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Rev it
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College Cranking by San
Diego Biker I was in college and about
350 miles from home. I took a part
time job with a guy who was an architect.
I was struggling with my feelings toward men at the time (not hardly even
accepting my being gay myself, but knowing something was up) and the hard starting
too. This guy was really nice, but
strange. Maybe struggling with
homosexual feelings himself. He would
tell me I needed a break and take me to a nearby restaurant (on foot) and
tell me how for the majority of his growing up life, he was terrified of
women. Another time at the office, he drove me crazy because he was wearing
shorts and would open and close his legs back and forth, almost the way
butterflies do. Kinda random, slow
sometimes, fast for no apparent reason all of a sudden. Anyway, he starts to take me to
some of the construction sites. I
ride with him first in his Porsche.
One time I managed to make a mess in the front passenger area. I had set my Coke down on the floor and
got out and checked out the site with him, only to forget when I got back in
and knocked it over and spilled it all over the floor! He was not happy but handled it well
enough. So another time he is riding
around with a friend of his and he brings me along. His friend has a Honda Accord, which is usually so reliable
it's almost boring. So before I know
it, we get to an intersection and the thing dies and won't start!! His friend goes to crank on it and pump a
bunch but the thing just cranks pathetically and doesn't really catch for a
long, long time. The car really
struggles, a bunch before it finally starts and whenever we come to a stop,
the guy has to keep pumping on the gas to keep the thing from dying.. My boss and his friend are in the front
seat and I'm in the back. They're
talking about what causes this sort of thing. My boss' friend even asks me at one point if I know what might
be the cause, which lately is one of my favorite aspects to this whole thing
-- being asked and invited to talk shop / problem solve with the driver!! I say I have little idea but
being a teenager at the time I'm sure I had something to say. This sorta thing keeps happening, but
usually the driver manages to catch it before it stalls! Not always though! This all happened in the course
of a single outing. We were leaving a
construction site at one point and the friend was having trouble getting the
car to start (surprise). Each time
was bitter-sweet for me. On the one
hand I loved it but on the other I just was terrified I'd be found out about
by the guys, that they'd figure out how much pleasure I was getting out of it
and accuse me of being sadistic or something. So anyway, with all the cranking and pumping and the starter
struggling and really giving it all it had (which got to a point where there
wasn't much to give)... the driver managed to back us out onto a curvy and
potentially fast paced two-lane highway!
Fortunately there weren't many other drivers around but there were
cars coming and going.. He managed to
get us pretty much in the middle of the bloody highway! And he's cranking away on the thing and
it's slowly dying and we're still rolling backwards, further into one of the
lanes and off of the center line. The car shakes and shakes and
this guy is one of those guys that isn't sheepish like me about cranking. No he's relentless. The type that once he starts cranking and
pumping on the gas hard, it either starts or he practically kills the stupid
thing! He was going for the kill at
this point. Only I couldn't tell if
the battery was going to die or the car was going to get struck on the side,
by cars coming in either direction! My boss' friend held the key
firmly as the battery grew fainter and fainter the cranking was slower and
slower and the car kept shaking and shaking. Finally, as if he seemed to like
it and thus waited until the very last moment, my boss said, "Hey,
you're going to kill this thing if we don't do something about this. He slid all the heater levers
and radio knobs and any other buttons he could find to the left, in a feeble
attempt to turn all accessories off, thus giving every last little bit of
charge on the battery to focus on the starter and possibly get the car going.
His friend kept cranking. Stopped maybe for a second and tried
cranking more. We really were close
to getting hit by a car or at least having to all hop out and push the damn
thing! Finally, at the last glimmer of
life the car showed as it shaked in an ever so feeble way... VROOM!!
Got it going. Couldn't believe
it. He managed to get us back to the
office and I never got to ride in that car again. :(
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