It’s complicated.
Did you ever have a conversation with a car?
I have had about a million: with my car, on long trips; with parked cars, especially those akimbo to actual parking spaces; with moving cars, in almost every circumstance imaginable.
Just last week I had a heartfelt conversation with a moving car that took off my driver’s side mirror when it passed.
Cars are like pets, in a way; they grow to mirror their owners, sometimes to a freakish extent. It’s hysterical.
Today, for example, I drove home on my lunch break. As I approached the new span bridge descending from the hills to the spit of land sandwiched between river and ocean, the sun shattered across the water and blinded me. In the half-second it took to blink and refocus my hopeless eyes, a and silver Versa zipped past, skimming ahead and swerving like a dragonfly, only more dangerous. The bumper sticker said 26.2. As I trundled over the crest, eating Marathon Man’s dust, I caught sight of the behemoth behind me. A massive blue truck, sporting a face full of chrome and a set of roof tracks that made it look 12 feet tall. As he revved approximately three inches from my exhaust system, I noticed a series of pipes and frames covering the bumper. Somebody pull this guy over, he’s about to rear-end me with a church organ.
Most car conversations are friendly, though. A scene from last week:
After I slug a recycled suitcase into the trunk, I hear my Civic sigh. “Again?”
“Yep.” I swing into the passenger’s seat like the saddle it is, well-worn and essentially molded to my ass. “Looks like it’s just you and me again, hoss.”
“Don’t you have any friends?”
I kick into gear and pretend not to hear; I won’t dignify that comment with a response.
(For the record, YES, I have lots of friends. They just don’t live near me and refuse, for some reason, to visit. If Jersey strip malls and suburban watering holes aren’t a draw, I don’t know what is.)
Sometimes, on road trips, I cheat on my car. I feel terrible about this.
Cars have been my closest kin for many of my incarnations. When I flee to new cities or far-flung states, only the chariot witnesses my transformation. I become talkative, vivacious, ostensibly dangerous and cool. Sometimes I’m nerdy (Boston ivy league campuses); sometimes I’m a ditz. But I’m never quite me. I’m never quite the same mass of twisting curls and seafan capillaries. I am nameless, roaming, a blank canvas waiting to capture the world.
When I leave, fraught with the color and play of light on foreign sidewalks, glittering facades, my car is my closest friend. I climb inside and close my eyes, breathe for a minute familiar air. I feel experience crackling against my skin, pinwheels of excitement when old meets new. I am alive, brilliantly, truly.
On the road, I am just another ’98 Honda, scuffed at the corners and slightly worse for wear. But I too am a rocket, a ship’s wheel, a ticket to anywhere. And in this moment—like all good Civics—I could go on forever.
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