Gaston Dilmoore: Right Hooks and A Soviet Staff Car
Nunzig did a joke to me yesterday. It happened after eleven straight hours of riding through the central mountains of Kamchatka, in pursuit of this dastardly expedition. After such time, we encountered a 1953 Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod Soviet staff car. Upon inspection, Nunzig discovered it still turned over, and ran.
"Here! Come here!" he shouted with excitement. It seems old trusty Nunzig had fashioned an artificial street intersection by lining up football-sized boulders to delineate the curb edges of a typical American street corner. He'd even taken a red barrel lid and had written the word "Step" on it with white paint. He affixed this to a pole and stood it up at the intersection. Next, he drew a bent arrow on a yellow flag and displayed that on another pole.
"I say old Chap," I declared. "If I didn't know any better I'd swear I was in downtown Chicago over in the USA!"
It really was impressive. Nunzig got in the staff car and started it up.
"Now, you go! You ride to corner!" he called from the idling car. Curious, I began to pedal toward the invented intersection, and he inched forward. When I neared the corner, Nunzig gunned the motor and executed an abrupt right turn, smashing into my bicycle and sending me smartly into the Step Sign.
"Whoo Whoo!" called Nunzig. "Like in USA with Right Hookers!"
I was a bit dazed, but amused nonetheless.
"Very clever old bean!" I shouted. "Let's have another go!"
We spent the next three hours "executing Right Hookers," as Nunzig called it, and became so exhausted from the fun that we had to relax for a bit. We fell asleep, and woke up several hours later when a hot air balloon cast a shadow on our camp. It was the backers, and they had several questions. Not the least of which was why we had a fake intersection with a Step Sign and a bent arrow. Nunzig explained about the Right Hookers, but the backers seemed puzzled.
"You just lost a good goddamned sponsor," shouted one of them. So I seized the opportunity.
"Have you any mints up there?" I called.
I do adore mints.b
