Top Dead Center IX
February 22, 2008
FELLA
Is this? You’re. I get it. Okay. I get it. Fine. You need more money? Like I said, I have checks, I have credit cards.
MYRAS
Damn it all fella. This ain’t about money. It’s about simple truth. Laws of nature. Laws of man.
FELLA
What?
MYRAS
Rhythm and order. Balance and timing. Things run right because we see to it. Engines don’t start on their own or stop on their own. They serve us, so we gotta serve them.
FELLA
Serve an engine.
MYRAS
Flesh and blood. Oil and iron. No difference.
FELLA
You’re nuts buddy.
MYRAS
Am I? Am I? Because I know the whys and wherefores? Now listen fella. You can push that piece of junk back down the hill and all the way back to the city and get it fixed there, and it might last ten months, a year tops. You can make a quick fix. That’ll hold for a bit. It’ll have structure. Structure sure, but it won’t have no damn soul.
FELLA
What the hell does a car have to do with soul?
MYRAS
Soul is sacrifice fella. It comes from somewhere, it goes back to somewhere. Red Injuns and the ancient Chinese and them cannibalizin spear-chuckers, they know about soul. Paint a snake on your chest, you become lethal. Pray to an owl and you get smart. Eat your granddaddy’s brain and you get his wisdom. Get it? That’s what they believe.
FELLA
Tell me there’s a reason why you’re slinging all this bullshit.
FELLA
What kind of ignorant—
MYRAS
You calling me ignorant fella? Then you put the damn car back together. You don’t need my ignorant help, do you? Go ahead.
FELLA
I didn’t mean to say you were ignorant. I’m just not familiar with the spiritual side of engine repair.
MYRAS
That engine is a living thing. It needs a living thing. Ain’t my rules fella. Laws of nature—
FELLA
Laws of man. Right.
