for
7/22/2000
It was a night when it's not safe to drive at any speed. A thick, whisping fog had fallen. Driving down the roads, one expected to see a small child in the road, either real or a ghost, passed through before anything could be done, just like he was some years ago when the fog and a car had robbed him of his life.
This summer's play contains a line that makes me cringe. It's not so much that it's bad for the plot, but because I've stolen it, wholesale, from Bush.
Dorothy died for your pleasureIt's hard to get along in this car crash weather
...is the line. Car crash weather is what I stole.
I left my friend's house tonight, at a late hour. I'd just spent the evening with someone special. We had talked for a long while, in the dark, kissing each other under the raindrops of a tree. Our twin senses of responsibility, feebled when we are together, were what finally parted us, as much as we would have liked to sleep together this night. I had told her what I felt, which was that it wasn't about sex or familiarity or the past, for me, but about her. I had talked about relearning--or just learning--how to kiss her; my secret formula being just to kiss her how I wanted her to be kissed (but of course about how it wasn't as complicated as that)....
She was happy--genuinely happy--and her day had ended better than it began, when she was woken up and handed the phone with a call from the boyfriend she gave up for me; he hasn't been taking it well. The significant I gave up was in a poor state when I saw her the evening before this, as well. Seven months is a long time, for all four of us.
The day was long and cloudy. On my way back through town after work, I stopped at a couple of friends' house first to make an appearance at a gathering (which I was, by the way, one full day too early for). I continued on my way to the other friend's house after a bit, anxious to see the rainy-tree girl, if a bit nervous and a lot tired. Just outside the first driveway, I glimpsed the muddied remains of a missing car's exit from the road into a stand of smallish trees. I slowed down after that.
One exchange from the previously-discussed conversation bears removal from file. At one point, under the tree, I mentioned how it was that, as a group, we and our friends were usually either predominantly making forward progress in our relationships, or remaining neutral. In this case, certain people have gained, others have fallen. She chocked it up to her observation that some sort of equilibrium is usually achieved. Two couples have formed, three have ended, one couple is strengthening, and another seems to be remaining strong, in our circle of friends. I refuted her position, though. I said that if that were true than thirty people would probably have had to die to get us together.
Pulling out of the driveway, I passed the two people in the couple that "seems to be remaining strong." The night fog was concentrated. The road was unmarked. I had to drive very slowly, twenty feet of shoulder in the headlights the only thing showing me how to steer. It wasn't a night for anyone to be out in. It was a night to be inside sleeping comfortably with the one one loves, period.
As I crested a nearly flat hill, I saw a set of blinking red lights near the intersection ahead. These images followed as I drew nearer: four firemen near the center of the intersection; the firetruck that I saw; two police cars blocking traffic on the right; some number more on the left, possibly around another car. Finally that second, I saw the final view: a car at the end of a set of skidded, brown furrows.
How could someone have thought to drive quickly on a night like this? That's the question I leave you all.
Touch the Toast