Ever since I caught Alex Cox’s cult flick Repo Man with Emilio Estevez and the always amazing, they-should-name-a-drama-school-after-him Harry Dean Stanton sometime back in high school, I’ve been fascinated with the profession. It’s one of those like bounty hunter, security contractor or private investigator where the legality of what you’re engaging in, not to mention the morality, is (or could be – should be in fiction) constantly challenged. I mean, you’re a legal thief. Con man, whatever – that’s some rich and fertile soil for fiction. Add to that a certain skill set that’s imperative, a psychological bent that’s a bonus for the work and the fact that generally everybody you work with hates your guts (I mean, you’re kinda Robin Hood in reverse – can you blame them?) and your character has my attention a whole lot easier than say a lawyer, doctor, CEO.
So why am I having such a hard time coming up with a list of fictional repo-men, (protagonists)?
Outside of Fritz Brown (Brown's Requiem), Otto & Bud from Repo Man, or Remy and the gang from Eric Garcia’s The Repossession Mambo (okay, I admit it, I haven’t read the book – I saw the movie - Repo Men… okay, I admit it, I liked it waaaaaaaaay more than you did… okay, I don’t know if I really should have, but I did. Thoroughly enjoyed it – especially that David Cronenberg-type sex-stuff), I’m stuck.
Why such a paucity?
Well, Rick Gavin must’ve been thinking along those lines too, ‘cause his novel Ranchero features one – an ex-cop named Nick Reid – who looks like he’s being groomed for a series. Nick caught the grungy-end of the plunger on a simple TV repo gig, (brained with a shovel actually) and the low-rent, non-paying offender takes advantage of Nick’s cranial discomfort and general wooziness to abscond with Nick’s cherry ride – the titular ’69 automobile.
Embarrassing? Yeah, a little. What does he do? What do you the reader want him to do, go home and shake it off? I didn't think so. You want him to blow this thing way out of proportion and kick some butt? Yeah, me too. Reid enlists his pal Desmond to help him recover the car, and what ensues is a chase across the Mississippi Delta punctuated by more colorful mayhem and cartoonish badassery than the Duke boys could cram into a whole season.
It’s light-weight stuff: fast-paced, nimbly-told and peppered with outrageous colloquialisms a few shades too clever to be authentic, but that doesn’t necessarily work against it. If you dug Ed Lynsky’s Lake Charles or mmmm… Road House (and I do – both of ‘em) this is probably right up your alley. Imagine Joe Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard stumbling through Cannonball Run and you’ll be close.
Anybody with another repo-man recommendation?
Jedidiah Ayres totally used ‘paucity’ in this piece. He also writes fiction and keeps the blog Hardboiled Wonderland.
