Let Us Not Pretend

It was saturday, the cars were coming down South Woodland and the song Tragedy by the Bee Gees was blasting in Garry's Camaro. He was thinking on Dakks last words, " We make our own monsters, who inevitably serve their revenge". It looked like an acident up ahead by the look in his eyes, but it was only his spirit, coming out to the surface, broken. A pensive look drowned in confusion and self doubt. The feelings the song  "Tragedy" brought out in him were intense. We had never witnessed him exercising emotion in any respect other than anger. Garry was our geeky 'bad boy' at our high school as far as temper and adoration for muscle cars, but he was also the nerdy guy many of us laughed at instead of with. His relationship with Sherrie was dangerously close to exploding and the decision to break her heart, not take her to the senior prom and not to accompany her to California, was aleady set in stone, it was made without any conditions.
     The two of them had been fighting for weeks, even months before prom arrangements were thought to be made. Gary described it being less and less exciting to be around this volatile eruption of crassness, manevolence and bitterness Sherrie tossed into the relationship frequently. Then last week, at a party, she slapped him just out of sheer frustration, admitted to being out of control, and begged for forgiveness or help, whichever he could muster. He gave her nothing but a cold shoulder and stranded to be taken home by whomever wanted to cross Gary. Sherrie felt she was so alone.
     She had recently been diagnosed with scoliosis and was told that she is required to meet her physician for the first fitting of a back brace that was to be worn for the rest of her life. "Sherrie I am afraid the damage is too serious and this last car wreck traumatized the potential threat to partial paralysis, we are in no position to perform corrective surgery without risking mobility from the waist down, I'm sorry."
     "Are you saying I might be paralyzed from scoliosis?" exclaimed Sherrie. "No, I am saying that this last race in which you came in fifth against Garry and beat him, as the result of your crash and the extensive damage to the nerve endings and ripped muscle tissue, these factors threaten our decision to surgically correct the spine initially deformed by the structural damage scoliosis exacerbates", Dr. so and so gently said.
     The possibility of corrective surgery was out of the question because too many nerve endings coming together at the spinal imperfection would risk her loosing mobility from the waist down. She agreed against her vivacious spirit to the brace and even a wheelchair when the pain got really bad. Her dilemma was letting Garry in on what her prognosis was and how their lives would drastically change forever. What she did not know was that Garry had long since made a decision to leave her and go to Canada instead, leaving everything here in Ohio, behind.
     He had to follow some words of wisdom. It was a much-repeated quote heard through his lifetime, "great explorers are often lonely, no time for a family" by his grandfather who fathered his dad but left him for a greater adventure as a vagabond seeker. Garry was a rebel. In his sixteenth year he was awarded his drivers license, put the final gloss coat of paint on the 1963 split-window coupe corvette he restored and took it for its first spin around the neighborhood. It did not drive like the Camaro or the Trans-Am, it was sleeker.
     When we could, on the weekends, we got out and cruised no matter what car was available to drive. The moon was sometimes low enough in the sky that we did not need the headlights as we gently cajoled the ribbon roads of pavement along Chagrin river. As the car- either a Chevy Camaro, Pontiac Trans-Am, Plymouth Duster, or the Purple n' white AMC Gremlin- snaked its way around eroding side ditches, we sang along with a variety of 70 and 80's tunes and put the speedometer well-past 60mph. If it was one of the convertibles you can bet the top was down and us girls did not fret about a 'bad-hair' experience and have a tantrum. It was unheard of as this gang of gals shared an understanding of looking like they lead the wild life. Appearances can be deceiving even for the very astute. That burned some of the guys up cause they each felt they knew their own special squeeze down to the very last detail.

There was friction, always between choices of places to roll and places to park, but we managed to eat a tank of gas each outing. Gary decided to start listening to new music, because the older 70's stuff just was not getting it for him, especially without the love of his life being able to dance beside him. The new music was the rougher heavy metal stuff that required a really good stereo system, so he began re-inventing the power-booster !

"Tragedy" could never have again, been a sweeter sound in his new life.
the end