I think my pops saw a spark in me and didn't know how to feed it.
I think, faced with something completely different from his first two children, he hit a language wall. This one has the design eye, this second one does too. "This third one has an eye, but why is it obsessed with physics and manipulating form and space instead of creating on a canvas?"
Learning to drive stick was a massive challenge. Enter the F-250 1996 V8 5.8 Liters of displacement in a breath. Stupid torque and no horsepower.
The thing was, you never knew if he was taking you for a ride to explain to you why you had a beating coming or not. Sometimes it was Billy Graham, sometimes it was the guy who always had that quotable audio clip at the beginning of his radio show "lay up treasure in heaven" (it always made me laugh inside thinking about how does suffering now get you a v.i.p. pass to heaven and how dumb it felt watching years spin by and thinking 'the forsaken are now!')
There was this one day, he may have been driving me to work at Six Flags Great America or some shit, but we were in his 280 ZX that myself, my younger sister, and I don't remember if my older brother was there or not, but we washed and detailed that car. Cleaned from the floor mats to the spots where you put your fingers on the sill to push the passenger door open to the stock rims and the corners of the chrome trim around the rear window to the toe kicks along the foot of the door sills.
I can't remember what day it was specifically; Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday. We drove.
I may have missed the bus for the umpteenth time and he happened to be off work that day and heard me come back into the house absentee.
At any rate, what I do remember was this:
Before I took on driving school and getting licensed proper, he took his hand off of the stick shift and began calling out gears to me. I didn't know what to do. In the empty space he would shift and calmly call the next position the shiftknob was supposed to be in.
I didn't know he was speaking to me. I thought it was another one of his exercises to keep me on my toes so I would always be aware of my surroundings. One of those "what street is that?!" spot quizzes. I think it may have been one of his best attempts to connect with his kid who was not into the "arts" as he was.
In fear, I placed my hand on the shift knob with my fingers spread so I could see the 1 2 3 4 5 R grid, do not break his possession. Be good. If you do good, he will not be disappointed.
Understanding that he wanted me to move the shifter while he worked the pedals and the wheel, I was incredibly hesitant. Before that day I'd only read about it in magazines, Road & Track and Car & Driver and Model Builder and the RC aero rag on my stints at the library in the periodicals instead of going to school when I missed the bus because you can't get to Greenbelt from Bowie without missing have the damn day anyway, might as well go to the library on your bike and make sure you're back home before he is and no one is the wiser (fuck it and fuck Eleanor Roosevelt H.S.).
I shifted with my left hand for close to five minutes before he took over again. And that was my first taste. The second was driving school in a powder blue Chevy Cavalier with a stick that was way too long for the shitbox that it was. And the standard minted was the Falcor that I drive now. That was when I learned and am still learning.
Every time that I hold that stick, my dad does cross my mind. My dad and where my love affair with the Fairlady line of sporting two doors began. The way that he would cut through traffic and move through the shift gates was impressive to my young mind. He wouldn't be able to drive my F250 for shit and it makes me laugh. It makes me laugh because if you can pilot a junker with finesse, imagine what you can do with a coupe.
There are times I wish he'd taken the leap to see me outside of the framework of his knowns. We have much in common. I would love to be able to speak to someone who understands the rage and fire inside as much as he knows it and hides it and clamps it and eats it and focuses it and the ways it eats you alive.
I'm never going back to him. He is as welcome in me as he has said I am in him. Big ol' bag o' nopes and it does make me laugh to understand that happy endings are for stories- not history. Consolation prize: he tried and it planted a seed and a passion for Nissan coupes and the design philosophy throughout their years.
My artistes' eye is still there. The lines are classical music if you see its shape. When you think salon coupe GT as comfortable cutting into the wind as whipping around corners, steady as the shaft of an arrow and fickle if you tease it, from its stance to the cut of the A pillar to busy tail lights and sloop nose that can accommodate aero headlight glass or no.
I think back to that day and how I must have looked in the passenger seat with frightened eyes looking at the digital gauges and being thrilled and awed and stupefied at a tachometer that wasn't a dial. In the years following, I was disgusted at the tach that wasn't analog. And then I was enlightened to the tune that dashboards can be removed and replaced with whatever the pilot finds most useful. And then I went away to college and the car disappeared and I remembered that he didn't actually give a shit. For a moment I was his son and for a moment he was a dad. And then he was confused as to why I was upset that the car I cleaned for the better part of a year and got to touch and fell in love with was shipped off for who knows what.
It just... it pains me... he has no idea who I am. He had no idea then and he has no idea now.
I used to think he was just crazy. I still do. I am. I am a functioning adult from his loins so.... it kinda fucking follows. Also why I'm not waiting in line for progeny. Some things should stop. Accidents don't happen without a breath of agency and this time around I can be the eyes he didn't have then. The discerning he absolved himself of.
Do I want to make him pay for what he's cost me: of course. Can I? Yes. Will I? No. He will die in his bubble on his own time. My life is worth more than enlightening a grown child, talented though it may be. Do not attempt to turn a mountain, it will return to the sea on its own time.
Driving the truck, blasting music that is foreign to his circuits, with the windows down... ...he could have enjoyed himself and his child. Us both now in a solitary confinement. I hope he is pushing a standard, but we all know "it ain't that damn likely." With age also goes the tooth for sporting.
///Noname - (Diddy Bop) ~ driving music
I think, faced with something completely different from his first two children, he hit a language wall. This one has the design eye, this second one does too. "This third one has an eye, but why is it obsessed with physics and manipulating form and space instead of creating on a canvas?"
Learning to drive stick was a massive challenge. Enter the F-250 1996 V8 5.8 Liters of displacement in a breath. Stupid torque and no horsepower.
The thing was, you never knew if he was taking you for a ride to explain to you why you had a beating coming or not. Sometimes it was Billy Graham, sometimes it was the guy who always had that quotable audio clip at the beginning of his radio show "lay up treasure in heaven" (it always made me laugh inside thinking about how does suffering now get you a v.i.p. pass to heaven and how dumb it felt watching years spin by and thinking 'the forsaken are now!')
There was this one day, he may have been driving me to work at Six Flags Great America or some shit, but we were in his 280 ZX that myself, my younger sister, and I don't remember if my older brother was there or not, but we washed and detailed that car. Cleaned from the floor mats to the spots where you put your fingers on the sill to push the passenger door open to the stock rims and the corners of the chrome trim around the rear window to the toe kicks along the foot of the door sills.
I can't remember what day it was specifically; Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday. We drove.
I may have missed the bus for the umpteenth time and he happened to be off work that day and heard me come back into the house absentee.
At any rate, what I do remember was this:
Before I took on driving school and getting licensed proper, he took his hand off of the stick shift and began calling out gears to me. I didn't know what to do. In the empty space he would shift and calmly call the next position the shiftknob was supposed to be in.
I didn't know he was speaking to me. I thought it was another one of his exercises to keep me on my toes so I would always be aware of my surroundings. One of those "what street is that?!" spot quizzes. I think it may have been one of his best attempts to connect with his kid who was not into the "arts" as he was.
In fear, I placed my hand on the shift knob with my fingers spread so I could see the 1 2 3 4 5 R grid, do not break his possession. Be good. If you do good, he will not be disappointed.
Understanding that he wanted me to move the shifter while he worked the pedals and the wheel, I was incredibly hesitant. Before that day I'd only read about it in magazines, Road & Track and Car & Driver and Model Builder and the RC aero rag on my stints at the library in the periodicals instead of going to school when I missed the bus because you can't get to Greenbelt from Bowie without missing have the damn day anyway, might as well go to the library on your bike and make sure you're back home before he is and no one is the wiser (fuck it and fuck Eleanor Roosevelt H.S.).
I shifted with my left hand for close to five minutes before he took over again. And that was my first taste. The second was driving school in a powder blue Chevy Cavalier with a stick that was way too long for the shitbox that it was. And the standard minted was the Falcor that I drive now. That was when I learned and am still learning.
Every time that I hold that stick, my dad does cross my mind. My dad and where my love affair with the Fairlady line of sporting two doors began. The way that he would cut through traffic and move through the shift gates was impressive to my young mind. He wouldn't be able to drive my F250 for shit and it makes me laugh. It makes me laugh because if you can pilot a junker with finesse, imagine what you can do with a coupe.
There are times I wish he'd taken the leap to see me outside of the framework of his knowns. We have much in common. I would love to be able to speak to someone who understands the rage and fire inside as much as he knows it and hides it and clamps it and eats it and focuses it and the ways it eats you alive.
I'm never going back to him. He is as welcome in me as he has said I am in him. Big ol' bag o' nopes and it does make me laugh to understand that happy endings are for stories- not history. Consolation prize: he tried and it planted a seed and a passion for Nissan coupes and the design philosophy throughout their years.
My artistes' eye is still there. The lines are classical music if you see its shape. When you think salon coupe GT as comfortable cutting into the wind as whipping around corners, steady as the shaft of an arrow and fickle if you tease it, from its stance to the cut of the A pillar to busy tail lights and sloop nose that can accommodate aero headlight glass or no.
I think back to that day and how I must have looked in the passenger seat with frightened eyes looking at the digital gauges and being thrilled and awed and stupefied at a tachometer that wasn't a dial. In the years following, I was disgusted at the tach that wasn't analog. And then I was enlightened to the tune that dashboards can be removed and replaced with whatever the pilot finds most useful. And then I went away to college and the car disappeared and I remembered that he didn't actually give a shit. For a moment I was his son and for a moment he was a dad. And then he was confused as to why I was upset that the car I cleaned for the better part of a year and got to touch and fell in love with was shipped off for who knows what.
It just... it pains me... he has no idea who I am. He had no idea then and he has no idea now.
I used to think he was just crazy. I still do. I am. I am a functioning adult from his loins so.... it kinda fucking follows. Also why I'm not waiting in line for progeny. Some things should stop. Accidents don't happen without a breath of agency and this time around I can be the eyes he didn't have then. The discerning he absolved himself of.
Do I want to make him pay for what he's cost me: of course. Can I? Yes. Will I? No. He will die in his bubble on his own time. My life is worth more than enlightening a grown child, talented though it may be. Do not attempt to turn a mountain, it will return to the sea on its own time.
Driving the truck, blasting music that is foreign to his circuits, with the windows down... ...he could have enjoyed himself and his child. Us both now in a solitary confinement. I hope he is pushing a standard, but we all know "it ain't that damn likely." With age also goes the tooth for sporting.
///Noname - (Diddy Bop) ~ driving music
