Woodward Dreams

With literally no time and not enough material for a normal post, instead I'll paste in an excerpt from an essay I wrote for a creative writing class, called "Woodward Dream Cruise." Written about one of my favorite days, dedicated to my dad (who, by the way, I HOPE reads and comments on this blog post), let's hope it makes more sense after the revision than it did when I presented it to my class.

Later this week there should be a REAL post.

Woodward Dream Cruise

I stood in the corner of my dorm room, looking around at the piles of suitcases and boxes around me. September seventh, classes would begin the next day and I didn’t want them to, I was too scared. My roommate was a summer camp friend, but already I felt that she did not want me. I looked around the room again. “Mom,” I whispered under my breath. “Mom, Dad, I need you.”
The tears came to my eyes as I fumbled for my phone. It was out of battery. Perfect. God forbid that something in this new, unfamiliar environment should go my way.
I threw the malfunctioning device across the room so that it landed on my bed, sank into the corner, and swallowed the noisy sobs threatening to burst out of me.
I will be brave. I will not cry. I have forced through so much before—I can do it again.
I can do it for you.

We walk down the street together in downtown Pontiac. Everything about this place feels so familiar, so perfect. The sun is blinding and the heat is stifling. Every now and then the vaguest breeze will drift by, but other than that it is still. It’s so hot that we sweat through our clothes and when you hold my hand, I can feel that your palm is as sweat-slicked as mine. People watching probably wonder why you are holding my hand—after all, I’m sixteen and far too old to rely heavily on my father. Too bad for them if they can’t understand how close we are.
As we walk, we occasionally stop to look at cars. You point out ones that you think I should know about—the sixties Mustangs, the fifties Chevys, the seventies Firebirds. My favorite is a turquoise Firebird that looks as if it were stolen from a seventies teen movie. I stop and tug your sleeve, and I point. “I like that one.”
You lead me to the car, where you proceed to unleash the power of your long-passed teen years. You spout off all kinds of things that I don’t want to know—I’m no car person, as anyone could tell from a mile away—but I listen anyway as you tell me the ignition timing, the miles per gallon, the fabric of the interior, the model of the tires, and the most important thing of all: How fast the car could go.
As we walk away I look up to you and you squeeze my hand. “Ready to go?” you ask.
I shake my head vehemently. “No!”
“Let’s get ice cream,” you say suddenly, and pull me into a small café.
I’m not supposed to be eating junk food. But you know I love sweets, and you know that mint-chocolate-chip ice cream is more than just welcome relief on a hot day, it is a rare treat that I will still taste long after the last drops have melted and slid down my throat. And so you take me into the café and buy me the biggest size mint chocolate chip ice cream cone available. For yourself you order whatever flavor has the most pecans—I don’t remember if it’s butter pecan or straight-up pecan-flavored, but I do know that it is full of nuts.
Which, come to think of it, currently describes the state of Pontiac. The Woodward Dream Cruise is a mess of cars, some old and some new—all of them American. I feel self-conscious when I remember the silver 2001 Toyota pickup truck currently parked behind the Crowfoot Ballroom. But then I think, we can’t be the only ones out here today with a foreign car. And so when you nod towards the ballroom and ask if I would like to “cruise” down Woodward with all of the others I immediately say, “Yes!”
We get into the car and I immediately reach for the CD player. We both know that music is much more than something that people dance to. Moreover we both know that most of what goes onto the “Now that’s what I call music” CDs is not music. I put in an album that we both love, Don’t You Fake It by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, and turn the volume up. The sound of the band that we will see live in two days fills the car, and within moments, we are roaring down Woodward in our silver Toyota, surrounded by American cars.
I turn the music down when I see something that I don’t like. It is a huge flatbed truck, Ford I think, with a crowd of college-age boys riding in the back. They are holding up a sign that says, “CRUISING IS FOR AMERICANS. TAKE YOUR FOREIGN CARS HOME!” When they see us in our foreign car, our Toyota, they laugh and point and make ugly faces at us. One of them flips us the bird.
“What the—?” you mutter when you notice the commotion. I nervously nod to the sign, and you shake your head. “Idiots,” you mutter scornfully, and switch lanes so as to put as much distance between us and the boys as possible.
“I hate it when people do that,” I say softly.
You reach across the gearshift and pat my hand reassuringly. “People are stupid,” you tell me. “Let them honk their horns all they like. We have as much right to be on this road as anyone else.”
Something in your voice makes me sit up straight and stare proudly out the window, instead of hunching over and thinking Please God don’t let them see who is inside this car as most probably would. I turn the volume up again and roll the windows down. We sing along together, not caring if we attract attention.
People always tell me that I have your eyes. I think I do. They’re large and dark-blue, with long eyelashes and constant dark circles beneath them, just like yours. We have the same curly hair, the same loud and obnoxious laugh, the same disregard for any rule that we deem unnecessary.
What it took me sixteen years to realize was that we also have the same courage.
This is not the first time I have understood that fact. Indeed, driving down Woodward during the Dream Cruise in a Toyota truck is on the list of less-risky things that we have done together.
The first time I went off a diving board, when I was six years old—that was with you. You held my hand as we walked to the diving board, and you cheered me on as I jumped into the twelve-foot-deep water. I was so scared—but it was worth it. It was worth the exhilaration and worth seeing the pride on your face when I surfaced.
You took me to my first carnival two years later. I was terrified of clowns and did not want to go just because I was afraid I might see one, but you promised me there would be no clowns and if there were, you would not let them come near me. You held my hand while we waited in line for the Ferris wheel; while I tossed rings and won an inflatable hammer; while we rode the tilt-a-whirl together.
Just last spring we went whitewater rafting together with my school’s Adventure Club. I was afraid that I would drown. You assured me that you would not let that happen. You buckled me into my life jacket and helmet and squeezed my hand reassuringly before we took our places in the huge rubber raft. Within the first fifteen minutes of our trip down the river I was squealing with excitement, all fear forgotten.
What you taught me over the years is not that courage means you are never scared. It means that eventually, you have to let go of your protector’s hand and take the bull by the horns.
And so while we cruise down Woodward, I let go of your hand and wave merrily to the people sitting on the sidelines, sitting on their folding chairs consuming hot dogs and pretzels, and smirk to myself as they stare in shock and I hope that they are not thinking, Those people are crazy, but, Wow, those people are brave.