Car Rides

There were two quite similar but also quite different emotions when crossing the James River on the ferry...it just depended on whether or not he was coming to see her or leaving her behind.

The arrival sentiment was anticipation...a pent up amount of eager, almost teenage-like compulsion...a fondness of past encounters that only grew greater with time, and an almost complete obliteration of focus or fondness for anything other than her.

He didn't like the departure emotion so he tucked that away in his mind like a worn piece of luggage.

Crossing in the ferry had a seasonal component...in the winter the river was brown and black in certain areas, the wind sliding across the deck and the waves a little choppier...he was content to stay in his car, engine running, heat on, listening to music.

But in the summer, when the river was green beneath a sky of high clouds and light winds he would always stay outside, arms on the rails of the ferry, watching the other side come closer and closer.  The scent of seas and waters mixed with salt carried across the deck, a few sea gulls daring to come near and the churn of the powerful engines beneath him added to the senses and marked his arrival in this place.  Her place...her home.

These flat farm lands...these long rows of furrowed fields that surrounded the river as it twisted and turned its way up to Richmond from the Atlantic.  These deep fields of history, where colonies and plantations chronicled the past...and the people were conditioned to be southern, hospitable, genteel...strong willed and comfortable in their position...families tightly intertwined and while hers had been polite to him he knew it was a work in progress every time he drove up to the house.

Which was why usually he sauntered up the steps, knocked on the heavy old door and waited on the porch.  He rarely entered...not because he wasn't invited but usually because they were going to soon depart and take a drive down one of the old highways. 

He'd certainly been invited the very first time he made the trek, and he had brought some wine and bourbon and some flowers for her mother...there were about 25 people in the crowded house, mostly her siblings and their children and some long-time family friends...he was a bit over-dressed but first impressions you know...

He had a chance to sit next to her briefly, a quick appetizer session at the dining room table, and their fingers interlocked underneath it, out of view...her hand was warm and he knew she had lotion on it because when he let go and brought it up near his plate he could smell it.  Her.

But usually he allowed her to answer the door and pull it shut behind her, leading him back out to the car.

His old 1972 Impala convertible...a land boat, once blue but painted red for some random reason long ago...it had bench seats in the front and back...a rarity these days...it allowed her to slide all the way against him, his left hand on the wheel, his right arm around her.  The only downside was the radio was original, and he had added after-market speakers in the footwells...it could get loud but tinny.  But they didn't care.

Rear wheel drive and he would floor it on the dirt driveway, leaving a trail of disapproving dust in its wake...he imagined her family watching her disappear down the road in a veil of light brown clouds as the vehicle churned up the ground as they hurtled down the lane.

He forgot a lot of the songs but he remembered the way he felt...in the warm summer afternoons they would put down the top and her hair billowed all around them...oftentimes she would wrap it into a ponytail, wiping away some of the bits of her bangs that fell...the car rambling along Highway 31 back towards the ferry that would return him and then turn left or right so they could watch the river.

They talked beneath the trees, the radio slight in the background...occasionally laying down in the front seat to get closer, in the shade with just a few souls around them...their world was layered beneath tree limbs and cicadas...the hum of a few passing ferries and the salt from the sea.  It was in her pink cheeks, glazed by the sun, her hair a little curly from the ride in the convertible.  She smelled clean, like linen, freshly laundered and dried in the sun.

The drive back to her mother's house was always in the twilight, driving straight into the sun as highway 616 turned into 615, and they always tried to guess if they could beat the sun slipping past the horizon as they pulled in.

A quick slide over to his side of the seat, a warm kiss on his mouth and then she would slide back and open the passenger side door.  She never looked back in these departures...he wondered why. 

The car was never turned off; he pulled the lever into reverse and slowly turned away from the house, no billowing smoke or dust.  Rather a terrifically somber drive in his mind.

On the ferry he was usually one of the last of the scarce cars to join...the mood deflated.  It was just so different returning from her...he felt scooped out...haggard.  Windblown and disjointed.  Mostly it was just an absence...like a moon-less night.  No direction to gaze at, nothing worth regarding.

He was exactly the same as when he had crossed over the river, but now he was just a shell.

He reached the other side, disembarked and began the slow dark ride home.  At a stop sign he raised the convertible's top, the last scent of salt air disappearing as he latched the top closed.

It was full dark now and he didn't even know what day it was.