we found J's sedan during our third afternoon at the local dump. now a ragged cube, bumpers vanished, windshield reduced to a pulverized grin. but it was ours, our seagreen stallion for the red-hot drives of 2006. fueled by Fireball, we got to work. we soldered mower engines, spun wheels pried from rotten playground sets, screwed a quartet of office chairs & a steering wheel to its rust-rainbowed roof. P disappeared beneath the sedan-cube & through the magic that only comes off at the numinous crash of need & nostalgia, the old beast started. we caught the county highway south. summer blew through our thinning hair. F coaxed rock songs from the squeaky radio. we barreled through Montford untouchable to the honk-shout symphony of late-day traffic. where to? P kept asking. no one answered. a destination made it too real. too real meant cops and consequences. see, the idea had come about the week before in J's backyard, during a fizz of hilarity & regret as we retold the story of how the sedan died. how J caterwauled & tried to carve a broken heart into the grass of Montford Common. how the freight train threw the sedan a hundred feet the night C gave J his walking papers. I hope she's okay, J told me as we walked to his shed. he tugged his left foot across the grass. emboldened by the past, we searched for shovels in the jagged monster of broken tools & useless equipment. I miss her, he said. you're married, I told him. yes, I am, J said, & we picked apart the little scrapyard of his life.
Image via Wikimedia
