On a warm Wednesday morning, safely on its way into midspring, Paul McGuinty woke up early, had some coffee, and descended into his garage to talk to his dragon.
It was waiting for him, and hungry. It must’ve smelled the air.
Paul walked around it clockwise, stopping here and there to touch a fender, to examine a speck of dust, to flick a fleck of froth from the windshield. He never quite stopped talking even when he inhaled; no words, just a constant stream of syllables and murmurs, baby words, for a great fire-gutted iron-skinned smoke-belching baby that he loved more than anything that could say ‘dada.’
“Good!” he said at last, and slapped the hood affectionately. “Good!”
Then he went upstairs, had more coffee, got dressed, and got behind the wheel. He turned the key and it growled, he pressed the pedal and it roared.
“Time for some treats, goo’boy,” he crooned. “Time for some treats.”
It balked at the first stop. Dragons, as a rule, are not fond of water unless they own it. Paul was confident it would relax by the time he was done at the register.
“Will that be express or premium?”
“Ultra premium.”
“Okay. With or without scented soap?”
“Nonscented, extra soap.”
“Superscrub on or off?”
“Superscrub on, extra extra soap, with turbo premium and extra premium. He deserves the best.”
The woman smiled the quick and easy grin of someone being paid far too little to think of any questions and punched it up. She rattled off some nominal fee and Paul gave her twice that and told her to let it run twice as long as usual.
Into the waterfalls went the dragon, cautiously, nudging at the pipes and hoses with its snout, distrust making it grumble and lurch at movement.
“Easy, easy, easy m’ goo’boy, whoosagoo’boooooy,” said Paul, as the jets began to thunder and descend, panting furiously at the sight of grimed skin. “Gotta scrubbadubbdubb. Goooooooo’boy.” And other things like that, that calm down dragons.
It roared louder when they took to the road again – maybe hoping to vibrate loose the last few drops of water from its hide. It was fiercely clean on a dirty street and maybe that was what made all the cars shrink back from it.
Besides, it was very large. Didn’t quite fit in its own lane. Not quite a proper vehicle at all, really. But a very good dragon.
And very good dragons got very good service.
“Tires?”
“Yes. And oiling.”
“Express or premium?”
“Ultra premium.”
“Okay. With or without uberspraying?”
“With, and pump extra into the seams.”
“Relaxing music or no relaxing music?”
“Ultra premium, uberspraying – heavy on the seams and every crevice – and double that ultra premium. No music. It puts him to sleep.”
The boy smiled the nervous and slightly rigid grin of someone who still cared about the sanity of the general public and punched it up. Paul gave him a few handfuls of bills without counting and told him to put the entire staff on it.
The dragon lay there, quiescent. It glowered at the approaching hoses in helpless pride.
“Ittabeefiiiine, ittabeefiiiiiiiine,” soothed Paul. “Goooooooo’boy.”
When the sun came to touch the dragon again, it shrank back at the rivalling glare. The dragon was a light source all its own now. It glowed with oils, its plating seethed, it had gone from impenetrable to unpenetrable in a single stride and the dirt simply gave up and died against its sides in handfuls, the road shrinking away from the grip of its summer claws.
Its roar was steadier now. Earnest, not thirsty. It knew this was its time a-coming. It knew it would be out and around from now on, not shrinking from the cold. It knew that it would be on the highway soon, shouting down small and quailing vehicles, bullying fat slow transports, calling from overpasses.
It knew things. It was a dragon.
Paul knew things too, mostly that there was one last stop to be made. This time there were no words, no questions, only buttons.
Regular, premium, super premium, ultra premium, ultra deluxe premium, ultra deluxe gold premium fantasmagoria glory.
Paul selected ultra deluxe gold premium fantasmagoria glory and held down the nozzle for what seemed like seven years while thinking about what kind of chocolate bar he wanted. After far too much time he wandered indoors, paid up, and walked out with a reddish wrapper that had seemed the least likely to contain peanut butter.
He was incorrect.
Paul was annoyed. He kicked at the dragon’s pedals, and it snorted defiance at him. It was tense, he was tense. Things were thrumming, things were hissing.
It was time to go.
It was time to go NOW.
The dragon LEAPT out of the gas station, darted onto the road, slipped into the on-ramp, and shot onto the highway so fiercely that it almost ran a car half a kilometre away from itself off the road, purely from shock.
The roar was around Paul now. He was in its teeth, after all.
Air screaming at his ears. The drip and trickle of its innards underfoot. Hot breath whooshing. And inside, fire, hot fire, screaming to come out.
Paul stamped the pedal harder and laughed, and laughed, and laughed. He was laughing so hard that he didn’t hear or see the police car until it pulled in front.
Paul pulled over. Slowly. Grudgingly. Seething.
Inside he was swearing. Outside, he was merely hissing.
He pulled the keys out of the dragon, and kicked it savagely as it grumbled its complaints.
How dare they. How DARE they. Didn’t they know who he was? Didn’t they CARE? How dare they!
He swore, he hissed, he nearly spat, and he turned a friendly smile to the man outside his window.
“Good afternoon officer! What seems to be the problem?”
“Just a friendly reminder, sir,” said the cop amiably.
“Oh! How kind of you!” said Paul. He kicked the dragon again. “What is it?”
“Your gas cap seems to be open, that’s all.”
“Well isn’t that nice to know,” said Paul’s mouth while his brain turned itself on and off three times so fast he almost didn’t notice what was happening.
Oh. It must’ve been while he was thinking of a chocolate bar.
And then it was far too late.
The dragon pulled itself out nose-first, flames and smoke billowing in its wake like a runaway blockbuster. Its oiled scales shone brighter than mirrors in the noon sun; its claws and teeth were purest white and its eyes a red that could make rubies crack. It was clutching the policeman in its rearmost talon, and as it flew out of sight as fast as imagination Paul never saw the cop so much as twitch or scream.
Mind you, he made up for it himself.