Cars
by Jordan Souza
The first time I drove it was down my aunt’s country road. The headlights were too dim in all that darkness. I nearly pummeled a white ranch fence. My dad stopped trying after that.
In Korea, where I grew up, teenagers didn’t drive. We took the subway or taxis. So I just never learned, and that was fine until it wasn’t.
I chose a 2006 Pontiac Vibe from the Carmax in Encino. My dad called my tastes “pedestrian.”
I drove up the 1 with Megan in the Vibe. We stayed on the side of the road in Big Sur, and the next day we went to the Henry Miller Library, “where nothing happens.” The thing about the Vibe is that the seats could go all the way down.
On a walk with Mary last night, I told her about a dream I had, in which I was sitting in the passenger seat of my boss’s car. My boss jumped out, and I had to take the wheel. I drove erratically, finally coming to rest with the nose of the car pointing to the sky, snuggled into a snow bank. “Didn’t you have a dream like that when you were a kid, when your mom was about to die and your sister was in the backseat?” Yes. But in that dream, we went off the cliff.
When I was 20 and still didn’t know how to drive, my friend Justin told me my inability to drive was no longer cute. I paid someone to teach me.
There’s a Korean-Japanese film called Drive My Car that shook me when I saw it. For three hours, I was transfixed. Now I forget everything about it except the cover.
I drive a minivan now. With my left hand broken and in a cast, I can still move it, lumberingly, on my way to work and the kids’ school - the only two places I go.
My most out-of-control dreams are about driving. Driving on the pass between Santa Ynez and Santa Barbara, sun-blinded and scared. The wheel is loose under my hands. Death is inevitable. It is inevitable.
I got in a fender bender once. I was in the Bay Area. The night before, I’d driven from Portland. I was tired and wasn’t paying attention.
I don’t like driving.
Sometimes I like driving, but only when it feels like oblivion, like a dream down a very dark road.
I’m a writer and educator in Portland, Oregon. My work has been featured in Apartment Therapy, The Kitchn, Motherwell Mag, and Arboreal Magazine. I serve as prose editor for Cordella Press. You can find me on Substack at moonfeeder.substack.com and marjorysays.substack.com. I love a pair of really good socks and a long walk. Lately I’ve been trying new things.