The boy thundered across the city. He soared on the FDR, going nearly ninety miles per hour, and held the stick shift tightly, laughing like a child playing a driving game at the arcade. Wind whisked by, enveloping him as he cruised toward the horizon; the music, like his spirit, bursting. He had all he wanted.
But he did think the girl was pretty in her black leather pants, her body shiny and sleek like his Porsche. And he adored that she listened when he spoke of his car. He was unaware that while they drank champagne at a fancy French restaurant, she gazed past him and saw herself in the mirror. She looked her best, and she thought he looked sharp, too. Peering into his eyes, inspecting him, she saw their future and all that she aimed to possess. But when the night was over, he drove her home and took off, speeding, leaving her there alone.
The next night, the girl couldn’t find him, and she listened for the roar of his engine, far off, and she followed the sound to a lavish party, a black-tie affair, where they danced all night. They danced until her feet hurt, and she cursed her brand-new designer shoes. After midnight he drove her home and left her there alone, again driving off, soaring toward freedom, tasting wind.
Like a weed, obsession grew inside her, and she couldn’t tolerate the pace any longer, never knowing when he’d drive off, never knowing when she’d see his light-filled eyes and his crooked grin that showed his dimples, long and deep, like her desire.
She went to the beauty parlor. She had a manicure, a pedicure, and a facial. She had her eyebrows waxed, and her hair blown straight. She bought a low-cut blouse and a push-up bra. She added rouge and shadow, lip gloss and mascara.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he replied. But he did not lift his head as he waxed his car.
He was driving her crazy. She dreamed of his hands on either side of her waist, steering her.
Driven, she devised a plan to destroy the car, determined to ruin it and replace one passion with another. When it was dark, she used a key and scratched into his Porsche. Digging deep, she left marks, as if she had clawed into the boy himself, and he gasped at the sight of his damaged car. She held him, wrapping him in her arms. But he broke away, hurt.
He set about to repairing the gashes, more like wounds. And his devotion to his car and all that he loved kept him further from the girl.
“Get rid of the car,” she told her friend. “I’ll leave the key outside.”
She called the boy and asked him to come over. She listened to stories about his car, and that distracted him while she lifted his key from the coffee table. Maneuvering him away from the window, her plan was put into motion.
This time when the boy tried to leave her, he found his car was gone. Freedom, with all its speed and potential, had driven off, leaving him there lost. Outside of her house, the boy howled. Gigantic tears and a puddle of sorrow collected around him. Devastated, he looked up to the heavens and saw the girl, a halo of yellow light around her, brushing her hair near the open window. She unfolded her curls, and they cascaded down the side of her house toward him. He held fast to her locks and she brought him to her as if she were a fairy-tale heroine. She held him in her arms, clinging to him.
When the sun came up, he followed the tire marks around the city, into the country, through the forest, up hills, until far away he finally heard the engine calling his name. He got into his car and drove all day and into the night, bewitched.
The next day he woke to clean his car, stroking it; his arms circled three times to the left and three times to the right, washing away unhappiness. The white Porsche shone more than ever.
Propelled by passion, the girl was determined to capture his heart, and she plotted to possess it. She gathered her strength, summoned her powers, and, waiting for the right time, used a sledgehammer as if it were a magic wand. She threw her arms back behind her head and then, like a pendulum, she swung them forward, crashing her weapon, with its heavy metal head, against his car’s side-view mirror. The mirror fell to the floor, shattering, and broken pieces lay on the ground, reflecting the sun. She strolled around to the other side of his car. Without hesitation, she lifted the sledgehammer with both hands and launched a blow with the vigor of lust at the other side-view mirror, cracking it. With a knife she slashed the tires and collected the strips of black rubber as if she were collecting shapes for a collage. She snapped off the windshield wipers like the breaking of chopsticks, knocked off the steering wheel, and then detached the rearview mirror.
Convinced she had the right-of-way, routed toward her desire, she started the engine and watched the fumes rise. She stared at the needle as it moved from full to empty, the yellow light on. It crossed her mind to activate the blinker signal but decided against it because she had no intention of turning around. She’d gone too far.
Her friend, draped in black, now had a mustache over his thin pink lips and he showed up again, as promised. He lifted the hood of the white Porsche, and with his tools, he removed the heart of her problem. The engine lay silent on the ground.
She had worked to take the car apart piece by piece and now she scattered the engine, the steering wheel, the tires, all over the land.
Just outside his door, the boy found the stick shift. He bent to pick it up, and as he stood he saw something else in the distance. Another part. And another. The fragments littered the earth and he collected them in his arms, following the trail into the woods where it turned dark. The boy held the stick shift in his hand, and put his right foot out as if to accelerate, only to find he wasn’t going anywhere.
His heart oozed out of him. It lay beside him, throbbing, and the girl picked it up. She placed it in a box and sealed it shut, throwing away the key.
Now the boy had nothing but the girl, and she was happy. She had captured a boy who loved his car and she was certain they would live happily ever after. She kissed him, covering his mouth, not noticing his lips were dry and unyielding.
Her white gown flowed down her back and across the ballroom floor like water cascading down a great mountain. She wanted to dance long into the night, but the boy was weak and unwilling, for while he’d been strong, her drive, her determination for his love was stronger.
After the wedding she wanted to go places, but the boy never wanted to. He sat on the couch and stared at the television as if in a trance.
“Why don’t we ever go places anymore?” she asked.
But the boy, out of gas, didn’t even turn his head.
SHADOWS AND PARTIALLY LIT FACES
Dylan Douglas set an alarm and closed the door to his jewelry store. He turned the lock, placed the single key in his suit pocket, and heading downtown, maneuvered over the congested sidewalk like a downhill skier on a slalom course. He believed it was important to keep a brisk pace and professed on more than one occasion how this principle enabled him to cover more territory. “I do more, I see more. It’s only logical,” he said. “I live the equivalent of two lives.”
Dylan reached for his cell phone and found the battery was dead. Annoyed, he scanned the street corners ahead of him for a pay phone. He spotted one and cringed at the thought of using it, detesting public services like buses, trains, and post offices, partially because he was unwilling to wait in line, but mostly because they made him feel ordinary. If he were going to be in a crowd, it would be at an elite bar uptown or a new restaurant in SoHo that required reservations weeks, if not months, in advance. He believed in living amongst the pretty people, and so he did.