When Life Gives You Lemons Ch2

When Life Gives You Lemons
Rating: T for violence, suggestive language and sensuality
Setting: Before the events of Cars 2
Summary: Pushed to the margins of vehicular society, barely getting by as a day laborer and living in a cheap apartment over a laundromat, Grem is drawn into Professor Zundapp's clandestine world of espionage.
Author's Note: The first chapters of this fanfiction predate the release of Cars 2, and creative license was taken with the central character of this fanfiction since little was known about him at the time, aside from a brief character description and an appearance in the trailer.
Cars and all canon characters are the property of Disney-Pixar. Donna Pits is a minor canon character; she's one of the groupies in the Rust-Eze tent.
You are free to use any original characters from this fanfiction in your own work (fanfiction, art, etc.) if you'd like.
These chapters are being added to deviantArt as I have time to create illustrations for them. The story is cross-posted to fanfiction.net, where the first nine chapters can be read.
Chapter 2: Grime

*

The reflective safety vest, designed as a one-size-fits-all garment, nonetheless scraped the ground below his doors once he'd shrugged into it. I look ridiculous, the hatchback grumbled silently, standing on the pavement under a chilling drizzle.

As if reading Grem's thoughts, the logging truck tried to kid around with him. "You're already orange, is that vest even necessary?" His chuckle came out as a deep rumble that left his overhead bucket swaying.

"Real funny, Chipper. It's going to be a pleasure working with you." Grem found himself incredibly grateful moments later when the din of chainsaws and the wood chipper spared him from further conversation with the truck. He lost himself in the work, parked ahead of a curve in the winding road where Chipper and his crew toiled bringing down branches, motioning each group of passing cars to either wait or to drive through the single lane they'd created. Donna's voice periodically crackled through his two-way radio with the news that it was time to send his next group of vehicles along, and Grem tried to ignore the effect it had on him.

"Why is this road getting its branches trimmed?" he asked when they broke for lunch, sprawling out on the wet grass far from the roadside. Though the wood chipper had been shut off ten minutes ago, it was as though he could still hear its incessant roar. "I passed plenty of roads with overhanging branches worse than this on my way in to the office. Work is work, but hitting this road again seems to be a waste of our tax dollars, no?"

Donna stared at him incredulously, gesturing far down the pavement. "If you say so, but don't you know where this road leads? It's only to the largest racetrack in the entire state, and the biggest event in the entire region, the tri-state semifinals, is this weekend. All those haulers--dozens of them!--are going to need the extra clearance to make it to the track." She chewed on a bite of her sandwich, watching Grem's face for any sign of enthusiasm and finding none. "Don't you follow racing at all?" she finally asked, her voice full of awe.

Grem shook his cab disdainfully. "Nope. Can't be bothered. I gave up idolizing stuck-up race cars long ago."

Donna smirked at him. "Well, you won't enjoy the next few days then, because Chipper already told me he could use us for the rest of the week and you're going to see a lot of racers and their haulers go by during that time." She beamed. "How exciting is this, and to think we landed right in the middle of it! I guess I've never told you before, but I make it to the local races whenever I can get away from work long enough, and it's like a big party in the pits after every event. You should see the Rust-Eze guys; I think you'd actually like them. They put on a great show with lots of silly acts and jokes and then Lightning McQueen himself rolls onstage to say a few words."

Grem had to interrupt Donna's breathless account of the post-race festivities. "McQueen? You picked one hell of a guy for a hero. I don't follow celebrities, but I can tell when a guy's just in it for the money. He hates cars like us with a little bit of rust, and that cruddy product he shills for? It's snake oil. I rubbed that junk on my frame for months and look at me. Nothing." The AMC frowned, realizing he'd unintentionally revealed more than he'd meant to. He'd die before he let Donna know he was at all concerned with his appearance.

Sympathy flashed in the white sedan's eyes. "Aw, Grem, you look fine. Anyway, I'm going to try my best to charm some free pit passes off a hauler and if you can hold back your scorn for all things racing, maybe you'd care to join me Sunday?" While she bit her lip, acknowledging how many if's her offer involved, Grem's engine skipped a cycle. A date? She just asked me out?

Maybe amazing things really could happen even on a day like this, he thought, as Donna playfully swiped off a wet leaf that was plastered to his door handle.

* * * * *

The first racing hauler arrived that very afternoon, several days before the main event so the racer inside could practice. Grem trembled despite himself as he stood in the center of the road with his flag, the semi's air brakes bringing him to a loud halt just a few feet from the AMC's front bumper.

"This is good enough, Rod, I can drive in from here." It took the hatchback a moment to realize he was hearing the voice over the semi's headset, which was turned up quite high. The hiss of hydraulics could be heard somewhere behind the truck as a hatch at the rear of the trailer opened, and a racecar, every inch of his vibrant green frame emblazoned with various sponsorship logos, pulled up alongside the truck and onto the shoulder of the road, where he proceeded to casually stretch his tires after the long time spent in the cramped trailer. The two cars regarded each other, the larger one practically daring the other to say something, before Grem cleared his throat.

"Er, you're sorta over the white line, mister. Might wanna move back onto the road before you get clobbered by a branch," he advised, trying to sound assertive. He was met by a blank stare that quickly turned to a sneer.

"Hey look, Rod, in all your years of hauling, have you ever seen a talking traffic cone before?" The racer clapped a tire to the pavement, his sleek frame shaking with laughter as he surveyed the flagger before him. "I haven't seen anyone of your model doing work like this in years, and now I'm starting to see why!" Though the racecar laughed at his twisted sense of humor, the long-suffering semi stood in silent disapproval of his employer's behavior, not wishing to risk his prestigious job.

Grem was helpless to stop the surge of anger that coursed through his frame at this latest insult, and he abandoned his attempts to stay professional. The rest of the crew was well beyond a bend in the road ahead, unaware of the confrontation taking place.

"That was uncalled for," the Gremlin warned, his voice surly and his frame shaking. "You've had your fun, now why don't you just park your pampered trunk back in your nice, air-conditioned trailer and drive on through so those of us who actually work for a living can do our jobs. You stay on the side of the road like that and you might get your precious tires muddy." He thrust his flag forward, motioning the semi to move along, with or without his passenger.

The racer pulled back in surprise, not used to being patronized, let alone by someone in such a lowly profession. His wide, black grille twitched as he fixed the hatchback with a menacing glare.

"I'll decide whose name is mud around here, Gremlin, or should I say, Grime!" He laughed evilly as he revved his engine and surged forward, splashing Grem thoroughly with a wall of filthy water from the puddles on the ground. Rod mouthed a silent apology and chugged ahead, though his actions went unnoticed. By the time the hatchback was done sputtering and wiping the grit off his windshield, his radio was already alive with Donna's excited voice.

"That was Chick Hicks!" she exclaimed. "You could've told me you were sending him through!"

"Yeah, we met," Grem hissed.

Donna gazed down at her radio, wondering why Grem held such contempt for racecars. Sure, Hicks wasn't known for being a nice guy, but he had fought his way up from a rough upbringing and that struck her as something the Gremlin should have been able to appreciate.

Meanwhile, Grem swore a blue streak as he wrung out his soaked safety vest, knowing he had no choice but to take this abuse. Sure, he could pursue the racecar and challenge him, but that would involve abandoning his post and losing the only work he'd had in a long time, and that wasn't something he could afford.

"Try not to let it get to you," a voice suddenly cut in, causing him to jump. "You called things as you saw them, and he couldn't handle it."

The AMC turned to face a subcompact car whose frame was as ungainly as his own, right down to the rusted roofrack. Though his two-tone body was squarish and outdated, the stranger's imposing voice had a certain authority to it that demanded respect. Grem recognized him as a Zundapp Janus, an extremely rare and legendary model.

"I wish you hadn't witnessed that," the hatchback admitted apologetically. The stranger squinted at him through a monocle he wore over his left eye, and Grem couldn't help but notice that the antiquated eyewear made him even more conspicuous.

"No matter. These racecars are all the same and they're not worth your time. You, of course, are destined for bigger and better things, so don't let him bring you down." Before the AMC could ask him what he meant, Donna called over the radio and Grem was forced to reluctantly flag the stranger ahead, but he found it hard to concentrate on his work for the remainder of his shift.

I'm destined for "bigger and better things?" That's what I've always hoped, of course, but how could a complete stranger know that?

* * * * *

His apartment was a run-down little set of rooms perched above a laundromat in the front and a bowling alley in the back, so it was always ear-splittingly loud and stifingly hot, and the scent of detergent, which Grem had grown used to, hung heavily in the air. Returning home from work, he could hear the television as he made his way up the back ramp.

"Acer, what the hell did you do with our furniture?" he demanded of his roommate upon entering their very sparse living room. The TV now sat on a milk crate, and there were only dents in the carpet where the coffee table had been.

The green Pacer shrugged his fenders. "I didn't do nothin' with it, Grem, but I did stand by while the rental company took it back." He caught the Gremlin's doleful look. "Why the long face? We knew this was coming, we've been behind on the payments and it's not like we're having anyone over, anyway." He aimlessly plucked at the long yarns in the carpet, letting the multi-colored strands drop from between his treads.

Grem rose a little higher on his shocks. "Actually, I might be having a date over this weekend, for your information," he wailed, "and how am I going to impress her now with a bare living room?"

"The girl from the day labor place?" Acer asked eagerly, "You sly devil, you! So you finally asked her out." He snapped his treads together. "I've got it! She'll never notice the living room if you hustle her right past it to your bed-"

"Acer!" Grem reprimanded him sharply, glaring at his roommate. "Unlike you, I like getting to know someone before going there."

"You've known Donna for a few years now," countered Acer, returning his attention to some gadgets he was tinkering with on another milk crate. Sensing Grem wasn't in the mood to discuss his love life, the Pacer tossed him a small walkie-talkie radio. "Humor me a minute and help me test these, and lose that awful vest already."

Grem frowned down at the cheap plastic radio. "Aren't you getting a bit old for this spy stuff? Here we are, barely able to pay the rent if it weren't for me actually landing a job for the week, and you're ordering crap from the back pages of your magazines. I think there's a secret decoder toy that came in our breakfast cereal, if you want to add that to your arsenal." His roommate only rolled his eyes in response, used to the Gremlin's cantankerous nature. "Gimme that," Grem demanded, snatching the second radio from his friend's tire and examining it.

"Don't bust it!" Acer half-begged, seeing the Gremlin move into the kitchen and pick up the screwdriver that always seemed to be within easy reach on the table. He was met with an upheld tire as Grem pulled a two-way radio from the pocket of his safety vest.

"Buzz off, I'm not going to hurt your little toys, though they're junk and probably have a range of twenty feet. I snuck home the real thing from work and chances are good I can get these ones operating just as well." The Pacer watched his long-time friend, who was clearly in his element, as he removed the case from the professional radio and began studying its innards. No doubt Grem would accomplish just what he planned to do-he'd be insufferable to live with if he couldn't-but Acer knew from experience that he wouldn't want any distractions for the rest of the evening.

Two hours later, the Gremlin flipped up the magnifying lens off his windshield and rubbed his weary eyes with his antenna. "I'm starving. I don't imagine there's anything in the fridge?" Seeing his roommate shake his cab apologetically without taking his eyes off the television screen, Grem sighed and left the apartment, making his way across the gravel parking lot. Finding enough food to fuel one's tank was the toughest part of living as lean as he and Acer did, and since both their meager paychecks were reserved for the rent payment, dining options were slim. The pizza joint was still open so Grem didn't dare approach it, but his target one address down, a banquet facility that had just closed for the evening, promised to yield what he needed.

The hatchback's eyes scanned the area behind the building before he cautiously lifted the lid of the trash bin, and a few moments later saw him returning home, an aluminum tray with still-warm banquet food perched on his hood. The catering company seldom varied the menu for its frequent dinners, but Grem couldn't complain, and he had grown accustomed to their potatoes and bean salads.

"Wha-?" he sputtered, catching sight of another vehicle looming over him on the ramp leading back up to his apartment. The tray nearly slid off his hood as his tires came to an abrupt halt, and the stranger pulled forward into the dim light afforded by the overhead lamps, revealing he was none other than the Janus he'd encountered earlier that day.

"You again! What, are you coming to repo the TV? I only owe one more payment on it, geez! Lemme go upstairs and I'll get the dough!" His panicked reaction was met with a roll of the Zundapp's eyes.

"Save yourself the effort, I'm not a repo man and I'm not here for your lousy Magnavox." The car met him with a furious glare from behind his monocle.

Grem's eyelid furrowed in suspicion. "Hold it, how did you know what brand of TV I own?"

"I know a lot of things about you, and seeing as I'm not here from the appliance store, I'm actually making you a proposal. I've been watching you a long time, Grem."

"Well, isn't that creepy of you," the Gremlin muttered, unnerved by this car who was clearly half-insane and yet already knew his name and had quite possibly been in his apartment as well. At least he hadn't been imagining things when he'd felt as though the Zundapp had read his mind earlier that afternoon. "I always wanted my own crazed stalker."

Author's Note: The name and personality of Rod, the htB hauler, are based on his profile at the Cars Drive In Gallery website.