Wicked and Weird by Rich Terfry

Wicked and Weird by Rich Terfry

Author:Rich Terfry [Terfry, Rich]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-385-67973-2
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2015-08-10T16:00:00+00:00


“So what is it you do for a living now, Johnny?” I asked.

Johnny became very excited. His eyes lit up as he gazed at the road ahead of us.

“You’re about to find out,” he said. “Do you see what I see?”

What I saw was the carcass of what appeared to be a dead deer at the bottom of the hill, about two hundred metres ahead.

“Quick! Skip back to track one!” he ordered.

He was referring to the CD in his stereo: Reign in Blood by Slayer. Track one is “Angel of Death.” I did as requested and hell came flying out of the speakers.

“Crank it!” Johnny said.

As I fiddled with the knobs, Johnny hit the switch on a unit wired in under the truck’s dashboard. The snowplow began to lower. When it made contact with the road, beautiful plumes of sparks sprayed past the driver’s and passenger’s side windows. Johnny accelerated and centred the carcass in his path. I’ll be haunted by visions of what happened next for the rest of my life.

Phoosh!

The physics of the curve of the plow multiplied by the speed of the truck sent the lifeless deer streaking past the windshield, over the roof and into the bed of the pickup, where it landed with a sickening thud. Johnny had it timed perfectly. He howled like a jungle animal. I snapped around and saw the mangled bodies of dozens of animals, big and small, piled in the back of the truck.

“Good lord, Johnny!” I shouted over the Slayer. “Who the hell pays you to do this?”

“No one, baby! This here’s just a hobby!”

Johnny went on to explain how he had worked out the exact speed needed so that every possible animal would land in the bed of his death wagon. He explained that before he had mastered his technique, he’d smashed a few windshields, and that once he had dropped a skunk carcass onto the hood of a Hyundai Elantra driving behind him. What Johnny did with his treasures, he wouldn’t say.

“I have two dreams,” Johnny said. “I wanna make love to Jennifer Connelly, and to one day scoop a moose. If I can do either of those things, I’ll die happy.”

After Johnny and I parted ways, it took just two more rides to make it all the way to Montreal. I saw Radiohead perform and was brought backstage to meet the guys. They were nice, and passionate about music. We talked about equipment and current bands—ones we liked and ones we didn’t. We talked about books. We talked about exercise. And they offered to help me out with my career. They were surprised to learn that I had been operating alone—no agent, no publicist. They hooked me up with everything I needed, and in one fell swoop I went from ragged amateur to professional. I imagined it felt like what a college baseball player feels when drafted by a professional organization. I wasn’t in the big leagues yet, but I was surely well on my way.

I



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