CURRENT ISSUE 9/30/03 Front Page Weekly Features Advice From Strangers Ain't That America? Riding Shotgun With Adventure Musing With Mitch Moth's Diary News From Travistan Info Previous Issues Crap Shop Who's at Fault? Contact Us! Aye, mateys! Get you some Daily Probe booty!	Riding Shotgun   With Adventure   by Ron Langston   Chapter 34: Driving for Glory A field of broken dreams and eternal hopes sprawled before Achmed and me. As we worked our way across the broken asphalt toward the drab gray concrete tilt-up, you could almost hear the pimpled 17-year-olds grappling with eternal moral issues and basic clothing mechanics, you could smell the sweat of 1,000 after-school jobs and the panic of 1,000 old ladies half fearing and half hoping that, finally, at last, the voice of reason would say: Yhat's enough, hang 'em up. We could taste the ambient chemistry with every breath -- testosterone, complex hydrocarbons and the stench of fresh government forms drying in huge stacks of bureaucratic intimidation, the long suspicious arm of the government touching each of us, strangely reassuring, like the fatherly smile of a Mafia don. We reached the double glass doors. I gave Achmed what I hoped was a reassuring look, and we pushed forward into the teeming mass of bored, frustrated, yet determined humanity. I owed Achmed. Owed him big, for that one time, in Tripoli. I had a packet of documents strapped to my leg, information that could get me a date swimming with the sand fleas. Achmed kept his head, and his well-placed kick to the groin of the local representative of the enforcement arm of the Bank of Yemen bought us the few, precious seconds it took to pull in the gangplank and load up the 50mm deck gun. We were in Malta before I exhaled. But right now, I'm thinking maybe Achmed is paid up and then some. A critical decision faced us. The procedure was deceptively simple: We needed to get into one of the several long, serpentine lines, ride it out until we reached the self-negating other at the far end, answer and ask a few questions, pose for pictures, and then wait for the payoff. In practice, few survive with their sanity, and none with their dignity, wholly intact. None of that mattered, though. "That line, there!" I cried, hoping that I'd guessed right. "OK, Langston," Achmed whispered, eyes glazing over. I'd seen that look before, the look of a man who wasn't going to make it. Damn it. We 'd come this far, and I don't take defeat easily. There was nothing for it. Today, right now, we were getting Achmed that driver's license or we're scheduling a meeting with select representatives of the California Department of Motor Vehicles -- in Hell. Next week -- Chapter 35: Radar Gun Roulette (Transcribed by Joseph Moore)
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