if things were as good as they said

My arrival in town was not mentioned by any of the society columnists.  [Hunter Thompson excerpt]  It was shortly after dawn, as I recall, when I straggled into Washington just ahead of the rush-hour, government-worker car-pool traffic boiling up from the Maryland suburbs . . . humping along in the slow lane on U.S. Interstate 70S like a crippled steel piss-ant; dragging a massive orange U-haul trailer full of books and "important papers" . . . feeling painfully slow & helpless because the Volvo was never made for this kind of work.

It's a quick little beast and one of the best ever built for rough-road, mud & snow driving . . . but not even this new, six-cylinder super-Volvo is up to hauling 2000 pounds of heavy swill across the country from Woody Creek, Colorado to Washington, D.C.  The odometer read 2155 when I crossed the Maryland line as the sun came up over Hagerstown . . . still confused after getting lost in a hamlet called Breezewood in Pennsylvania; I'd stopped there to ponder the drug question with two freaks I met on the Turnpike.

They had blown a tire east of Everett, but nobody would stop to lend them a jack.  They had a spare tire -- and a jack, too, for that matter -- but no jack-handle; no way to crank the car up and put the spare on.  They had gone out to Cleveland, from Baltimore -- to take advantage of the brutally depressed used-car market in the vast urban web around Detroit . . . and they'd picked up this '66 Ford Fairlane for $150.

I was impressed.

"Shit," they said.  "You can pick up a goddamn new Thunderbird out there for seven-fifty.  All you need is cash, man; people are desperate!  There's no work out there, man; they're selling everything!  It's down to a dime on the dollar.  Shit, I can sell any car I can get my hands on around Detroit for twice the money in Baltimore."

I said I would talk to some people with capital and maybe get into that business, if things were as good as they said.  They assured me that I could make a natural fortune if I could drum up enough cash to set up a steady shuttle between the Detroit-Toledo-Cleveland area and places like Baltimore, Philly and Washington.  "All you need," they said, "is some dollars in front and some guys to drive the cars."

"Right," I said.  "And some jack-handles."

"What?"--------------- [end excerpt]

=====================
Listen to the wind blow
Watch the sun rise
Running in the shadows
Damn your love, damn your lies

And if you don't love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
We would never break the chain
And if you don't love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
We would never break the chain

Listen to the wind blow
Down comes the night
Running in the shadows
Damn your love, damn your lies
Break the silence
Damn the dark, damn the light

And if you don't love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
We would never break the chain

And if you don't love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
We would never break the chain
And if you don't love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
We would never break the chain

Chain, keep us together (Running in the shadows)
Chain, keep us together (Running in the shadows)
Chain, keep us together (Running in the shadows)
Chain, keep us together...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
{book excerpt -- Fear And Loathing:  On The Campaign Trail '72 - Hunter S. Thompson.  Copyright, 1973 - San Francisco, CA:  Straight Arrow Books)}
{song -- "The Chain" -- written by Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, John McVie, Stevie Nicks.  Rumours - Fleetwood Mac - 1977 (Warner Bros.)}

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