Well, I finally resurrected the Beast. The Banana Boat. The BeBop. My 1966 289 Mustang, a deadly bucket of rust and hope and burning fossil fuels. There are other Mustangs out there in much better shape, and I used to be jealous of those who could afford to replace chipped paint and fraying wires. But now I understand the truth, that I will never have the money to make it a real driver, and even if I did I would put more cash into it than I would a brand new '05 GT that would giggle as it passed the BeBop at 146 MPH. That monster should not be run, today or ever again, because each time I start it up I take a full year off my life. Today for no reason at all I drove my mother's station wagon over 100 mph on the parkway, because I didn't feel like being slow and I sure as hell didn't feel like being sane. I have always felt that, in the ancient and wise words of Thompson, if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing right, and if you are going to speed you had better make sure that everyone else on the road has reason to fear you, because otherwise you will be busted for exceeding the speed limit by a mere 10 mph and your friends will mock you for being a sucker. That is the nature of life in America, if you are discovered breaking the rules by a slim margin others will despise your weakness - BUT, if you have the balls and the guts and enough hot air in your head to bust that limit wide open by doubling it, then shit, you are a force to be reckoned with.

I should not be allowed to drive the Mustang because it is fast and accelerates hard enough for me to pass anything that is naturally aspirated, and with a few hundred dollars I could beat to paste every one of those dumb punks with tricked-out plastic four-bangers. I have crashed once already due to my love of Speed, and my 1.5 tons of American steel required $1,000 of work to get running again. I will speed again in the future, perhaps frequently, and if I crash again that car will not be worth saving. But she will have left this world the way all great Warriors desire to, in a blaze of stupidity doing what she loves best, which is moving faster than anything should be allowed to if it wants to stay on the ground.

The BeBop was built in a different era; there is no reason for that much horse-power to live under the hood of a passenger vehicle, especially one that does not like other passengers. When loaded down with friends the acceleration drops off sharply - the only time that car runs as it should is when I am driving it alone. There is room perhaps for a backpack, and the spirit of Horatio Alger screeching gleefully and reveling in celebration of this disgusting example of American excess. Cars this old and this powerful should not be allowed to run, and in any other country than America they would be banned out of sheer revulsion for their size and deadly fumes. While she is in my possession one or both of us will die, and if I live to bury her I will invest my future dollars in a sensible and environmentally responsible car, something new and reasonable but with enough strength to feed that occasional desire to move. And if I die with a Will intact I will insist that the BeBop be sold for scrap and broken up, her parts melted down and remade into the door frames of a new Mustang.