Theme Week 5: Driving With The Endangered
The cars were passing her as though she were sitting still. A glance at the speedometer indicated she might as well have been. 25 in a 65. Ain't nothin safe about that. She pushed her foot down harder on the accelator and let that first rush of speed find its level. 60 felt comfortable and certainly was safer. Let em pass.
She was flipping through the few cds that she brought with her. None were right. She was sad and wanted to be sad with sad music surrounding her like the exclamation point at the end of her mood. All the cds were upbeat and carefree. That wasn't what she felt. She opted for the bad music on the bad Bangor stations. At least it was sappy and slow and matched beat for beat with the tears streaming down her face.
Love lost, or the possiblity of love, lost is different for a woman in her 40's than to one in her 20's or 30's. A woman of 40 recognizes that there is nothing that is forever especially where matters of the heart are concerned. The pining and wooing and woeing for it is replaced by a kind of indifference or, if not replaced at least conditioned. Today she was 20 emotionally. Singing loudly to bad songs through the veil of tears covering her eyes.
Blue lights and a siren cut immediately through the mood. "Shit." One look at herself in the rearview and she knew what that cop would be thinking...drugs. Her eyes were puffy and red and black streaks of running mascara stained her cheeks. She pulled over as delicately as possible and tried to erase the look of madness from her face as the cop meandered up to the window beside her.
"Any idea how fast you were going, ma'am?" Oh sure she thought. Add insult to injury by calling me ma'am. He must have been all of 22.
"No. Ya know what? I have no idea what my speed was."
"Are you a little distracted?"
The reference made her smile. She didn't think he had it in his 22 years to understand the distraction.
"Yea, I guess I am. But I'm heading home and feeling better. I won't cruise too fast on the way back."
"Gonna need to see your license, registration and proof of insurance before I can let you go. You were driving about 35. On a road like this one, ma'am you want to be able to keep up with the traffic and not have anyone unexpectedly ram into the back of you. There's a minimum speed on the highway just as there's a maximum."
"No shit? Probably safer that way." She clumsily handed him the requested paperwork and watched in the rearview as he got back in his car and called it all in.
Her fingers were idly playing with the keys in the ignition. The bad radio station was belting out a bad Elton tune and her face was still covered with black streaks. She leaned back against the seat and pushed her lids down over her painfully swollen eyes. Letting the bad music and the bad vibes coming from behind her fade away, she drifted off into a quiet kind of sleep. She was in the space between not quite sleeping and not connected to awake either when she heard the state trooper's car fire up. She roused her self the rest of the way to awake just in time to see the trooper squeal his tires out from behind the car and the blue of the siren cut through the foggy air. As he pulled up next to her car he pointed behind her and she could make out the paperwork in the middle of the strip. And then he was gone.
She got out of the car and stood looking at the spot where he had been as if the empty space could tell her whether or not she was meant to stay and wait or if it was okay for her to go. The paperwork started drifting into the oncoming traffic. She snatched it from the air and returned to her car. A lucky break, she figured. And not a minute too soon. Must be something big to drag him away so quickly. Bigger, at least than her crazed 35 mph.
She got back in the car and moved it back into the stream of traffic opting to turn around at the exit and faithfully return home. As she turned off the bad music and put it the Amos Lee hopeful tunes, she decided that, really, in the scheme of things, better to keep a faster, smarter pace and your hands firmly on the wheel whether you're talking about driving or matters of the heart. She silently thanked the young cop for reminding her of that and relating it so well to what had led to her under minimum and then thanked whatever gods may be for sending the cop on his way. "No need to beat it into my wallet," she thought.
The thought calmed her. She checked her speed. 66. That's just about right. She congratulated herself and headed toward home, the slightest outline of a smile forming across her black streaked face.
She was flipping through the few cds that she brought with her. None were right. She was sad and wanted to be sad with sad music surrounding her like the exclamation point at the end of her mood. All the cds were upbeat and carefree. That wasn't what she felt. She opted for the bad music on the bad Bangor stations. At least it was sappy and slow and matched beat for beat with the tears streaming down her face.
Love lost, or the possiblity of love, lost is different for a woman in her 40's than to one in her 20's or 30's. A woman of 40 recognizes that there is nothing that is forever especially where matters of the heart are concerned. The pining and wooing and woeing for it is replaced by a kind of indifference or, if not replaced at least conditioned. Today she was 20 emotionally. Singing loudly to bad songs through the veil of tears covering her eyes.
Blue lights and a siren cut immediately through the mood. "Shit." One look at herself in the rearview and she knew what that cop would be thinking...drugs. Her eyes were puffy and red and black streaks of running mascara stained her cheeks. She pulled over as delicately as possible and tried to erase the look of madness from her face as the cop meandered up to the window beside her.
"Any idea how fast you were going, ma'am?" Oh sure she thought. Add insult to injury by calling me ma'am. He must have been all of 22.
"No. Ya know what? I have no idea what my speed was."
"Are you a little distracted?"
The reference made her smile. She didn't think he had it in his 22 years to understand the distraction.
"Yea, I guess I am. But I'm heading home and feeling better. I won't cruise too fast on the way back."
"Gonna need to see your license, registration and proof of insurance before I can let you go. You were driving about 35. On a road like this one, ma'am you want to be able to keep up with the traffic and not have anyone unexpectedly ram into the back of you. There's a minimum speed on the highway just as there's a maximum."
"No shit? Probably safer that way." She clumsily handed him the requested paperwork and watched in the rearview as he got back in his car and called it all in.
Her fingers were idly playing with the keys in the ignition. The bad radio station was belting out a bad Elton tune and her face was still covered with black streaks. She leaned back against the seat and pushed her lids down over her painfully swollen eyes. Letting the bad music and the bad vibes coming from behind her fade away, she drifted off into a quiet kind of sleep. She was in the space between not quite sleeping and not connected to awake either when she heard the state trooper's car fire up. She roused her self the rest of the way to awake just in time to see the trooper squeal his tires out from behind the car and the blue of the siren cut through the foggy air. As he pulled up next to her car he pointed behind her and she could make out the paperwork in the middle of the strip. And then he was gone.
She got out of the car and stood looking at the spot where he had been as if the empty space could tell her whether or not she was meant to stay and wait or if it was okay for her to go. The paperwork started drifting into the oncoming traffic. She snatched it from the air and returned to her car. A lucky break, she figured. And not a minute too soon. Must be something big to drag him away so quickly. Bigger, at least than her crazed 35 mph.
She got back in the car and moved it back into the stream of traffic opting to turn around at the exit and faithfully return home. As she turned off the bad music and put it the Amos Lee hopeful tunes, she decided that, really, in the scheme of things, better to keep a faster, smarter pace and your hands firmly on the wheel whether you're talking about driving or matters of the heart. She silently thanked the young cop for reminding her of that and relating it so well to what had led to her under minimum and then thanked whatever gods may be for sending the cop on his way. "No need to beat it into my wallet," she thought.
The thought calmed her. She checked her speed. 66. That's just about right. She congratulated herself and headed toward home, the slightest outline of a smile forming across her black streaked face.
posted by millay | 10/07/2005 02:48:00 PM
2 Comments:
I know that with all the traffic, blue lights, and music this has the feel of a piece with a lot of action, but actually although there is movement and incident, all the real action is internal, if you see the distinction I want to make. What impresses me is how very cleverly constructed all this is--with its mix of movement, dialogue, inner conversation, hinted at complexities. Everything dovetails very nicely with no cracks showing at all between the joints--the art that conceals art, the art that appears artless, that's my favorite art.
Now a brusque and heartless weed in amongst the bouquet of compliments: drop the first graf. Adds nothing IMO. Always be suspicious of first grafs in short pieces, first chapters in longer ones--often they just are memorialized wheelspinning.
I couldn't agree more. I read and reread and couldn't balance it in my mind. You're right...it reads so much better like this.
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