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We're
leaning up against a car. A stranger's car. It's eighth street,
or fourth street, or some street divisible by two. It's an old car, got no
alarm, no blinking red lights, no protection. That's what being old
means: fewer defenses. If you lose it, so what. He's got me up against
this car, and he's tall, he's so tall, he's so much taller than I am,
than the car is; his head is the size and level of the streetlamp, only
the light coming out of his head is infrared: you can hear it. Halfway
between a mugging and a seduction, this struggle: the metal against my
thighs, something under my short skirt, either a hand or a mirror. I
think of the expression: shocks and struts. These are car parts, but
I'm not sure what they do. I think shocks are what keep you from
bouncing too hard in motion, but struts make me think of peacocks, and of
men. And there's the expression: parking. They went parking. So old,
that expression; so stupid, so innocent. I've got these things in my
mind, sitting on the floor of my mind like rotten metal under a
riverbed.
The car is warm. Day ended so long ago, but the metal is warm,
not with use but with sun; it's high summer midnight, someone has parked
this car, and we're up against it, struggling; a Biblical struggle, like Jacob wrestling the angel God
sent to him on a mountain. Only our mountain is a car, old and hot like
I am, unlit and still, like he is. Against this car I moan out something
delicious, pointless; I love this car; I leave my smell on this
car, like a cat; this car held me up bearing down, this old car: I'd
never recognize it if I saw it again.
"Wheels" is a portion of Margolin's book,
Of All the Nerve: Deb Margolin Solo.
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For more Deb Margolin, read:
Dateline: Fire Island
Two on One: Survivor
Till Death Do Us
Heaven Is a Cliche, So Is Cyberspace
Alfie and Joe
Wheels
Handling the Curves: The Erotics of Type
I Am Monica Lewinsky
Views and Reviews
©1999
Deb Margolin and Nerve.com
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