After the teacher asked if anyone had
a sacred place
and the students fidgeted and shrank

in their chairs, the most serious of them all

said it was his car,
being in it alone, his tape deck playing

things he’d chosen, and others knew the truth
had been spoken
and began speaking about their rooms,

their hiding places, but the car kept coming up,
the car in motion,
music filling it, and sometimes one other person

who understood the bright altar of the dashboard
and how far away
a car could take him from the need

to speak, or to answer, the key
in having a key
and putting it in, and going.

 

 

If you know me at all, you know that my car isn’t just “my car.” She’s Ruby Sue the Subaru. (Say that five times fast!) She’s a feisty, adventuresome 2017 Forester, the first automobile I can truly call my own. 

 

Actually, Ruby Sue is Ruby Sue v2. Ruby Sue the First was my high school best friend John’s beat-up 1970s Outback, a hand-me-down that would only start with the help of the wrench he carried in his back pocket. Her paint was cracked and her seats well-worn, but she meant freedom. Like J.K. Rowling reimagined her high school friend’s turquoise Ford as a flying car in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, I rein”car”nated the Subaru of my teenage years with a shinier, souped-up version for my 20s (and hopefully my 30s and beyond.) 

 

I always name/otherwise anthropomorphize my cars. First there was Van-illa, the loyal white Toyota minivan that ferried me to and from Girl Scout crafternoons and summer holidays with Grandma and Pop-Pop. Then there was Marshmallow, thusly named because she was small, white, and easily flattened, the ’97 Toyota Corolla I drove to high school debate tournaments and pizza dates at Dion’s. And then there was my college car, Rojo, my grandmother’s old red Buick that earned me way too many parking tickets on the OU campus. I toyed with other, more original names for Ruby Sue —like “Cherry Garcia”, because I bought her at Garcia Subaru in Albuquerque— but “Ruby Sue” just felt right. It meant freedom. 

 

“Ruby, she was made for goin’ west / Did not protest my wandering ways” 

– from Ira Wolf’s  “Ruby,” a love song to her van 

 

“Ruby Ruby Sue, where are you? / We got some work to do now” 

– sung to the tune of the “Scooby Doo, Where are You?” theme song (usually at the start of a road trip or in a packed parking lot)