Ode to the Accelerator
Downtown Long Beach on Elm Avenue, an early marmalade dawn in April. I am cruising at fifteen miles an hour in a 1990 lime-green Porsche 959 with black leather upholstery; Puccini's La boheme is playing in the cockpit at a comfortable volume. There is nothing particularly special about this place, in fact -- aside from the occasional ivy-kissed red brick buildings and colonnades -- it's pretty grimy, but once a year the city closes off this part of downtown for the Long Beach Grand Prix, which is scheduled for later this week.
Elm Avenue is the last American vestige of good traffic planning; the signals here are timed perfectly, each one turning green just as I approach its intersection, so I never lose my pace. Transfixed by the quietude, the sheer lack of people on the streets on a morning like this, I suddenly find myself on a stretch of Shoreline Drive; the withered, deferential palm trees flagging me by; and up ahead the famous hairpin turn that makes the Formula D series of the Grand Prix such a pleasure to watch.
The music has changed. It's Adrian Borland, Beneath the Big Wheel, a gentle song with a luxuriant acoustic guitar riff. Sublime relaxation; unprecedented chillness. Yet in spite of it, I find my foot pressing more firmly on the gas, my hands tightening their grip on the smallish leatherized steering wheel. The cafes and the pawn shops, the streetlights and the manhole covers, the painted lines on the road, all begin to accelerate past me. The engine's distinctive hum, far away at first, arrives at me steadily; confidently. In just a few moments I will enter the turn. I don't know for sure what the speedometer reads, but I don't plan to look at it. I guess you could say I just have a feeling, a certain pact with the road. I remember this road.
And then, at a velocity far greater than this sharp turn ever intended, I take it. I oversteer into the apex of the bend, and in an instant my tires are squealing. They lose their traction with the pavement, smoke bellows and swirls around me, and I am now drifting sideways, the trash-strewn curb of the road once off to my side now squarely in front of me. Suddenly, the car turning one way, the tires turning another, the moment all four wheels enter the drift, I yield the control of the driving factors to my intuition, and slip into an unexpected moment of reflection...
...I am thinking of her. At this early hour she is probably still sound asleep. I can see her now, shoulders decumbent, trailing, head on the pillow tilted slightly to one side, a hand beside her ear like maybe she's trying to hear something in her dream, hips rolled over a bit and the comforter pinched between her legs. To gaze at her like this, serenity. To be loved by her, the perpetual dream. She is my marmalade dawn; she is my ivy-kissed colonnade; she is why I can see the beauty in a place as forsaken as Elm Avenue. She is my confidence as I enter every hairpin turn; she is my hammering heart, the thrill and awe of every curve of this oil-slicked asphalt. And yet none of this could ever come close to that feeling of simply holding her in my arms...
Still slicing laterally through the turn; now the steering wheel spins through my hands, the front wheels return to center, and I wait -- wait for my car to point just right so I can hit the throttle and burst out of the corner. Before I realize it, my tires have grabbed the road and I'm already surging into the straightaway; the turn behind me, vanquished in a gulf of white smoke.
I look into the rearview mirror. The man looking back at me has a twinkle in his eye. He is laughing, heartfelt laughter; reflecting to me my demeanor of careless wonder, of simple joy, of fulfillment. With that, I decide to go back around toward Elm Avenue for another run.
Elm Avenue is the last American vestige of good traffic planning; the signals here are timed perfectly, each one turning green just as I approach its intersection, so I never lose my pace. Transfixed by the quietude, the sheer lack of people on the streets on a morning like this, I suddenly find myself on a stretch of Shoreline Drive; the withered, deferential palm trees flagging me by; and up ahead the famous hairpin turn that makes the Formula D series of the Grand Prix such a pleasure to watch.
The music has changed. It's Adrian Borland, Beneath the Big Wheel, a gentle song with a luxuriant acoustic guitar riff. Sublime relaxation; unprecedented chillness. Yet in spite of it, I find my foot pressing more firmly on the gas, my hands tightening their grip on the smallish leatherized steering wheel. The cafes and the pawn shops, the streetlights and the manhole covers, the painted lines on the road, all begin to accelerate past me. The engine's distinctive hum, far away at first, arrives at me steadily; confidently. In just a few moments I will enter the turn. I don't know for sure what the speedometer reads, but I don't plan to look at it. I guess you could say I just have a feeling, a certain pact with the road. I remember this road.
And then, at a velocity far greater than this sharp turn ever intended, I take it. I oversteer into the apex of the bend, and in an instant my tires are squealing. They lose their traction with the pavement, smoke bellows and swirls around me, and I am now drifting sideways, the trash-strewn curb of the road once off to my side now squarely in front of me. Suddenly, the car turning one way, the tires turning another, the moment all four wheels enter the drift, I yield the control of the driving factors to my intuition, and slip into an unexpected moment of reflection...
...I am thinking of her. At this early hour she is probably still sound asleep. I can see her now, shoulders decumbent, trailing, head on the pillow tilted slightly to one side, a hand beside her ear like maybe she's trying to hear something in her dream, hips rolled over a bit and the comforter pinched between her legs. To gaze at her like this, serenity. To be loved by her, the perpetual dream. She is my marmalade dawn; she is my ivy-kissed colonnade; she is why I can see the beauty in a place as forsaken as Elm Avenue. She is my confidence as I enter every hairpin turn; she is my hammering heart, the thrill and awe of every curve of this oil-slicked asphalt. And yet none of this could ever come close to that feeling of simply holding her in my arms...
Still slicing laterally through the turn; now the steering wheel spins through my hands, the front wheels return to center, and I wait -- wait for my car to point just right so I can hit the throttle and burst out of the corner. Before I realize it, my tires have grabbed the road and I'm already surging into the straightaway; the turn behind me, vanquished in a gulf of white smoke.
I look into the rearview mirror. The man looking back at me has a twinkle in his eye. He is laughing, heartfelt laughter; reflecting to me my demeanor of careless wonder, of simple joy, of fulfillment. With that, I decide to go back around toward Elm Avenue for another run.
posted by Row of Streetlights at 5:17 PM
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