My Best Girl

“Is that the way you feel?”

It seemed like such a simple question. A throwaway, just in the middle of a long conversation kind of thing. A softball lobbed out over the plate.

Never did I see it as a gurgling, teeming sign of what was to come from this girl. This woman that I’d fallen in love with. Plummeted even, into love.

“I don’t play the guitar,” I replied with a smile. That smile I get when I’m trying to be cute. The girls always seem to like it, and I’d never really thought I was doing anything differently. But, years later, when my teeth started to look like that of a street urchin with 20 years of heavy meth used under their gums, I realized that I didn’t smile like that anymore…

“That’s not the point,” she said. “Do you believe those words?”

Those words were this…

“The only girl a boy can trust, is his guitar.”

Yeah, based on my experiences, that’s been pretty well the truth so far. That’s what the song means to me, I said, continuing : But I don’t think it’s an absolute. That’s exactly why I’m sitting in this car with you, because I want you to be the girl that proves it wrong.

“I just think this song is mean,” she said. “All girls aren’t bad. We aren’t all liars. You can trust me.”

I do trust you, I told you that, I said. I knew right away that I phrased that really poorly. But hey, like the man said, “I was never that good at the words, anyways…”

We drove a little bit longer. This was one of the few times she was actually driving. Always her car, as my 1988 Acura was definitely not date friendly -- no air conditioning, bad brakes, and windows that didn’t work. Her car? A 2008 Ford Focus. Funny, that car reminded me more of my ex-girlfriend than the one I was driving did. And that used to be her car.

Why? Because we used to drive around and when we’d see a Ford Focus, inevitably one of us would say “Ford Focus Probe.” Again, why? Because we were dorks who hated both of those cars. It’s one of the few things that I can sit here now, years later and hear her voice. I once had a tape of her voice. A tape of the last phone message she left me before she broke my heart. Strike that, before she stabbed it with a rusty screwdriver and mashed it around a bit. Yeah, that’s what she did. I listened to that tape just once after we broke up. It made me cry.

I threw it away during the great purge, but that’s getting ahead of myself. Or maybe telling a completely different story. I do that. Lost in thought, the train of it gets off track.

So we’re driving to someplace, my guess is it was at lunch for me -- dinner for her. This was before she had moved in. Before I fell in love with her three-year old kid. We were still getting to know each other.

And maybe my answer to that question. Maybe my insane obsession with the band that sang that song started to make an impression on her.

She knew my heart was fragile. This we “talked” about via e-mail, myspace messages and texts.

I look back on that now and all of that was research for her. Finding out my passions. Finding out my weaknesses. Finding out what made me, well, me.

And my broken heart was part of me.

I told her about Emily. I told her how she did me in. How I spent so long just drinking and moaning and wasting time.

So my feelings about a song by my favorite band about how women, you know, break you heart, should not have come as a surprise.

“I just hope you don’t look at me that way,” she said as we got out of the car to go to Logan’s Roadhouse, a cheesy steak joint in town.

Baby doll, I said, I’d break my guitar for you if I had one.

She smiled and kissed me. Groping me in just the right place right as we got to the door of the place. We pause for a second, kissed one more time. She looked at me with those gorgeous eyes and I just plain melted. I’m just a sucker for them. Always was. Still am really. Last time I saw her, she still had that power.

She had me in her hands, could have done anything to me and I would have smiled and said yes to it.

She slipped her hand into my shorts. I got a hard on just as the doors opened an a couple came out.

“Oh, sorry,” she said.

We ate dinner, she a giant steak, me a catfish plate of some kind.

After paying for the meal, we get in the car. She turns on the ignition.

“…and she’ll neh-ver breaaaak myyy heart….”

“Ugh…not this,” she sighed.

It is a great song, I said with that same smile.

“You would think that, wouldn’t you.”

I should have known right then, it wasn’t gonna last.

***************

My Best Girl

(*Inspired by the Lucero song and a real night in my life)

****************

Overanalyzing grammar

The road sign said “Caution: Water on road.”

To me, that means you can drive, just watch your ass. After about 10 minutes, I felt it meant otherwise.

I was driving about 45 miles per hour in the pitch blackness of Jones County, North Carolina. Not much is there when it’s light out. But tonight, after 20 inches of rain, there’s even less.

Blackness is what stands out the most. Occasionally, there’s a sliver of light reflecting off the ground. Or what should be the ground. Instead, it’s water. A lot of water. And that’s actually what’s making it even blacker out here than it normally would be. The black is reflecting off of the water, making it darker. If that’s possible.

After a bit, in the headlights you see movement. It’s where the road should be. Instead, it’s a flow. There’s a river going west to east across the asphalt. It looks about a foot deep. Which means it is probably much deeper. A couple of trucks about a ¼ of a mile ahead of me slow to a crawl and hit the water. Sending a huge cascade of waves my way. It’s interesting. I’ve never felt a wake inside of a car. Tonight, it will become a normal thing.

On the side of the road are trucks, cars and people. Either there is really ill-timed party going on out here, or people are quitting.

“I slow down and get behind a car and the two trucks. There seems to be some hesitation here. My feeling is “just go for it. Whatever happens, happens.”

Apparently, they feel the same as we trudge on.

This river across the road is different than the others. It’s faster. It’s higher. And on both sides, there is nothing but more water, seemingly higher than the road and me. I know this is some kind of optical illusion brought about by all this water and the headlights of a few cars and the pitch blackness of everything else. But it still makes me think of the four people who died this afternoon in a bunch of washouts by idiots driving too fast or in too-deep water.

Right now, I am one of those idiots. It’s just whether or not I’m going to see my brand new car flooded, me swimming, or not.

I vote for not in a really quick conversation with God. I haven’t been talking with the big guy upstairs as much as I did last year. I guess routine makes you forget about such things. I tend to do that. Fall into a pattern that keeps me from doing things that I should be doing. Much like writing. I know I need to do it every, single, mother fucking day. Yet, I skip sometimes. Which is really the old cliché -- it’s two steps backwards.

I have yet to finish anything I have started in over a decade. It’s kind of sad, really. A monument to a great starter, horrible finisher. I’d be the king of quality starts and no complete games in baseball, which makes me a perfect guy for Tony LaRussa. But, I’ve always hated that asshat. He just oozes smugness, and that’s the one thing about guys that annoys me the most. Even more than jarheads who want to go kill. But just slightly.

After my few words with the guy upstairs, I hit the water. I get going slowly and I feel my car shudder at the water. “Oh shit, I’m going to stall,” I think. So I give her a little more gas and she seems to steady herself. Just in time for the guy in front of me to slow down. Way down. I get near him and have to slow too. Down to 10 mph.

This ain’t good. I say out loud. Go asshole!. I pull into the other lane just to keep my car from drifting off the road. The river is going faster than I am at this point, and my car is started to become a boat. Finally, the guy must have woken up, or stopped texting his girlfriend and he lays on the gas. I follow suit, and I feel like Sulu or something from Star Trek. And I think, “Is Sulu really the right person to be feeling like right now?” Maybe Scotty?

My car shakes a bit, but regrabs the road and starts going again. Soon, we’re all out of the water. For now.

I feel lucky. And I’m happy I’m not in the red shark right now. Yes, she was bigger. But without a defroster, and an engine and tranny that overheated, this would have killed it. And officially she would have swam away.

Hell, maybe that would have been a better ending than some Marine buying her? But, of course, that means I would have had to stay in Jones County, North Carolina, as per my “I’ll stay where she breaks down” pact of a while ago.

I should have driven her to the “Free State of Jones.” At least then I may have found the hat. The infamous hat. I bet Josh has written about the hat. Somewhere in all of his scribbles, the hat has to be there. It’s a symbol of something, but I don’t know if either of us knows. And probably a symbol of something completely different for each of us.

God damn I overanalyze ever fucking detail sometimes.

Except for grammar and commas. Fuck grammar and commas. Mrs. Pleasant, I’m sure you’d enjoy hearing me say that…

Anchor's Away...

Sitting here on my couch, looking out the same door I’ve now looked out almost every night since I moved to the beach over five months ago, something is missing.

I know what it is. And I shouldn’t be sad. But obviously, I am.

A little part of my past disappeared today. In a very good way. It’s me, however, so I’m a bit melancholy.

I sold the Red Shark. To a Marine. With a wife and kid. He called me early in the week. Luckily, I was able to get to my voicemail on the phone that I broke in a drunken haze last Thursday. The night, I most like lost a friend. I don’t know if I could call her a good friend. We had a lot in common. In too many ways, I figure.

Superficial things ended up mattering, I guess.

That car drove me through the end of the best time of my life. It steered me through the complete worst part of my life. And then died during the dullest part of it. Fitting? Maybe not, but that really doesn’t fucking matter.

For $300 that car is no longer there. It’s not killing the grass out front of my house. It’s not a potential accident for every drunken cougar that pours out of that shitty dance club across the street. Of course, the amusement factor of watching drunks in their $90,000 cars doing everything they could to not slam into my $300 car every night will be missed. The mailbox is still there, though, and it’s a whole hell of a lot harder to see in a drunken Ira Hayes haze.

Back to the non-finned shark. Mike D. named her that way back in the SJ days. Sitting out in the parking lot, wishing we were all somewhere else, or having a different boss, and possibly seeing the right person finally getting shit-canned. It’s funny how you look back at times where you were miserable then, and love every second of it. Miss it even.

That car came to symbolize a lot of shit. A lot of pain. More than I’d ever like to face again. But, most likely, will have to.

And now it’s gone.

Good riddance, I say.

My ex gave me that car. I flew down to Florida for the last time that I would. For Thanksgiving. My Celica, whose name was Carla, was wobbling on the last legs of a bad transmission replacement. Heck, the shitty replacement lasted over 99K, so it must not have been that bad. But anyway.

The arrangement was to take the Shark. Not called the Shark then, instead, it was Uncle Larry’s car. He bought it for $24,999 in cash. The receipt still in the car as the Marine drove it away while I was at work this afternoon.

Heck, the transmission slipped a little then.

It seemed like a great thing. “I’ll be able to visit more often, now that I have a decent car. And so do you!” was what I said.

She said “love isn’t enough.”

Ha. I scoffed at such talk. “Of course it is, you just have to believe it.”

Of course, now I know, she was right. Well, we both are, I think.

Love isn’t enough.

Unless you believe in it. Unless you give yourself up to it. No matter what it ends up doing to you.

Some people never get their heart broken. They meet a guy/gal, fall in love, get married and never look back. Never get their heart ripped out. Or stabbed by a rusty screwdriver.

Me, I’ve been down the road. And I don’t regret it. I still cry too much over it. It’s been over 5 years now. Almost as long as the relationship itself.

There are good days. There are horrible days. At first, the horrible days outnumbered the good days 10 to 1.

Now? The good days and bad days are about even. But it’s not because of her anymore. It’s because of me.

But that car is gone. The last real reminder of her. Yeah, there are other little things, but not ones that literally weigh a ton. Heck, half of that damn car wasn’t even around when she was. New muffler. New tires. New windshield. New wipers. New radiator. New alternator. New timing belt. Although that stain of bar-b-que sauce was still there. All these years later. Threw a book on top of a McDonald’s pack one day. Then it sat under it for over a week before I sat in the passenger seat and noticed it.

I wonder if she ever did? If not, it’s just a memory. Not a shared one. Not like they matter. To her, anyway.

An anchor it was. And now she’s gone.

And I still never had sex in it. Despite promises.

But we all know about promises made vs. promises kept.