White Hair and a Fast Jaguar

Illustration by Josh Taufman, 2022

The Meet

As the car sped up the driveway and skidded to a halt, she saw the windshield streaked with highway dirt.

The engine settled down and the driver’s door was opened by an arm dressed in a bright white poet’s shirt.

His cologne advanced before him in a fully measured stride, like a cock proudly strutting through the yard.

She knew him to be the real deal, no room for rumination and never would she show her every card.

The Spring air was fresh for the rain had washed it clean and the sun began to sink below the pines.

The tales she’d heard all winter were laid before her eyes; no longer left to wonder what she’d find.

She bounded down the stairs and straight away to the stoop, never expecting her plans had gone too far.

But there in plain sight, underneath the Southern skies, he stood, white hair with a fast Jaguar.

Silently he gazed as she walked across the gravel, she noticed that he noticed her not.

He wondered if he had the wrong place in his directions and started to feel a bit distraught.

But his manner was impeccable, his shadow long and dark, she felt she had made the right decision.

With his briefcase fat with paper, his bowtie neatly tied, he walked with confidence and keen precision.

“Good day” he stammered deeply with a “nice to meet you” hand, a golden watch encircling his tan wrist.

“Likewise,” she muttered back as their hands clasped in a shake and all her years of fears were soon dismissed.

The Plan

They sat with tea and legalese and planned their scope of work, the evening fast approached with bourbon, rocks.

In conversation wound so tight, it fell deep into the night, and their plan, a finely tuned Pandora’s Box.

With a focus clearly shaping and a stash of cash on hand, they bank rolled their ideas and sought a backer.

Clandestine meetings started, back-alley swaps departed, with a single missing piece, a lustful hacker.

With a promoter in place and distribution channels set to go, they ended their soiree with a toast.

They stood by the living room window and watched the evening stars and logged in to make one final post.

The Hookup

As the sun rose o’er the pines she brushed the night from her eyes and realized he’d left her a note.

“I’m off to the bank to set this thing in motion; misdirection will help keep us afloat”.

She smiled and lounged about and recalled the evening’s laughs, the air full of fun in her boudoir.

With cufflinks on the table, full of vim but still unable, she lay wasted from white hair and fast Jaguar.

The news it travelled fast as the pictures showed the hot pursuit that ended in a causeway riverbed.

Not much was known’ bout the driver, there was only one survivor, the rest found in the Jaguar, backseat, dead.

There was but one choice, she thought, as she headed to the bank, for sure accounts would be in both their names.

With instructions for the layman and a destination of the Caymans, she only had herself to blame.

Bereft of any chance to recover, she found herself at home, late drink and remote control in hand.

A white-haired mannequin they did find, in the wreckage at the scene of the crime, at once she cried and came to understand.

There’s safety in numbers and errands for fools and pigs get rounded up in pens.

But fast jaguars should be avoided when the driver that’s deployed is a white-haired aristocratic man.

One morning, years later, from asleep she was aroused, by the sound of a Studebaker.

Parked in the seat, at the wheel of the heap, the man with gray hair had already made her.

The Scam

“I’ve come for my earnings” he sighed, “from all I’ve read, there’s much back pay to pay for services rendered”.

He added “Your means to pay has no meaning, when I spared you a deep cleaning, it’s simply best that you surrender”.

“I beg to differ” she squawked, “what was that night worth, after all.  Can I not count on your undying emotion?”

“You’ve confused me with another man, and amused where I stand, that night was someone else whose heart was frozen.”

The gravel in her driveway often spoke of new arrivals, and always with agenda’s disguise.

Many times they tried to woo her, but her smarts would always fool them, so her secret remains beneath the Southern skies.