Car Wash Kitty

I cruised down King Street and noticed the sandwich board sign on the curb proclaiming the first automatic car wash in my tiny town.

KING CAR WASH

$2.99 Opening special.

When it opened last week, word spread fast that it was the best anywhere—they even had some sort of a wheel spinning brush. And the price…yeah, what a deal. My car hadn’t been washed for some time, so I cranked the wheel and pulled in. My sister's tabby, Binkie, was my co-pilot. I was kindly transporting him to her new apartment across town. The cat sat calmly on the back seat dash looking out the rear window, licking a paw, enjoying the ride.

Contented.

I swung around to the rear of the long building and lined up with the entrance. Two tattooed guys emerged and flicked away their smokes. I recognized the one guy as a troublemaker at my high school, a Grade Ten dropout. They wore black rubber aprons and rubber boots. They picked up long steam wands from a trash can and raked my rocker panels and wheels. The wands sounded like jet engines and enveloped the car in clouds of steam.

I glanced in the mirror. Binkie had vanished.

I leaned back over the seat and saw him lying on the floor, tail whipping, eyes wide. “Easy, Binkie. Calm down.” I thought his agitation was quite funny as I could hear his tail pounding the back of the front seat like a bass drum. I figured he’d stay put down there in a relatively safe spot.

One of the men hooked my bumper to a chain and directed me ahead to steer my wheels into a track. After a few rough jerks, I was on my way inside. I picked up a newspaper beside me as my wheels bumped down onto a roller section where they were spun madly while brushes scrubbed my wheels—impressive technology. My tires would never be cleaner.

As my car shuddered and clanked along, a deluge of water from above splashed onto the roof. Tall vertical scrubbers at my headlights began to spin like tornadoes as they moved alongside the car. Their red and blue strands lashed fenders and doors with staccato battering sounds. Wow, such technology and about time, too. I mean, putting a couple of guys on the moon was one thing…

It was all Binkie could stand.

A blur of fur streaked in my rear-view mirror. Binkie was on my shoulder digging in with sharp claws as torrents of water blasted the windows.

His green eyes threatened to pop. His tail was nearly spinning.

I screamed and cursed. He sunk his mouse-killing teeth into my finger as I extracted his claws, grabbed him by the nape of his neck, and flung him away to the far door and on the seat. A horizontal blue spinner, like a giant rolling pin, revved up in a turbine crescendo, heading toward the windshield, making me somewhat worried over the crack in my windshield.

Desperate to escape, Binkie bound over the headrest onto the backseat and trampolined right onto me again, arched like a Halloween cat silhouette, all tooth and claw on the back of my neck. The rolling pin brush pounded and reverberated against the roof. It was like driving through a monster rainstorm with thunder. Defending myself, I rolled my newspaper to beat him off. He vaulted over my shoulder, slammed against the dashboard, and caromed off to fall on the floor.

Where he lay still.

I hadn’t realized I was breathing so hard, as if I’d run a dash. I looked in the mirror. My bleeding face looked back at me in the mirror with terror. Two tiny trickles of blood ran from my right temple. My eyes could be at risk.

A truckload of soapsuds dropped onto the car, creating a whiteout. The scrubbers returned and attacked the vehicle with renewed vigor.

Binkie rose from the dead like a Phoenix.

He launched into a spin cycle around the interior, completely insane. I sucked on my bleeding finger as he braked and latched onto my head again, starling me. My forearm hit the power window button and we got super cream-pied with suds.

I couldn’t see. I was afraid Binkie would land on my face and rip out my eyes. A spray of water shot in, soaking me, and sent the cat into another frenzied orbit. Immediately, a huge aluminum box with rubber rollers assaulted the car hood and blew out air like a screaming hairdryer. Windshield wipers vibrated in fear as if they'd tear off.

Binkie raced door to dash to seat to window to door to dash to the rear--and right toward my face. I ducked, banging my forehead against the steering wheel. He winged out the open window and thumped awkwardly on his side onto the concrete. Like a cartoon cat, his legs fought for traction and shot out the big exit door, totally traumatized.

All the machines abruptly stopped as the wash ended. An attendant with a drying cloth walked over. "Did I just see…? Was that your cat?" he asked.

I wiped suds from my face. "Not anymore."

“You okay? You’re bleeding?”

Without a doubt, I’d witnessed the fastest animal in the world. I would’ve liked to know how far he ran. Binkie eventually, somehow, made it back to my sister’s old apartment where he was transported--likely in a windowless box or blindfolded--to her new place.

My car wheels had never been cleaner.

Neither had Binkie.