Late Seventies Car Ride

A white sedan, a 68’ Buick skylark, is bounding down the darkening, winding, windy roads of a suburban New England town. And sounds of laughter can be heard by housewives and househusbands outside their homes as they grill cheeseburgers or arrive at their different households that happen to be just different shades of boring, finally back from work, and as they watch their kids ride their training bicycles for the last time before dusk turns to night and it’s time for the babies to go inside - but they hear the laughter only for a moment, because the car is just so damn fast because it seems like the guy, the driver, has got a lead foot and the gal, well, she just can’t stop laughing about something, like he’s telling a riot of a joke or something. And these squares, they shout real loud with lots of breath and really cherry red faces “HEY YOU KIDS. SLOW DOWN, KIDS.”

But the guy is twenty but looks like he’s sixteen and his new gal is eighteen but she looks like she’s twenty-five so not they’re not really kids at all. The guy, the driver, he’s real plain looking, though. Lots of dark brown hair, kind of slouches, and he’s still got some of his baby fat but he’s really got his old, run down sneakers pressed damn hard on the ignition for the gal, cause this chick, she’s gorgeous and she’s holding a beer and the breeze is running through her dark, curly brown hair it’s making it bob up and down and she’s laughing and smoking a cigarette and having a grand old time in the car cause she doesn’t even have her license yet and she kind of likes this new guy cause he isn’t so much of an asshole like her last boyfriend who sucked to the point of being classified as a leech.

And they keep going down the winding roads, past trees and houses and old black mailboxes with rotted-out posts, and they just manage to stay between those two dire yellow lines. And the guy, he’s pretty nervous cause he’s had a beer and he hates making waves with the police but she’s laughing and her teeth are so damn white and her eyes are so big and brown and her lipstick is bright red and all he wants to do is kiss her on that nice hill and have another beer before the sun’s goodbyes are all over and done with. And the radio is blasting and something incoherent is coming out cause the speakers are broken but it doesn’t matter cause they’re almost there and the light sure is fading fast.

And they hop out of the car and run, stumbling slightly, not from beer but from newness and they feel the tall grass hitting their bare legs and they run and run and finally reach the top and the sun is just about to fade behind some real tall pine trees and the girl, she’s smiling and the guy is loving it and I guess what they do is look at each other and kiss or something. And they sit down in the tall tall grass and in the back of the guy’s mind the word Lyme Disease comes up but he doesn’t get up because the girl doesn’t get up. Instead she lights another cigarette.

And I guess she looks into his eyes and gives him a kiss on the lips and he turns real red cause he hasn’t kissed a girl before and they turn and say goodbye to the sun and the sky filled with oranges and blues and purples and pinks and yellows and all the clouds and they seem to be smiling, and I mean everything seems to be smiling.