Heartbreaker

(Continued from PART ONE of Heartbreaker...)

Lightningfast

I woke up late the next morning. It was a Saturday. I felt tremendous. Better than I had in ages and ages. At least until I discovered Bridget was gone. And Shadow with her.

Holy crap!

There was no sign of a note, or other indication of her intent, left behind.

Bridget must have paid close attention to my unusual starting procedure for Shadow to have pulled this off, I thought. Then I recalled practically bragging about it to her one day. What an idiot!

Of course she needed a key, too. But being in my room with me asleep had given her plenty of time to find it in my pants pocket.

Son of a bitch!

What the hell did she think she was doing?

Hopefully she was just joy-riding and would be back soon. Or maybe getting us something to eat. Something very ordinary, very sedate, very inconspicuous.

But Shadow was far from inconspicuous in daylight. And an awful lot of car for anybody. But especially a woman, I thought. Shadow had lots of quirks, being as how he was set up for just about any sort of driving but the normal kind. Like how badly his brakes worked when cold, because they were metallics optimized for high speed decelerations, not bumper to bumper city traffic.

Egads! Had I ever warned her about cold braking in the car? Holy cow!

And what if she treated Shadow's gas pedal the same as the one in her own little piss ant of a car? She'd go out of control immediately!

Shadow was toast, I was sure. Bridget would wreck him, and maybe kill herself in the process.

Holy shit. What if that's what her plan was? To kill herself in Shadow because of Steve's rejection? She knew Shadow was fast as hell. All she'd have to do was hold down the pedal and aim at an immovable object and she'd soon be a greasy spot on the local architecture.

I was practically manic. But helpless. There was no one among our neighbors I could ask for a car loan or even a ride, where conducting a lengthy search was concerned: but possibly for one. Maybe our closest neighbor-- who'd witnessed Bridget's abduction before-- would have lent me his van, or at least drove me around in it. But he wasn't home.

Bridget's own car was still there, but useless. She'd suddenly begun having major problems with it lately, and so started catching a ride with a buddy from work back and forth, plus accompanying me for runs to the store and the like. Her car hadn't been down long. I'd checked it out and seemed to detect some transmission problems she needed a garage to look at. Then her battery had gone dead too after not sitting for long at all. The last time we'd cranked her car it'd needed a boost from Shadow.

I considered trying to get her car going somehow now-- it was a straight shift so in theory it could be pushed or sent down a hill for a crank. Unfortunately there was no hill within miles, and it'd be mighty tough for me to push it to a start here in the lumpy but otherwise level gravel driveway of the park. And her tranny was acting up too, even if I could get the thing running. Plus, I couldn't find her car keys.

I quickly decided against trying to resurrect her vehicle for an emergency search. For with Shadow gone, I was also bereft of virtually all my tools.

There was no way for me to contact Bridget or even know where she was-- unless she showed up on the TV news.

Uh oh.

I hadn't had amenities like a television set in the trailer until Bridget moved in, bringing her own stuff with her.

I switched on both the TV and radio. I had no idea how long Bridget had been gone. She might already have made the news. Heck: there'd been several times in the past I narrowly avoided getting on an APB or newscast myself in Shadow.

But half an hour of switching TV channels and twirling the radio dial brought up nothing on the subject.

Why the heck had I told her how to start the car? This couldn't have happened if I'd just kept my mouth shut. This was one reason I hated getting drawn up into long conversations with anyone-- but especially pretty girls. For sooner or later I'd blurt out something I shouldn't, simply due to running out of safe stuff to say. I mean, I could never understand how all those people constantly jabbering everywhere could keep it up. Didn't they ever run out of stuff to say? I sure did!

I agonized like this for a long time. Finally I accepted that all I could do was wait. So I showered and ate. Then I listened to some music for a while, trying not to think about what it would be like to be stranded without Shadow in this place.

As for Bridget, I didn't know what to think. She'd made me very, very happy the night before. But now she'd made me the opposite. Agh!

This seemed to be the story of my life where women were concerned.

Hours passed.

I think I somehow dozed off. Because next thing I knew, a familiar guttural 'chugga-chugga' woke me up on the living room couch. I pushed aside the window curtain and there was Shadow in his rightful place outside, seemingly in one piece.

And there were no sirens or guns or revolving blue lights, either!

Yay!

I practically leaped through the trailer door and onto the small flimsy porch outside.

I had to try to control myself, an inner voice urged. But I was seething with a cold rage. At the same time I was immensely relieved that both of them were okay. And that the local police weren't now hand cuffing me for all the stuff they'd found in and about Shadow after a routine traffic stop of Bridget during her romp through town.

It took Bridget several minutes to finally kill the engine and exit the car. What the heck she was fiddling with I couldn't imagine. She was fortunate Shadow was between us.

"Hello Jerry!" Bridget spoke happily, as she emerged from my vehicle.

"Hello," I offered with much less enthusiasm.

"Bridget, where have you been?" It was all I could do not to yell at her and run over and seize her by both arms.

"Oh, here and there," she flippantly replied. She didn't seem to be holding anything more than her tiny wallet-purse and my keys, as she rounded the rear end of Shadow.

"Bridget, Shadow's not a toy," I said, almost shaking with rage. I believe my face was probably reddening too by this time.

"Of course it is. It's your toy," Bridget said as she reached me and ran her arms around my waist, kissing me lightly on the lips.

The passion of the previous night made it difficult to withhold a response to her, but I managed it.

I unwrapped her arms from around me, and took hold of her just below the shoulders.

"Bridget, where in hell have you been all this time?"

Bridget looked a little less relaxed now.

"Looking for a new car," she told me.

I was incredulous. "You've been car shopping? Why didn't you leave me a note or something? Or wake me up?"

"You just looked too peaceful to wake up. Plus, I wanted it to be a surprise."

"Surprise? What surprise?"

"My new car. I wanted to surprise you with it. So naturally you couldn't be there when I bought it."

"Did you buy one?"

"Yeah. A pretty red one."

"Well, if we'd gone together you could have driven it back just now."

"Oh, it's coming."

"Someone's bringing it?"

"Yeah. They're bringing my new one and a tow truck for my old one at the same time. The dealer is a friend of mine. Or my mom's, anyway."

And here it came. It was a pretty red car all right. A bright red 1970 Ford Torino GT fastback 429 Cobra Jet. I couldn't believe it. The tow truck was close behind.

"Bridget, that is your new car?" I asked.

"Yeah!" Bridget was beaming. And I couldn't blame her. It looked really nice. Had a sort of spectrum graphic running along the sides, and a shaker scoop protruding through the hood.

"Bridget, what made you choose this car?" I asked. I couldn't believe she'd made such a choice strictly on her own. Bridget had never struck me as being an automobile aficionado.

"I told Kendall I wanted a car faster than yours," Bridget told me, as I stood there with my mouth hanging open.

"I had to show him your car so he'd know what I meant," she added.

"You showed my car to a dealer?" Agh!

"Yes. He said he'd never seen one like it before. He made a fuss over your roll thingy and stuff."

"And he told you this Cobra Jet would beat it?"

"He guaranteed it! He told me he'd give me my money back if I couldn't beat you at the drag strip!" Bridget had a huge smile on her face.

"Well, maybe so Bridget. But I didn't build Shadow to be the fastest car on a strip. I built him to be the fastest car on curves. Because that's the way the world really is. Curvy. Drag strips are just quarter-mile straight lines."

"It'll beat you anyway! Anywhere!" Bridget was defiant in the face of this new information.

This turn of events had been most unexpected. I didn't quite know what to think. But at least Bridget wouldn't be needing my car if she had one now that'd run. And I'd be sure to tweak Shadow's starting sequence to prevent Bridget from performing an encore of all this.

Bridget had already named her new car. She called it "Lightningfast". Oh well.

I soon gave Lightningfast a drive-- because Bridget insisted upon it.

I didn't give her car a true workout because (a), I didn't want to risk Bridget losing her ride and absconding with Shadow again, (b), I was afraid if the 429 was too strong compared to Shadow I'd get envious or dissatisfied with Shadow himself, forcing me into a whole new major modification phase for which I had neither the time or money now, or any time in the foreseeable future, and (c), the Torino body was significantly longer and heavier than Shadow, and I wouldn't be comfortable putting it through its paces in proper fashion.

Driving it like a grandmother between red lights in town the car seemed acceptable. It had a full exhaust system unlike Shadow and so was much quieter. It was also much more comfortable and polished than Shadow. Not to mention much prettier. And that was that. Except for the speed challenge Bridget seemed to feel compelled to force upon me.

Oh. One more thing. Like me, Shadowfast seemed to like Bridget too. How could I tell? Well, after that first time she drove him the tape player began working again-- the same tape player which had quit when Lloyd drove the car for just a few harrowing minutes on the way from Tennessee to Texas. How'd she do it? She claimed she just stuck in a tape and it played like it was supposed to. But I'd done that and lots of other fiddling previously, with no such result. That tape player would continue to work for the rest of my stay in Texas.

Quarter-mile surprise

I never wanted to pit Bridget's Lightningfast against Shadowfast. But my opposition seemed to make it all the more important to Bridget that we did. I guess I'd made a mistake when I voiced my opinion on her car at its initial appearance.

After maybe a week of debate, Bridget and I found ourselves at the track in a town a hundred miles from our trailer, both nosing up to the starting line before the strip's Christmas tree.

It was the closest drag strip we'd been able to find. I'd been surprised by the apparent dearth of strips locally. Maybe I just didn't know where to look. Or maybe I'd been spoiled by just happening to be born into a little bitty Tennessee town which possessed its own drag strip and round tracks.

I had no illusions about the outcome of the race. For Shadow was no dragster. A 429 Cobra Jet was definitely faster in that arena. It had to be! Even with the likely weight disadvantage and inexperienced driver, it'd probably win. I just hoped Bridget wouldn't wreck her car and maybe me too out there, with all that power under her foot.

We got the green and Shadow leaped ahead. I'd figured I'd catch her out of the hole due to my prior strip experience. It was what came after that which would make the difference.

I thought me and Shadow could take a defeat here well enough. It was the real world contests which mattered most to us. Or that's what I told myself, anyway.

At least Steve and Will wouldn't be here to see me lose to a girl, the five year old in me thought. Unfortunately there were plenty of other folks there that day who would.

I figured I'd never mention this to anyone afterwards, and that way no one but all the local Texan witnesses who would never see or hear of us again would know about it.

I focused my attention on controlling my own car down the track, just as I was supposed to. But after a few seconds I couldn't help but notice Bridget was way too far behind.

Shadowfast ended up beating Lightningfast by at least two full seconds in the quarter. What the hell?!

Bridget was not happy. I was happy but confused. It seemed like a miracle. I didn't understand how the Torino could be so slow-- or Shadow so inexplicably fast. One clue though was Bridget's rear wheels were smoking and stinking after the race was over. I started checking things out and discovered Bridget's emergency brake had been about 90% depressed. Or maybe 100% originally, but some 10% of the rear linings had been burnt off by the Cobra Jet trying to beat Shadow despite its handicap.

And that's how Shadow came to beat a 429 Cobra Jet in the quarter-mile. Another possibly historic moment, much like the chess game. For when else might a slightly hot rodded 351 Windsor have beaten a 429 Cobra Jet in the quarter-mile?

I'm not saying it was a fair race by any means. But I believe most hard core racers would agree with me that lots of contests are decided on pure luck alone. And Shadow was lucky that day.

Bridget wanted a rematch after we found the problem, but the tower guy wouldn't let us have another one that day. There were too many other racers wanting their turn, and they'd sort of only let me and Bridget squeeze in as a favor for out-of-town strangers (with interesting cars). Plus, I was concerned that Bridget's brakes might have been damaged in the incident, and thought it prudent not to test them with another high speed run any time soon.

Turned out we never did get around to a second competition of that sort-- partly because of the special 100 mile out-of-the-way trip involved. I must admit I didn't exactly push for a re-match either-- because I'd almost certainly lose. And looking Lady Luck in the mouth is very rude.

That night back at the trailer-- despite her disappointment with the results-- Bridget felt like she should thank me for locating the strip and accompanying her, as it'd been obvious I didn't want to do either. I'd also tried my best to prepare her for the race by instructing her about the lights and power braking to warm up the tires. I wondered if maybe Bridget had been confused about the power braking part, and erroneously used the parking brake? But she didn't think she did. We'd watched other racers before our own contest, with me explaining the whole process at the same time Bridget saw real life examples happening before her eyes.

Keep in mind Lightningfast was very different from her previous car-- especially in regards to the emergency brake activation-- and Bridget hadn't yet owned the Cobra Jet long enough to get accustomed to its differences just in general.

I'd tried my best to help her get prepared for the race. But there were sure enough quite a few details there for a newcomer to digest in just a few minutes.

I was just happy she didn't crack up. Wrecks were common at strips. Especially for first-timers.

So anyway, Bridget knew I'd done my best to help her, despite never wanting to race in the first place. So she surprised me that evening with a reward.

Shadowfast had no air conditioning of course, and that had been a typical hot Texas day. Bridget and I had spent hours on the road in our respective cars to and from the distant drag strip, as well as sweated plenty during the race and while standing around the strip. So I was ready to cool down and clean up when we returned home. I asked Bridget if she wanted to shower first, and she said she'd just wait.

Lightningfast was naturally a much cooler automobile than flat black Shadow, in the full glare of the Texas sun.

It was nice living with someone. When I'd stayed alone in the previous smaller trailer I'd had at the park, I'd disliked showering because of the noise: it pretty much insured you wouldn't hear someone breaking into the place. Someone like Briggs, for instance. So showering then had felt a bit dangerous to me.

But it was different when you had someone else in the house with you. For they could alert you if needed. For a brief time my friend Steve had stayed in the one extra room my first trailer had. Now I had Bridget.

And it turned out a room-mate could offer still more benefits in the shower besides helping guard against intruders.

I thought I heard a door open but dismissed it as Bridget opening her bedroom door, which wasn't far from the bathroom door in the trailer. My bedroom was at the other end of the domicile.

But I was mistaken. For I was startled to see a hand draw back the shower curtain and Bridget looking in.

I paused in my soaping up.

"Is something wrong Bridget?" I asked. For Bridget had never done this before. I figured something must be up. It even crossed my mind that Paul had shown up again, in defiance of our deal. I began to get angry.

But Bridget's facial expression disarmed me. It didn't seem distressed, but rather amused.

"No. I was just wondering if you might want some company."

"In the shower?" I asked incredulously. Hey, give me a break for my reaction: I'd never had a girl in the shower before. Heard about it from other guys (like Steve and his brother). Seen it in films. But never personally had the opportunity.

"Yes," Bridget answered me.

"Well, yeah...sure...I guess so!" I stammered out, trying hard to recover from my amazed naiveté.

"Good," Bridget responded, pulling the curtain farther open. Revealing she was dressed only in light tan colored panties and bra. She made short work of both before me (which I must say I appreciated very much), then joined me in the rushing water.

Wow, but was that awkward. I mean, we'd spent considerable time in bed together by that point already. But I was just completely unaccustomed to showering adventures.

At college the dorm showers were communal, but as all we heterosexual males so disliked showering together we often went unwashed for days at a time to minimize encounters, whenever a pending date or something else didn't force the issue. And tried mightily to shower at times when we could personally have the place all to ourselves (like very late at night or very early in the morning). And do it quickly before someone else could show up.

You might get the idea we were all raving homophobes there. But we had at minimum two excellent reasons for our behavior, above and beyond the simple huge preference for female nakedness, as opposed to male (the difference seemed very like that between a delicious, exotic ice cream dessert-- and a stinking trash can filled with week old sewage). Or at least we had such extra reasons in the very first dorm I lived in at Tech.

For one, occasionally other guys living in the dorm could attack you anywhere in the dormitory-- including the shower. I don't mean sexually, but simply physically. Several of them come in and seize you in the shower, then carry you outdoors and dump you there wet and naked for all the world to see.

Often they'd try to have a gaggle of girls out there to serve as an audience. To deepen the humiliation I guess.

Usually at least some of those involved seemed to be football team members at the school. Which made them bigger and stronger than the average dorm resident, and difficult to successfully repulse. Especially when they came at you in groups.

That scenario never happened to me, Steve, or Will, but I saw it happen to others. And definitely wanted no part of it.

As for another reason the men in the dorm minimized shower time, there was this one guy-- a black guy from some foreign country if I recall correctly (Perhaps Nigeria? Or maybe France)-- that seemed openly gay, and many of us could swear he kept a close eye on all the other men's shower schedules in order that he could rush in and shower along with them. Yikes!

It was very uncomfortable to wipe the soap out of your eyes to discover that dude had now joined you in the shower. And was visually checking you out. Agh!

Many of the building's residents often joked that he must be the cleanest guy in the dorm. Of course the constant threat of his unwelcome shower presence made all the rest of us tend to be fairly filthy by comparison.

Don't get me wrong: I never heard of him being any more bothersome than what I just related. But that was more than enough for us! Heck: that would turn out to be the first time in my whole adult life that I'd voluntarily skip bathing altogether for up to two or three days at a time. Yikes!

So anyway, this was the context for my odd reaction to Bridget unexpectedly joining me in the shower now, during this summer break from college.

Lessons in love

Bridget basically turned out to be a dream girl. At least for a guy like me.

She would end up teaching me more about love and relationships than I even dreamed existed at that age. Our initial trysts would just be the first of many lessons in love I'd get from that girl. And Bridget gave me much to think about life in general, too.

All this quickly led me to wondering if she was the one: the girl I should marry.

Yeah, all this happened awfully fast. At least after the phone call to Steve. But I fell, and fell hard.

The sex alone was incredible. More than enough to keep me with her for a long, long time. But I also found her intriguing in other ways-- often getting caught up in deep discussions with her like I hadn't experienced for years with hardly anyone else.

"I believe in love, not God," Bridget told me one night, in bed. During a much-needed break in our love play. We were both hot, sweaty, and content-- at least for the moment. Too energized to sleep, but too spent for much more than conversation.

Bridget seemed to like such pillow talk, much the same as Dana Connor. Somehow the two women managed to intrigue or surprise me with their choice of topics nearly every single time-- although each woman's selections differed greatly from the other's.

Maybe I'm just being vain here, but I often wondered if any other guy in the world besides me could have stretched far enough mentally to cope with two such different feminine minds in this way. I mean, there were times with each of those two girls that it seemed to require an awful big chunk of my personal journey and memory-- including nearly a complete reading of my childhood encyclopedia set, voracious assaults on multiple school libraries, and all my shared adventures and talks with Steve and others-- to cope with the conversational demands these two girls could unexpectedly make of me in bed. Wow!

Yeah, I suppose we men might never be fully up to such a task, for a variety of reasons. But I tried my best. And seemed to succeed more often than not, in the sort of engagement and give and take they were seeking.

But it wasn't unusual for them to tax me pretty strongly there. Combine that with a woman's natural extra stamina (much of the time anyway) in the bedroom, and it all makes for some fairly strenuous contests! Ha, ha. Friendly mental and physical competitions, of perhaps the very best kind!

So one night Bridget began her latest verbal challenge of me, just after I'd (hopefully!) passed her latest physical exam (ha, ha).

"I believe in love, not God," she told me. Without much of any lead up to the subject. Just throwing it out there, to see what I'd say in response.

"Well, I believe in God and not love," I responded. Though in all honesty I was a bit unsure about God too, based on my own experiences. But I knew Bridget was wanting a debate here.

"Why don't you believe in love?" she asked.

"Why don't you believe in God?" I replied.

"I don't believe in God because of all the suffering in the world. If there truly was an all-mighty God and he cared about any of us, it'd surely be the little children, right? But look at the awful things happening to children around the world. If there is a God, He's not on the side of the children."

Hmm. I couldn't think of much of a rebuttal to that. So I went another way.

"So what makes you believe in love?"

"I've seen love work, but I've never seen God work. I mean, sometimes people give God credit for what love does, but I don't think that's right."

Well, maybe I was just having an off-night, but Bridget seemed to have some pretty good points there. At least going on personal experience.

But what about...

"Well, love might work some of the time, but I've seen it fall all to pieces too, and cause all sorts of havoc for people."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, what about unrequited love? Where you love somebody but they don't love you back?"

"What's your point?"

"They don't love you back!"

"But they don't have to love you back. Love is either there or it isn't. It can grow from a seed like a tree, but if there's no seed, it can't. And even with a seed it can take time. Love's not automatic: there's no button you can push to make it happen."

"Well, that's little consolation to the one who loves already."

"Maybe. But there are two kinds of love: love of yourself and love of others. Real love of others doesn't require those others to return the favor. But love of yourself often demands others reflect it back at you somehow. Like how cult leaders demand loyalty and sometimes blind faith and obedience from their followers. So I guess you're talking love of yourself here? Like that?"

"No! I'm talking love of others!"

"So you're saying someone who truly loves another is harmed when that other doesn't love them back?"

"Yes!"

"I don't see it. Give me an example."

"Oh, never mind."

"No. Really! I want an example."

"I-- I mean like if a person falls in love with another, but that other doesn't feel the same for them-- it can be pretty devastating."

"Why?"

"Because they aren't loved back!"

"A mother might selflessly raise her child the best she can even if that child doesn't ever reciprocate her feelings. The best teachers give all they can of themselves to their students, knowing full well they'll likely never see any of them again, or derive any more personal gain from it than knowing they did their best to help the kids get the abilities to eventually take care of themselves, and hopefully make the whole world a better place. That's love of another. Compassion.

"Passion though is different. We can be passionate about survival, about our jobs, our hobbies. We can meet the passions of others with our own. But passions are a selfish, wanting thing. Compassion by contrast is giving, and selfless.

"Compassion is the root of love for others. Passion is closer to the root of self-love, self-gratification, self-preservation. People can mix the two together, and do. But getting one confused with the other-- like you seem to be-- isn't good."

Grrr. I'd made a poor choice here for a debating point. Bridget was mopping up the place with me, metaphorically speaking. I needed some maneuvering room.

"So what's the best way-- or a good way-- to have passion?"

Bridget smiled at me. "Oh, you're not getting out of it that easy! You already know enough about passion! It's compassion you need to study up on."

"Damn, Bridget! Can't you cut me a break? You know I'm an amateur at this passion stuff," I smiled back. For she surely did know by now the full extent of my inexperience when she'd taken me under her wing. Dana and I had both been utter beginners, and not gotten far beyond the awkward and clumsy stage before we were parted once again.

"Hmm. Not so much an amateur as just inexperienced and a late bloomer, I'd say," she responded.

"Yeah. Right." I knew she was being generous there. Several times I'd stunned her with my backwardness and ignorance on some things. At first I'd thought that a bad thing. For we were practically the same age, just like Dana and I were. But I was way behind Bridget on matters sexual. And certain other worldly matters too, it would seem.

Fortunately Bridget had just accepted my woeful state of incompetence, and merely tried to help me get up to speed, rather than amplified my own concerns about it.

Yeah, we men want to project to the world that we're like beings made of solid stone or metal: hard and tough all over, and under all conditions. At least where our strength of will and determination are concerned. But we're not. We have plenty of vulnerable chinks in our armor. It's our women who shield and strengthen us there.

A family affair

My first impression that Bridget had had no college turned out to be wrong. She was indeed taking classes on occasion. But not every quarter. And when she did attend, she was only taking one or at most two classes at once.

Partly this was due to the cost. But she also told me she preferred to split the experience this way, because other college students she'd known had seemed to lose touch with the real world when they stayed completely insulated from it for four or more years in school. I knew what she meant. But I also knew attending college in the manner she was could be extra strenuous in itself, in many ways. For I'd done a small amount of such part-timing myself.

The more I got to know her, the more I admired her. And lusted after her! Ha, ha.

Being with Bridget turned out to be an amazing ride-- in many ways rivaling or even surpassing all my own past best relationships, including my affair with Dana, and the adventures Steve had led me and others into over the years.

For instance, there was Bridget's family. She cajoled me into attending a cookout with them one weekend, and I was utterly flabbergasted by how much I liked them. Them, their place; everything!

It turned out they had a special treat for me on their spread: an actual small hill and dip in the landscape! I'm not kidding about its special nature. Such natural terrain features were rare in the near unbroken flatness of this part of Texas. I almost got choked up over it, as it reminded me of home.

I had a much better time during that first visit than I'd expected. But then it got even better! It turned out Bridget's dad Emory had been something of an outlaw hot rodder himself in his youth! I was amazed to see him figure out quite a few of Shadow's tricks almost immediately upon a very brief inspection. And he truly admired the handiwork me and dad and my brother had put into it.

But the cornucopia didn't end there: for Emory had a Shadowfast of his own!

It was a big luxury car he'd bought new from the factory. After purchase he'd immediately begun modifying it to better suit him. He called it Gus, after his best buddy killed in Korea. Gus had been a big tough guy with a gentle soul, who'd helped their unit make its way through quite a few harrowing battles before the end.

Emory's auto looked almost completely stock from the outside. Someone familiar with factory specs might have noticed he'd added a bit to his bumpers front and back-- but it wasn't unusual in those days for folks to add on some extra bumper guards here and there.

Emory's car though was truly a wolf in sheep's clothing.

The bumpers were massively reinforced front and rear, mostly in unseen ways; the extra guards which were visible were merely the tip of the ice berg. That car was literally built for ramming its way out of trouble, forward or backwards.

It had something like Shadow's roll cage installed too. But not in the passenger compartment: the engine compartment, instead. And trunk. And doors. The undercarriage. The engine and radiator and other vulnerable essentials were all surrounded by steel reinforcements so that anything vital wouldn't be crushed by ramming actions.

There were also steel plates to deflect bullets or other dangers coming through the grill which might adversely affect the radiator. The arrangement still allowed cooling air to move through-- it just did so in a more circuitous route than normal.

One of the few obvious modifications of the interior was a mobile bunker mirror installed against his headliner. A solid metal band with a heavy duty mirror chromed finish, it could be flipped down at the optimal angle to provide Emory driving visibility even as he hunkered down behind the dashboard.

He had his own version of a wide angle rear view mirror too-- but it was a one-piece which didn't look nearly as radical as Shadow's own.

Other tricks up the car's metaphorical sleeves included an oil slick which could be deposited smack in the middle of a high speed curve for pursuit, and a full-blown smoke screen option that included tear gas-- and two gas masks inside the car.

Emory had also installed hellaciously loud air horns both front and rear, as well as a public address system. Any of these could make your knees wobble when they sounded off unexpectedly.

Emory's vehicle also wouldn't start for anyone but Emory-- or someone authorized by him. Yeah, Emory had a trick ignition sequence.

Topping everything off was a fluctuating blue light very like that of the cops. It was disguised as a hood tachometer. You know-- that kind I believe cars like Pontiac GTOs sported for a while? That resembles a small backward facing hood scoop? Only the side facing the driver displayed a tach?

Well, Emory's displayed a tach too when facing the driver. But he had a cable pull under the dash that swiveled the gizmo around while exchanging the tach for a small but bright strobing blue light. So Emory could cause people to pull over at night, thinking they had a cop behind them. But if a real cop checked his car for an illegal light, they'd find nothing-- and probably not even look twice at the hood tachometer.

Emory had a white strobe light too. But not in the tail of his car. His was mounted on a flexible neck under his dash that he could pull up and position near the bottom of his driver's side window, and activate to momentarily blind anyone standing there seconds later, with the inconspicuous push of a button.

He could also twist it around to flash both ahead through the windshield or backward, or out the driver's window. So Emory's strobe was much more versatile than mine-- although not quite as potent in blinding pursuit as my own, I believe.

He claimed he had blow-out proof tires. That they could be repeatedly shot or stabbed and not go down enough to cripple the car.

He also had the most powerful engine the factory had offered for this model. And then hot rodded it some beyond that. So that the car was still pretty peppy, despite all the added weight.

I believe there were a few other gizmos in Emory's ride that I just can't recall the details of now.

He had a few tales of his car in action which we weren't sure we should believe at the time. In hindsight though, I'd say his stories were likely pretty accurate.

Emory also kept a wicked little sawed off double-barreled shotgun handy in the car. With a handful of extra shells. Just in case. Hidden in a secret compartment in his front seat upholstery.

It was very unusual for me to like the parents as much as I did the girl herself. But in this case I did. So Bridget and I ended up visiting them quite often, after that initial meeting.

Another great reason to visit was Emory's extremely well-appointed garage and workshop. Basically it was a three car garage with a sizable adjoining utility room behind. As they also had a spacious driveway and yard all around, Emory had made the entire garage off-limits to regular parking. Even his supercar didn't reside there, but in its own single car garage, which was separate from the house and located at the driveway entrance some 20 yards or so away.

Emory had put years into assembling his garage/workshop, and it showed. Practically any tool you could possibly want could be found there. Plus a full selection of general purpose parts like nuts and bolts and screws and clamps and lots, lots more. You could also fabricate stuff in there even easier than I could at my parents' house in Tennessee!

Shadow had lost entirely some important components-- and accumulated quite a bit of damage to others-- during our Texas stay so far. I'd been making only slow progress on his clean up and repair and replacement needs since the tornadoes incident, and so found Emory's garage to be a Godsend.

It also didn't hurt that Bridget was a welder by trade, and Emory comparable to my own dad in terms of fabrication and repair skills. Bridget's mother Peggy seemed delighted to support our efforts with hearty meals and refreshments at regular intervals, and even Bridget's little sister Kathy pitched in too on things like clean up and fetching tools and parts for us all.

Shadow would end up getting much of a refitting in Emory's garage, over a several week period.

I even managed to get his bullet holes fixed. I'd been getting ever more worried about those drawing attention from the cops during my regular driving of Shadow, and so patched them with duct tape and painted over the patches with flat black paint to hide them. But no matter how tightly you applied the tape, the Texas heat caused some sort of changes in either the tape or metal, and soon the patches would show the outlines of the holes underneath again, as a little depression in the patch. So I had to keep redoing the patches until I finally got the holes permanently fixed at Emory's.

And yes, Emory saw the bullet holes. And heard the story about how they got there. I told him a few other driving stories too-- while trying to leave out the parts I thought might make him think me too dangerous to be around his daughter.

It helped a lot that Emory had his own similar stories!

Though we usually concentrated on our work, at times profound philosophical discussions would break out among us. Once or twice when our schedules allowed, we all talked long into the night.

It was from Bridget's family that I learned Bridget was considered to have some sort of E.S.P. (extra sensory perception). At least E.S.P. was the popular term for it back then.

Basically their belief stemmed from lots of odd little coincidences between things Bridget would sometimes say, and events which later took place.

I admit they had some noteworthy tales to relate on the matter. But I personally thought there could be more rational explanations for almost every story they told me.

Of course I didn't insult them with a direct challenge: I went along good-naturedly with the whole thing. After all, if that was the worst thing I ever discovered about this clan, I'd still have to classify them as some top-notch folks, and among the very best I'd ever met.

One afternoon when Bridget and I were alone in the garage due to her parents and Kathy being gone, Bridget displayed a bit of her so-called sixth sense for me.

We were doing some more remediation work on Shadow, when I noticed Bridget seemed to be muttering quietly to herself.

"Is something the matter Bridget?" I asked.

Bridget looked at me over the roof of Shadowfast. She had one hand laid flat atop the car.

"Your car's different from others I've been around."

I laughed. "Well of course! There's not another like him in the world! He's one of a kind!"

"No, that's not what I mean. Cars are basically big hunks of metal, and I know metal very well. I'm a welder. Metal usually only feels alive when it's molten: for that's the only time it's completely malleable-- able to easily change...into something else. Shape and purpose-wise, I mean."

"So?"

"So...Shadow feels molten all the time."

I laughed again. "That's because of the Texas sun and his flat black paint! His mechanical engine temperature gauge will read over 200 degrees just from the passenger compartment heat alone, if I leave his windows rolled up tight too long in the sun!" I told her, somewhat incongruously-- since we were inside Emory's garage, and had been for a while.

"No. That's not what I mean. He has...the same energy as if he were a molten glob of metal. Like he could change into something else at any time."

I gave Bridget a skeptical raised eyebrow and smile. I couldn't help it. She tried to explain further.

"It's like the only thing hard and cold about him is a thin outer shell-- like an egg. Like he's going to hatch or something."

"Bridget, I hate to tell you this: but no car in the history of the world has ever hatched into something else like you're saying."

"I know. But it's there. Like it's on the verge of becoming something else entirely. And maybe...taking you with it."

Bridget studied on it a moment longer, while I said nothing. Heck: what could I say to such mumbo jumbo? Bridget then continued.

"I don't know. Maybe I'm seeing his impact on the world. Like he'll help the world change, somehow."

"Oh wow! Now he's changing the world!" I rolled my eyes. "Bridget, Shadow can't even change his own oil," I said with a purposeful tang of disappointment.

My skepticism didn't seem to bother her at all.

"You'll see. One day. Just you wait."

I laughed it off then. But Bridget would turn out to be absolutely right. And in at least two different ways, at the same time.

I wonder now how much she could really see and understand about all that, back then. Her words ended up being right on the money. But it'd take decades for it all to come true. Could she really have seen that far ahead?

I get goose bumps just thinking about that. For some things about Bridget would turn out to be wilder and more wondrous than anything else I'd ever experience afterwards.

And if you knew of the other things I'm referring to, you'd find it hard to believe that Bridget could outdo them all on her own. But she did.

For Bridget was surely amazing. Even uncanny. Even decades after I knew her I'd occasionally remember a particular moment I'd spent with her, and realize some possibly deeper meaning within it. Like maybe some of the odd things Bridget did or said had something to do with her knowing more about the fate of others-- and herself-- than any of us should.

In another example of all this, one evening I decided to challenge Bridget on her family's belief in her E.S.P. By getting her to sort of tell me my own fortune, if she could.

I figured it'd be entertaining, and something I could easily tease her about mercilessly for years to come. Bridget wasn't too keen on the idea, so it took me a while to talk her into it.

When she finally came around, this is what she told me: "I believe you'll have an interesting life..."

I smiled at her. "So long as you're in it Bridget, I don't see how I could miss!" Her statement had seemed to me like standard fortune-teller material: very UN-impressive.

Bridget gave me a serious, unsmiling look.

"This-- the interesting part I'm talking about-- has nothing to do with me."

I wasn't sure what she meant by that, so I said nothing in response, hoping for more clues.

"You're going...to get a surprising amount of schooling..."

"Yuck! That's Tech you're talking about--"

"No. It's more than Tech..."

If she was suggesting I was going to get my Bachelor's degree and then go somewhere else for a Masters or more, she was out of her mind! But I let her continue...

"You're going to travel more than you expect, too-- lots more. Go farther than you can imagine..."

"So where we going, baby?" I asked, sniffing around for more hints about what she meant about my future not involving her...

She ignored me.

"I think you're going to be one of the most surprised people of all time, Jerry."

"Oh? Surprised by what?" I wasn't too crazy about the direction her predictions seemed to be going.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she said smugly.

"Try me."

"Well...I have to be careful, or I'll break something."

"Eh? What do you mean by that?"

"I'll break something ahead."

I laughed. "You'll break the future?"

"Yes."

"Well...pick something that should be broken, then! Something bad! Yeah! Let's break a bad future thing so we won't have to deal with it!" I said, hoping that if she was thinking of splitting up with me, maybe I could find out why and fix it first.

That brought an odd smile to Bridget's face. And she leaned over and kissed me. I was surprised to see a tear run down her cheek when we drew back from one another afterwards.

"What's wrong Bridget?" Egads! Was she breaking up with me right now? Out of the blue? With no warning whatsoever?

"Nothing. It's just adorable that you think it's so easy to change destiny," she told me.

"Why, that's what I'm all about! Changing destiny! You and me!" I said, over-reacting to the parts of the conversation I couldn't understand.

"Some destinies, yes. But certain ones must stay the same," she responded.

"What does that mean?"

"The destinies of some are...like the mortar between bricks holding up a building. They must stay there, or else all the destinies of those living in the building could be ruined."

"Well...I guess so," I told her, not really getting the point, due to my own silly and selfish concerns of the moment. "But me and you, we're like birds! We can fly around to find favorable winds and then take them wherever we want!"

"Like birds. I like that," Bridget replied, with a distant look in her eyes. After that our conversation somehow moved away from prognostication and into other subjects. Subjects much more comfortable for me personally. But Bridget's words would come back to haunt me later. Only weeks after she uttered them. And reverberate in my memory for decades to come.

I mean, it was like she knew. Knew how this story, of she and I, would end. Knew what would happen to me afterwards. Knew way more than she should have, or could have.

What happened next? Breaking hearts.

The scene above resembles the Texas park where I shared a trailer with Bridget in the 1970s-- though our main drive was graveled rather than paved, and the individual home lots weren't quite so spacious.

Above is a view of a college dorm hallway virtually identical to those I roamed during the timeframe of this story.