I just remembered something I have forgotten for years. (There seem to have been a lot of nights in my teen years. Now there are less than two per year. Less. How is that possible?)
I just remember a little snippet of it. Being in a car, looking down a broad street. I can see it clear as now. It's stuck in there. I think it must have amused and terrified me contextually. But I didn't really know what to do about it. I think it was an exercise in destiny - when you get away with something, and when you might not have.
I was sober, and I think everyone was in the car. We were not much into beer. I can see why, still. But we got assigned the keg, it's deportation, at a party. It was 3 a.m. in Salt Lake City. We were seventeen. In an old Fairlane, we had the full keg in the backseat.
The guys who had brought it, and half emptied it, had no idea how to get the tap out without flattening the beer. (I don't know if it's possible; don't wanna know.) There were also some depository receipts. So it went into the backseat of Pete's Fairlane, with Brad next to it, and me passenger. Someone has the cautionary presence to put a blanket around it, before we hit the road.
We headed out into the city, with the tap poking up out of the blanket a foot; visible through the back window, and the front, and the side.
The streets were deserted. As we turned on to 21st East, we could see down the gigantic four lane avenue a couple miles. There were no cars on it.
"We won't see anyone." That was the thinking. That was the thinking! We'll proceed.
We're three seventeen years olds, with a tapped full keg in the backseat wrapped up like grammaw, proceeding through the dark of a Sunday night down a wide avenue all alone, and we think we're secure. Because we don't see anyone.
I remember looking down that avenue, and thinking, this is insanity. If a cop, the only one who would be out at this time, turns on to this street anywhere, and we turn off, he's coming to check us out. If we try to drive by him, he's simply going to see Grammaw.
I remember bringing this up. I do.
And then just driving down that street.
I was told not to worry. Or something.
So.
I just sat back, and watched the grey street come along underneath us, as we sidled down the road in the 3 a.m. dark. All the daylight-bright streetlights, the stoplights where we sat; the side streets and closed-up businesses. The hundreds of joining points, the long-vista salients. The four lane cross streets running miles up to the foothill bench. Not a car anywhere. Silence inside, and silence without.
It was only a balance I could maintain, in silence. I don't know if the others were as concerned as I, and trying to teach, me to run silent and run deep, to emit no pheromones and no signal and no karmic contact, or if they were just out of their minds. I had seven miles to think about it. As we rolled down the street. It was a scintillating edge of calm and un-reason.
A hold-still.
It was very pleasant, and really terrifying.
But both of my companions were calm as travelers. |
