(9/14/23)

I've been seeing a lot of Honda Civics lately. Never the same year or color, but all with that familiar shape. Mine was black, can't quite remember the year. It was my first car. I got it during the depths of COVID. I didn't really have anywhere to go for those few years of isolation, but I still drove it around town. I would wake up at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, complete the daily assignments, and then drive for most of the night. De Kalb after sundown is a ghost town, even after quarantine lifted. I cleared every nook and cranny in a few weeks. Main street offered very little save for decrepit storefronts and the occasional cop car that crouched along the shoulder. I never gave them any trouble. My purpose in those nightly drives wasn't to joyride, but to keep away cabin fever. I needed to escape from the boredoms of isolation. On those night backroads, I was moving at least. The grease trap of the world hadn't caught me yet. My favorite place in town was the FOP lodge. Near the end of 2019 someone spray painted "FUCK THE 12 AND FUCK YO MAMA" along its side and no one ever bothered to clean it off. Every time I drove by the lodge I would whisper the phrase to myself, like some kind of lunatic mantra. It's bold lack of purpose sustained me. It was a beacon in the twilight.

I was the first of my friends to get my license. After COVID we would all pile into my Civic and go out somewhere. The most we ever fit was six, including me driving. One was in the passenger seat, three sitting in the back, and the last strewn across their laps. I never felt any great love for that car until it was gone. Near the end of my senior year, I hydroplaned into an oncoming pickup and began that nice spring morning pulling myself out of a ditch. The Civic was taken to a mechanic, who pronounced it dead on arrival. I had a bit of whiplash but was otherwise alright. The guy I hit complained that he suffered a concussion, though it was an obvious attempt to schmooze more from my insurance. He cut it out once the cop on the scene threatened to call him an EMT. My uncle sold me his newish Corolla a few months later, and they were an odd few months. I had mostly stopped my night drives after we went back to school, but I would still sometimes head out on the weekends just to pass by the FOP lodge. I felt trapped in my own home. I started using the internet more as its own kind of escape. I really like my new car. It has significantly more safety features, just in case I decide to take on a pickup for another round, but there is still something about it that is missing. The Civic had a pretty noticeable dent on its back bumper that was there since we bought it. After the wreck, while we were waiting for the cops to show up, I leaned against the back of my car and traced the dent with my fingers. In that emptiness where the metal compressed I felt the car's beating heart. I felt in the Civic an encapsulation of my soul, dents and all.

~clancy