16–The Team

Echo Lawrence (Party Crasher): Every Honeymoon Night, I'd wear the same lucky veil. Different nights, I'd wear a long or short wedding dress. A night in late August, driving in a car with no air conditioning, I don't want to be wearing a thousand layers of tulle with heavy silk on top of that. You can't find the stick shift in all your petticoats. But wintertime, if you drive into a snowdrift, Party Crashing on icy streets, that same tulle can save you from freezing to death.

Shot Dunyun (Party Crasher): The night in question, the team was Echo, driving; Green Taylor Simms was her shotgun; I was Right B-Pillar Lookout. A girl named Tina Something was Left B-Pillar Lookout, but she keeps kicking the back of Echo's seat, telling her where to turn to find some car that might have a flag up.

Backseat drivers are bad enough. But from somebody riding Left B, that's too much. Un-asswipe-acceptable. Echo pulls over, and Green says, "Enough."

This Tina Something says, "Fine." She throws open her door and gathers up the skirts of her pink bridesmaid dress in both hands. She says, "Even boosting a Little Becky beats being your slave."

Green and me, we look so swank in our tuxedos, wearing black bow ties, with fake carnations glued to our lapels. We have "Just Married" written down both sides of the car with tubes and tubes of white toothpaste. Those Oreo cookies, twisted in half and stuck on. We have cowbells and tin cans roped to the rear bumper—a clear violation of the I-SEE-U Noise Limitations, but even Daytimers will cut slack for young marrieds.

Cowbells bouncing and white streamers flying from our antennae, we pull up to the curb, and some guy's standing there with his hands stuffed in his pockets. Tina Something throws her bridesmaid's bouquet in his face, saying, "Hey, dude." She yells, "Catch!" The girl's silk flowers hit him in the face, but he catches them. He's quick. He's a quick guy, and we're short one lookout. How weird is that?

I yell, "You!" To the guy, I say, "You got gas money?"

It just so happens that guy is Rant Casey.

Echo Lawrence: Listen up. Getting onto a car team is like the starting position in any sport. If it's an established team, you'll start on the lowest rung. That's Left B-Pillar Lookout, meaning backseat behind the driver. The number-three position is Right B-Pillar Lookout, the backseat behind the shotgun. Number two is riding shotgun in the front seat. Being driver is the same as playing quarterback, center, pitcher, or goalie. The number-one position. The glamour spot.

Tina Something (Party Crasher): My old car—I called her Cherry Bomb—she got scored into the gaddamn junkyard, tagged to death. That happens, and chances are you'll start at that bottom position, behind the head of some other driver with her wheels still intact. Somebody like Echo Lawrence. Don't think I hate Echo. It's just that she lies. Ask Echo what she does for a living; if she tells you anything except sex work, it's a lie.

Echo Lawrence: Pay attention. "Tag Teams" are crews put together on the street. A "Shark," a lone driver needing a team for help or protection or company, he'll cruise around before the «window» opens, looking to draft players off the curb. If you don't have a car, just stand on some corner with your thumb out. A car will pull over and ask, "Are you playing?"

You say, "What you got open?"

They say, "Still need a Left B-Pillar Lookout." They say, "You got gas money?"

Some teams looking for a member, they'll ask you to show can you turn your head around fast and smooth with no popping sound. No point in having a lookout with whiplash or cervical damage from some past crack-up. Having gas money isn't a must, but it shows your level of commitment.

Tina Something: Gimps with fused vertebrae, losers known to be night-blind or farsighted, you'll see them on the curb all night. Maybe some team will take pity and give them a nothing position. In a big car, a loser might get what people call the «mascot» position, the middle of the backseat, where you can't do much but talk to keep up the mood. Otherwise, they're totally Misfit Toys.

You have a short neck or bad eyes and you'd better bring lots of gas money and pray for a nice team with a big backseat. Cultivate your jokes and people skills.

Echo Lawrence: The «window» is the determined time a game begins, until the time it ends. You might have a Saturday four-hour window. Or you might play a Monday all-night window, from eight to eight.

Shot Dunyun: The night we met Rant, he'd escaped some voucher hotel, waiting for assignment to transitional Nighttimer housing. In a city where most people are either working jobs or boosting peaks, for a guy without work, a guy whose port won't boost shit, it's no wonder he wandered at night.

Rant climbs into the car and gives me a quarter. How lame is that? An asswipe quarter for gas money. Except it's gold and dated 1887. I don't know what that coin was, but Echo dropped the car into gear, and we slipped into the traffic stream. Rant climbed into our backseat like he'd been waiting on that corner, waiting his whole bullshit life for us to pull up. And Green, twisting to reach back, he says, "Might I have a closer look at that coin?"

Echo Lawrence: A good driver shouldn't have to look anywhere but forward. Good backseat lookouts shouldn't look anywhere but backward and sideways. It's not their job to see where the car's headed. A good shotgun handles his side and half the windshield.

You're not just looking for cars to hit. You're looking for cars headed to hit you. You're looking for cars already on someone's tail. You're looking for police. Not just during a chase, but all the time, parked or baiting or trolling. Or stalking. «Baiting» means to steer something cherry, virgin-perfect, clean, and polished down the middle of the boulevard, the «field» or «route» or "maze." You see a showroom two-door purr bright red down that center lane, flying a game flag: just-married cans or soccer-mom paint—to prove they're playing, and you'd be a fool to chase after.

Not to say a lot of rookies don't—peel off for a piece of that fresh red paint.

The veterans, teams that know "bait," they'll wait a second look. A block back always come the shadow cars, spread out in a wide dragnet, the teams in league with the bait car, ready to slam the rookies flushed out. Next time you hear a Graphic Traffic report about a plague of bad drivers, this is the shadow cars scoring on rookies.

From DRVR Radio Graphic Traffic: Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Whatever your team mascot, watch out for a flood of soccer fans this evening. It seems every proud parent is driving a crew around with their team colors flying. Go, Cougars! At the Post Circle, along the north side, watch out for a six-car pile-up. No telling who the winner is, but they all appear to be amateur sport teams. No injuries, but the traffic cams show a lot of people arguing in the breakdown lane.

Echo Lawrence: Next time you come across a bad pile-up, you look forward enough, fast enough, and you might see the bait car, that still-pretty redster, disappear around a side corner way, way up ahead.

Tina Something: Your really light kind of tagging, we call that "flirting." You just nudge somebody's rear with your front wheel well. And if the target looks and likes you, if he likes what he sees, you drive away and he comes after you. Your average person will Party Crash so she can be around other people. It's very social, a way to meet people, and you sit around telling stories for a few hours. You could sit at home, but even boosting a party is still being alone. You come to the end of a party boost and you've still spent all night by yourself.