The Black Car and the parking lot drama - Generation X humor

 

You’ve just stepped out of the shopping mall. It’s scorching hot, the kind of heat that makes your soles feel glued to the asphalt.
The bypass, wrapping around the area like a noose, smolders like a fire doused with buckets of water or a spent matchstick, and you push the cart. It squeaks and veers to the right, as always. The previous customers forgot their receipt pinched between the grid. No matter how hard you try, no matter how closely you examine the contraption like a Formula 1 pit crew, you always end up with the one cart whose wheels are misaligned or whose bearings are reduced to gravel.
Nothing major — you just needed toothpaste and toilet paper, and maybe a couple of frozen pizzas for those quick-fix dinners. But things got out of hand, and by the end of it, they had drained one hundred and seventy euros from your credit card.
At first, you don’t see it. You sense it.
It’s so close that a single puff of air could nudge it into you. It reeks like a volcano and is as silent as a killer in the fog.
It’s there — the black car.
You ignore it, but you can’t help noticing an extra pulse thumping alongside your own and feeling another bead of sweat sliding down your back. So, you quicken your pace, digging your hand into your pocket for the keys as you turn into a side lane of the parking lot. The cart’s alignment doesn’t help, but you push it past a blue sedan, the one dumped with three wheels out of four in the disabled parking space.
But it’s Sunday.
Your favorite team played on Friday night, and the mountain hike stayed in the realm of good intentions. There’s more belly than heart these days, your hiking boots are drying at the bottom of the closet, and the bike surely has flat tires.
Your car is at the far end, baking under a tree that has no intention of growing, its trunk paired with another sporting the initials of some long-forgotten lovers. You’re no expert in measurements, but it’s at least thirty meters away.
You wonder how architects managed to design green areas with wide, shady canopies and illustrations of happy families, men in bowler hats, and ladies with parasols framed against a playground, only for you to end up on a blazing expanse of concrete and broken bricks, sharing space with weeds.
But it’s Sunday.
The parking lot is as vast as Nebraska, yet there isn’t a single spot available, not even for a bribe. Impatient husbands drain their phone batteries double-parking, dogs pee on alloy wheels, and their owners brave the air conditioning to deliberate over swimsuit colors — the ultimate trial. And the kids are inside, drowning in a sea of colorful balls under the watchful eye of the same staffer as last Sunday, and the one before that, and that rainy spring when cars splashed puddles all over you. You’d swear you’ve seen him slicing deli meats, driving a forklift, or rushing to a loudspeaker announcement with a whiff of sweat wafting from the fluttering blue apron.
You’d swear, but you don’t care: he probably doesn’t even have a girlfriend.
And the black car inches closer.
You hear its tires chewing the road and the fan humming in the background. It pulls up beside you. The tinted window slides down, releasing a tangle of low-frequency Dolby Surround sounds. That’s when you don’t understand, when the voice from inside the cabin makes you squint.
But it’s Sunday, and the cart veers to the right, nearly kissing the black car’s door. The driver moves his elbow away and glares at you, seething.
Then it passes. He forces a smile, as if jacking up his cheeks with a car lift, and exhales a whiff of mint. The woman next to him tries to appear friendly, but all you see is a cleavage marked by tan lines and the faint start of a neck.
You stop.
You stop and notice that the black car isn’t alone. It’s followed by a line of compacts, SUVs, and minivans bursting with restless kids. At the end of the queue, a lady, trapped by a maneuver with no apparent solution, blares her horn and curses the world.
The black car inches closer.
It’s followed you across the parking lot, and with it, half the vehicles registered in the last five years. Looking closely, you can’t tell where the line ends.
“Are you leaving?”
The smile propped up with the car lift falters, and the hand dangling outside taps the bodywork with its fingers.
“Excuse me?”
“I said: are you leaving?”
It’s Sunday. The bypass is probably jammed, and the toll station impassable. Your spot at home has surely been snatched, and you’ll need to circle the block twice with your bags. The sliding doors of the shopping mall are paralyzed by the customer flow. Sure, the stupid sensor occasionally tries to shut them, but it’s Sunday, and the two panels just can’t meet halfway.
“Yes… yes, I’m leaving,” you say, gesturing toward your car as if to justify yourself.
“Good. Then I’ll take your spot.”
At that point, the window rolls up. Farewell to the faceless woman and the triumph of subwoofer-enhanced basslines. Farewell to the hopes of a thousand other anonymous drivers, as free to go wherever they please as they are prisoners of that ton of metal and rubber.
But it’s Sunday.
You’ve grown accustomed to the cacophony of horns. You load your groceries, get in the car, start the engine, and begin to reverse. The black car sticks so close you have to be careful not to scrape its bumper. You feel stupid for over-maneuvering in front of that entire audience. You think you heard some insults hurled your way.
But it’s Sunday.
You’re gone before you can round the corner, and the black car has already slipped into your spot.
The couple with the cart and the kid riding in it doesn’t seem to care. Like at a funeral, a gray station wagon silently follows behind. Judging by the situation, the others will have to keep circling for a long time yet.

The Coin Laundry Chronicles

The quilts Are Three
And as everyone knows, the number three can sometimes be hard to wrap your head around—even if you have unwavering faith to rely on.
The winter quilt is light, warm, and technological. It’s made of those fabrics you don’t really understand, but you’re certain no feathers were plucked from a bird to make it. The mid-season quilt, on the other hand, is heavy, sturdy as military-grade gear, and probably warmer than the winter one. The third quilt is white and airy, like a cloud at the start of summer, and no one really knows where it fits in the calendar year.
I’ll have to ask my wife.
They’ve been piled up on the couch in the home theater for a while now, because in August, winter is a distant memory. Even though the northwest in 2021 never really suffered from the heat, that mountain of fabric and synthetic feathers had become part of the landscape, and the cats had grown quite attached to it. When my wife, in a rush, throws the quilts down the stairwell—taking a couple of pictures off the wall in the process—the cats are shocked, worried that this piece of their world is gone forever. One even sniffs the now-empty spot, searching for an explanation.
The laundromat is part of a Swiss chain. They’re very proud of being Swiss, boasting about their uniquely Swiss cleanliness, their drums that spin perfectly round, and the silence inside their laundromats, as quiet as a cathedral. This one is in a location where you can park right out front. And I swear, I’ve seen skilled professionals, healers, accountants, magicians, and bargain shops go under for no other reason than the lack of parking. The Swiss aren’t stupid, you know. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be outside the EU, their banks wouldn’t be full of money, and they wouldn’t have the privilege of staying neutral during wars.
Self-service laundromats have never really caught on in Italy, especially not in smaller towns. It’s intrusive and risky to load your personal belongings into a public machine. You might end up a cautionary tale, forced to move provinces if one of your items turns out to be too dirty—stained yellow, or worse, brown. Even if it’s just coffee or orange soda, your reputation could be ruined. The same goes for worn-out underwear. If it starts spinning in water and detergent, showcasing its unforgivable decay right in the porthole’s glass under the judgmental eyes of other customers, you’re done for.
They may be Swiss, but one of the machines is out of order. And the solution is very Italian: a piece of masking tape slapped on the start button with a terse handwritten apology in marker. The other machines, though, work perfectly. Even though the elderly woman with her mask pulled down has taken up an entire table, the young woman is waiting for the dryer to finish, and the even-younger woman I ask for help just tells me to read the instructions, the vibe is right.
My Beautiful Laundrette, The Big Bang Theory, Mr. Bean, that classic Levi’s ad. Self-service laundromats have inspired so much cinema. In Anglo-Saxon countries, they’re places where people chat, where romances are born. Here? No one gives a damn.
I barely turn around before the critiques begin—softly spoken, as any good gossip should be.
“That quilt is too heavy. It’s just sliding disgracefully to the bottom of the drum instead of tumbling.” The elderly woman with her mask down says this. But it’s not true. It’s just envy—or that unbearable sense of superiority that arises when watching a newbie. My wife goes to check, but the quilt is tumbling. It tumbles and dances, immersed in a fresh scent, and I see for myself that everything is working perfectly, spinning round like the world itself.
So, I do it. I write a review in the notebook left out for comments. I don’t care if the Bic pen is infected with germs from a thousand hands—I want to say it. No mention of the broken washing machine, because I’m a suck-up, but I lay down a harsh critique of the clientele: “People here don’t know how to mind their own damn business!”
Thankfully, they leave. They fill their Ikea bags—taking an eternity—but they leave.
In all that time, the heavy quilt has been spinning with the drum without missing a beat.
The first confident guy, who of course parked out front, empties an Ikea bag into a machine, says hello, and leaves. He clearly doesn’t fear holes, frayed edges, or suspicious stains.
The second confident guy arrives and carefully loads a machine. His bag is also Ikea, and at this point, I’m convinced they’re part of a cult. He’s a sporty type, and it shows: fluorescent yellow, fluorescent orange, nuclear radiation green. Low-rise jeans, tight shirts, and a cyclist’s outfit. Batman boxers.
He says hello and leaves, and I’m a little jealous of his boxers.
The laundromat is wonderful. Dirty laundry doesn’t get washed at home—not in public either, according to Manzoni—but in the Arno, apparently.
Everything went fine. We picked up the quilts, left the machines to their work while countless little bats endured the spin cycle without complaint, and went in search of an Ikea bag.
The cats, needless to say, are glaring at us with pure disdain.

Blown to bits

 

"I think my leg is broken..." he says, forcing the words out between wheezes as the buttons on his shirt pop off one by one. That desperate hunger for air makes me think a rib must have slammed into the hard frame of the steering wheel, the lungs grazed by claws. "Look, look! Tell me what you see!"

But I don’t want to move. Without leaning over, I can already make out a mound of flesh pushing up against the denim, right where it shouldn’t be. A closer look reveals my partner’s pants soaked in blood and piss. The smell reaches my nose along with that unbearable stench of hot iron, gasoline, and burnt plastic. The windshield, reduced to a spiderweb, frames a sky of endless blue, while engine oil drips into the void below: plop... plop... plop.

I can only imagine a jagged rock wedging itself between the rear wheel and the fender, the only thing postponing our appointment with death. I remember gripping tight as the van skidded down the slope of grass and wildflowers, knowing nothing could stop its descent toward the cliff. But then, just as the fragments of my life were flashing through my mind at breakneck speed, the ton of metal and rubber came to a sudden halt. I remember my partner, as always, refusing to wear his seatbelt. "They choke me, make me feel like my junk’s crammed into tight underwear, you know? Like I’m a crash test dummy or something," he’d say. That’s when his leg and ribs gave out.

"Listen, buddy, you’re in bad shape, but what does it matter? We’re hanging on to something that won’t last, something that’ll play us for a fool before letting us drop."

A tear from the pain slides down his face until it mixes with the blood pouring from his nose. His labored breathing sucks it back in before pushing it out again, a volcanic mess of clots, bubbles, and eruptions that splatter the buttonless shirt. All I can do is hope he’s got one good nostril left and pass him the cocaine I’ve got in my pocket. It’s wrapped in foil, meant to dull the impact, to douse the fire burning inside. Alongside a couple shots of whiskey, it would’ve numbed our souls.

"No, I don’t want that shit!"

"It’ll put the pain to sleep. Maybe we can think of something in the meantime..."

The mere thought of fighting back against fate shifts our weight, and the van sways like a drunk on the sidewalk. What I see in my partner’s eyes is a cocktail of terror, resignation, and pain. Dig a little deeper into his gaze, and you’ll glimpse the urge to pray, coupled with the knowledge he doesn’t know how. Me? I’d save my breath. No point wasting it trying to bribe my way into paradise with a scalped ticket. But him? He’s got to deal with a rabid dog chewing up his shin and a crushing weight on his chest.

"Take a hit, and let’s try to put two brains together."

His teeth clench so hard you can almost hear the buzz of a sawmill, and he reaches out. "Come on... just lay it out here... shit!" he curses, because the motion makes it clear: we’re slipping. The chassis seems tired of biting into whatever rock is holding us up. The suspension creaks, and the ground beneath us crumbles under the weight. If you listen closely, you can hear the front wheels slowly rolling into the void: gnick... gnick... gnick.

"Who the hell stole this piece-of-shit van?"

"Just snort the damn coke!" he yells, spitting blood onto the windshield and waving his hand dangerously. I do my best to improvise a line on the back of my hand, but it comes out crooked and ridiculously heavy. No complaints from him—he raises it to his nose and snorts like one of those coin-op vacuums at the carwash. "Shit, shit, shit! Give me more. I’ll grow wings!"

And I don’t argue. First, because wings would really come in handy right about now, and second, because I’d rather he not start bouncing around in his seat. I focus on precision, laying out five centimeters of artificial happiness capable of blowing your brain out like a hollow-point bullet. Terror grips me, starting in my guts, when he slams the back of his head against the headrest, and a noise like a boat at sea courses through the van’s frame like lightning. Then, just that endless blue through the cracked glass and a strange sense of peace.

"Who stole the van? You really want to know who stole it?"

"Maybe... maybe it wasn’t his fault. Who was it?"

"Who the hell do you think it was?"

"The Rotten One, was it him?"

"Who else? The Rotten One, same as always. Cleared a parking spot without anyone noticing, and not a single soul bothered to check if the damn wreck had working brakes."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I’m sure. I’m saying they sent us into town to park this heap with 400 kilos of TNT in the back without checking the brakes first."

You never really learn to do this shit right. There’s that little voice inside scolding you as soon as your brain goes quiet, and that ache in your gut that never settles.

And they’re all amateurs, anyway.

Once, they had butterflies in their stomachs. They worked, fell in love, and watched the sun set, convinced tomorrow would be better. They were boys, fathers, women—but with too much war to digest, too many broken bones, too many prison walls in their memories. No one listened to them, so blowing up a building seemed like a genius idea.

"We’re gonna end up in the ravine and die. When the rescue team comes, they’ll recognize us from the little bits left behind," my partner says, his pupils blown out like frying pans.

I’ve got a lump in my throat and can feel the wind teasing the doors, soon to grow stronger with the nightfall, sealing our fate. Some situations have no way out. Our struggle, our future—we’d driven straight into a dead end.

"There are situations," he tells me, a flicker of wisdom crossing his face like the calm flow of a mighty river, "where the only solution is to disappear."

I could do it. I could leave him there with his broken bones, swing the door open, and jump into the grass, claw my way up the slope to the road. I’d glance at the tire marks my desperate swerve left on the asphalt and walk away. But the TNT in the back would blow, and within minutes, a helicopter would be circling overhead. I’d end up in an interrogation room with a lamp in my eyes and a bad cop ready to bag my head.

I’m hazy on the details, but I’m pretty sure my partner’s plan involves a bang right under his ass and a spoon to scoop up what’s left of him.

Now the chassis isn’t creaking anymore—it’s crying: gne... gne... gne.

It sounds like a starving baby, one of those who never makes it.

I know the spot. Beneath the van lies a 300-meter drop, rocks the size of RVs, and cacti bristling with spines to finish the job.

"Leave me some pieces." When he says it, it’s like the coke hit has been shoved aside by a higher will. Blood’s pooling in the hollow between his shoulder and collarbone, and a wine-colored bruise has spread to his sternum. The cold air rising from the ravine seeps through the vents, icy as a ghost.

He insists. He’s seen the light go out of my eyes, a gray shroud falling over my face. I’m an open book now. "Leave me some pieces."

Because I could disappear—open the door, jump out—but I’ve said it already: it would be a short, pointless freedom.

"Everything’s going to blow, and you know they’ll come looking for you if they don’t find at least part of you. But if they find something—anything—they’ll stop. You’ll have time to hide, until the world forgets your face. What better chance to start over, to get out of this shit: to disappear."

I fidget with my hair. I’ve let it grow along with my beard, but I know snipping a few locks won’t cut it. They’ll find them, scattered and singed, but they won’t buy it. My partner pulls out a knife, and the blade snaps open with a sharp click. "At least a finger and a piece of flesh."

"What... what do you mean?"

"You choose." And in my ears, the sound I never wanted to hear materializes: snick... snick... snick.

Disappearing is the ultimate gift, but this time, the cuts are anything but figurative. I wish everyone could do it—choose something they can let go of and vanish. But life isn’t that generous, and sometimes it shines a spotlight on you when you’d rather not exist. It hunts you down like gas seeping through cracks.

I snort a hit of coke strong enough to double as an anesthetic, then I cut.

It’s skin. It’s flesh. It’s a blinding light bursting in my head, a climb of venomous snakes coiling and sinking their fangs. It’s a chorus of a thousand demons. It’s bone. It’s pieces I need to leave to feed the TNT. When it’s over, they’ll look like steaks left too long on the grill, but they’ll fool the investigators.

Dead. Blown to pieces by the very explosives he was supposed to plant under a big building. Justice served.

I’ll jump out, run to the woods, and halfway through my escape, I’ll hear the van blow up. A thousand shards of metal, of my partner, of me, scattered everywhere—on the ground, for the ants, for the police labs. Little bags of scraps, like when you leave the butcher’s. And I’ll stop crying and bleeding, slowly, under the first bush I find.

In the end, whatever you decide to do, you always leave behind pieces.