All bets are off (1974)

(1974)

We drive down from Hamburg, New Jersey on a road nobody’s heard of except for Frank, Jimmy bitching at me in the back seat from his usual soap box in the passenger seat, warning me not to distract Frank while he’s driving or we might wind up in Oshkosh, wherever that might be.

Jimmy says the last thing he needs is to have a giggling Frank driving in this remote place, and that if anything sets him off, he’ll murder Frank to shut him up.

Jimmy, as usual, is in a hurry, although today he might actually have a good reason, since he hopes to reach his sister’s house before she leaves for work.

He’s broke again and needs to borrow some money.

But Frank, who Jimmy’s once described as “the most careless careful driver in the world,” takes a route where he rarely as to exceed 25 milers per hour and seems particularly attracted to 20, pumping up Jimmy’s outrageous with each painful mile.

We all know that when we get to Jimmy’s sister’s place, she’ll be gone, and Jimmy will be so pissed he won’t be able to speak the whole trip back.

We only pretend like we might get there until Jimmy gets pissed thinking about it and yells for to pull over, and when Frank does, Jimmy gets out and starts to walk.

We have to beg him to get back in the car by which time, he’s come up with a new scheme and tells Frank to give him $50.

This puts an abrupt halt to Frank’s giggling.

He sees nothing funny when it comes to money and demands to know why he should give Jimmy anything.

Jimmy’s say Frank owes him $100 and Jimmy being a kind soul is willing to settle accounts for half if Frank pays it right away.

Naturally, Frank asks how Jimmy came up with such a debt, and frowns even more when Jimmy mentions the bet the two of them made at 16 that suggested the sickly Frank wouldn’t survive until age 25.

A relieve Frank giggles again, and points out that he isn’t 25 yet, but 24.

At which point, Jimmy says that’s why he’s willing to settle. Jimmy doesn’t trust Frank to leave the $100 in his will when he does kick the bucket next year.

Things are about to get ugly between the two of them when I point out that we are lost.

Jimmy blames me for distracting Frank, then orders Frank to pull into a gas station where he might get a map and make a phone call. He says he’s got to have his sister check the news paper’s obituaries to see if Frank’s name is in them yet.

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