Part 4—The Soundtrack of our Drive (Chautauqua 4 of 7)

(Author's Note: This is part 4 of a 7 part series. To read previous entries, please visit jonpenfold.com)

Chautauqua: A Story in Seven Parts

Inspired by Actual Events

Part 4—The Soundtrack of our Drive

“♪♪ Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are ♫…”

“I don’t get it,” Tommy yells from the back seat.

“What don’t you get it?” I ask before Tex and I resume our sing-along. “♪♪ Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are ♫…”

“On the mirror it says ‘OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR,’ but in the song he says ‘Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are.’ Don’t the two sayings contradict each other?”

Questioning the validity of Meat Loaf lyrics—the audacity! I have good reason to slam on the brakes and kick him out to the curb but then remember that he’s the only one who knows how to get to the lake. Instead, I respond to his outlandish observation. “It’s a metaphor,” I say over my shoulder. “You’ll understand when you get older.”

I turn up the volume as Tex and I sing at the top of our lungs:

“♫ But it was long ago, and far away

Oh God, it seems too very far

And if life is just a highway, then the soul is just a car ♪♪…”

As Tex and I are about to take the bridge into the chorus, Tommy climbs over the center console and presses the eject button on the tape deck. (When describing Suzy Q’s features back in Part 2, I forgot to mention her most important accessory: a cassette deck. Just got that much sweeter, didn’t she?) “I can’t take it anymore,” he declares. “Can’t we listen to the radio?”

“Radio doesn’t work,” I say. “It’s cassettes or nothing.”

“What other cassettes do you have?”

“Only Meat Loaf; it’s either Bat out of Hell or Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell.”

“I’ll tell you what hell is,” Tommy says. “Hell is being stuck in a car where the only music is Meat Loaf.”

“We could talk,” I suggest. [Inside Note: Participating in verbal communication with those in close proximity was a popular practice that humans enjoyed before the advent of the cellular phone. Ask your grandparents about the lost tradition; in the Twentieth Century, it was all the rage.]

“What should we talk about?”

We all sit in silence for a moment. What should we talk about? That is a good question. And the answer is pretty clear. What do teenage boys ever talk about? “I’ve got it,” I say. “If you could get with any girl in the world, who would it be?”

“Easy,” Tex says, “The Spice Girls.”

“Which one?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Good answer,” I say.

“What about you?” Tex asks.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say. “I’m gonna have to think about it for a minute.”

“Well, I know who I’d pick,” Tommy says. “It’s a no-brainer for me—Hillary Clinton, hands down.”

“Really?”

“She’s smart, powerful, and sexy—can’t go wrong with a woman like that.”

I jerk the steering wheel to the left and swing Suzy-Q into a parking lot.

“Why are we stopping,” Tommy asks.

“Need to buy some music,” I say. “If you think I’m going to sit here and listen to you talk about boning Hillary Clinton for the next hour, you’ve got another thing coming.”

We walk into a record shop and I bee-line it to the far right corner of the building. [Inside Note: Before people realized they could illegally share music on the Internet, consumers actually purchased music at stores referred to as “record shops.” Ironically, by the turn of the century, record shops didn’t actually carry any records. And you think modern times are confusing.] I jet past 100,000 compact discs to find a single shelf holding less than 100 cassettes—the last remnants of a disappearing breed. I pick out a tape called “Rock Hits of the 70’s,” and before we know it, we’re back on the road, discovering for the first time, the eye-opening, mind-blowing, generation-defining lyrics of the Five Man Electric Band:

“♪♫ Signs, signs, everywhere a sign,

Blocking out the scenery,

Breaking my mind,

Do this,

Don’t do that,

Can’t you read the sign? ♪♫”

            By our second cycle through the cassette, we know all the words by heart and can’t help but sing along. This is also around the same time that I realize we’ve been driving for over an hour without making a single turn. “Hey Tommy,” I ask, “are we almost there?”

            “We have to be close,” he says.

            Tex turns around and looks at him. “You don’t know where we’re going, do you?”

            “Well, to be honest, I’ve never driven down here in the dark before.”

            I slam on the brakes and bring Suzy Q to a halt. “Are you kidding me? So you’re saying that I’ve been driving aimlessly for the past hour?”

            “Well, it feels like we’re headed in the right direction.”

            “It feels like?” I repeat. “It feels like? What the hell does that mean? How can it feel like we’re heading in the right direction?”

            “I have a hunch,” Tommy says.

            “Your hunch better have gas money,” I say as I put Suzy Q in drive and proceed down the dark highway.

To be continued... 

Part 3—One Week Earlier (Chautauqua 3 of 7)

(Author's Note: This is part 3 of a 7 part series. To read previous entries, please visit jonpenfold.com)

Chautauqua: A Story in Seven Parts

Part 3—One Week Earlier

I crush the golf ball with a Big Bertha driver, sending it sailing down the grassy field, before it hooks left and disappears into the woods. Not going to find that one.

“That’s the last of the balls,” Tex says.

“What do we do now?”

“Get drunk?”

“Obviously,” I say. “But where? And how? Remember, I lost my fake ID last week.”

“I don’t know,” Tex says. “Let’s ask around.”

We’re at Chestnut Ridge County Park, at our friend Jeremy’s graduation party. It’s fun and all—good food, good friends, good times—but it’s one of those graduation parties that take place on a Sunday afternoon, the kind with no alcohol, and being just two weeks removed from high school, there are few things more important to us than getting a good buzz on. So, we ask around.

Being the end of the weekend, it seems that everyone has to work the next day—suckers—causing our dream of drunkenness to fade faster than the setting sun, when out of nowhere we find a glimmer of hope from an unsuspecting source. “I’ve got an idea,” Tommy says.

Tommy is two years younger than Tex and I, about to be a junior in the same high school that the two of us will never have to unwillingly step foot in again. Since he’s the youngest person at the party, you’d think we’d be surprised that he’s our best chance at scoring booze, but we’re really not, for Tommy, despite his age, is not only as smart as a whip, but radiates an air of confidence that would make most professional athletes jealous. “I say we drive down to the lake,” he says. “Mike Smith’s dad owns a bar down there—all the booze we can handle.”

“Mike Smith?” Tex asks. “Which Mike Smith?”

[A quick aside: “Smith” is easily the most common surname in the United States, with just over 1% of all individuals bearing it. The reason for this is because names were once commonly based on occupation, so anyone who was a blacksmith ended up with the last name “Smith.” Well, there must have been a point when our little town was occupied by primarily blacksmiths, for it seemed that one out of every four students in our school had the last name “Smith.” In addition, “Michael” was by far the most popular given name for newborn boys in the early 1980’s, causing there to be over two dozen Mike Smith’s in our grade alone, which you can imagine created much confusion over the years. Thus Tex’s question: “Which Mike Smith?”]

“Fat Mike Smith,” Tommy replies.

“Which lake?” I ask.

“Chautaqua.”

“Isn’t that like two hours away?”

“An hour, tops,” Tommy says. “I know a short cut. Driven it a hundred times.”

“Even an hour is a long ways to drive just to get drunk,” Tex says.

“What if I also told you that I know a bunch of hot girls who live down there?”

There’s no reason not to believe him, and as for obtaining alcohol—the most essential ingredient to our happiness—and girls—the second most essential ingredient—we have no other prospects. So, road trip it is. Oh, the things teenage boys will do for the chance of women and booze.

To be continued...

Part 2—Can’t You Smell that Smell? (Chautauqua: 2 of 7)

(Author's Note: This is part 2 of a 7 part series. To read previous entries, please visit jonpenfold.com)

Chautauqua: A Story in Seven Parts

Part 2—Can’t You Smell that Smell?

             It’s the summer of the year 2000 and everyone’s still on edge over Y2K. We are all aware that it’s only a matter of time before the grid goes down, the government collapses, and those badass robots from the Terminator movies take over the world. An even bigger concern, at least for my best friend Tex and me, is finding classic vinyl to add to our growing collections. We spend our weekends traveling clear across the county, stopping at every garage, yard, and barn sale we can find, on the lookout for anything vintage; preferably bands with letter abbreviations like CCR and BTO and ELO; or better yet, bands with numbers in their names, like U2, Three Dog Night, The Four Tops, or the ever-elusive Five Man Electric Band.

On this particularly Saturday I pick up Tex in my 1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera Sedan—the best year for the Ciera, I might add, and best style; sorry wagon—which I’ve recently bought off the side of the road for the sum of my life savings: a cool $800. And boy, is she a sweet ride—Navy Blue, 2.5 liter Tech IV 14 engine, 110 horsepower, 135 lb/foot torque, automatic windows—let’s just say, J.D. Power is pretty damn impressed. I come up with a name for her the same way I christen all my vehicles—after the first song I hear on the radio with a woman’s name in the lyrics. 

Back to the story…I pick up Tex in Suzy Q to go “garage sale-ing” and within minutes I notice Tex flaring his nostrils. “What’s that smell?” he asks.

“Probably just manure,” I say, as we drive by fields full of knee-high corn.

“It’s July,” Tex says, “don’t they spread manure in the spring?”

“Don’t know. I’m not a farmer.”

We hit up a community-wide yard sale in the village of Java and find several cardboard boxes full of LP’s, but it’s mostly worthless garbage; shit we already have—The Eagles Greatest Hits, Frampton Comes Alive—or don’t really want—any Herb Alpert album that doesn’t have a naked woman covered in whipped cream on the cover. It’s high noon by the time we get back to the car and scorching-hot outside. When we open the doors to Suzy-Q, an ungodly stench pours out, like flood water bursting through a dam.

“I knew it wasn’t manure,” Tex says as he doubles over and dry heaves. “Whatever that smell is, it’s coming from inside your car.”

“First of all,” I say, “my car has a name, and it’s Suzy-Q, and you’d better treat her with respect. Second of all, there’s nothing in my car. Look—it’s empty.”

We give Suzy-Q a few minutes to air out, roll down the windows, and then check under the seats and inside the glove box just to make sure there isn’t a dead fish hiding somewhere—you never know if one of your friends is playing a practical joke on you. The smell dissipates some when we get back on the road. The faster I drive, the more fresh air funnels through. I stop at a gas station and buy a few air fresheners to hang on the rearview mirror, but the stench remains, only now with a hint of pine tree. We head north to Attica, where Tex scores a Dave Clark Five album and I buy a half-dozen “Iroquois” beer bottle openers for a quarter a piece—one of the greatest garage sail-ing finds ever, in my opinion.

“Where to next?” I ask as we hop back in Suzy-Q. “Heard there’s a street sale in Alden.”

“Just take me home,” Tex says. “I can’t take this smell any longer. It’s making my eyes burn.”

“That’s probably just your contacts,” I say as I take a swig of my Pepsi before immediately spitting it back out.

“It’s the smell, isn’t it? It’s infiltrated your pop. And you know it’s only going to get worse once it gets hotter out. Please take me home.”

I drive Tex home and he’s right—with every degree the thermostat climbs, the smell intensifies. From his house to mine, I have to drive with my head sticking out the window.

When I arrive home, I decide to figure out where the smell is coming from. I must have hit an animal, I convince myself, and its dead carcass is somehow stuck beneath Suzy-Q. I climb underneath but can’t find a trace of anything. I pop the hood—again, nothing. There’s only one place left to check. I open the trunk, releasing an odor so fierce it’s like getting slapped across the face. I don’t know why I didn’t think of checking here earlier. There’s nothing inside besides a spare tire and a cooler. I open the lid to the cooler and the stench impacts me like the force of a small explosion, knocking me a good ten feet in the air. I land hard on the dirt driveway. I crawl back to Suzy-Q and climb up the bumper to peek into the cooler. That’s when I see it, the root of all stink—a small Styrofoam container, a bit larger than a coffee cup, with a plastic lid on top. Oh shit, I realize, I had forgotten all about that.

“What was it?” you ask. Well, for the answer to that question, we’re going to have to go back another week…

To be continued...

Chautauqua: A Story in Seven Parts

Chautauqua: A Story in Seven Parts

Inspired by Actual Events

Part 1—The Open Road

            There is no experience quite like a great road trip; that born-again feeling of freedom and serenity that cuts through your soul as you’re cruising along endless highways with the windows rolled down and the wind whipping through your hair. (My apologies to all my bald friends out there, though, on second thought, the notion of the wind gliding over my hairless head suddenly seems so titillating that I’m considering shaving my dome just to experience the sensation. Perhaps you actually have it better than the rest of us?) There’s a good reason that the drive is oftentimes more memorable than the destination.

But what makes for a great road trip? In my experience, all great road trips entail what I like to call the Four S’s of The Road:

S#1: Snacks. You’re going to get hungry on a long drive. I recommend taking no food with you—you’re not going to know what you really desire until you’re good and hungry. Once that craving ingrains itself into your prefrontal cortex, then, and only then, should you stop and stock up on snacks. 

S#2: Sights. A great road trip always has great sites. Stay clear of the major highways if you have the time; they’re usually straight, crowded, and boring. Take the back roads, scout out breathtaking scenery; things like rolling green hills, barren brown deserts, jagged mountain ranges, lazy winding rivers, trees so tall they disappear in the sky, and quaint little communities with smiling town folk who still possess the good manners to wave when you slowly drive by.

S#3: Sounds. A great drive always consists of great music. Here are your best three options:

            1) Bat Out of Hell, by Meat Loaf

            2) Bat Out of Hell II, by Meat Loaf

            3) Bat Out of Hell, (album version single) by Meat Loaf, on a continuous loop

S#4: Smells…

            “Smells?” my girlfriend, CC, asks. [Inside Note: After traversing a rather small stream on the western slope of Mount Hood, my girlfriend insists that she be called Katelin the Courageous Creek Crosser, but for the simplicity of writing, I will identify her as CC. Not C.C.. Just CC. No periods; thanks to the new birth control.]

            “Yes,” I say to her. “The smells!”

            “What kind of smells? You mean like manure?”

            “I happen to like the smell of manure.”

            “You like the smell of cow shit?”

            “Maybe ‘appreciate’ is a better word,” I say. “I appreciate the smell of manure. It reminds me of where I’m from. It reminds me of growing up.”

            “What about skunk?” she asks. “You can’t possibly like the smell of skunk.”

            “It reminds me of really good weed.”

            “Gasoline?”

            “Not bad.”

            CC rolls her eyes. “Rotting garbage?”

“♪♪ You took the words right out of my mouth…♫”

            “What?”

            “Sorry. I was just singing along: ♫ I was just about to say I love you…♪♪♪”

CC turns down the volume so Meat Loaf is barely audible in the background. “Are you even listening to me?”

            “Of course,” I say. “Rotting garbage—I can handle it.”

            “Is there anything that offends your sense of smell?”

            “Can I tell you the truth?” I ask.

            CC laughs. “Why start now?”

            “I don’t smell awful things,” I say. “Or I guess what I mean is, the things that most people consider rancid, they don’t bother me.”

            “What are you talking about?”

            “I’m nose-blind.”

            “Nose-blind?”

            “Or scent-deaf,” I say. “Whatever you want to call it.”

            “You’re making this up.”

             “Unfortunately, it’s all too real. You see, something happened when I was younger…”

            “Oh, no.” CC  lets out a breath of air. “This isn’t another one of your tall tales is it?”

            “At least I’m not being short with you.”

            She gives me one of those looks—you know the kind.

            “Whatever you want,” I say, reaching for the volume.

            She quickly swats my hand away. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

            “Are you saying that you’d rather hear my story over Meat Loaf?”

            “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

            Me over Meat Loaf—the audacity! I have good reason to slam on the brakes and kick her out to the curb but then remember that it’s her car. Instead, I decide to tell my story...

To be continued...