04 The Love Issue | The Span of Human Emotion · 4 of 12
only ever blue cars.
When I was smallermy mother and I onlyever traveled in blue cars
from before we left Austin,when everyone still lived in Texas and nobodylived anywhere else
it was always blueno matter whatmake, year, or model,
always blue carsfrom the Volkswagen beetle that(somehow) lost
an entire wheel, bouncing and spinningbefore being swallowed up by the wildflowersalongside the highway one spring afternoon in 1979
to the Honda Accord that smelled of menthol cigarettesand that one rainy dayon the way to school when
it permanently took hold of a cassette of the Beatles' Revolver,forever limiting listening to that or the radio, the empty case for itstill in the glove box next to Judy Collins' In My Life
plus a well-worn copy of The House of Mirth,when the car was towed off cracked engine block deemed irreparable.Always blue cars.
For a while it seemedthere was perhapsan underlying schema to it
no brand affinityor anything that obviousbut the pattern remained,
blue, and except for that one Cadillacwhich are never smallcompact with a preference for cargo space
as though shouting to the world in acknowledgment ofboth suitable utility and painful awareness of diminutive status.I am small but I am useful, they said.
Look at mebut alsodon't look at me.
Because children rarely ask the right questions I never thought to ask herwhy always blue cars until much much later,and by then, I'd long since moved out
having sufficiently lengthened both bones and thoughtsenough to leave the logical mysterybehind her car buying or rather car acquisition as just that
a thing that no longer heldany discernible shape, pattern, rhythm or sensejust blue cars.
It was late one summer afternoonsomewhere afterI'd gotten old enough to move out
but not quite so old that I found more excusesthan reasons to visit herand sit on the porch
We sat and talked,stories about technology and politicsthis being when I thought I knew things about that
both of us aware that the real conversation herelike all between parent and childhappens in spaces between the words of any story
until during a lull whenyou could almost hear both mindsworking overtime as they reloaded
I said there’s something I always wanted to knowbut never thought to ask until now:why only blue cars?
I could see the confusionthat not even another cigarette could maskso I hurried on to explain
that Beetle, the Honda named Ameliawhich is what you would have called mehad I been someone else
the Toyota we shared when I was in high schoolthat K car you gave me;even that silly Cadillac
(remember?) – they were all blueEach and every one.Always blue cars, Mama.
Always blue.Your favorite color maybe -I never asked, so I never knew
Why only ever blue cars?She opens her mouth to replya motorcycle speeds by
a symphony of poorly shifted gearsexhaust cloudsas she gets up to get another drink
“…your favorite color, not mine.”trailing off to disappear intothe rising hum of the cicadas as she went inside.