On The First Day of May I Took to the Road (1058 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: one-part_stories
Rating: 1.83 on 37 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Stagger Lee (View user info) at 2006-09-07 06:35:24 EDT
This morning, as May was born vibrant and cold around me, I left my home for the last time. I made no fanfare of it; I simply climbed into my car and drove from the house at a sedate pace.
I didn't take the new car, the shiny, overpriced thing with the glossy paint, tastefully restrained yet gleaming chrome. The new car has power everything and air conditioning that makes driving a breeze no matter the temperature outside. The new car has a tower that stacks six CDs into the player and spews them forth at your request. It has heated seats, headlights of breathtaking power and clarity, and an onboard GPS.
The new car can fucking rot, as far as I'm concerned.
No, I took the old Chevy. The interior stinks of damp. The vents rattle when I switch them on, and the de-icer handle is defiantly immovable. I salute its fortitude, and concede a battle lost to a worthy foe. It has four tyres and a working radio, which means that I love it.
Last September, my wife wanted to sell the Chevy. I insisted that we keep it. Perhaps even then I knew what was coming.
Ah, my wife. I've left her behind, with numerous other things: the children, the paintings, the dogs, the sofas, the kitchen, the matching rugs, the unashamedly ugly series of statues in the foyer, the equally distasteful paintings in the upstairs hall. In my wake, slowly relinquishing their hold upon me, are dozens of people and things. They jostle for position in my mind, they man the guilty stations of my conscience and they whisper and they beckon, singing a song of responsibility and mundane fear.
But all their voices fade, and their faces pale, beside the spectacle set out before me. I have a full tank, a clear mind and nothing but miles ahead of me. The sun is just clearing the tops of the trees that line the road, but the air is still cold and clean. It's that crisp, new feeling that finally propelled me over the threshold and prompted me to take the first exit out of town.
The traffic around me is beginning to increase, people going to work, tradesmen mostly. Most of the men who work in the kind of glass tombstone that I did don't have to start their days until later.
If I guess correctly, my wife will have just arisen from her bed, her hair in tangled disarray and her mind fogged and numb. Perhaps, as she stumbles across the bedroom to the bathroom, her foot catching on a hairbrush, she'll notice something's wrong. Or maybe it won't register in her sleep-clogged thoughts until she begins washing her face vigorously with icy water. Either way, eventually she will notice the empty bed.
A semi swerves into my lane without indicating. I press down hard on the brake and the Chevy screams in protest. The new car wouldn't scream. The new car would probably simply mutter to itself. I am grateful for the Chevy's honesty and openness.
Openness is what this is all about, really. I hadn't really been comfortable for a while. I had a routine. But that's not quite true, I guess. I had the routine, and the routine brought comfort, but I wasn't happy, despite the all goddamn paintings and the family.
It's like this: back when I was a child, in those long-ago, rose-tinted days, we lived in a disgusting, beat up shack posing as an apartment. The shack was in the heart of downtown, home to anyone and everyone who could stake out a gutter or slap down a deposit on a shack of their own. The pavement was cracked, the paint was peeling and the wild dogs were numerous and terrifying.
Four blocks down from where we lived was the junkyard. To me, and the other children of the neighbourhood, the junkyard was an adventure waiting to happen. It seemed a place of limitless potential. I was not allowed to play in the junkyard, of course.
At the back of the junkyard was an impossibly tall brick wall, and burned into this wall was a collection of paint smears, soot stains, collapsing brickwork and other debris that formed an image that resembled a giant face. The junkyard face was imposing, all-knowing. I suspect that I was not the only child in my area to dream of it.
Then, of course, one day I realised that the face wasn't really there. It starts when you distance one detail from the rest of the larger image, and realise that it isn't a strong and defiant cheekbone, it's really just a long streak of faded brown paint. Then, one-by-one, the details stand out until the entire edifice is nothing but a poorly constructed house of cards, a laughing parable of inadequacy. All you learn is that you have flawed inclinations to seek patterns where patterns are not necessary or present.
I finally saw my own life as that same edifice. I saw that all the things I had amassed, all the people who loved me, all this I saw as a random agglomeration of trash that had piled upon my days until I believed it was a complete work of art. But once I separated one detail from the rest, nothing was important and everything was dispensable.
It all had to go, or none of it. Complete change or utter acceptance.
The Chevy roars as I gun the accelerator and shift into fourth. The road opens before me, inviting me onwards. There's many miles to cover, more miles than I will cover with the last remains of my wasted life.
I wonder what my children are doing. Maybe they're in school, regardless, oblivious to my absence. Maybe my wife has noticed that I've actually gone, not just to work, and maybe they're all sitting, fretting, unable to perform simple tasks without their hands shaking violently. I didn't take much, but she's a far cry from stupid, and she has to know that something out of the ordinary has happened.
As I ease the Chevy from the suburban roads onto the motorway, I smile. I crack a window open and let the cold air run over my face. The sun is in my eyes. For the first time in too many years, I have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow, and that's fine by me.
User Reviews
Submitted by InkyFingers (user info) at 2007-02-20 09:57:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Posted on my post. Have at thee ---->
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2007-02-18 20:34:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2007-02-18 20:29:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'll pay you $5 AMERICAN to write my ubertine for me.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-09-08 11:08:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-09-08 06:39:30 (#)
Ranking: 2
I hearby nominate Stagger_Lee for the post of King of Australia - now that Steve Irwin has died.
-----------------
I reluctantly accept this glamourous, high-paying job.
Submitted by ooQueso (user info) at 2006-09-08 09:27:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I actually wrote "road trip" back in may, just decided to post it today. What an interesting coinkydink.
Submitted by Stuch (user info) at 2006-09-08 08:08:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good as ever Stagger.
Submitted by iddqd (user info) at 2006-09-08 06:53:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
ive had that title for a long time. steve was just one of my many court jesters.
in fact i dont think i have subjects, as such, i jsut have jesters and serving wenches
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-09-08 06:39:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I hearby nominate Stagger_Lee for the post of King of Australia - now that Steve Irwin has died.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-09-08 04:33:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Cheers.
Submitted by DudeThatsBOSH (user info) at 2006-09-07 22:27:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I labelled this so I wouldn't forget to read it and rate it.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2006-09-07 22:09:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow. Nicely done.
Submitted by UnderOathMeal (user info) at 2006-09-07 21:55:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
After college I sold most everything I owned to move out west. This post is a carbon copy of the feeling I had back then.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-09-07 21:47:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Ahahaha.
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2006-09-07 21:23:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
It appears that this was good, probably.
Submitted by Saeki (user info) at 2006-09-07 21:18:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-09-07 20:42:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Thank you very much, geezers.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-09-07 19:05:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2006-09-07 13:26:49 (#)
Ranking: 2
Kicker of all ass
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2006-09-07 13:26:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Kicker of all ass
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2006-09-07 13:11:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by KindaNews (user info) at 2006-09-07 13:00:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very nice.
Submitted by Spacegrass (user info) at 2006-09-07 11:02:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-09-07 10:49:01 (#)
Ranking: 2
i love you.
===
Me too...not that there's anything wrong with that.
Anyway, I logged in just to rate this.
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2006-09-07 10:54:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
nice
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-09-07 10:49:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i love you.
Submitted by JMG114 (user info) at 2006-09-07 10:41:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is one of the best things I've read in recent memory. Absolutely superb.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-09-07 10:39:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well done, Stag.
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-09-07 10:28:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Now I want to listen to "Thunder Road" while having sex on the hood of a convertible.
Submitted by Davros (user info) at 2006-09-07 10:12:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by goferforhire (user info) at 2006-09-07 09:50:50 (#)
Ranking: 2
you do the road thing well
Submitted by Kaelic (user info) at 2006-09-07 10:11:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
That was a cool story.
Submitted by goferforhire (user info) at 2006-09-07 09:50:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
you do the road thing well
Submitted by littledan (user info) at 2006-09-07 09:27:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by creep_firebombing (user info) at 2006-09-07 08:44:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by DonovanMD (user info) at 2006-09-07 08:42:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was awesome, the best post in the last week or so.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-09-07 08:34:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Thanks, guys.
Saccy, I'm glad you felt I pulled it off.
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2006-09-07 08:07:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was well cool. Reminded me in a way of the 'Choose Life' poem, by that one dude.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-09-07 07:37:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
If someone else had written this a little differently, I might have thought they'd overdone the language a bit. There were a few times I questioned your word choices, as I wouldn't expect a man enjoying a road trip and his freedom for the first time in years to speak/think in such vocabulary. But you have such a great command of the language, that you make me want to believe he would, and you make it work.
Submitted by Method (user info) at 2006-09-07 07:26:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by bcm (user info) at 2006-09-07 07:00:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Nice smooth feel to it.
I liked it, and its sentiment.