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I Drive
Some nights I just get
in my car and drive. I roll the windows down, open the sunroof and run
through the gears as fast as I can. I have an ’89 BMW 325i. She’s got a
straight six that takes up the entire engine compartment and will do 0 to
60 in 6 seconds. I know this for a fact.
I take her out on the
country roads, past cow pastures and cornfields and just unwind her. She
always responds. I like the control and power of me and the car on the
road, throwing her into the corners and feeling the back end give (I
wouldn’t trade rear wheel drive for anything) and when the trailing
throttle oversteer kicks in and the tires shriek and I ever so gently
adjust the steering wheel, I know exactly how she’ll react. It’s always
good. It is bliss, ecstasy; as good as it gets without sex.
How apropos that cars
are referred to as women, because as a woman myself I respond to the
sensual pleasures of the speed and the wind in my hair and the total
control of something under me, purring and responsive to my touch. Were my
life like an open road!
No matter which way I
start out, I always end up on this same highway. Pioneer Trail is its name.
A winding asphalt road now, it better suits a sports car than a Conestoga
wagon, akin to an historic cattle path in a second life as an amusement
park attraction. Like a roller coaster ride, the steep highs steal my
stomach coming down, the curves bank in mysterious ways, and the lows lurch
into bottomland, launching me up into another blind turn. I am curiously
drawn to this route, and no amount of history can keep me from returning.
Often, I find that I
talk to myself on this road. “You early apexed that turn, Nina,” I’ll say,
when I miss the invisible mark in its bend that allows me to speed through
without touching my brakes. “Don’t be a wimp!” I command myself at the
negative camber turn in the road that coils in an awkward way, like a
spring bent at an odd angle.
But, I can’t keep
myself from slowing down, though not from fear. In the crescendo of that
misconceived curve sits an ancient oak tree, so majestic that my eyes
wander briefly from road to tree. Upon it I see the white fleshy scar that
will mar the tree for a lifetime without killing it. A foot-long gash bared
the bark. Fast objects, no matter how passionate their purpose, cannot cow
powers of nature. And so, for the hundredth time, I deliberate in a turn,
which I should take without hesitation. As always, I wonder, how much
longer can it hold me back?Which power of nature is it that slows me?
My best friend, Jenny,
says, “Nina, you’ve got to get over this; move on.”
I am moving on, I think as I drive through the next turn full
throttle, the wind whooshing through my open windows and tearing at my hair
like an excited lover. She should be here in my car with me, to witness
this transformation. But, somehow she would find a way to misconstrue my
joy driving Pioneer Trail as an obsession. Given the recent history of this
road, I might be inclined to agree if I didn’t know better: I find the
focus needed to drive swift absorbs those moments I question why and how
something like that could have happened. To us.
“Just another faculty
dinner…don’t bother, Nina. I know you’re on a roll with THE BOOK.” Had
there been a hint of sarcasm when Ned said that? Did he really call my
second novel THE BOOK? Am I imagining these words to torture myself
for not being with him that night?
My mind, frantic as a scent hound on a bloody trail, searches every
ambiguous word or phrase Ned spoke up to that night, looking for clues that
might provide answers.
Like when he forgot
our eighth anniversary – so out of character. “My tenure review. I was
preoccupied,” he maintained. Or, the night he missed my reading at the
university. “I was there. You just didn’t see me. I had to leave early for
a student consultation.” These are the thoughts that haunt me, when I’m not
driving; why I’ve shelved my second novel, “Within Me” even though I’ve completed
three quarters of what promised to be the manuscript of my lifetime.
However, the minute I
get behind the wheel of my car, my feelings are transmuted to the road. The
questions and worries give way to the fluid run-through of five gears that
don’t redline till I reach 6300 RPM. I never even glance at my tachometer;
the whine of the engine warns me, before I reach that point. Clutch-shift,
clutch-shift. I smoothly work through the gears as familiar to me as my
favorite threadbare jeans. I don’t have to think about it, I just do it. I
must try to find that quality in my writing again; where the words flow
smoothly from my mind to the paper, as conveyed by my favorite Parker pen.
But words escape me since that night, and so I drive to release the
pent-up energy of emotions that threaten to boil over inside me, like a pot
of water left unattended on a lighted range. As soon as I turn the engine
over, my boil turns to a manageable simmer as my tires find reassurance
from the Tarmac beneath them.
And so, my car again
takes me to THE ROAD, Pioneer Trail. Sometimes I convince myself
that I am not captive to the whims of a machine. But then, the first lazy
curve (25mph the sign warns with an arrow that bends like a hairpin) and my
attention is piqued.
“Nice job, Nina,” I
say to myself as my wheels cling to the bend and squeal like a delighted
child with chocolate ice cream. Oh, the power I control over this road! It
is a balm for the helplessness I feel over my life ever since that
night. “You double-clutched at just the right point that time, Nina,” I
say aloud with much satisfaction.
In my field of vision, trees rip by into blurry brushstrokes like
Monet might have painted them.
As I wind my way down
Pioneer Trail, I am aware of the fact that my driving is flawless: I am Lyn
St. James, Janet Guthrie, and Shirley Muldowney. Hell, I’m Michael Andretti
in female form! I own the road! No backing down, not this time! Each turn
is exquisitely executed; I could be driving the fastest lap at Watkins’s
Glen for how my mind and body are acting in tandem to conquer this road.
Then it is there, just
ahead: a squirrelly crook in the road with a mammoth oak tree in the center
of its arc. My mouth tastes of metal and a thrum of electricity jolts
through my arms into a death-grip on the steering wheel. I downshift to
second in preparation, and this time with full throttle I head straight for
the wounding gash. As my tires scream into the curve, I see Ned’s face and
that of the graduate student, Sharon, who was in the car with him. What was
she doing in his car that night? What am I doing…
Pamela Z Daum’s work has been published in Satire Magazine and
BMW Roundel. She has been writing short stories since her childhood. You could
say she has lived a rich fantasy life. Essentially, she looks at
everyday events taking place between characters and note the subtle,
yet complex details. She writes each story from this point of view.
Pamela Z Daum
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