the cool smooth metallic smell of candy apple red freedom

In my car I am a: super star, a rock star, a hot tamale and sometimes, maybe once or twice, even a porn star.

I can’t be in a bad mood in my car. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work. I could have had the most awful-horrible-worst-cryfest-depressing-bummer-hate the world-and everyone I encounter is stupid, kind of day; it doesn’t matter, none of it matters when I am in my car.
I crank up the stereo, I roll down the windows and none of it matters. None of it. I love the way I look and feel in my car. How other people look at me. How the men I date react when I tell them I drive a Mustang. I love the comments and questions my car brings:
“It is a V8?”
“Yes.”
What color is it?”
“The color a Mustang should be. Candy apple red.”
I love when the grocery boy walks with me out to my car and I click the remote to unlatch the trunk. I know they think they are going to be led out to yet another minivan, I love fooling them. The reaction that can happen just from an innocent push of a button. Or the memories that occur when the grocery clerk happens to be an older gentleman and they reminisce about the Mustang they had when they were younger. The sentiments of coolness, youth, and nostalgia ring on every word. The sound of longing and regret show in their silver hair as they place the groceries in my car, taking a beat or two longer than is required to place the few sacks worth of food in my trunk. They hang by my bumper a few seconds too long, catching a glimpse of their younger self behind the wheel. The youthful kid who had no cares in front of him, their younger self before suburbia took over and all the worries that come from having the 2.5.

I tend to drive rather fast. I’m not a weaver or a bobber out of traffic; I just drive in the left lane and floor it. The road is my destination and it is straight ahead.

I’m a leaner. Not the big-pimpin’ kind of leaner. But, I lean. Elbow on the console, left hand curled around the top of the wheel, my jewelry flickers in the summer sun and my nails are perfectly buffed. I feel the tan leather around my fingers and palm, right foot angled exactly where I want it on the gas, stereo cranked, windows rolled down, as I lean.

Driving to and fro with the windows rolled down on the most wonderfully delicious summer night, life cannot be more perfect. It’s warm, but not hot. It’s summer, but it’s not swampy humid. It’s night, but there are no stars in the sky. The only light is from the moon that is not yet high enough to see. The speed limit is 70, but I’m going 78. The music of my choosing is in the CD player and I am a rock star. There is no better singer. There is no better performer. I am awesome.

My hair is pulled back in a ponytail where a few stray hairs have escaped the rubber bands grasp and are whipping across my face and dancing all around my head. The warm summer air is filling the car and kissing my skin. The only sound is from my speakers, and I know all the words to every song ever written. Every inflection, beat, rhythm and rhyme. I am dancing to the notes floating from the left and from the right from behind me and in front of me. The notes all combine together to hit me as I clutch the wheel and drive through the night air. The road is my audience and the headlights behind me are my spotlights. My shoulders are bopping, my hips are swaying, my arms are telling the audience what to do, my head and neck are going this way and that. I have every beat down. My right foot does not move. My left leg is bent at the knee and holds my stance but every other inch of me is dancing for the open road. The loose hairs that cuts across my face wants in on the action, I try to tame it by tucking them behind my ear. They refuse to stay; they want in on the fame.

I am a super star on side roads, back roads, interstates and freeways, stoplights and stop signs, parking lots and b-bops. People either turn to me and give me a smile of, “Hey, good for you.” Or they turn away in a blink of a snap because; God forbid anyone should have that much fun in their car. Cars either pass me by or hang back behind me, because no one should have that much fun in their car.

Last summer my car sat. It sat in my parent’s driveway. All summer. All summer long. I broke my right leg therefore I couldn’t drive. All summer. My mom was my mommie-cab, she took me to and fro, everyday and everywhere I needed to go. I sat in the passenger seat of my mom’s car and I would look longingly as my car passed me by in the reflection of the passenger side window. My car sitting in the hot summer sun, collecting dust, dirt, and whatever the birds had digested that day. I couldn’t get in my car, I couldn’t touch my car, I couldn’t dance in my car, sit in or drive my car. I would look longingly at my Mustang from the passenger side window. I missed it. I missed the feeling. I missed the keys in my hand. I use to hate the smell and feeling that my keys would leave in my palm, the smell of metal and dirt. I would have given anything for the cool smooth metallic smell of freedom left to linger and dangle from my palm and fingertips. Anything. After awhile I stopped looking at the reflection my Mustang made in the passenger side window, I simply couldn’t bear the sight of it being laid out to pasture.

Thirteen weeks later, with a much whiter and skinnier right leg, I had my freedom back. I had forgotten how to walk, but I didn’t forget how to drive. It took me almost six months to walk normally again, but all it took was a turning of the key in the ignition and a sliding of my favorite CD into the stereo to get me back in the groove of my car.

I can’t be in a bad mood in my car. I love the way I look, the way I feel, the way other people look at me. I know it’s just a car, but I love it. My car has been keyed, scratched and door-dinged. Attempts have been made to break into it. I think the other cars are jealous. When I tell my friends about the other cars inflicted jealousy, they wait for me to yell, scream, kick and cuss, but I tell them, “I know what you’re thinking, but it is just a car. I love it, but come on, it’s just a car.” They stare back at me in disbelief at the words I have just said. I mean listen to me go on and on. However, the truth of the matter is, it is just a car. However, I do love it.

I don’t know much about what my future holds, however, I know that every car I own from now on will be a candy apple red Mustang. Because in my car I am a: super star, a rock star, a hot tamale and sometimes, maybe once or twice, even a porn star.