#3 - Drive

Trigger: Driving home from work and taking a corner WAY too fast

Flash:

1981. Finally had my coveted driver's license. We lived "somewhat" out in the country. The major roads were paved, but everything else was dirt or gravel. But since there was usually no one else on these roads at the same time as you were, you could get away with some creative driving. Do what you want, just don't hit a cow. And that was a muse a 16-year-old could not ignore.

There were lots of crazy-ass roads that didn't follow the dictates of "normal" street-planning. One of the more interesting of these was 209th St, which I think was also called Evans Road, but I may be mixing my memories. This thing ran straight and true in some places, but in other sections the damn thing swerved all over the place, probably just to avoid trees. And I think it was graded once by some drunk county road worker, then left on its own.

But again, with the being-16 thing, this road was a thrilling challenge. I'm meandering down this road one day, just driving around because there wasn't anything else to do, and I realize there's this one section of dirt road with a really steep drop. There's potential here. I turn around, go back over the crest and a take another run, faster this time. And the car actually leaves the ground for a second or two.

Oh my gawd. I've discovered a new toy.

So I race home and get on the horn with my peeps. I'm totally stoked, we have GOT to max this thing out. What else is there to do in this hick town?

A few days later, the fates congeal, and I'm in the family Bronco with some of my peeps, who all happen to be girls, natch, I'm a sensitive gay guy with issues. We're all almost squealing with excitement, because that's how we rolled, we would pick out something mundane and pump it up to mean something far more than it should matter. This is how you get through the dry, dusty hell of living in the sticks.

I'm barrelling down Evans Road. The Bronco is careening all over the place. We can't see squat because there's no such thing as street lights out here in the cultural desert. Nothing but the Bronco headlights, briefly illuminating wildlife as they scamper from the road.

We're zooming toward the drop in the road. I actually floor it, years before Thelma and Louise thought they were being original with this thought process. We cross the point of no return and that damn Bronco hurtles toward the sky. This is NASA, people, we are in the air for what seems like minutes.

We finally crash to the earth. Things are flying around the car, screams echo across the cow pastures, at least one person has a small orgasm. I somehow manage to keep the Bronco from flipping and killing us all.

We were total idiots.

We could have died.

But instead we lived. In so many ways. And when you compare it to our current life in the cubicle farms with those endless, meaningless emails? Sure would like to be back on Evans Road, flooring it and innocent. With my peeps...