Driving up the GW parkway the other night, watching the snow covered trees flash by, triggered a rush of memories: I thought for a moment of 1975 when my friend Kevin and I used to hang out with Rachel and Janice in their apartment above a bakery on 7 mile and Van Dyke. I can still smell the bread baking while we sat on the floor and drank Lambrusco and smoked Newports and Kools... Rachel was a titty dancer at the Grand Duchess (though she had really small tits), I was into Janice who was dark eyed and swayed just so... One time she sang a song she wrote which was stupid (and she knew it) but I still remember after all these years: " The rain is falling from the sky, falling from the clouds, falling from my eyes...” dumb lyrics but it was a sweet moment that she shared... later that year she invited me up north to see her and her new boyfriend on his 'ranch' somewhere way the fuck up near Mackinaw. I was young and dumb enough to think "why not?' and so I drove my Chevy up there in January.rolling past snow covered pines for hours... till I got there and promtly put my Nova in a ditch on the 'ranch' driveway. Anyhow I remember Janice, her boyfriend (who kept saying to her: "God Damn woman it's 1975!), and I dropped mescaline and played pool at the local bar with the rednecks. I was quite a sight in those days, a super skinny kid with red hair down to his ass, and a fancy leather jacket with zippers all over it. Some how I managed not to get my self killed by the redneck locals or the cowboy boyfriend... and I can still picture the ride back to the ranch that night in his van... no heat, Janice in the passenger seat, cowboy driving, me hanging on to her armrest sitting on the cold floor, pines and snow banks flashing by at 80 MPH, the three of us tripping our brains out.... seeing her breath in the air...and a sadness in her eyes that she'd ended up with this guy, knowing I'd never see her again, and hearing his refrain... "God damn woman, it's 1975..."
Driving along I got another flash of a Christmas eve car ride when I was about 7 or 8... my dad had a 1961 Comet , and I can remember sitting in the back seat watching the big lit up yellow pages sign along side the freeway as we drove home from my grandpa's house, old spice and whiskey smells in the cold dark car, mixed with a hint of exhaust (the Comet was a real piece of shit) ... my mother huddled as close as she could get to the passenger door, her lips pursed....unhappy with my fathers drinking... her face lit by the glow from the dash and the streetlights.... for some reason this image is often the one I recall when I think of our family. I guess it sums it up.
That image flashed forward to Nicki in the front seat of my 200SX... we were driving on a wet and dark Telegraph road one Holiday in the '80s and someone cut me off. I had the reflex somehow to make just the right lane change at high speed. And she looked at me and said: "nice job"... I felt like John Wayne... and I remember her hair was so black her flecks of purple highlights shone like diamonds in the light from passing cars....
I remembered a time I was driving home from Toledo up I-75 in the crappy used Mazda I bought when Casey was back in England and "Tasha and I were living at the lake in Howell... some douche bag did a 3 lane dash for his exit right in front of me. This time either my reflex wasn't so fast or the tires couldn’t hold, but I spun 4 times at 70MPH before sliding into the shoulder grass.... all the while seeing Tasha's face wondering what would become of her...
Of course enough Christmas's have passed that I can tell how the story turned out... my folks are long dead, Nicki’s long in England, Janice and Rachael and Kevin are just ghosts of memory,Tasha remains safe at home with Casey and I, but sometimes.... when the headlights play off the snowdrifts just right... I hear a voice singing: "The rain is falling from the sky......
