The Ferrari Breadvan and the Infinite...

This anecdote begins with the Ferrari Breadvan resting perilously close to the edge of a gaping abyss--the kind that often defines eternity or some other expression of the infinite--in the light of what must have been the moon because there sure as Hell weren't any street lamps in the remote area of Ice Canyon in the San Bernardino Mountains and that's just as well because had there been any, the Breadvan would likely have been wrapped around one of them.

All this goes to say that this moment of repose was not in aid of a romantic interlude beneath the heavens or because of a moment of philosophical reflection but rather because my friend and Ferrari buddy had lost control as three of us were speeding down the mountain in the middle of the night and the dynamics of jounce and rebound, after he left the pavement and began interacting with rocky mountain terrain, were all that slowed Matthew Ettinger's journey towards his final reward bringing him to a stop at the edge of, well, you know...

Many were the times Matthew and I darted about Los Angeles, his son Marcus with him in the Breadvan and his son Mason with me in the GTO. Occasionally, we were joined by John Andrews in his Lamborghini Miura--a beautiful car in orange with, I think, a standard a grey leather interior. I don't know that I would ever order an orange car--it was Frank Sinatra's favorite color, by the way--but the only other color offered initially by Lamborghini for the Miura was a vibrant, pale green. I'll take orange. On this occasion, John had joined Matthew and me for a night ride which featured an excursion up Ice Canyon for no particular reason and it was while speeding down the mountain in an attempt to return to civilization that I realized I could no longer see the Breadvan's headlights in my mirrors. Not good.

I flashed my lights at John who was leading the way and we came to a stop. We listened but could not hear the Breadvan's V12. Matthew was no longer with us, in one sense at least. We began to back up the mountain road in search of our friend (suggesting the title Skid Marks in the Dark) and finally heard rather than saw him. One expletive followed another, so things couldn't be all that bad. Matthew had lost power because the battery wasn't bolted down. It had slipped its cables and he was plunged into darkness instead of The Great Gig in the Sky.

It only took a few more minutes to reconnect the cables to restore power and we found that the off-road shenanigans had done no damage so we sped off again into the night.

Some might have seen this episode as something of a wake-up call but we didn't--if it was important, fate would call back...