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...