Becoming: With Cars, I Felt Strong

The light turns yellow for the cross traffic –– although there is none.

Embraced in the warm interior, glowing gauges say all is well. Feeling safe and in control in my comforting cocoon.

It’s two AM.

Still. Dead quiet, except for the low hum of the idling engine and the tapping of the solid lifters.

Window down, I breathe in, smell the night, feel the cool air pass through me, countering the warmth of the heater, and I taste metal as though I’m part of the machine. Light sweat on my hands as my heart slips into quick time.

No one in sight. I push in the clutch. Move the shifter into first.

The light turns green. I push the gas pedal to the floor and dump the clutch. The car leaps sideways for a moment. Both rear tires scream, then catch and throw us forward. Tach hits six grand. I slam the lever into second. Sideways again for a moment as torque meets pavement. Feeling the adrenaline now as the tach sweeps to redline. There! I whip the lever into third, smelling the abuse on the tires. The hood rises again as they grip, throwing me back into the seat again. God, I love that feeling. The mechanical howl of the small block. The violence of barely muffled exhaust. Bam. I pull the shifter hard into fourth. Only small complaint from the rubber this time, as the torque falls off. Gas pedal still hard on the floor. We’re flying now, eating blacktop whole, like a shark swallows its prey. Well past a hundred.

Adrenaline lessening now. Too much fun. I let off the gas. Wind and compression take over, and we slow.

Escape. Power. Control.

Intoxicating.

~

I had some of that exhilaration –– that feeling of raw power –– in my work life. But only occasionally did the rush I get in a conference room approach the feeling of an old Corvette flat out in the middle of the night.

I suspect that my lack of control over my early life –– my fear of not having a safe place or a secure relationship with my adoptive parents –– lead me to things I could have control over. Things that returned strong feelings. Cars did that, and they were something I could control. And better yet –– they offered a way to escape.

Fast was fun, but cars were far more to me than that. Cars were style and pose. Warmth and security. They made arriving and departing events worth noting. They hinted at something more. Suggested strength, or a taste for style and perhaps, with cars, some saw my desperate need to stand apart.

~

I’m maybe eleven, playing in the yard, when I hear Wally downshift into second and his big Merc play its compression tune out the dual exhaust as he approaches. The low rumble speaks of the power of a hopped-up flathead under the Merc’s long hood. Wally chirps the tires as he double-clutches into first and turns into the alley that borders my yard.

A tall hedge separates me from Wally and his Mercury as the tires crunch on the gravel and the beast lumbers past. I barely make out the movement through the hedge, but I know Wally’s thick form is hunched over the wheel as he guides the big car down the dirt drive into the garage his mother rents from Mr. Varriano. Lingering smells of exhaust and unburnt fuel mark the passage.

Then, gone.

Wally was a bad boy who learned the pose in juvie. They said he couldn’t read. Made his money in the midnight sourcing of auto parts. Was wicked in a fight. But I never saw him fight. I expect the black leather jacket and the motorcycle boots he stole from James Dean were enough to keep anyone from seeing if he could back the pose. But with the car and the pose combined, Wally had style and the potential of violence on his side.

I didn’t have the guts to cop a pose like Wally. Dad would have knocked it out of me, literally. And I knew I didn’t really want to be Wally. But I admired his copping a style that worked for him.

~

At eleven, probably earlier, I saw cars and clothes as a big part of enabling my escape into a future where I had some control.

At twenty-nine, I bought that old corvette. That car made me feel strong.

My love of cars hung on for most of my life. It’s much diminished now, but I understand more about why and how cars have shaped me. Now I get nearly the same visceral pleasure from writing about a wild night-ride as I did from the ride itself.

Cars, clothes and attitude are all ingredients of style. They helped me feel strong. They set the stage for how we’re perceived. I most needed those props when I was outside my zone of safety, asking for more than I’ve ever asked for, or entering the presence of those seemingly more powerful than I.

Anything is possible when you’re feeling strong.

Nothing is possible when you’re not.