Remembering Gordon Street

I remember a car, a red Chevy convertible. Mom said when they got it as a wedding gift, “it was as bright and shiny as a red toy top pulled out of the toe of a Christmas stocking.” They’d had some wonderful times with that car, but now the war was on, Dad was gone, everything was in short supply, especially gasoline and tires. Rationing was in effect, and you couldn’t buy a drop of gas without an “A” card, and even then Mom said you “couldn’t get enough to get around the block.” So, making a game out of it some people called “frogging,” we’d crest a hill cutting the engine coasting as far on the other side as we could. But when they started rationing re-tread tires Mom figured the “game is just about up, without even re-treads we’ll be riding around on bald tires waiting for a blow out.” She wasn’t joking thinking of her friend Patty on her way to work having a double blowout. Patty’d limped her old Plymouth over to the curb getting out, kicking the dead tires in frustration, sitting down on the curb crying because one of the tires was her spare. She was out two tires without even a re-tread replacement, telling Mom if she’d had a gun she’d have shot her car putting it out of its misery. So, it was a real surprise Mom taking me for a “joy ride” with the top down on the road next to the beach somewhere between Venice and Santa Monica just before sunset. Felt like we were driving faster than the thirty-five mile victory speed limit, listening to the bald tires rushing over the road with the swooshing sound of sandpaper smoothing a piece of wood. Air whistling in through the wind-wing, sounding like steam screaming out of Granny’s big teakettle. Wind tugging, pulling my hair back, Mom’s Betty Grable hairdo swirling around her head like a spider weaving a web across her face so she kept brushing her hair back with her hand trying to keep it out of her eyes. Turning radio on, Mom singing with Andrews Sisters, “I’ll be with you in Apple Blossom Time.” Me, like a dog sticking its head out the car window, mouth wide open gulping, cheeks wobbling, tongue tasting the salty air like licking the top of my Nabisco cracker before crunching it up putting it in my tomato soup. Salt-wind tears seeping from the corners of my eyes, Mom’s eyes stinging, too, tears running all the way down her face, one dropping from her chin to her lap disappearing among the white polka dots in the fold of her blue dress. Mom told me to try and remember as much as I could like I was going to mail a penny picture postcard to myself. I think it was on her mind she hadn’t gotten a letter from Dad in a long time, and the last time she got one the censors had read it before she did, blocking out some parts making her wonder what he’d written that she was missing. I think that’s why she took me for that ride in the red Chevy convertible on the beach road that meant so much to them. The moonlight rides they’d taken together before the war. She was driving the car with me sitting beside her, thinking of my dad, scared. The sun turning color from a grapefruit to an orange at the edge of the ocean went down in a splash leaving an orange glow against the sky. Starting to get dark and cold, Mom pulled over to the side of the road, and we spotted the first evening star. Mom said we should make a wish—I think we were wishing the same thing. Putting up the tan canvas top pretending it was a circus tent, the ocean looking like a black rolling blanket with a line of silver curls before the waves crash sounding like a huge newspaper being crumpled up in the hands of a giant. The next morning, Mom got up slipping into her slacks and Eisenhower jacket taking the car keys off the white rabbit’s foot key chain, hanging the key chain over the door “for good luck.” I asked, but she wasn’t sure why it was supposed to bring good luck, laughing and saying, “I guess it wasn’t good luck for the rabbit.”