How I killed my Cadillac

        I told the cop I wasn’t speeding but I sure as hell was. It was hard not to speed when I sat in my Cadillac. I had seen pictures of it for sale on Craigslist five months earlier and just like thefirst time a photohraph of a naked woman flashes on your computer screen, it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen and a symbol of my primal urges. I wanted it. The golden hood ornamentburned into my eyes and the tan leather interior was like lingerie on a playboy bunny. It was atwo door Burgundy with a tan canvas top, a 1988 Deville with a 4.5 liter turbo engine in pristinecondition. Some old lady had bought it in ’88, drove it to church and back for years and dropped dead, now it was mine. I had the interior carpet redone in a burgundy shag complete with crown air freshener and a suicide knob with a picture of half-naked pin up girl printed on the face. I waxed it weekly and changed the speakers back to stock, I even furnished the front fender with a skull and crossed lightning bolt vanity plate. The tires burned every-time I hit the gas, and if you weren’t prepared for the acceleration the force would throw you back into your seat. I was in love with the same libido one has with a girlfriend you don’t date for the conversation and I was having the time of my life.

The night it died, it did so gloriously. I had just finished polishing the hood ornament and the continental kit earlier that day, the chrome was immaculate. It was pouring rain and the reflection from the yellow streetlights flew past on the windshield so quickly it almost seemed like a blur. The hum of the engine had played like a soundtrack to a dismal evening. I had been depressed, sometimes it hits me like a sack of bricks. Driving was soothing to me and there is

 nothing like the hum of a V8 and risking life and limb when you feel you have nothing to lose. Suddenly though like a great orchestra rosining their bows, everything began to synchronize. The stereo flicked to “Walk Don’t Run” by The Ventures. The mix of twangy guitar and rain pounding on the windshield filled my ears like the woodwinds fastening their reeds to their instruments and the trumpets emptying their spit valves. I look left, “look at this ass-clown” I say out loud to the empty car. There sitting in the lane next to me is a v6 Mustang and a guy who wanted to rev his piece of shit engine at me. I throw the shift into neutral and rev mine back, I’d

 burned fools like this on a bicycle before, this asshole was going to be fun.The light flicked to green and I eased on the gas, the traction was trash on the slick highway. Almost immediately I had left “Mustang Sally” in the dust. At the same time the speedometer read 70 and like a glow of divine justice beaming down at me, I saw the red light reflected off of the wet asphalt and into my now widened eyes. The Orchestra began to play. I hit the brakes and the tires began to sing like dying sirens in Homer’s Odyssey. Everything became very slow.

There I was screeching toward impending collision when I realized that my mouth had tightened into a smile. I don’t remember ever feeling so alive. I spun the suicide knob to the

 right to lock the tires, I watched as the miniature pin up girl did nude back-flips around the wheel. This time it was the low brass’s turn to play, as I heard the groan of the axle now taking the full brunt of the friction. I began to laugh. My movements had been seamless, this orchestra could not have had a better maestro. The symphony suddenly came to a crescendo as I skidded closer to the black Honda Pilot carefully stopped at the red light. I hate Hondas. I found myself whooping, since when do I whoop? The crash itself was a climax, like the percussion section had suddenly fired to life as the hood of my beloved Cadillac began to make contact. The Deville was horny for a Honda Pilot and once it had started it wasn’t going to stop. The hood bent, smashing glass, suddenly it was over. Like the first time I had had sex; I felt incredible and it was over entirely too quickly. The car’s engine began to smoke, I decided to light one up as well.

 Excitement arose in my stomach like a child on the night before Christmas. This had been the most fun I had had in years. I climbed out of the driver’s side window like a NASCAR super-star, the entire door frame had been pinned shut. Covered in glass and blood I checked to see

 how the Pilot faired, apparently much better than me.

The police arrived, then the tow truck, and then my parents. It continued to rain. The police asked me basic questions, the tow truck man told me my Cadillac was finished, and my

mother acted towards me like I had just finished raping and murdering a classroom full of underprivileged children. For the next few weeks broken glass covered the side of the road where my Cadillac died like a memorial to my visceral experience or an epitaph made by GMC. I guess fast love dies fast. At least I still have the suicide knob.