No Same Meal, No Same Car

Two other things I worked on—since I had about forty years to think about it—was to make sure the guys never eat the same meal twice, nor does the same model of car pick up the guys more than once. I didn’t want Roger and Otto always stopping at McDonald’s for a Big Mac. Maybe Otto would have been content doing that, but Roger followed the decree, “We try to go alternative.” This is not gourmet food we’re talking about; it's American standard fast-food: burgers, fries, potato chips, sandwiches, sides, omelets, sausage, BBQ chicken. But still I mixed it up. I remember Ernest Hemingway’s posthumous novel, The Garden of Eden, never repeated the same food twice. So doing that in my book was a personal quest. Same thing as with the vehicles that pick the guys up. All different makes, models, and years. I pulled out as many styles from 1971 that I could:  AMC Ambassador, Dodge Colt, ’63 Porsche, Ford Econoline, GMC Sierra pickup, International Scout, a former Wonder Bread truck, etc. Of course models earlier than that were used as well. Why be boring? It helps keep rides and characters distinct from one another. It’s one of those embedded things that readers may not notice, but it gives every character in the book, no matter how minor, their own space to shine.