It makes me think about exactly where I'm going, and even though I'm never exactly sure, I know I don't have time to stop on the way or I may never get started again. I can smell the roses with the window down. I can breathe the fresh air at 70 on the freeway heading west into the sunset and the sea.
Don't make me drive an automatic. I want to be in control. I'm going to shift the weight of the world from one gear to another. Don't stop me from fiddling with the knobs on the radio. Don't worry. I'll keep driving. There's nothing else to do.
There's something about a push start -- it's simple and clean. I'm all for modern technology and I haven't got anything against a decent, working starter, even if I've been hard-pressed to afford one lately. But it's these little things that take me out of the everyday traffic lanes of routine and ennui that threaten to drive me (metaphorically speaking, this time) into a morass of solipsistic discontent.
This is how it works: I put in the key, put it in neutral. The everyman gives me a shove and after a while I let the gear out and it starts turning over again. Even a perpetual motion machine needs someone to put the initial energy in. Even the bonds of humanity need a push start every once in a while, corny as it may sound.
So help me get going. Move me right along. Don't try to slow me down. I've still got time to smell those roses. I may not have anywhere in particular to go; maybe just home, wherever that happens to be. It's the going that's the challenge, because anyone can sit on the side of the road and look grimly despondent, and anyone else can march off to the nearest pay phone and dial the number on the shiny white plastic card in their wallet, and buy their own everyman, an official everyman, not a real one. I don't mind stopping a stranger on the street and asking for a push. I'll give you a push, if you need it. It's not an inconvenience. I like these little quirks. They keep life interesting. They keep life alive. This isn't just about my car. It's about true love and the infinite and all that. Trust me, if you don't already.
Yesterday I was stuck in traffic downtown and the engine was overheating, again. Something exploded -- something small, but something. I didn't really want to look and see, but I guess it'll all have to get fixed now, the starter included. And yes, it's an inconvenience when I really need to get somewhere -- a specific place at a specific time, which is fortunately rather rare Ñ and we're living in the age of convenience. Inconvenience is the counterculture, I guess.
So I'll take my counterculture conversation piece to the shop tomorrow, and they'll put on a new hose or a gasket or a spark plug, rewire the starter, write out an invoice.
And then things will be so boring.