To Alice, the Superboob
She reeked of smoke when I first drove her. I remember wiping off the yellow grime from the sunroof one afternoon before crew. My Aunt chain smoked and we got Alice from her when she moved to New York and didn't need the car anymore. She was the car in which I was taken to get ice cream by my Aunt. I remember that the sunroof was hot stuff back then and how comfortable the seats were compared to my dad's 70's era Chevy truck. My aunt always drove cars that were hot stuff - the car she owned before Alice would talk at you. "The door is ajar," etc.
I fantasized about running away in her. I curled up in the backseat on a late October afternoon and thought about running away. I could sleep in the back seat. It was a comfortable back seat, if a little small. Lord knows I could fit enough clothes in the car to last me a lifetime. (Alice was my second closet.) And if I could only find the key that opened the trunk I could clear out the Russian textbooks (my Aunt studied Russian) and keep food back there.
There are albums that make me remember what she smelled like. (It wasn't a particularly pleasant smell unless you are emotionally attatched to it, like I am. Stale ciggarette smoke and a little bit of dust and mildew for good measure. Believe me, it has to be a pretty strong love to feel affectionate about the way Alice smelled.) I listened to the Pixies and Led Zeppelin when I drove through hilly connecticut to chauffer my brother to and from a tutor. I blasted PJ Harvey and Le Tigre when I drove home from crew practice. I play the music and can see the road and the cemetaries beside the road, inhale the mold spores, and feel my head be cleared out by some winds whipping through the car.
She was always stout and sturdy and sometimes a little snide, and she was far far far too fast for a beginning driver. She was just the right size. She took me on aimless trips to photograph the ruins of Connecticut. She had money poured into her like nothing because I'm such an awful driver. She was so good.
My cousin was safe and sound. They tell me he lost consciousness for a while but he's fine. I couldn't help it, but I cried so hard. I bawled and sobbed. Beyond repair. Totalled. I don't know what really happened, I just know he was here in Pennsylvania and took me out to dinner (and I got to drive her! That very last time!) and when he got back to Connecticut Alice was dead.
Becca and Katie both (and separately) assured me that we would hold a memorial ceremony. My brother and I lamented her passing, performed the conclamatio, and were generally bitter and full of self pity. I kept trying to say things like "It will be better for the environment that I have to carpool with dad for the summer," and he grumbled some more. I will never own another car, I declare, since my first love died. I had planned to drive her into my thirties, but alack, I was thwarted by an accident.
The grownups are worried about the state troopers, about whether or not we can afford a third car, about who should pay (insurance? my cousin's family? and for what, since she was totalled? I have no idea.) But the children, without missing a step, are the ones taking care of the romantic business, this stereotypically American deeply personal attatchment to hand me down cars.
Oh, Alice! My cousin said "I'll miss her," and I know I will too.
2001-03-27, To Alice, the Superboob
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