While I’m reading, a sentence will grab me and force me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life.
****
"It was so free, so abundant, it had lost its fervor."
———Toni Morrison
———Song of Solomon
When I turned the key in the ignition, Honda responded with only the click you understand, if you have a history with used cars. Even though Missouri summer was bouncing off the parking lot in shimmering waves, I wasn’t mad. Maybe it was the end of the road for the object of my car-OCD. Hubby had sprung for after market splurges—spoiler, alloy wheels, custom leather steering wheel cover. My membership at the automatic car wash entitled me to unlimited trips through the tunnel for only (enter what you think a car wash is worth and triple it) dollars a month.
I called Ben. “Honeee, the car won’t start.”
I put the phone on speaker and turned the key. Click. Any second now, he would say I’m on my way.
“We’ll need to get it towed …”
“Uh huh.” I waited patiently for I’m on my way.
“I can’t get to you any faster than a tow truck …”
Still waiting.
“I’ll call. He’ll take you and the Honda to Northtown Auto Clinic. I’ll meet you there. Okay?”
No. Not okay. Not at all.
I would have to ride in a pickup right beside a white man, a white man stranger, a white man stranger who drives a pickup.
Pickups like the one that had pulled up alongside my car at a red light, the driver snarling the N word at me and spitting out his window. White men like the ones who put their feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk. Pickups and white men like the ones who dragged James Byrd, Jr. to his death.
No, the plan was not okay, but it was a simple, efficient, rational plan that I could not wiggle out of.
It was an impressive rig. My car was not going to be towed, unceremoniously lifted at an undignified angle and dragged on two wheels. Honda was going to be carried like nobility in a sedan chair.
When he hopped out of his truck (oh no, a red ballcap), the pickup driving white man stranger grinned. “That is the cleanest 2001 Honda I’ve ever seen.”
The specificity. The exclamation point in his voice.
Here’s a man who’s seen a lot of cars, and within that a subset of Hondas, and within that a subset of 2001 Hondas. Here’s a man who recognized me as a person who would understand the multiple layers of the compliment. Here’s a man who knew the owner of the cleanest 2001 Honda he’d ever seen would know that clean meant pages and chapters more than Webster’s paltry “free from dirt.”
Not fair, coming at me with a gearhead compliment right off the bat. I was deflated and puffed up at the same time. I grinned back. “Thank you.”
I climbed my overheated self into the air-conditioned cab of the (Kansas City Chiefs ballcap wearing) white man’s pickup.
****
"It was so free, so abundant, it had lost its fervor."
———Toni Morrison
———Song of Solomon
When I turned the key in the ignition, Honda responded with only the click you understand, if you have a history with used cars. Even though Missouri summer was bouncing off the parking lot in shimmering waves, I wasn’t mad. Maybe it was the end of the road for the object of my car-OCD. Hubby had sprung for after market splurges—spoiler, alloy wheels, custom leather steering wheel cover. My membership at the automatic car wash entitled me to unlimited trips through the tunnel for only (enter what you think a car wash is worth and triple it) dollars a month.
I called Ben. “Honeee, the car won’t start.”
I put the phone on speaker and turned the key. Click. Any second now, he would say I’m on my way.
“We’ll need to get it towed …”
“Uh huh.” I waited patiently for I’m on my way.
“I can’t get to you any faster than a tow truck …”
Still waiting.
“I’ll call. He’ll take you and the Honda to Northtown Auto Clinic. I’ll meet you there. Okay?”
No. Not okay. Not at all.
I would have to ride in a pickup right beside a white man, a white man stranger, a white man stranger who drives a pickup.
Pickups like the one that had pulled up alongside my car at a red light, the driver snarling the N word at me and spitting out his window. White men like the ones who put their feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk. Pickups and white men like the ones who dragged James Byrd, Jr. to his death.
No, the plan was not okay, but it was a simple, efficient, rational plan that I could not wiggle out of.
It was an impressive rig. My car was not going to be towed, unceremoniously lifted at an undignified angle and dragged on two wheels. Honda was going to be carried like nobility in a sedan chair.
When he hopped out of his truck (oh no, a red ballcap), the pickup driving white man stranger grinned. “That is the cleanest 2001 Honda I’ve ever seen.”
The specificity. The exclamation point in his voice.
Here’s a man who’s seen a lot of cars, and within that a subset of Hondas, and within that a subset of 2001 Hondas. Here’s a man who recognized me as a person who would understand the multiple layers of the compliment. Here’s a man who knew the owner of the cleanest 2001 Honda he’d ever seen would know that clean meant pages and chapters more than Webster’s paltry “free from dirt.”
Not fair, coming at me with a gearhead compliment right off the bat. I was deflated and puffed up at the same time. I grinned back. “Thank you.”
I climbed my overheated self into the air-conditioned cab of the (Kansas City Chiefs ballcap wearing) white man’s pickup.
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