Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, July 17 2019, 1:15 p.m.

I haven’t written a short story in quite a while, so I decided to work on this one in installments. This fiction takes place in the not-too-distant future.

The idea grew out of my increasing hatred of air travel.

For twenty years, I flew in those godforsaken airliners, and the service got worse every year. No leg room. Predictably regular delays. Once, on a trip to Kansas City, canceled flights on the way out and the way back led to the realization that I would’ve been better off driving. What started as a joke told to myself evolved into a personal plausibility study.

Driving, unfortunately, is exhausting. It makes no sense to me that I can sit on my ass for twelve hours and arrive home feeling as if I’ve been jogging. I don’t understand it. I guess that watching the road takes a hidden toll. I guess the concentration required, however minimal, taxes the psyche.

Oh, I tried to beat the excruciating system. I flew on other airlines and found them equally maddening, so I went back to the one where most of my frequent-flyer miles were deposited, but less loyalty meant a lowering of my “gold” status to “silver,” and first-class upgrades became as unlikely as lottery winners.

Coincidentally, I was pondering all this on a short flight from Richmond to Charlotte, so I started researching the matter online. While I was reading consumer satisfaction (or lack thereof) surveys, the guy in the seat ahead of me abruptly let his seat back and nearly sheared the screen right off my laptop. The screen went blank briefly. I took a deep breath and tapped the shoulder of the guy.

“Sir, I would appreciate it if you’d give me a warning next time you let your seat back,” I said. “You might’ve just killed my laptop.”

“Well, bub, you probably needed a new one, anyway,” he said. “Me taking a nap is a right. You using your computer is an option and a risk.”

Not so much as a “sorry, but …” I wanted to strangle him, but I just settled for the last word.

“I appreciate your reading of the Constitution,” I said. If he’d replied, I might have advanced to the strangulation option, but he let it go.

Miraculously, my Toshiba started right back up, and I went from airline options to travel options, in general, and the research continued when I got back home and the next morning, as well. I couldn’t figure a way to make passenger trains cost-effective unless I wanted to sit upright for nineteen hours, and I didn’t.

Driverless cars. I’d never put much thought into them. I figured if I was going to die in a fiery crash, I wanted it to be my own fault. The problem with long trips is all that driving time. What if I bought a car that did the driving for me? No canceled flights. No delays. Legroom.

If I bought a driverless car, it had to be top of the line. It had to be durable, and I decided that, over a two-year span, it had to pay for itself. I was surprised to learn, after I estimated liberally the costs – insurance, fuel, service, tolls, depreciation, repairs – it could pay for itself. I work for myself. I needed no approval. I had to file no paperwork. My flights were booked two months ahead. I decided I would do more research, with the goal being to buy a car and put it in service during that period.

For years, I’ve been playing the stock market. My strategy has always been simple and patient. I’d do the research, buy a stock, set a target, and sell it when it reached the target. I’d had a few losers. They were still there in my portfolio because I refused to sell any at a loss. For a month, when I sold a profitable stock, rather than reinvesting, I transferred the money to my checking account. I spent a little over a hundred grand on a Trek DL-8, a sport-utility vehicle, smoky silver, with plenty of room for my bags, golf clubs, ice chest, and guitar.

Guess what? I didn’t have to pick it up. It drove itself to my house. What will they think of next? A lot.

First I set the Trek on manual override and shook it down on a short trip to Asheville, two hours up Interstate 26. On the way back that night, the Trek spoke to me for the first time.

“Pardon me, sir.”

I was taken aback.

“That was awfully polite of you.”

“Yes, sir. I just wanted to inform you of a considerable traffic stoppage about ten miles ahead. Would you like to reroute?”

“What do you suggest?”

“Perhaps you would like me to handle this?”

“How?”

“Disarm the manual override, sir. I will be pleased to take over the navigation.”

“Okay,” I replied. “Do you have a name?”

“You may give me one.”

“Let’s see. You have a female voice, so I guess I should give you a woman’s name.”

“If it pleases you, sir, I can change my voice to a masculine timbre.”

“All right, I’ve taken you off manual. How about Freddy?”

“Very good, sir. Is this voice satisfactory?”

“You sound like Henry Fonda. That’s not bad,” I said. Freddy, by the way, is negotiating a winding mountain road with extraordinary verve. It brings James Bond to mind. “How about an English dialect? I like English golf commentators.”

“There are many English dialects.”

“Well, certainly not Cockney. I’d never understand you.”

“No, sir.”

“How about something similar to David Frost?”

“One moment,” Freddy said. “Frost, David Paradine (1939-2013), media personality.”

“That’s it,” I said. “Vivid. Expansive. Easy to understand. ‘Dahee-vid Frahst’.”

“Very good, sir,” said Freddy Frost.

“Call me Horace,” I said.

“But your name is Chris.”

“I know. But we may as well carry the charade to its natural conclusion.”

By the time we completed a two-week trip to Dallas, then Phoenix, then back home, I thought my name was Horace. Freddy drove around the clock. All I did was sleep, pump gas, and pay at the drive-through.

If you become a patron of mine, you’re supporting writing like this as well as my mostly NASCAR blogs at montedutton.com. If you’ve got a few bucks a month to spare, click here.

Another way I cobble out a living is with my books, a wide variety of which is available for sale here.

 

My eighth novel is called Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Lightning in a Bottle is now available in an audio version, narrated by Jay Harper.