Saturday, February 7, 2009

My Honda was Grey

My Honda was grey.  Four doors and four windows.  Plastic hubcaps with flaking paint.  And an unidentifiable insect shoved into the crevice of the back windshield that I could never reach and was bleached white by the sun.  You took me through the mountains with no radio, by myself.  How many times did we go driving alone together?  Through snowstorms and rain that I couldn't even see through, sandwiched between two semis because that was the only way I could tell where we were going.  You took me up and downhill, you always got me where I was going.  You never gave up and broke down.  You never even complained.  Oh Judy, you were my friend.  And I sold you like a cheap whore, with a classified ad on the internet.  I'm sorry I betrayed you to some stranger who stripped you down for your faithful parts for $500.  I sold you off to pay some bills and thought I'd have no more worries 'cause my old man would take care of me, but instead he quit his job because he was an asshole.  Or maybe that guy loved you and fixed you up, retooled you, tricked you out real nice, put in hydraulics and you're rollin' on dubs in a Honda Paradise.  And if I get to Heaven, you're the first car I'll drive, right after I drive my very first car the Plymouth Grand Voyager from 1989, the one I used to take out the back seats of and throw in like 8 of my friends and we'd go party, the one all the other kids at high school probably made fun of me for driving but it never even occurred to me that they would because I thought it was the baddest-ass car ever (and it was)...right after that I'm gonna drive you, just you and me by ourselves, just like old times.  Oh Judy, you had such great pickup, especially for a little 4-cylinder, I'd like to kiss the wonderful Japanese man that assembled you with such skill.  You could hit 100 with not even a cough, girl.  Oh girl, you were my friend.  I loved you and I love you still.  I need you now and I needed you then.  I should have kept you and we could've run away together, somewhere where no one would have ever found us.  Maybe I would've airbrushed a dove with an olive leaf on your hood, or those super hot "Azteca" girls and "Viva la Raza" and a spoiler and we could've been super cool together somewhere in California.  I will never love another car the way I loved you and to tell you the truth the car I own right now can really suck it.  Oh Judy, I'm the only one who knows how to open and lock and unlock you, and open up your trunk.  We know each other's secrets and I know you loved me too 'cause you came back to me even after you got stolen and I didn't know your VIN number and the police officer who took the report laughed at me like no one would ever find you.  But you came back because you loved me, and I never judged you for that weird smell that you got after the impound lot left your windows down for two days in the North Carolina monsoon rain.  Judy, I know you're out there somewhere, strong and free on the open road and I know we'll be together again someday.  Just wait for me with the right slant on the driver's seat and I'll be there in a while.

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