＃１０１

     Harrow Sally pinches carburetors in the night and sells them to fund breast cancer research. She likes carburetors because they are going out of fashion, an emissions thing, so she is able to sell at a pretty penny and now and then back to the original owner. The owner, who will necessarily own a vintage car because of the emissions thing, a vintage car that is easy to spot and steal from, will find her a whipsmart young woman only lacking in experience—his experience—and he will explain the emissions thing and what a carburetor does and she says yes yes that sounds like what my dad said, you know you remind me of my dad, and she will sell the carburetor back to him for the pretty penny.
     Harrow Sally is not reminded of her dad because her dad is gay. He has always been gay but waited for her mother to die of breast cancer before he started dating other men, not even behind her back, which was good of him. The owner of the vintage car is not gay because his arm loiters on hers as he explains the emissions thing and his eyes loiter on her strawberry bob, a flipped one that says young and perky enough to make an ex-wife jealous and if that were not enough the owner also tries to fuck her, though at this point she has already sold him the carburetor and he has handed over cash so with pants essentially down the owner leaves and she steals the carburetor from him again next week when he parks a block down from her house.
     Harrow Sally is called Harrow Sally by the other young women of the Auto Girls. She is called Harrow Sally because in a pink waitress’ notepad she keeps a record of all the carburetors she has taken with the date and street she took them on, so that she does not steal too many too quickly from any one place and scare off the owners as word gets round—smoothing out her fundraising the same way a harrow does the soil after ploughing. The Auto Girls are called that way because they are girls who take things from cars.
     Harrow Sally dates another Auto Girl who is called Mississippi Two, a real name that Mississippi Two says she was given because “Mississippi One was taken”, and although this is not quite true it is not worth correcting and the Auto Girls call her Sippi. Sippi steals motor controllers from electric vehicles, which is a growth market that enjoys a pleasing duality with Harrow Sally’s specialty, chiefly in terms of establishing the right balance of common and disparate interest that relationships thrive on but also in that Harrow Sally and Sippi split a neighbourhood’s work as effectively as all get out.
     Harrow Sally has started working from the back pages of her pink waitress’ notebook too, chronicling Sippi's thrift under the same harrow guise but really out of affection. They joke that when their fundraising records meet in the middle, which won’t likely be the middle since Harrow Sally’s logs go back further, but when they meet anywhere they’ll have to get married. Harrow Sally isn’t a lesbian, she just hates men, while Sippi lost her breasts to cancer but likes playing with them too much to accept their absence in her life. All the Auto Girls will be invited to the wedding and the cake will be a vintage and electric car. The wishing well proceeds will be donated to breast cancer research. Harrow Sally’s gay dad can’t come.
     Well, one day Harrow Sally is taking the carburetor from some Maserati when sirens boom down the next street over, and pushing through the greenway Harrow Sally sees Sippi being put in cuffs, shoved against the bonnet by a policeman with his crotch pushed up much tighter against Sippi’s ass than necessary or even useful. What is it with men and their dicks, Harrow Sally thinks. The carburetor in her hand weighs suppose around ten pounds so with both hands she hurls it, striking the policeman in his temple who falls promptly kindly dead.
     It feels good, actually, piggy getting fucked this way, and Harrow Sally looks up to see Sippi nodding slow and feeling good also. Harrow Sally stuffs him in his trunk and turns the cruiser lights off while Sippi reinstalls first her motor controllers then the carburetor so as to leave no trace. That evening, around peachy keens at a rainbow bar, Harrow Sally and Sippi tell the Auto Girls what they’ve done. The Auto Girls nod the same slow nods and Sippi distributes a red waitress’ notebook to each of them, every notebook blank except for Harrow Sally’s—hers having a singular entry at the front containing today’s date and the name of a thin, greenwayed street.