Like Spiderman against an azure city skyline, Lorne bobs and weaves with every thrust of Uncle Chucks's deadly, ethereal fists. He's one of those rare humans you can't help but admire but can't stand being around for too long. At 33, he's smoked and drank for 24 years straight. He's destroyed more automobiles than the filming staff of "Dukes of Hazzard". He has a lengthy record of minor offenses, but more impressive are the amazing feats he's never been cited for.

I'll share just one precious moment with my good friend Lorne:

Friday night. Lorne calls me up, demands I come to his house with twenty dollars cash and a case of beer. I figured if his plan required only 20 bucks, itr couldn't be too dangerous.

Wrong.

He needs 20 more dollars to purchase a beat-up 1970 Javelin. We trundle off to the house of some smarmy jackass named Steve. Steve tries to sell us on the car, recounting every repair he's ever done and his consternation at not being able to get the car to run.

Lorne sez, "Here's your hundred bucks. Get outta the way."

He proceeds to enlist in me an a quick fix. Within fifteen minutes, some monkeying with the carburator and timing got the car roaring to life.

Steve is perplexed, "Like, wow, man! How'd ya do dat?" Lorne motions me into the car. There is no passenger seat. Just a bucket placed upside-down on the floor. "Let's get outta here. That Steve drives me nuts!", he sez, roaring out into the streets of Sayreville, NJ.

The car has -- get this -- no dash. At all. No instrumentation. No lights. Just a wheel, a tranny stick, two pedals and a blinker.

The beer flows freely as Lorne sends me endlessly cascading off my perch on the bucket. Night falls. Sans headlights and any indicative markings, the rusted hulk putters gloomily throughout town. Though I was a touch nervous about the situation, Lorne wanted to just "hang out", meet friends, drink beer, and relax.

As it got to be a bit later and Lorne a bit drunker, Lorne decides he's hasn't gotten his $80 worth and decides to "see what she can do". We head out to the long stretch east of town, and that Mopar just screamed. I clutched the window frame in sheer terror and delight as we split the wind like a wide, low, rusted duck bill.

As we slowed down for a light, Lorne sez "Oh, yeah...we did 100". I disagreed.

"100? Hardly. Did you see those dashed lines? This pig can't top 85. You're just a braggart, you drunk Irish bastard!"

Wrong thing to say. We turn around and Lorne does the strip, back towards town. The great heaving mass screams under the weight of Lorne's unkempt foot. The dashed lines blur. Lorne's eyes are "all-business". I remain silent, anticipating the certain clink of a tie rod snapping or the tell-tale KA-FLOOM of the tranny excusing itself from the drivetrain.

We easily broke 100mph.

But the AMC held. As we reached town, the Javelin was still concious but steam has begun issuing from under the hood. Lorne shows no alarm. "It's just water. Fuckin' hoses. Fuck it."

After another late-night tour ot town, no one is to be found. Lorne decides it would be best to head out to the river and go "baja-ing" in the "desert". The mammoth Javelin does not fare too well on the industrial dunes. Parts burst off the chassis and fall uselessly into the toxic dirt.

Finally, the loss of coolant proves fatal. The engine goes into melt-down. Brightish smoke issues from the hood, and Lorne sez, "Uh-oh. It's time to go!". We step out of the car and remove the last few beers. The car suddenly bursts into flame. The fire insinuates itself quickly past the non-existent dashboard and envelopes the cab. The interior catches quickly, sending great flames twenty feet into the New Jersey night. The tires burst one-by-one.

I ask Lorne if we should split before the fire dept shows up.

"Nah," he says, "they won't show. We're too far from the road. Nobody'll see it. And anyway, this fire is our only source of light. It's fuckin' dark out there!"

Lorne logic.

The car burns, we eventually stumble five miles to our houses and call it a night.

So, why write this drivel?

Because Lorne is the only thorn in my evolutionist side. He has defied natural selection in most spectacular ways (the above story is an *average* Friday night in Lorne land. He probably barely remembers the incident). He has been in over five roll-over accidents and untold -- dozens --of various vehicular mishaps.

When I ask him about it, he just sez, "Y'know, people die because they're stupid. When they're about to wreck, they all panic. Y'know? Like little girls or sumpthin'. They wave their arms around and shit. Stupid bastards! All ya gotta do is just HOLD ON -- just HOLD ON, man. Defy the force that pulls you into the windshield, y'know? That's what I do. I hold on!"

Thus far, it has worked. In many ways, we're all holding on. Some of us, I suppose, are more tenacious than others...