The Black Swans Tour Diary: Blog 5

Then, I ask myself, how many times have I walked down the street at 1am soaked from the rain? But, oh wait, because I’m skipping ahead… The day began just fine. Woke up super early and spend the first half of the day in the art space’s café, getting to know Lou better, and drinking coffee. But then we leave Richmond and as the drive begins, the transmission in the Taurus begins to slip, and slip, and slip. Now Lou’s rent-a-Taurus is healthy but his private Taurus was sent to the fixer upper from the illness before take-off. Now it seems the Dual Taurus Tour is in jeopardy. In Hanover we find a garage where a guy wore a work shirt with a patch that calls himself “Pedro” and after he changes the transmission fluid because mine was dirty I hand him a credit card worth $120 and hope for the best. He puts some air in my tires and says, “They roll better when they’re round” and so I like him. But what he forgot to do is clean out the transmission fluid pan and magnet which requires the majority of the work. How do I know this? Because 10 miles after we leave Hanover Pedro, the Taurus shakes like a zeppelin in Hades, knocking and breaking up like I’ve never seen it before. Lou is miles ahead since Philadelphia is 4 hours away and we thought it best for him to let the others know we’re coming. So Canaan and Noel and I figure out what is what as we travel back through D.C. and end up in Fairfax where I contemplate ditching the Taurus and renting a car, truck, van, U-haul. Taurus won’t run over 45 mph so all seems hopeless. Then as we’re driving towards Vicki’s since she lives near I pull into a tiny garage where a Korean guy named Abe tells me Honda with 152,000 miles on it is a teenager but a Ford is senile and that “foam is bad, foam is bad” and tries to explain science to me but I’m too dumb to understand. Then he asks Claudio to clean the pan and flush it all out since Pedro didn’t do it right and only made it worse.

By this time it is 6pm and I’m about to gamble up another $125 but I believe Abe when he says it has a chance. At first, we almost blow up, but then gun it, pushing Taurus to its death, and then it clicks, remembers who it is and smooth sailing in the light storm to West Philly. We don’ speak about the miracle until after the show, which is the worse sound ever, my least favorite of the tour, Canaan’s favorite of all-time (almost) since he loves tension and my bad stage manner. Just left a motel no-tell, totally in the red that’s as deep as a lake, and going to NYC now. Abe, if you can hear me, we love you and so does the Taurus.