BLACK, BLUE, AND RED

How a car can shape a futureBy

Rachel Putman

I couldn't remember if it was June, July, or August, but it was a warm month when my father had finally gotten an apartment and he had driven his old car to the old house.  A courtesy vehicle had picked us up to take us to a local dealership and he had said he was getting a new vehicle, giving me the '93 grand prix for my own car for when I turned sixteen the next year. 

There was a shiny, black convertible in the dealership lot when we were dropped off.  I walked around it slowly, peeking inside, and admiring the pretty horse emblem on the front.  "What do you think about that car?" my dad asked.  I said it was nice.

We sat at the salesman's desk, and I saw on the papers "2000 MUSTANG".  Mustang sounded familiar; I searched back into the Ford commercials that had been running over and over about a New Mustang Convertible.  Excitement boiled inside of me as I realized that nice car outside was going to be his, and that I would be able to drive it.  When we finally walked outside, I made a beeline towards the Mustang."How did you know this was the car?" my dad asked.  I said I had seen the papers. 

"Do you like it?" he asked while looking at me for reassurance. 

"I sure do," I said. 

Soon I wouldn’t share, and I was the only one driving the Mustang with my father, to and from his place, and accumulating teaching hours for me to get my driver’s license.  The first time I drove the Mustang by myself, though, was without any license before I had even turned sixteen.  My father wanted a new vehicle, and so he drove back to our hometown and picked one out at the dealership – the same one where the Mustang came from.

“Don’t tell your mother,” he started, “but I’m going to need you to drive the Mustang back to my house.  You’ll be more familiar with it than with the truck, and I don’t want you to be nervous.” 

“What if a police car pulls me over?” I said in a shrill voice.  “I don’t have a license!”

“Nobody’s going to pull you over,” he reassured me.  “There’s no way that an unlicensed teenager would be able to drive their parent’s nice new car.”

“Thanks,” I breathed out.  “I’m going to keep the top up though, just in case, to avoid any distraction.”  And with that, I drove off for my father’s apartment – one hour of awesome, raw power under the hood and under my lead foot (only on that day, I seemed to have had the misfortune of bringing my feather-foot).  Five over the speed limit (just like my driver’s education teacher instructed us) the entire way down, but a successful trip.  I was so nervous the entire way that I couldn’t even drink my pop without panicking I might crash while unscrewing the bottle cap.  Relief washed over me as I turned off the engine after pulling into my dad’s carport.

As silly as it may sound, I formed a bond with Black that day. It was probably the most essential part of my pre-adulthood – driving that car during the summer months.

I would drive to 7-Eleven. I would drive all around town, filling up the tank more than once in a day. I let my friends drag-race the car in the fall.

My good friend Melissa and I dressed up in all black; she put on a Darth Vader vinyl mask and had a red lightsaber as we whipped through the suburbs of Wayne, MI in the darker hours of the night blasting Star Wars techno music.

This lead to lightsaber fights between us, and ultimately, against my father (and he could give me quite a run for my money).

I would blast my music – all kinds – in an attempt to attract boys. “Weird Al” Yankovic. They Might Be Giants. Reel Big Fish. Raidiohead. The Offspring. Metallica. Eminem. It may have never really worked, but I gave it every shot I could.

I did, however, get much satisfaction when a popular girl in school saw me in my Grand Prix in the fall and asked where the Mustang was. “It’s almost winter,” I said. “You don’t drive a nice car like that in the cold months.”

Even more fun still, I would race my Mustang. Thinking back, I know deep down that all of the guys that I raced let me win, but it was still a thrilling feeling to beat a Corvette (especially with my v6 engine). I never told my dad about those races, I’m sure he wouldn’t have approved..

It may not make sense or be believable that a vehicle could spawn a thousand feelings all in one night. If you have ever ridden in a convertible, you must know what it feels like when you’re cruising down the road at night and you glance above you to see an explosion of white speckles dotting the sky, screaming of summer. It seems silly to say that it reflects my childhood, because that it does not, but it reflects some of the best moments in my life.

If you’ve owned a convertible, you know how a drive-inn can be enhanced a million times over just by dropping the top (even though you still look through the windshield).

Letting wind flow through your hair can soothe away any pain. It can make you feel bright, sometimes sunburned, and a warm feeling develops within you while your back is riddled with sweat against the burning leather. Music may float off into the air, trailing behind you as you speed down the road, but the notes that do make it to your ears are heavenly. It can even work as a $30,000 hair dryer, too.

Colder days didn’t keep the top up – it brought the heat on. My dad taught me that on a particular cool afternoon in the springtime. He’s right, after all – cold weather shouldn’t mean that we can’t enjoy a vehicle without a roof!

From the minute that Black and I bonded, I knew it was almost impossible for me to live my life without a convertible. You can’t be angry driving through town when the wind is whipping strands of hair into your face. Well, you can, but you won’t be for long. Black calmed and soothed me while creating lasting memories that would transform me into who I am today.

When my father got rid of the Mustang, I couldn’t say goodbye in any way that I felt would do my previous few years justice. I was sad, for sure, and

mostly because I thought that all the good times I had would never resurface.

When my father died, everything felt worse.

I wished someone had told me in a more comical way. I wish that it wasn’t just that plain phone call; that simple sentence that you know what it means

– “something terrible has happened”.

Really? Please, do tell, because I can’t figure it out for myself.

I think the only worse way to tell someone that someone close to them died is the candid line, “How well did you know So-And-So?”

I found this comic almost a year later, and wished this is how I was told.

It would’ve been a great knock-knock joke, I told everyone.

I remember finding a pair of my driving glasses in my dad’s truck when I was cleaning it out. They were left in Black for sure, because I hadn’t seen them in years. Purple UV shades that helped block my hair from whipping my eyeball. They’re broken, but my dad kept them anyway. Maybe it was so he could remember the times we had driving together, or maybe it’s because he was a packrat like me. I’m sure I’ll never know, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away, either.

Standing aside from my pain and trying to find some way to begin to heal, I decided to purchase a convertible. I knew that the internal bond would be strong once the top was down and the wind ripped through my hair again, and I would feel at peace. I wasn’t searching for a Mustang just yet; looking for a cheap convertible of any kind that would be around three grand or so when I came across a classic Mustang ad.

Then, I knew.

I remembered the conversation I had with my father about the 2005-model Mustangs coming out. How they looked like the original 60’s versions, and how he loved that style of body. Somehow, it all clicked inside and I began searching for a classic.

I found a classified ad. $8500.00. Red. I tried not to get excited the moment I saw the car, but I couldn’t help it. You’re not supposed to seem desperate or that you need the car. Like you could walk away at any moment.

“I want it,” I said before even driving it. “Yes, I want it.”

You might think that he is just a car, but you don't know any better (and I understand). 

Blue is 1.4 tons. 

He is the symbol of American muscle. 

It may be gradual, but he builds up speed and power just as well as anyone else. 

He's hot-headed, sharp-tongued, and as stingy as they come. 

After roaming the roads for 43 years, you would be, too. 

His outside requires that you be gentle. 

Blue needs a soft voice. 

His inside requires that you be firm. 

Blue needs to be shown who's in control. 

It's obvious when he meets someone new or inexperienced;

Blue takes the reigns and runs.

The itch to have the car was only temporarily relieved, and came back full-strength when I realized that I could possibly get my hands on Black again.

While I could locate the vehicle, the situation turned real ugly real fast and I came up empty-handed. It wouldn’t have been a good deal, anyway, and who knows what has happened in that car since? He may barely recognize me after all these years of having so many new owners – passed around like he was a junk car – how dare they!

Regardless, my search for a new car began.

I set a low price. I low-balled even low prices because I was never satisfied. Black ones, red ones, blue ones, silver ones, green ones… they all were not pleasing. Don’t even think about white ones, either. I had no luck at auctions. I had no luck at dealerships. They all laughed at me whenever I gave a price that they wouldn’t go anywhere near. Either I had to own up and reconsider what I wanted to pay (which is simply not me, as I’ve been raised to be quite the bargainer), or never get my good Mustang.

Again, you may think that a car is a car, or it’s just a car, but that wasn’t want I was looking for. I wanted the bond. I wanted to test drive that Mustang and feel a special connection. I begged each car I found to have the bond, but it wasn’t there. I had too many issues with too many cars, and they all disappointed me like you wouldn’t believe. I was trying to force the bond, and I knew that was wrong.

Until one day. . .

I test drove a magnificent 2004 burgundy GT with tan leather interior and tan stripe package. The customization was off the charts and the price, while still a lot higher than what I originally wanted to pay in the beginning, was near my second target price range. The mileage was low, too, so there was a lot in favor of the car.

I came to the dealership, touched the paint and felt the handle. Inside, it smelled and looked decently clean. I got the keys from the dealership for the test drive.

Please have the bond, I thought to myself. Please be what I’m looking for.

The engine roared. The top dropped. My foot gracefully tapped the pedal that sent me into a thrust I had never felt before in a vehicle.

We sped.

We turned.

We broke limits of speed and traffic rules.

My boyfriend looked at me and said, “I think this is your car.”

“How can you tell?” I said, but I felt it, too.

“I just have a feeling,” he said. The bond!

The dealership wouldn’t haggle on the price (not even by $100), but I put down a deposit anyway. I had a list of demands that I wanted met by the time I picked it back up, mostly revolving around a second detailing and some additional cleaning. I wanted this to be perfect. I’m picky, as my mechanic says, but I found a great buy – and I feel this more and more every day.

Not because I look at the used car ads and do not find a comparable car for the same price.

Not because I get compliment after compliment for my car.

I know I found a great Mustang solely on the feelings that wash over me when I get behind the wheel. My anger disappears, I find a sense of serenity, and all the cares in the world seem to dim while I’m driving. I don’t have anywhere to be by any specific time by any means, and I can be calm and at peace.

I’m free. Free to relive my memories of being out all night driving around, looking for a “cool place to hang out”, remembering what it felt like to drive around Daddy’s Car for hours upon hours while I desperately tried to get lost but never could, thinking of how hard it was to get the fingerprints out of a black paint job and being so thankful of having a red car, free to use the exact same car duster that my father used on Black so many different times, free to remember growing and boys and skipping school to drive and exploring adventures that nobody I knew could ever replicate.

My favorite part about this photo – my car was inside the dealership, and that tiny one in the upper-right was outside. My boyfriend said from a very far distance, “There’s your car!”“No it’s not,” I said.

“How can you tell?” he asked.

The bond, I thought.

Black had all the hard work of taking my lead-foot driving as well as all my friends, many road trips, and endless miles added to the odometer. He had the hardest job of setting the scene for my personality to blossom.

Blue’s job may seem easier, but he houses all my pain and anguish that I have dealing with my father’s death and the stresses in my life. I always have wished most of all that my dad could be alive to see Blue, but it’s only because he is gone why I’ve found my classic car.

Red is my release. He is my phoenix, and he can help pick up where Black had left off – which could never have happened if I didn’t have Blue to help me. Red is a new chapter, a new way back into my old life while moving forward, and an adventure as well as an escape.

As far as vehicle color choices go, my father was very boring and he always fancied red or black. I had seen so many red cars by the time I was old enough to drive, I was almost sure that I would want any other color whenever I had a new car. After my dad bought me my red Ford Focus, I swore I truly thought I would never want a red car again – and now I have three. Somehow, deep down, I think that’s all I will ever bring myself to have.