Tossed In Space

By Rick Horowitz

"Rrrrinnng! Rrrrin -- " "Yeah, Tony's Tow & Go -- `You Wreck 'Em, We Check 'Em.' What's up?"

"Hello? Is this Tony's?"

"The one and only. Whatsamatter, you don't listen?"

"Sorry, I can barely hear you -- we must have a bad connection somewhere."

"So you shout, and I'll shout. Whatcha got for me?"

"We had a little accident, Tony -- we got banged up pretty good."

"Fender bender? No problem."

"I think it's more than a fender bender. I'm out here with a couple of Russian guys, and we got run into by a garbage truck. We were trying to merge, and -- "

"The jerk cut you off, right? I swear, those guys think they own the road. Good thing you weren't hurt. Everybody's OK, right?"

"Sure. As long as the oxygen holds out."

"The what? It sounded like you said `oxygen.'"

"Never mind. Yeah, we're OK, but we can use some road service pretty quick. Half our solar panels are shot, and we've had to shut down the carbon-dioxide scrubbers and the urine recycling system."

"It's one of those custom vans, isn't it? I knew it! Jeez, the things people do with those things, I knew a guy once, he -- "

"We're kind of in a hurry..."

"First you can't hear me, now you don't want to? Fine, lemme get some information from you. Make and model?"

"Mir."

"Say again?"

"A Mir -- an '86 Mir."

"What's that, one of those foreign jobs? A Yugo I know, but this one I never heard of."

"It's like a Yugo, only less reliable."

"Impossible! Color?"

"Metallic."

"Metallic what?"

"Just metallic."

"If you say so. And the mileage on this tin can of yours?"

"A billion six."

"Well, see, there's your problem right there -- they just don't make 'em to run a billion six anymore. Past a billion two, a billion three maybe, you get any kind of dent, the whole thing starts to fall apart."

"Tell me about it. This one's been nothing but trouble for months -- the filters, the generator, the cooling system..."

"You want my advice? Just walk away from it. Just walk away."

"It's not that simple."

"Look, Mac, you want me to tow it somewhere, I'll tow it. But if I were you, I wouldn't put another penny into it after that, OK?"

"Fine. Whatever you say."

"Fine. So where are you located?"

"About 230 miles straight up."

"Straight up?"

"If you hurry. Otherwise, you'll have to wait for us to come around again."

"You're in orbit."

"Afraid so."

"For orbit I charge extra. You got AAA?"

 6/27/97