Fiat 500 Abarth

Hey everyone, it’s Hung Baxter. I want to thank you for reading this, my first ever car review for the Road and Track magazine, on-line edition. I am looking forward to providing you with many informed and potentially useful opinions, much like those other guys who write car reviews – but they are boring posers!  Fortunately, for people who love fine automobiles I am here representing a fresh, young, urban audience.  It’s like “Hello, Hung,” and “Goodbye boring guys.”

Today I review the Fiat 500 Abarth.  Let me just say right away this car is legit.  I mean, you’re going to be blown away by this Italian goomah. (That’s an actual Italian word.  It means lover!)  But first you’re going to have to get over the size thing.  The Fiat 500 Abarth is small. I mean really small.  When I first saw this car I didn’t know if I was supposed to drive it or shake it to see if it bobbled.

But drive it I did, readers, straight from the dealership back to my hood in center city so I could pick up my girlfriend and begin the professional car review process.  Right away, people are noticing my ride. At this one intersection, I pull up next to a Caddy Escalade. Dude rolls down his window and starts laughing.  I say, “Hey, you got it wrong, man. I ain’t fronting.  This car is hot – 160 horse power; 170 foot-pounds of torque.”  When the light turns green, I tell him, “You don’t believe me? Well, you can read about it tomorrow in the Road and Track magazine, on-line edition.” Then I press down hard on the gas pedal and take off, leaving a trail of thick rubber on the road.

There was a lot of that during my test drive. The Fiat 500 Abarth will leave rubber on the road, even when you’re trying to drive all responsible and shit. For example, I did not mean to smoke out those school children on the bus when I sped up to pass it.  I hadn’t yet learned how to control this automobile’s freakish power.

When I pull up in front of my girlfriend’s place and she sees me behind the wheel of this cherry red gelato (that’s another Italian word – ice cream!!), I can tell she is all kinds of impressed. “Hop in,” I tell her. “We got some serious test driving to do for my first ever column in the Road and Track magazine, on-line edition.”

“So, what do you think, babe?” I’m watching as my girl slides her sweet ass onto the finely-stitched leather seat.  (Also, I’m thinking of maybe getting a little action on this leather later on.)  You know what my girlfriend says?  She says, “it’s cute.”

“Cute!” I say, “Does cute do this? I quickly throw the Fiat 500 Abarth into gear and bring on a crazy 360 degree drift that catches the attention of all the guys chilling over by the Korean market.

Of course, the Fiat 500 Abarth isn’t just about impressing. This car can hold its own in practical matters.  Like when my girlfriend says that we need to go to her sister’s house and help her move out.  She is finally leaving that deadbeat husband of hers and we gotta give her a ride back to their mother’s place.  I say, “no problem, as long as I can get back early enough to write up my professional review in time to meet the deadline for tomorrow’s edition of…” “I know,” she says, cutting me off, “…the Road and Track magazine, on-line edition.”  Damn, girl, you are fun-ay!

When we get over to the sister’s place, she’s waiting outside with all her belongings.  There is no sign of her good-for-nothing husband, but this Fiat 500 Abarth has a pair of growling mufflers that sound like a soup kitchen latrine on sauerkraut and pork night.  You can hear it coming for blocks.  I tell my girlfriend to hurry up and get her sister’s shit loaded up before there is trouble.  Easier said than done, since the sister is the size of a water buffalo, plus she’s got ten bags lined up on the curb.

The Fiat 500 Abarth is rated to hold 4 people and 9 cubic feet of cargo, but I would say we maxed it out with the two of us up front, the water buffalo squeezed into the back seat and a couple of her cockroach infested suitcases in the trunk.  

With the moving done, my girlfriend and I head for the highway to see what this car can do. We take advantage of the Fiat 500 Abarth’s short wheel base and tight suspension to maneuver past the toll booth on the bridge in that little space to the left where normal-sized cars can’t fit.  “Don’t worry, babe, that’s a special ‘free lane’ they built just for drivers of the Fiat 500 Abarth.”

Outside of the city, the air doesn’t stink so bad, the sun is shining, and the Abarth sparkles like pawn shop bling. I’m telling you, days just don’t come any better than this. We just keep driving this most excellent ride until the sun goes down and the gas tank does, too.

By the time I return the Fiat 500 Abarth to the dealership, it is closed.  I leave the car on the lot and jog the six blocks back to the subway, all the while dreaming about getting home and writing this review. The way I see it, it’s a new beginning for car reviews at the Road and Track magazine, on-line edition, and Hung Baxter is at the wheel.

(Dear Editors: There might be some confusion about the temporary disappearance of the Fiat 500 Abarth from the Langhorn Fiat dealership out on Freeport Boulevard. But I’m sure they’ll be cool once they read this hip review and their sales shoot way up like never before.  As a gesture of goodwill, though, you might want to buy them a new set of tires to replace the ones I torched. - HB)

Ice Age Poetry

Every poem I write is set aside for a length of time and approached again with the benefit of a different frame of mind. How long do the poems rest? That depends. Some longer than others. Recently a poem came to me in the most unusual of formats. It consisted of a series of rock wall paintings, just like the ones found in the caves frequented by early man. This seemed pretty strange to me but as I started to decipher the meaning of the stick figures in the paintings and the actions depicted, I realized that this really was a poem and I must have written it. The style, the content, the voice, were all mine. I can only think that I wrote this poem in one of my past lives and it was just coming back to me now. It's the story of a boy and a girl from different nomadic tribes who meet, fall in love and then find themselves separated by an advancing glacier. Of course, being young and idealistic, they wait for each other, never once losing faith. And after the ice retreats their patience is rewarded - they are reunited. But not for long. Before they are even back in each other's arms, before their love for one other can be affirmed, they are torn apart. Literally. By a saber-tooth tiger. Both of them savagely eaten.  A tragic story.  I'm thinking this poem still needs rest.  Perhaps I'll leave it for my next life.