Life, actually…some forty years ago when the world first blossomed…

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THE GREAT WHITE MOBY-LESABRE

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The front driver seat is bent both backwards and sideways. It is askew because I am in the habit of driving with the left hand, my right arm draped over the back of the front passenger seat. You know—like cool and dreamy.

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Over a period of time, such unnatural pressure transforms the back-rest, thus guaranteeing that nobody else wants to drive the car in such a peculiar position.

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Nobody in the family wants to drive the car anyhow, since it is very large, very white, very dusty on the outside. I have washed it perhaps three or four times in ten years.

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It is a 1979 Buick LeSabre four-door and looks rather like Moby-Dick on wheels, according to my kids.

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It has faded red cloth upholstery and black wall tires and a decidedly third-world look.

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As I drive, the car tends to sway gently back and forth over potholes and speed bumps, kind of like a boat. I can’t hear anything outside on the road when the windows are closed, so I drive in a soundproofed booth.

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As I cruise I barely have the sense of driving since the car has automatic transmission power steering power brakes power transmission and the like.

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I love this car. Somewhere along the way my wife gives me something I’ve wanted for years: a car tape deck that not only plays cassette tapes, but records them, too.

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So, I can tool around the countryside dictating to the tape machine, recording my Red Clay diaries, singing at the bottom of my lungs into the microphone or screaming at the top of my lungs when I feel I can’t get away with screaming at anyone or anything else.

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And I can enjoy my very own music.

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It is grand self-therapy, driving this monster car and talking to myself,  afterwards dating and labeling the tapes so that I can someday transcribe and share them with you, whoever you may be.

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One day, Moby-LeSabre is stolen from in front of my home, and I never see that great white vehicle again.

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Gone is the comfort of a portable sound booth, gone the electronic voice- reproducing machine. Gone is my private little portable universe.

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I don’t spend too much time feeling sorry for myself, but I still dream of the day I can afford to purchase a 1957 Lincoln Continental or one of those other old restored cars that are tons heavier and inches longer than even Moby-LeSabre.

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Wonder if they will still be manufacturing audio cassette recorders when that day comes

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© 2022 A.D. Jim Reed

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