A Life Without Cars
September 8th, 2009
I’m not going where the road takes me. I’m going where the car takes me.
Or wherever you need to go. I don’t mind.
I’ve chosen a life without cars. And, certainly, the feeling is mutual.
At some momentous yet indefinable point in time, we make a choice: car or no car? Driver or passenger? Mr. Pop and I chose the life of the passenger. I passenge. A real verb isn’t even necessary for what we passengers do. We will settle for whatever state of being verb you have laying around. Whenever you have time.
Cars and I had a great thing while it lasted.
Our mother had a red Pontiac Firebird with a T-top. I was four, and this car, to me, at the time, was as magical as a bedazzled unicorn. I don’t remember if the signature firebird graphic was splayed on the hood in all its feathered glory. The novelty of the T-top was all that mattered to me-probably as much as anything could matter to a four-year-old. But it was short-lived. Our uncle and our father took turns suping the car up, racing it, running it into the ground, and wrapping it around street signs. Then she got the maroon LeBaron: a car nobody wanted to race.
There was the Firebird, and there was also the Chevy Citation-a hatchbacked pariah in eggplant. Our family shunned it, but I liked it. To me, it was the futuristic, muppet-shaped vessel in which I started to make sense of things. We moved out of our apartment-my first home-with that car. A giant plastic bag full of my most prized stuffed animals slid across the vinyl bench seats with me on our final trip from our apartment at Olympic Gardens. And that was that.
Sometime circa 1984, I remember one night Mom and I were in the Citation, and Owner of a Lonely Heart was playing. She usually listened to Motown. The car stopped, and I stared at that entrancing billboard near our apartment. It had a rainbow-striped apple with a bite taken out of it. The Chevy, Yes, and an early Mac logo. I didn’t know it, but I was in the middle of a future 80’s flashback. If I were to re-write history for the unwatchably boring movie about my life, the only thing I’d add to the image would be some Osh Kosh B’Gosh overalls.
Of the other cars in my life-and there were many-none were quite like the Citation. There was our father’s Camaro, which, as you know, is a practical, family vehicle. Every time all three of us rode in the car together, I was relegated to the bump between the back seats. I found that the bucket seats in the back of a Camaro do not provide adequate leg room for an average-sized fourth-grader. I was also in charge of re-attaching the ceiling fabric with thumbtacks whenever it started to droop down, which was often.
Years later, our first taste of unsupervised freedom came in the form of my brother’s first car, the white Ford Tempo. My In Utero tape was stolen out of that car, and the whole matter is still a sore subject for me. Then there was Melissa’s grey Ford Escort hatchback. This car had at least one mix tape (probably several tapes, actually) created and named in its honor, so all the tapes even out.
After a brief stint as driver, I quickly resumed my passenger status. I don’t know if driving and I will ever meet again. It may be too late for us. Next time I see driving, driving may snub me and pretend we’re strangers again. It’s sad, too. Sad in the way that it’s sad to watch a 30-something learn to ride a bike. Where where the parents? Honestly.
I make a good road trip mix CD, and I’ll talk incessantly on long trips so you stay awake. I’m good car company. I’ll tell you that you weren’t at fault when someone flips you off, even if you were. But my driving future remains to be seen. Until then, I’d rather burden drivers with the crushing responsibility of holding my life in their hands.
