THUNDR
By Epiphany Ferrell
October 15, 2023
October 15, 2023
David sure did love that Charger.
He was three years old when it was born. Even though he was two grades ahead of me in school, we were friends, sort of, at least in art class. It was a small school. I knew he’d worked all summer, and he saved almost every penny so he could buy that car. It was dingy yellow with a faded black swoosh when he bought it, but he said it was American muscle and a classic.
David worked at McDonalds and he worked at Bod’s auto shop, spending all his McDonald’s money and trading in his Bod’s time to work on the Charger. He drove it spotted with gray Bondo and it sputtered and stalled at red lights, and the popular girls snubbed him and wouldn’t ride in it. He gave me a ride home from school sometimes, and I thought it was sufficiently cool. But David had a bigger vision. He’d talk to me about it sometimes in art class, how he’d ordered special wax with apricot oil that would make the Charger gleam, and how he was overhauling the engine at Bod’s. We’d see then, he said.
And see we did. The car was gone for several weeks. David rode in the passenger seat of his friend’s cars or he drove his mom’s shitty Pacer and just when I thought maybe he’d wrecked the Charger, he roared into the parking lot where we all hung out on Friday nights, the Charger a solid, gleaming black, the engine growling like a tiger, the rims shiny and catching and throwing the light. He revved the engine and the car lurched in place like a frisky colt.
He got out and popped the hood and the guys hung around and talked about crankshafts and fuel intake and stuff I didn’t care about, but when David slammed the hood, several girls surged forward. “Uh huh, I’m shotgun,” Randy said, and I stepped back because I wasn’t one of the popular kids, but David got out and moved the seat and said, “Get in,” so I did. I rode in the middle back, with my legs brushing against the legs of the girls on either side of me, my head against the new upholstery, listening to the Charger growl. The girls, Em and Sarah, thought David should hurry up and get some good speakers, but I liked the engine sound, and the way David smiled when the car accelerated. I hadn’t noticed until he was driving how handsome he was, and go ahead and laugh, but it wasn’t just the cool car, it was how much he loved the cool car. It ended up I got a ride home with him that night, and it was just me and him and he drove “the long way” which is to say, just driving around for a while.
“Do you have a name for it?” I asked. I was a person who liked to name things.
“A name?” he laughed. “No, I didn’t name my car.”
“I’d name it Thunder,” I said.
He gave me a ride home from school every day that week. I wanted him to take my picture sitting on the hood but he wouldn’t allow that, just me standing in front of it, the shine reflecting the camera flash like a star. David said he kept the Charger waxed so well for wind resistance. And he was right, that car slipped through the air without a ripple, sleek as a seal.
“I’m getting personalized plates,” he said on Friday. “Guess what they’ll say?”
“Lovemycar?”
“Thunder.”
And I never felt more special than I did that day, when David named his car what I suggested.
I went to see Thunder afterward. There was a deep V in the front bumper, like a pincer. The whole front end was crumpled to the hood scoop. The steering wheel protruded from the shattered ice of the windshield. I put my hand on the driver’s side window, on the spider web dent where David’s head hit. He’d worn his seatbelt. It hadn’t mattered.
Thunder was still sleek from the door handles back. I peered through the window. There was where I’d sat that first night, where my head had rested. There was one of my shoes, which I’d kicked off to slip into the house barefoot on another night.
I thought about how much David loved that car, and how much the car didn’t love him back. It was pitiless glass and steel and it never cared about anything, not about a boy who spent every penny he earned on special waxes and fancy rims and satiny-shiny paint.
I kicked the car as hard as I could, kicked the door and the back quarter panel and the license plate that said “THUNDR” until the guy from the junk yard came and told me to stop it, stop it! I didn’t even leave a dent.
He was three years old when it was born. Even though he was two grades ahead of me in school, we were friends, sort of, at least in art class. It was a small school. I knew he’d worked all summer, and he saved almost every penny so he could buy that car. It was dingy yellow with a faded black swoosh when he bought it, but he said it was American muscle and a classic.
David worked at McDonalds and he worked at Bod’s auto shop, spending all his McDonald’s money and trading in his Bod’s time to work on the Charger. He drove it spotted with gray Bondo and it sputtered and stalled at red lights, and the popular girls snubbed him and wouldn’t ride in it. He gave me a ride home from school sometimes, and I thought it was sufficiently cool. But David had a bigger vision. He’d talk to me about it sometimes in art class, how he’d ordered special wax with apricot oil that would make the Charger gleam, and how he was overhauling the engine at Bod’s. We’d see then, he said.
And see we did. The car was gone for several weeks. David rode in the passenger seat of his friend’s cars or he drove his mom’s shitty Pacer and just when I thought maybe he’d wrecked the Charger, he roared into the parking lot where we all hung out on Friday nights, the Charger a solid, gleaming black, the engine growling like a tiger, the rims shiny and catching and throwing the light. He revved the engine and the car lurched in place like a frisky colt.
He got out and popped the hood and the guys hung around and talked about crankshafts and fuel intake and stuff I didn’t care about, but when David slammed the hood, several girls surged forward. “Uh huh, I’m shotgun,” Randy said, and I stepped back because I wasn’t one of the popular kids, but David got out and moved the seat and said, “Get in,” so I did. I rode in the middle back, with my legs brushing against the legs of the girls on either side of me, my head against the new upholstery, listening to the Charger growl. The girls, Em and Sarah, thought David should hurry up and get some good speakers, but I liked the engine sound, and the way David smiled when the car accelerated. I hadn’t noticed until he was driving how handsome he was, and go ahead and laugh, but it wasn’t just the cool car, it was how much he loved the cool car. It ended up I got a ride home with him that night, and it was just me and him and he drove “the long way” which is to say, just driving around for a while.
“Do you have a name for it?” I asked. I was a person who liked to name things.
“A name?” he laughed. “No, I didn’t name my car.”
“I’d name it Thunder,” I said.
He gave me a ride home from school every day that week. I wanted him to take my picture sitting on the hood but he wouldn’t allow that, just me standing in front of it, the shine reflecting the camera flash like a star. David said he kept the Charger waxed so well for wind resistance. And he was right, that car slipped through the air without a ripple, sleek as a seal.
“I’m getting personalized plates,” he said on Friday. “Guess what they’ll say?”
“Lovemycar?”
“Thunder.”
And I never felt more special than I did that day, when David named his car what I suggested.
I went to see Thunder afterward. There was a deep V in the front bumper, like a pincer. The whole front end was crumpled to the hood scoop. The steering wheel protruded from the shattered ice of the windshield. I put my hand on the driver’s side window, on the spider web dent where David’s head hit. He’d worn his seatbelt. It hadn’t mattered.
Thunder was still sleek from the door handles back. I peered through the window. There was where I’d sat that first night, where my head had rested. There was one of my shoes, which I’d kicked off to slip into the house barefoot on another night.
I thought about how much David loved that car, and how much the car didn’t love him back. It was pitiless glass and steel and it never cared about anything, not about a boy who spent every penny he earned on special waxes and fancy rims and satiny-shiny paint.
I kicked the car as hard as I could, kicked the door and the back quarter panel and the license plate that said “THUNDR” until the guy from the junk yard came and told me to stop it, stop it! I didn’t even leave a dent.
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Epiphany Ferrell lives perilously close to the Shawnee Hills Wine Trail in Southern Illinois. Her stories appear in more than 70 journals and anthologies, including Ghost Parachute, New Flash Fiction Review, Bending Genres, and Best Microfiction. She is a two-time Pushcart nominee, and a Prime Number Magazine Flash Fiction Prize recipient. Connect at epiphanyferrell.com or on social media.
Twitter: @EpiphanyFerrell Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/epiphany.ferrell |
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