Recreational Vehicle

Dressed as clowns and out of breath, we ran into the airport car park.

Screaming brakes and an exploding horn. And the sounds combined to tear gashes from the air. To Jennifer’s right, kissing distance from her cheek, a huge white motorhome had stopped. A thick roof folded over the front windscreen like a quiff. Three people sat in its cab and, as it braked, they jerked forward and back.

Jennifer still had her sling, made from the Oklahoma state trooper’s bandana. Now she also wore trousers, or pants, matching her waistcoat and patterned with a headache-inducing green, blue and red check. Her jacket had long tails and one side was coloured red and the other blue. At the collar of her white shirt was a multicoloured bow tie secured with elastic. Naturally she had a huge red nose and a huger red wig that sat on her head like the round foliage of a cartoon tree.

Me? I’d pulled on a white satin top over my own (sweaty) T-shirt. It was decorated with two weird collars that ruffled two red rings round my neck. Three fluffy balls formed a line down my front. I guess these were meant to look like buttons. My trousers were made of the same white satin as my top and were so flimsy and huge I’d pulled them on over my jeans because the alternative would have been disturbing. I didn’t have a wig but, instead, wore a bit of plastic that covered my head and, if I’d taken any time to put it on properly, might have made it look as if I were going bald. Two clumps of blue ‘hair’ sat above my ears. The finishing touch was the red satin cape that hung from my shoulders and almost touched my ankles.

Yes, a cape.

Now, usually in this situation you might expect the driver to be shaking a tight fist of knuckles, especially in America.

‘What are you doing, you clowns?’ he might have shouted.

But, under his black baseball cap with a capital B, this driver smiled and offered a thumbs up. Alongside him two passengers joined in the smiling. One, bald and red-faced, also waved, and the other, a tiny woman with big hair, did an okay symbol with one hand. With the other she took a picture of us on her phone.

Jennifer shrugged. ‘Could we catch a ride, sir?’ she asked, miming her request with her good hand, pointing at me and her and then the motorhome. She spoke quickly because she knew that, at any time, the Cowboy was likely to come tumbling into the car park. The longer we stood here, the less likely things would turn out okay.

The driver wound down his side window and poked out his head.

‘Have we met before?’ he asked.

Jennifer looked at me. Of all the responses I wasn’t expecting that one. I tightened my grip of the urn bag, ready for something bad to happen. Because this was weird. And, like, weirder than all the other weird stuff that had happened already, which itself had all been pretty weird.

‘Don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Maybe it was another clown?’

The driver turned to his friends. We couldn’t hear what they whispered. There was much gesticulation but also plenty of nodding.

‘We three, we just love clowns,’ said the driver, head out of the window again. ‘Where you headed?’

‘LA,’ exploded Jennifer, jumping closer to the vehicle, glancing over her shoulder. ‘For a clown expo. We can give you money for gas.’

The driver’s friends nodded heads and gave two thumbs up each.

‘The name’s Ray but my friends call me John. We’re travelling to Vegas,’ said the driver. The bald guy hissed at him. ‘On vacation,’ said the driver quickly and in a really weird way that could only mean they weren’t. ‘That’s on the way, right? Get in the back. The more, the merrier. It’s not every day you almost run over a clown.’

Jennifer thanked him (I did too, but nobody heard) and pulled open the rear door. It was right next to the driver’s and thin and plastic and something like you’d have on a caravan.

‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ she said and stepped out of view.

Once again there was nothing to do but follow. I clambered after her, falling into the RV and on to her lap as the motor jolted forward.

‘My wrist!’ she said as I struggled free.

‘Sorry.’

I leant across to close the door, which swung at the side of the vehicle like an elephant’s ear. As it closed, it trapped us in with a sudden strange smell. Something like flowers. But overripe flowers. Nice but overpowering, like your gran’s perfume. There was no time for sniffing, however – we were being watched. The two not driving craned their necks to nod and smile like bad actors at a wedding.

‘What’re your names, friends?’ asked the bald man. ‘I’m Richard. My friend here is Mary. You’ve met Ray.’

‘John,’ said Ray/John. ‘I prefer John.’

‘Jennifer,’ I said. ‘And Jacob.’

‘Who’s who?’ asked Richard. I opened my mouth to answer. ‘I’m kidding, I’m kidding.’ Without pausing he continued: ‘You ever read Charles Fort, Jacob?’ I hadn’t. “‘We shall pick up an existence by its frogs!”’

He waited for a reaction that never came. Mainly because I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

The driver spoke, rescuing me from the potentially eternal awkwardness.

‘Embrace coincidence! Accept the weird! Allow synchronicity! That’s what Richard means,’ he said. ‘Oh, and belt up!’

‘Who’s Charles Fort?’ asked Jennifer and as the driver explained that Charles Fort lived a hundred years ago and wrote about weird phenomena, I wondered whether it would be better to be out being chased or in with the Forteans.

‘Hell, we sure like the bizarre,’ said the driver.

As we reached for our seat belts, I visualised the Cowboy, who, at this very moment, was surely moseying into the car park. And no doubt he watched the motorhome career into the New Mexico night. And no doubt he made a note of the registration plate. And, most def, he lit another cigarette and hatched another plan.