The engine of the Dodge Ram truck of my youth is beginning to sputter. It was questionable that the engine was going to last long enough for me to pick up mulch at the Home Depot tonight.
"Just try not to drive over 40 miles per hour and you should be fine," Ben tells me as if this kind of thing could pass as normal.
I feel the truck shake and tremble at every stoplight and she is suddenly fragile and sad like an old cat. Her air conditioning went out summers ago and this and that has started to rust and age not-so-gracefully. Tonight our acceleration (to 35 mph) has the momentum of walking when you are drunk and the hundreds of miles this truck took me back and forth to college is almost barely memorable.
She was like a disguise when I traveled home from Lafayette, Indiana late at night on the back roads stretching across the midwestern belt: most people didn't think a little blonde girl would be behind the wheel of a giant red truck. She gave a strong hip chuck to the little brown Bronco who decided to blow a red light and careen into us. My four passengers and I walked away unscathed. My red truck had just a bruise on the rim of her tire while a steaming, bumper-less Bronco sat in the intersection.
Tonight we made it back and forth to the Home Depot but in my mind was the memory of my grandfather fumbling with his camera as my dad gave me the keys to the red Ram I adored so much. My hands were on a steering wheel that I gripped so tightly as Meg G and I shouted to the night sky our country music solo songs. I sat on a bench seat that always seemed to transmit an electrical shock when I held hands with a boyfriend.
"Do you need a plastic tarp to protect your seats?" the Home Depot man asked me as I was buying the mulch and plants.
And it felt so good (I had forgotten) to say: "Nope, I have my truck."
2 comments:
I was just asking Ben the other day - "Does Jenny complain when she has to drive the truck?" He responded - "No, but she rarely has to drive it for more than five or ten minutes."
I was on the other end of that conversation last night when he said not to drive it over 40mph. I chuckled and he said - yeah... it gets the shakes if you drive it too fast. Hopefully it's just spark plugs.
Finally - I find it amusing that you describe your big red Dodge Ram with female pronouns... It's a nice contrast to Emily's little car that she has named Louis.
That last line... The little exchange with the home depot man gave me a big smile this morning.
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