I don't really drive my car anymore. Mostly I walk nowadays. But every once in a while I'll take it out of the garage, dust her off, take her for a joy ride. Just for fun.
It's a 1969 Mercury Cougar and it's as red as your blood. Birthday present when I turned 17 right before junior year and I'll tell you right now, that thing changed my childhood. I could've been beaten by my father and scolded by my mother every day up until that point, but when they put the keys in my hand I would've forgiven them everything. I had a pretty good growing up, but that car, that made it.
Kids looked at me differently. Their parents did. I'd see teachers in the parking lot smoking, whispering and pointing and scowling at me. It was great to get the attention, but it was the teachers that made me smile the most. I was never a bad kid, but I always got the feeling my teachers thought I had something up my sleeve. Maybe it's my hair or my eyes, the way I dressed, I don't know. I got nothing up my sleeves, folks.
Here's how great that Mercury was: Gwendolyn Pryce noticed me. Divine, cheerleader, blonde, senior, everything every guy ever wanted since he realized kicking and flirting were the same thing. I idolized this girl from day one. She was the girl of my dreams, my soulmate, my one-and-only, I was sure of it. I had her scent of vanilla caught in the back of my head. I'd go out of my way to pass her in the hall, or end up by her locker, or walk behind her to class. I'd overhear her talking about Muddy Waters and my heart would almost stop. I lusted after the pale yellow sweater she wore, bumped against it whenever I could find a plausible excuse. For whatever reason I love that color. Pale yellow. I don't know what it is.
It's a Wednesday after dinner and I'm stopped on the corner in town with my buddy, Teddy. Gwendolyn is just over there with a few friends, talking outside the drug store. She walks up to me and says, This your car? I can't think of a thing to say so I just nod. How's it drive, she asks. I say, somehow without stuttering, Why don't I show you sometime? She flashes those pearly whites and nods back. She nods back, right at me, like I'm a person. I can't even hear the horn honking behind me when she leaves. Teddy tells me how unbelievably cool it was that I just nodded to her, and I decide to let him believe it.
We only went out the once, to Sugarloaf Park. It's one of those Inspiration Point or Makeout Creek places you see on '50s television, where all the kids go before or after the malt shop. Fool around, smoke some grass, look at the trees, whatever. It's a place you don't think really exists, but it does. I wasn't trying to force anything on her, it was her idea even. We went out for pizza and then drove there. It wasn't late, maybe nine o'clock, but there was already a row of cars. It was pretty quiet except for the gentle white noise of rocking vehicles. Puts thoughts into your head, that sound.
She's the first person to make a move. She's really the only person. After a moment talking about how beautiful the view is—lights and trees and the moon and all that, real idyllic, a real picture—she leans over to me, kisses me, presses her lips against mine. She pulls back after a few seconds.
It was nice. I can't lie and say it wasn't. But after two years of fawning over this girl, that's all it was. It was nice. It wasn't earth-shattering, it wasn't spectacular, it wasn't the end-all-and-be-all experience I thought it would be. No heavens opened up, no fireworks went off, nothing like that. It just didn't click. I don't know. It didn't feel right. Wherever her soul was it wasn't near mine. And I got really quite incredibly nervous after that, like I was a freshman again. And after a few more minutes of straight silence she asked me to drive her home.
When we pulled up I told her to please not tell anybody about what happened. She scoffed at me and said, Why would I tell anyone about this? Like it was the craziest notion, like talking about it would be just as humiliating for her as it would be for me. She closed the car door hard. That was the last noise she ever made in my direction.
I still live in town. I still drive to Sugarloaf from time to time. It's changed a little, but the spirit remains the same. There's the careless sex and several potheads who are fascinated with the Mercury. I'll talk for a little while and I'm mostly polite, but I'm not there for them.
I went on lots of dates with lots of girls. I had my sex and smoked my grass. I had a couple relationships that even lasted a few years. But nothing went anywhere worth going to. Nothing ever felt right. Their souls never felt near mine. Or maybe mine wasn't near theirs. I don't know. But every single girl had a bit of that Sugarloaf feeling. Some worse than others. But it was always there.
She's out there somewhere. Whoever's meant for me. I haven't found her yet and maybe I never will. But that doesn't make the feeling any less true. So I'll take out my Mercury from time to time and go for a spin. I'll sit and look out at the town, looking over at the passenger's seat with that white noise in my ear. I'll go home and lie down on the bed and look across from me. And as I look I can imagine her, somewhere else, near or far away, lying down in her bed, looking over at my phantom, thinking the exact same thing I am. There's solace in that.
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