"
Previously on Year of The Cat…
“The rubber and road sing a lonesome song, The passing cars all humming along. Rehearsing the verses & getting the turnaround wrong.”
Somewhere on the blacktop of a long desert highway, a cat enjoys the evening sun of the passenger seat of an ‘82 Chevy truck. Van Darien’s “Gone” plays while the driver keeps the beat on the steering wheel. Miss Shirley Jackson stretches in the sun as the human next to her chuckles at something he’s pointing to.
"Do you know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific, Miss Jackson? They say it has no memory."
He was pointing to a sign for an interchange for Federal Highway 200.
Next stop, Zihuatanejo.
One Month Later.
Neither Detective wanted the “la Barbeque” robbery case, but they were there at the beginning. Once a week now, they’ve struck, seemingly without any sort of plan. Thankfully no one’s been hurt, and the most they’ve scored from any single register was a little over 200.00, but every Saturday since that fateful late morning at “la Barbeque”, they've gotten away clean. Whatever they’ve used as a vehicle has been found on fire a few hours later. First the Astro Van, then an old U-Haul. Last week it was a short yellow bus, and that got Jenny pissed because it was stolen from her bus yard. The private sector half of “The Squad!” was out on patrol in the MVOJ, well, technically they were in The Buzzmill parking lot before The Lumber Society’s Navigation Workshop, which they were planning on attending. It was 4:45 PM when an ice cream truck raced into the parking lot across the street and skidded to a stop in front of the Chase Bank.
Sinnie and Jenny’s mouths were agape as they both pointed at the family of clowns emerging from the driver's side. That’s when it happened.
The back doors swung open and a Teenage Clown Girl emerged with a HUGE 80’s style boom box on her right shoulder blasting Avril Lavigne’s “Hello Kitty”.
“Is this happening!?” Jenny grabbed her cell phone and called Shirley while Sinnie started the van.
The TGC propped the bank door open with the boom box did a pirouette and bounded inside.
Sinnie was about to put the van in drive when Jenny said “Wait!”
The TGC came out with a very full-looking backpack, picked up her boombox, and climbed into the back.
“The girls wouldn’t want us to pursue Sinnie, we need to wait here.”
Unbeknownst to Sinnie, Detective Rumack’s phone was still ringing. It went to voicemail.
That’s because Detective Rumack was on the phone with Detective Norberg. They were both leaving home and heading toward Chase Bank. That’s when Detective Norberg remembered The Lumber Society meeting.
“Oh shit, the girls are at The Buzzmill!”
That’s when Jenny’s phone rang.
“The clowns are here! What should we do?!”
Shirley’s voice barely got “Wait for us!” out before Jenny was pinned against the passenger seat. Sinnie had slipped the van into drive and punched it. The front tires spun loose and squealed just as the TGC was closing the rear doors of the ice cream truck. She looked across to The Buzzmill parking lot at the blacked-out Toyota Sienna, grinned, and flipped the bird. The ice cream truck’s speakers started blasting “Hello Kitty” as it took off, and Sinnie followed suit, the MVOJ’s suspension straining as it bounced across Town Creek Drive and into the parking lot of Chase Bank. They caught up with the ice cream truck at the westbound Riverside exit and had to slam on the brakes to keep from rear-ending the ice cream truck. That’s when the rear doors swung open again and a 5-gallon bucket of mint chip exploded onto the windshield of the MVOJ. Just as Sinnie turned on the windshield wipers another 5-gallon bucket, this time a little more frozen than the last colored the windshield strawberry red as the glass splintered and cracked. The windshield wipers were caught on the bucket, which was stuck against the glass and the back of the hood.
The ice cream truck turned west onto Riverside as Sinnie and Jenny got out to clear the windshield. Jenny snapped a picture of the ice cream truck and texted it to Detective Rumack with the caption “Beware of ice cream bucket bombs”.
They could hear the sirens coming. It was too late.
A few minutes later they saw smoke coming from the area of Lakeshore Park.
About 30 minutes after that, on the other side of the Colorado River, a family of 4 kayakers paddled up to the Festival Shores boat ramp, loaded up their 2 kayaks onto the roof of their beat-up dark green and tan ‘71 Vista Cruiser station wagon, and headed home.
After clearing the windshield, Sinne slowly drove over towards Lakeshore Park where patrol cars and fire trucks were already dousing the ice cream truck.
“The MVOJ looks very Neopolitan, Sinnie.” Shirley was trying to make the best of it.
“Careful, she’s a little minty over her windshield being chipped.” Jenny piled on.
That’s when Detective Norbeg dropped this fat rhyme.
“Ahem. 'Ode to Ice Cream' by Vada Sultenfuss.
I like ice cream a whole lot
It tastes good on days that are hot
On a cone or in a dish
This will be my only wish
Vanilla, chocolate, rocky road
Even with pie, a la mode.”
That’s when “Mother” called. There was something at the precinct for the detectives.
That weekend over Sunday brunch at Bangers, “The Squad!” handed a postcard around over and over.
“The fucking nerve!” Sinnie was still pissed at her baby being hurt, even though the windshield had been replaced by a mobile service at Lakeshore Park.
The postcard read:
“Greetings from Zihuatanejo, Miss Jackson and I send our warmest, sunniest, beachiest regards,
=j”
Along with it was Van Darien’s CD “Levee” with a post-it note.
“Twisted Metal” 1995.
#clowningaround
“It’s a video game.” -Jenny
“With an evil clown?” Det. Norberg
“The fucking nerve!” Sinnie
“Let's face it, boys and girls: A man has to have his priorities.” -Jenny, then sheepishly, “It’s from the game.”
“W.W.O.N.D.” Jenny put her right elbow on the table, her chin in her hand, and stared up at the cumulonimbus clouds in the sky. “What would our Nemesis do? Why did Jake send that postcard and CD? Who’s up for some “Twisted Metal?”
Sinnie was still seething over being played. “It’s been a month. He’s just gone.”
“Wait, what?” Detective Norberg picked up the Van Darien CD.
“Twisted Metal, Gone… what else. Insanity, Levee, Ponderosa. Cardboard Boxes. Are we doing this? I mean, it’s pretty much a closed case. Jake killed the doctor, took all the “Kaleidoscope” data and samples, torched the medical center, and disappeared. I mean, they’re not going to send us to Zihuatanejo, are they? At least it’s good to know Miss Jackson is fine.” Detective Norberg is studying the CD’s track titles like they’re a word jumble hoping for some clarity.
"He’s just screwing with us again. I’m sorry Jenny but YOUR nemesis sucks.” Sinnie is still seething over being played.
“Really? How’d he know we wouldn’t open the cake? I mean, we swept the MVOJ and everything else for bugs. Forensics checked the laptop. If we’d just peeked at the cake. What about the man in the suit? Are we just forgetting about him? Oh, there’s a man in a suit in Twisted Metal….hrm. I’m gonna go. Time to hook up my old PlayStation.” Jenny got up and mimicked The Picard Maneuver to cement the importance of this task.
Jenny pulled up Van Darien’s “Levee” on Spotify and put in her earbuds. Before she hit shuffle, she said “I’ll let you know if I find anything that might help.”
This different version of “Low Road” than the one on “Silent Sparrow” transported Jenny on her walk, but it wasn’t home she was transported to right away.
Not at first at least. As she sat up and rubbed her eyes, her PlayStation controller slowly fell off her cheek. There were two half-smoked joints, an almost empty bottle of Jack, and one pizza box, which was thankfully not empty. She felt like she had had some sort of epiphany last night, but she couldn’t quite remember. That’s when she realized her alarm was going off.
She jumped off the couch to grab her phone from the kitchen table and remembered that today was a holiday just as she kicked the leg of the table with her big right toe. It hurt enough to make her head spin.
She’d forgotten to disable her alarm. It was 3:30 AM. Might as well make some coffee she thought to herself. That’s when she saw a huge flash. She counted just like the girl in Poltergeist.
“One.” Of course, there was a lightning storm, she’d seen the clouds yesterday morning at brunch.
“Two.” The power went out. Jenny could hear the sound of machines letting the last of their life bringing electricity discharge.
“Three.” The thunder rattled every window, including the one with a man’s silhouette as another flash of lightning lit up the dining room.
“One.” Darkness.
“Two.” A knock at the door.
Jenny heard the sound of thunder and wondered who that could be.
Then she remembered where she went after she left the girls at Bangers.