I am in the backseat of my mom’s 65 Mustang with my brother
Andy, pretending to take a trip to Arizona. We’re bouncing around on the tan
seat, talking about what we see on the way. Sometimes we sit in the front
seats, one of turning the wheel and leaning into the turn, the other one
leaning along as we pass each roadrunner and saguaro cactus on our way to the
exotic land of extended family, people we see only every couple of years, but
with whom we instantly fall into comfortable synchronicity. These people always
have Popsicles in their freezers.
But Andy and I have wearied of the front seat, and have
decamped to the back, when we realize that this is the
perfect vantage point from which to observe and critique the neighborhood. Conveniently, our neighbor across the street pulls up, parks and exits his car
and stoops to reach in and remove items from his trunk. Andy, recognizing
the possibilities of our anonymity, yells out the window,
“You need SCOPE in your BUTT!”
“You need SCOPE in your BUTT!”
We fall to the floor of the car to hide, giggling madly at
the wit, buoyed by the heady danger of saying such a shocking and hilarious thing
to not only a grown-up, but a neighbor. We lie there for a long time after he has gone inside, laughing on those tan seats, pleased and proud.
