DAY 2
Harrisonburg, Virginia, to Asheville, North carolina
We start the day at Merchant's Tire & Auto Center, looking, I suppose, like an older woman and her two highly excitable twentysomething sons with an ancient, hand-painted white limo. All three of us are talking at once.
"The key word is 'right away,' " says Merchant's manager Jim Niarhos, only slightly fazed by our unexpected visit. In the middle of making a call to palm us off on some other shop, he realizes that he can't send our bizarre little band anywhere without looking crazy himself, hangs up, and writes a work order.
We spend the next five hours watching his carburetor man, Richard, crouch under the hood and dismantle and clean the crusty four-barrel. He pokes his finger on a wet spot on the underside of the fuel tank, and the metal pushes in. He suggests that we slow down for railroad tracks. He points to the fact that there is no frame (no frame!) and that the whole car could easily break in half. He finds another fuel filter hidden by two decades of grime and sees that it is jammed with chunks of rust. He empties sludge into a bucket. He flushes more sludge from the fuel line into the bucket.
I forgot to mention that today is Elvis Day. I forgot to mention that, while Richard is working on the car, we have changed into our jeweled Elvis jumpsuits, complete with wigs and Taking Care of Business sunglasses. It'll be some time before the guys at Merchant's forget that we ever darkened their door. -JJ
Five hours after we first arrive at the shop, four already tired Elvises pile into the Limo of Death and hit the road for the day's 300-mile jaunt. As Richard the mechanic pointed out, the coachbuilder who stretched this particular Fleetwood neglected to weld in a new frame section. I can't stop thinking that the front and the rear halves of the limo are held together by only the driveshaft, the rotted brake lines, and the red shag carpet. Neither the floor pan nor the side body panels offer structural assistance, composed as they are of compressed rust, road grime, and Rust-Oleum enamel. -JC
Overly Polite Southern Woman at the Chick-fil-A: "Are y'all Elvis impersonators?"
Jean: "We are Elvis."
Overly Polite Southern Woman at the Chick-fil-A: "Well . . . OK then. Would you like some ketchup?" -SS
I'm startled by the sound of a police siren behind us. The cop may have been following us for ten miles - with no mirrors, how was I to know? I ask the officer if I was speeding. My teammates start giggling; we were going only 51 mph - fourteen less than the speed limit but fifty faster than was probably safe.
"You were weaving back there."
"Oh, see, officer, this is a $250 stretch limousine," I explain as I saw the wheel back and forth through ninety degrees of play. "The steering is barely connected to the front wheels. If I were drunk, we would have never even made it onto the highway. We would have veered off the entrance ramp and hit a tree."
"Is that so?" the cop responds as he turns his head to locate a distinctly Elvis-like "Uh-huh uh-huh" emanating from the back seat. Jean, the only one among us still wearing her Elvis costume, lowers her window and asks him if he'll pose for a picture. The officer cracks a smile as I respond, "I cannot begin to imagine what this must look like, but I promise we're just trying to get to New Orleans safely." I have just, for the first time in my life, told the truth to a cop on the side of the road. -JC
There's something to be said for crossing America in a car where every mile is a blessing. It makes you appreciate the fact that the motion isn't magic - you're actually moving by the good grace of pistons pumping and spark plugs sparking and wheels rolling. There's also something to be said for crossing the country in a long-wheelbase piece of pimped-out living room trash. It's strangely comfortable. A big, groaning, rattling, flexing, squeaking kind of comfortable, but comfortable nonetheless. Maybe it's the heat, but I'm actually starting to feel good. -SS
Riding in the back is very bizarre. Regis and I are almost totally disconnected from the front. We can't hear what Jason and Sam are saying, and they can't hear us. We have created a little cocoon of camera bags and coolers that bolster our legs. I read the tabloids, work the Blackberry, and conduct business, and Regis shoots and naps. Every now and then, we suffer from a crack-the-whip effect in the back, when Jason is driving 50 mph and it feels like the rear is going 95 mph as we flip over road bumps. -JJ
With no tachometer to disagree with my math skills, I calculate that the lazy V-8 under the hood is turning only 1400 rpm in fourth gear at our 50-mph interstate cruising speed. At these speeds, we feel nothing, and we begin to realize why old people think it's a compliment to say that a car "rides like a Cadillac." The incessant bouncing has obviously interrupted normal synaptic firing.
The late-afternoon sun is glistening beautifully through the cracks in the windshield as we start to ascend the mountains. At two-thirds throttle, the carb's secondaries open up, emitting that glorious intake snarl that comes only from a big American V-8. It's too bad it's all bark and no bite - we're struggling to maintain 35 mph. The kickdown linkage is attached to the throttle cable via an old key chain, and perhaps it's maladjusted - I have to manually downshift into second gear just to keep moving. There is no temperature gauge and the idiot light is burned out, so for all we know, the big engine could be glowing red and nearing meltdown. We pull over and open the hood at a scenic overlook, and the heat kills every mosquito in the parking lot.