Farts Like Gold: 1 -- The Stratosphere

I'm attempting to write a novel in a month as part of National Novel Writing Month. It's called Farts Like Gold and I'm way behind the pace. After a week, I've only written about 1600 words. The goal is to do 50,000 by the end of November. Anyway, I'm not sure how I'm going to present it going forward but here's the first chunk:

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Lucy sat on the counter of the cookbus. I stared at her hands as she rolled herself a cigarette. She had hands like fistfuls of beef jerky. She always planted without gloves and I doubt her hands were ever clean, even in the off-season.

Cassandra and April were the cooks that year. Cassandra was washing dishes and April was chopping vegetables for tomorrow's lunch table. I just sat at the front of the bus, sideways on the driver's seat with my left foot half-wedged in the glove compartment. Lucy leaned across to the sink and stuck the finished rollie in Cassandra's lips.

"Mmmm...." Cassandra said. "Smokeddey smoke smoke smoke."

Lucy started to roll another cigarette. Cassandra turned her head towards her.

"Light me up!"

Lucy shrugged and looked towards me. I struggled my foot out of the glove compartment, grabbed a lighter off the dashboard and lit Cassandra's cigarette.

"Ever been to Vegas?" she asked.

"No," said Lucy.

"Gordon and I went last year. It's completely surreal. It's amazing how little it's like High Level."

Lucy laughed. "Why would it be like High Level?"

"Well, you know all the motels in High Level have the same names as in Vegas: The Stardust, the Frontier... But there's no Stratosphere in High Level. No big mile high tower with a rollercoaster on the roof. "

"I hate High Level," said April. "But then, I'm pretty sure I'd hate Vegas. Fake churches make me break out in hives."

"They're not fake," said Cassandra. "They're real churches. They're just kind of plasticy. And they've got Elvises in them. You never see an Elvis in High Level."

I stuck the lighter in my teeth, picked up a dish towel and started drying plates.

"How did you get there?" Lucy asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Did you drive? Did you fly? Did you take the bus? Did you see anything on the way?"

"We took one of those package holidays for gamblers. Except we didn't gamble."

"Not at all?"

"Nope. Didn't even stick a quarter in a slot machine."

"Well, what did you do?"

Cassandra leaned over to get her head below the level of the counter and stamped her foot and jolted her head a bit to shake the ash off the end of her cigarette. Her hands never left the sink.

"We rode the roller-coaster on the top of the Stratosphere."

Lucy stuck her feet out and lightly kicked me in the back of the knees. "Kent, baby, how come you never take me to the stratosphere?"

"I'm ready to take you to the stratosphere any time you want," I said. "Just let me finish the dishes with Cassandra."

"No. Let's go now! Before it gets dark."

"Dark?" I asked.

"Go ahead," said Cassandra. "We're fine."

"Really?"

"Yes, Go!"

I draped the towel over the steering wheel, picked up the stack of plates I'd dried, and took them down the steps at the back of the bus into the cook tent. Lucy packed up her drum and hopped off the counter behind me. She stole a carrot stick from April's cutting board on the way by. I added my stack of dishes to the pile on the breakfast table.

Lucy ducked around the corner of the bus and out into the camp. It was May and we were far enough North that it didn't get dark until about 11pm. I figured we had about an hour.

She walked past the front of the bus and I followed. "Lucy, when you say 'take you to the stratosphere', what do you mean?"

She smiled and pointed with the carrot at the top of the hill that rose up behind the camp. She bit the end of the carrot and turned towards the quadbike at the front of the bus. "And that's the rollercoaster."

"We can't take the quad."

"Sure we can. Look. The keys are in it."

"Lucy!"

"Come on. No one's going to miss it. Joe and Brendan are done for the night. Take me to the stratosphere, baby!"

She stepped on the footpeg of the quad, swung her leg over and sat down. She put the carrot in her mouth alongside her cigarette and leaned back with her hands on the luggage rack behind her. Her head dropped back and her hair almost touched the luggage rack. She took the cigarette from her mouth, drew the carrot in a bit further with her lips and bit off a chunk.

I watched her mouth as she did this. Then I looked at the empty space between her legs on the seat in front of her, zipped my coat up and sighed.

There's just something about a woman gobbling a carrot that causes my brain to shut off. I got on the quad and was rewarded by Lucy putting her arms around my chest and snuggling up against my back.

I started the quad, drove around the front of the bus and headed out of camp. It hadn't rained for a couple of days. There was a decent gravel road that went about halfway up the hill. From there the trail wasn't too bad. We had a couple of blocks to do about two thirds of the way up and a couple of nights ago I spent an hour or so helping Brendan build access. So that far, at least, it was a breeze. After that I just took it slow. Lucy had to get off the quad a couple of times while I drove it over or around some tricky obstacles. We didn't make it all the way to the top but we got close. By then I could feed the darkness coming in but I wasn't too worried.

We hadn't said a word to each other all the way up. I switched off the engine and stood up on the pegs so that Lucy could get off the quad. Where we stopped, the trail curved near the edge of a short cliff. Lucy walked to the edge of this and stood there looking down at the camp. I made sure the quad was in gear and the brake was on and joined her. It was dusk now and the only lights in the valley below us belonged to the camp. The sound of the generator just barely touched us. Aside from that there was the sound of the branches rubbing against each other and every now and then a faint ticking sound from the engine of the quad cooling down. But really, to hear anything, you had to stand perfectly still and concentrate.

"Not much traffic," she said.

"No."

She leaned back against me. "It's getting cold," she said. I put my arms around her and rested my chin on her head.

"You smell like dirt," I said.

She laughed.

"It's a nice, musty smell. A clean smell -- if dirt can smell clean," I said. "I like it."

She turned around and nuzzled her face into my neck. "You smell like whiskey and oranges."

"Is that good?"

"Well you could definitely use a shower."

We kissed and she slid her hands inside my coat. She pulled the back of my shirt free and slid her hands up my back. They were cold and I stiffened. I reached down across her back to wedge my hands under her armpits to warm them and pulled her closer.

We stayed there until it got dark and then I turned the quad around and we started back down the hill. Once we got back down to where the trail became a recognisable skid trail, I slowed down and turned my head. "Are you ready for your roller coaster ride? Hold tight!"

The trail was fairly steep at this point with some gentle rolling bits and I was pretty sure it was fairly smooth. I geared down to first and then kicked the bike into neutral and turned the key. The noise of the engine died along with the headlights and we rolled down into darkness.

Lucy shrieked with delight and held me tight.

We picked up speed surprisingly fast. Right at the dip of one of the little rolly bits there was a boulder I'd forgotten about. The left front tire hit it. I slammed my thighs into the handlebars. Lucy flew off the quad. The quad still had momentum, though, and rolled over the boulder, into a pothole on the other side and flipped. I hit the ground first and somehow the front of the quad landed on my hand. It all seemed to happen slowly but with enormous inertia. I felt it as five separate events: boulder, thighs, pothole, ground, and sweet-mother-of-fucking-jesus-my-fucking-hand!

"Are you all right?" asked Lucy.

"Fuck! Shit! Fuck!" I said. "Fuck no! The fucking quad's on my hand! Fuck!" I scrambled and shoved my shoulder under the side of the quad and managed to lift it up enough to wrench my hand out. Lucy came over to me.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

She laughed. "Yeah, I'm fine. What a ride! Do it again! Do it again!"

"Help me with the quad," I said. My right hand was filled with pain and starting to throb. Something was definitely wrong with it. I grabbed onto the front luggage rack with my left hand and braced my legs. Lucy got beside me and pushed on the right luggage rack. We rocked it a couple of times and then managed to get it back on its wheels again. It was high-centred though.

"I'll push," I said. "You'll have to drive. My hand's buggered."

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