Jurassic Car Park

by Millard, Adam

  “Might I suggest that you return to your homes and sleep off whatever it is that you have imbibed,” said Hovis. Under normal circumstances, that would have been a reasonable request. However…

  John jumped the counter and wrestled Hovis to the ground. It was a sudden outburst of violence I hadn’t anticipated, and the noise that I made was proof of how much I hadn’t anticipated it. “Quick!” said John, pinning Hovis and planting himself securely on top of him. “Find the keys to the DeLorean!”

  “I, erm, I don’t know…” I casually, though somewhat nervously, made my way around the counter. I wasn’t leaping over it the way John had. For one, I wasn’t wearing a vest like he was.

  “Hurry up, man!” bellowed my best friend, who was also rather skilled in the art of the grapple, it appeared. You learn something new every day. Today it was this; yesterday it was that one should never take sweeties from a baby. My, how that little spoilt brat had cried. “Hovis, I believe, has an erection!”

  “I most certainly do not!” yelled Hovis. “That is my truncheon, and you are committing a serious offence by punching it repeatedly!”

  “Sorry!” yelled John. “I thought it was your knob!”

  “Will you both be quiet for a moment?!” I said, riffling through the desk drawers. “I’m trying to find the keys to that time-machine, and you’re wittering on about truncheons and knobs!”

  “You’ll never find them!” laughed Hovis. “Those keys are kept in a safe place, one known only to—”

  “Found them!” I said, holding up the keys.

  “That’s not them,” said Hovis. “Those are my keys. Keys to my Saab.”

  “Then why is there a DeLorean keyring attached to them?” I said. “And why does one of the keys have the words ‘The Barry Boys Woz Ere An’ All’ scratched onto it?”

  “Damn and buggery!” said Hovis. “Look, you can’t take that car. I will be fired, and you will be arrested, and we’ll all end up in a far worse situation than the one we currently find ourselves.”

  “What?” said John. “The one where we’re being hunted by carnivorous monsters from another time?”

  “None of this is going to happen,” I explained to Hovis, who was still trying to find a way to overthrow John, he of the secret and violent moves. I wondered if my best friend of many years was actually a member of Fight Club. I would, of course, never know, not if he adhered to the strict rules of said club, in particular Rule Number One. “There will be no dinosaurs, no stealing of either car or car-keys.”

  “You’re off your tits!” said Hovis. “Both of you will end up in an institute.” At the time, I thought he was being a little overdramatic. “Are you in Fight Club, John, by any chance?”

  My friend shook his head. “Couldn’t tell you if I was,” he said.

  “Get offa him, mate,” I told John. “We’ve got what we came here for, and I’m pretty sure that Desk Sergeant Hovis isn’t going to report this little incident—”

  “I am,” said Hovis.

  “Donk him on the head,” I said, and John did just that, getting him a good one just shy of the temple. The desk sergeant fell very still very quickly. “Oh, John,” I mumbled. “Have you killed him?”

  Hovis began to snore, and both John and I sighed with relief. I helped John to his feet and we were about to leave the station via the very same automatic double-doors through which we had arrived when a voice stopped us in our tracks.

  “Not so fast, boys, unless you want to be shot in the back.”

  Since I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to be shot in the back, and John was, more often than not, on the same page as me, we slowly raised our hands. “You don’t have to do this,” I said. “Have you ever considered anger management classes?”

  “Shut up!” said the voice, and it was, I realised, a familiar voice. A voice which belonged to none other than Constable Whelk. “You’ve just assaulted Desk Sergeant Hovis. We saw the entire thing on the CCTV. Expensive little setup, but worth every penny, so it seems.”

  “Hang on a minute,” I said, lowering my arms and turning around. “This is England. You don’t even have a gun.” As I suspected, Constable Whelk was standing next to the counter with a banana in his hand. I mean, it was a formidable-looking fruit, but not so much as to put the wind up me. As if to reiterate that he was in possession of a deadly weapon, the constable thrust it towards us, though he looked a little nervous, now. Shaken up, as it were.

  “Put the fruit down,” said John. He too had lowered his arms and turned around. “You’ll have someone’s eye out with that.”

  Constable Whelk looked at the banana, saw that it was, as William Shakespeare once said, about as useful as a dog-shit shoe-horn, and lowered it. “Aw, come on, lads,” sighed Whelk. “I was going to be the hero. I’m wearing a white vest and everything, like that bloke from the Die Hard movies.”

  “We’re all trying to be heroes today,” said I, just as Roger Plonk lunged for us from where he had been snoozing a moment ago. John decked him with a marvellous roundhouse kick to the temple. I applauded as Roger went back to sleep. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the time for this nonsense. Buckfutt is up shit creek without a paddle if we don’t get to that DeLorean.”

  “Oh!” said Constable Whelk. “If it’s the mythological car-cum-time-machine you’re after, you’re going the wrong way. It’s parked out the back.” He slapped a hand – the one without the banana in it, fortunately for him – across his mouth, the universal sign for Oh, fuck, I’ve said too much.

  “You want to be a hero, Constable?” I said. “Take us to the DeLorean.”

  Whelk pondered for a moment, and then did some serious considering, followed by a soupcon of decision-weighing. When I thought all was lost, and that I would have no choice but to unleash Kickboxer John upon the peeler, Whelk tore his shirt off to reveal a white vest which was already suitably stained and covered with blood. Whose blood it was we would never know, but it wasn’t ours, and that was all that mattered.

  “Let’s do this,” said Whelk. “Yippee-Ki-Yay, and so on and so forth.”

  34

  “Yippee-Ki-Yay?” said the doctor. “An officer of the law reverted to quoting a Bruce Willis character? I’m not sure I believe that for one second.”

  “I’m telling you!” I said, necking three vodka shots in quick succession. “That was exactly what he said. And a little later on he referenced Murtaugh from Lethal Weapon with the ‘I’m too old for this shit’ line.”

  “Nope,” said the doctor, shaking his head frantically. “Not having it.”

  I sighed. “Look, just let me finish this so we can all pop off home for the night, yeah?”

  35

  At the rear of the police station was a car-park. I, for one, had had enough of car parks, since it was a car park’s fault we were in this mess to begin with. This car park, however, was lined with police cars and vans, and the occasional bike. There was one of those big thingamabobs, too; the ones with the tinted windows so that the prisoners being transferred could see out but the paparazzi trying to get a decent shot of the murderer/burglar/rapist/politician couldn’t see in. I’d never been in one, myself, but I had it on good authority that they were not as comfortable as they looked in the movies.

  “Where’s she parked?” said John, scanning the car park for our ride.

  “This way,” said Whelk, and he broke into a jog for a few steps before slowing down and panting. “I’m too old for this shit.”

  “I’ll bet nobody believes us that you said that when we tell this story in the pub later,” said John.

  “Or at the funny farm,” I said, and we all laughed in that over-the-top way that people do when they have inside information. “There it is. The fabled DeLorean. My, how I’ve missed thee.”

  As we approached the vehicle, I noticed the damage running all the way along the driver’s side. “What the bleeding hell happened here?” I said. “It wasn’t like that when you impounded it.”

&nbs
p; “I let Grimes drive, didn’t I,” said Whelk. “You should have seen the state of the other car, and by car I mean stationary object, and by stationary object I mean the corner of Mister Sidhu’s shop.”

  “Get in, John,” I said. “We have no time to waste.”

  “What about me?” said Constable Whelk. “I thought we were all being heroes together. You can’t just dump me like a tricky shit now. I’m the brawn of this operation. I’m the only one of us wearing the correct colour vest.”

  I swung open the driver’s side door – something I still wasn’t used to, as my already-swelling jaw could testify – and climbed into my seat. “You’ve been heroic enough for one day, Constable,” said I. “Nip back inside and put the kettle on. You’ve earnt it, soldier.”

  “But I didn’t get to quote Axel Foley or Martin Riggs,” said Whelk, visibly deflated.

  “Can you do Arnold Schwarzenegger?” I said.

  “What, like, ‘I’ll be back’?” said the constable.

  “Try ‘Hasta-la-vista, baby’,” I said.

  “Hasta-la-vista, baby,” said the constable.

  “There you go,” I said, pulling the gull-wing door down. “Now piss off. John and I have got a world to save.”

  Constable Whelk said something else, but the door slammed shut and I heard nothing of it. “Where to?” said John.

  I checked my watch, or the place where a watch would have been if I had the means to pay for one. “How long’s it been since that stampede?”

  John shrugged. “I’d say twenty minutes. Does it have to be accurate?”

  I considered this, and then said, “Not at all, because whatever we put into that console it will be bang on right. We were there when it happened and it couldn’t have been timed any better. Just put in twenty minutes, my good man. It was take us right where we need to be, I’m sure.”

  A knock upon the driver’s side window startled me, though not as much as the face pressed up against the glass. It was a face which belonged to Constable Grimes, which meant that the rest of him wasn’t too far away. He looked somewhat angry.

  “He looks somewhat angry, John,” I said.

  “We’re good to go,” said John as he punched in the last few digits. “Floor her, you crazy sonofabitch.”

  I started the engine and slammed my foot down on the pedal, which was, I was sure, the best order in which to do things. The DeLorean shot forward; Constable Grimes slid off the side of the car, which wasn’t my intention but I took it as a cheeky bonus.

  “Look out!” screamed John, as he was wont to do. “Watch out for that prisoner transportation thingamabob!”

  I pulled the wheel sharp to the left, avoiding certain impact with the rear end of the large vehicle by the merest of inches. “It’s times like these,” I said, “that I wished I’d passed my test.”

  “You what!?” screeched John. He was clinging to the dashboard with his teeth, and what grotesque teeth they were, too. There was a joke about an old Ferrari gearbox that would have been quite apt in that moment, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember it.

  “Hold tight, dear friend!” I said as the DeLorean began to pick up speed. “We’re going Back to the—”

  *

  Two things happened next, and one of those things was the sudden evacuation of my bowels. I’ve never suffered with incontinence before, so it all came as a bit of a shock. Thankfully, it didn’t last long, for we were soon back in the past – twenty minutes in the past, to be precise – and in the past my trousers were clean, which was a relief for all parties.

  The second thing which happened, and I’ll admit this almost prompted a second evacuation of the old bowels, was our emergence on Saddam Hussein Drive, slap bang in front of a herd of stampeding Stegosauruses.

  “If I hadn’t been expecting it,” said John, clinging to his seatbelt for dear life, “that lot would have fair put the wind up me.”

  “Hold tight, dear boy!” I said, dragging the steering wheel to the right and sending the DeLorean into a wild and noisy spin. The smell of burnt rubber was only overpowered by the strange stench emitted from the back end of a dozen or so confused prehistoric quadrupeds. One or two of them bounced off the side of the car, with more damage done to the car than their own biological bodies.

  “There we are!” said John, who had thankfully put his teeth away and was pointing in the direction of the other us-es. “Might I suggest that you don’t wear that brown and green combination again? It really doesn’t do you justice.”

  I slammed the brakes on and the DeLorean began to skid. You can say what you want about the design of the thing, but its wheels could certainly take a pounding. The car came to a stop – as I knew it would, thanks to witnessing the dress-rehearsal a little over twenty minutes ago – just in front of the other us-es, and I have to say that I was surprised at how frightened we had looked back then. The stegosauruses went around the car, and thusly around the other us-es, but poor Danny and Billy Barry caught a rather gruesome end in the flanks, which was little more than they deserved, as far as I was concerned.

  “Look at the state of your face,” said John. He was grinning now. Wildly. It had a touch of the Cheshire Cat about it, and it was extremely infectious, for I found myself pulling the same silly face. We also gave the other us-es a thumbs up as the herd rushed harmlessly past us.

  “Give them a wave,” I said. “That will really confuse them.”

  And so I did, and John did too, and the other us-es waved back. The other me said something about ‘cocky arseholes’ I think, but I was too happy to give a shit.

  “We did it,” said John. “What’s say we turn this mother around and get the hell out of here, before we create some kind of rift in the space-time continuum and end up worshipping apes on horseback?”

  “Good idea, my man,” I said. “Back to the 80s.”

  “Erm, do you know when in the eighties?” said John, finger hovering over the time panel.

  “I do not,” I said, for I had only gone and forgotten to ask The Barry Boys about which day they had respectively slept with The Iron Lady. “Shit!”

  “Ah, no worry,” said John. “There’s a button on here which shows recent journeys. Ah, yes, they went to January 17th, 1985. Wasn’t that around the time of the miner’s strike?”

  “No wonder she was horny,” I said. “Punch the date in, bud. Let’s go Back to the you know what? That joke’s not working for me anymore.”

  I turned the DeLorean around and put the pedal to the metal, so to speak. A small part of me was looking forward to seeing the eighties again. All those hairspray perms and tight-fitting leather, and that was just the fellas.

  The car did its thing as we reached the necessary 88mph, and we found ourselves—

  36

  “This is all very convenient,” said the doctor, once again interrupting me in full-flow. “How fortunate that you had the foresight to rescue yourselves from that stampeding herd. I mean, I don’t mean to be rude, but neither you nor your friend strike me as remotely intelligent.”

  “I take great offence at that,” said I, for I did. “Between the two of us we know a lot of things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as…never eat chocolate and drink bitter at the same time.” I lit my pipe for the umpteenth time. “And never take a sleeping pill and laxatives on the same night.”

  “Surely those two examples are common sense?” said the doctor.

  “Oh, and never lick a steak knife.”

  “Again, a thing which most people learn at a very early age. Not really something by which we can measure your intellect. Also, all that nonsense about the DeLorean having a ‘recent journeys’ app. You must take me for a right muppet.”

  “Believe it or not, that’s exactly what happened. Really, you couldn’t make this stuff up.”

  “I bet somebody could,” opined the doctor.

  “Yes, but why would they want to?”

  “Good point. So are we going to get
a suitable denouement tonight, or do you think there will be a cliffhanger followed by a far less successful sequel?”

  “Let’s go for the first one and see what happens,” said I. “So John and I landed in the eighties. January 17th 1985, to be precise. It was just as shit as I remember it…”

  37

  “It’s just as shit as I remember it,” I told John. He nodded in agreement as we climbed from the DeLorean and glanced about the place. Fish out of water, we were, and the way people were looking at us said as much.

  “It’s a fucking DeLorean,” John said as a passerby – a teenage girl with braces and pigtails – frowned at our ride. “Haven’t you ever seen Back to the—”

  “John!” I said, cuffing him lightly around the head. “That particular film hasn’t been released yet. Didn’t come out until November 1985, if my memory serves me well.”

  “So what you’re saying,” said John, “is that we might as well be driving about in a souped-up Ford Capri.”

  “Wow!” said a chap – tight leather jacket, tall blonde hair, far-out look in his eyes. In the eighties, he and his kind were perfectly acceptable. Back in 2015, this prick would be frowned upon more than the Kardashians combined. “What are the odds?”

  “Excuse me?” said John. I wanted to warn the poor rocker that my friend was seemingly skilled in the art of ass-whooping and in the mood for it, but I was too busy trying to get my bearings. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well,” said the old rocker. “You don’t see many DeLoreans about, and this is the second one I’ve seen in the last five minutes. I’d swear blind it was the exact same one, except there were five troublesome looking lads hanging out of the other one.”

  John grabbed the old rocker by the leather jacket and pulled him in close. “Where did you see this other DeLorean?” he said. “Tell me where you saw it, Bog Jovi, or so help me God I will go back to 1940 in my DeLorean-time-machine and make sure you were never conceived.”