Here’s another tale from my college days.
To begin with, I had a crush on my roommate’s girlfriend. And if you’ve ever been in that situation, you know how difficult those waters are to navigate: you get to spend plenty of time with her platonically, but you know who she leaves with at the end of the party, and it isn’t you. So you take nearly any opportunity to spend even a few minutes alone with her, even though you know you’ll never make “the move.” You can’t; it would undermine everything; mountains would crumble; rivers would change course; the skies would fall. But still, when you get a chance for a moment or two...
Her name began with a K, so for the purposes of this story, I’ll just call her that. Haven’t seen her in 25 years, and it isn’t nice to blab about someone all over the internet. Or so I’m told.
(No, this isn’t that kind of story. Get your mind out of the gutter. This is a story about driving.)
During finals week in the spring of 1992, my roommate was off taking a test, I was studying for a final I had the next day, and K was done with hers, so she was bored. But she had my roommate’s car keys. And I needed a study break. So when she knocked on the door and suggested that we go across to Duluth and hit the record stores, I agreed.
Aside 1: the record stores in those days in downtown Duluth were the Electric Fetus (still there, but greatly diminished), a head shop that also sold vinyl called The Last Place On Earth (long gone), and the fabulously cluttered Carlson’s Books, which had a huge disorganized music section (also gone, and much missed).
My roommate’s car was a mid-Eighties Chrysler New Yorker, one of the front-wheel-drive ones with the 2.2 turbo four. It was not a cool car by any stretch, but K could make anything seem cool just by her presence. She popped in a cassette of Judas Priest’s Turbo, turned it up loud, and peeled out of the student parking lot behind the dorms, heading for the High Bridge.
Aside 2: there are two bridges connecting Superior, WI to Duluth, MN over the westernmost tip of Lake Superior: the Interstate 535 bridge, which arches over the bay to allow ships to pass over it, and the US 2 bridge, which is longer, lower, and named for WWII ace pilot Richard Bong. They are collquially known as the “High Bridge” and the “Bong Bridge.” You can imagine the hilarity this caused in a college town.
The speed limit on the High Bridge was 45 mph, but everybody pushed it a little bit. K doubled it. She weaved the blue Chrysler through late-morning traffic with absolute confidence and authority. Good god, I thought. She’s beautiful, smart, clever, genuinely kind, and she can drive. This was not helping.
I wasn’t nervous at all, and I tend to reach for the imaginary brake pedal whenever someone else starts driving too fast. But K knew what she as doing. I just enjoyed the ride, directing my attention to the Chrysler’s digital speedometer (flashing 85), Rob Halford’s wailing lyrics, the thundering beat, and K’s bare legs.
So when we rounded the curve onto Interstate 35 heading into downtown and she stood on the brakes, I was taken by surprise, to say the least. I looked up, and the Chrysler’s windshield, my entire field of vision, the entire universe, was filled with the back of a semi truck, trundling along at walking speed. Traffic ahead of us was nearly stopped.
The Chrysler skidded; K flicked it towards the shoulder, and we missed the truck by less than a car length. Judas Priest thundered on; the truck was none of their concern.
“Whoo!” K exclaimed.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You OK?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Fine,” she said, and smiled. “Let’s just keep this between ourselves, OK?”
She pulled back into traffic and we continued into downtown, at a much more sedate pace. But she never did turn the music down.