Cungadero (Nonfiction)
It is a five block walk from my parking spot to my apartment.
Normally, I only drive on Mondays and Wednesdays, and that’s just for work. Occasionally Saturdays. Never Fridays. But one Friday, I walked through the thick Austin heat to my car.
It had only been a week since I last saw my boyfriend. We already missed each other. There was a hellish type of hope that long-distance same-state relationships gave you– close, but not close enough. We wanted to see one another again, on the upcoming three day weekend.
I could pick you up, I sent before really processing what that meant. Last time he visited, he said the bus ride was five hours. That would be too long to be feasible; I would be too tired to enjoy any of my time with him. A drive that long would suck. But then again– that was the bus. I had a car. Without stopping, I could make it to his house in under three hours.
I didn’t know if I was up to it. I had never driven that far, at least, not by myself. Was this something only serious couples did? Were we serious? Serious was scary.
You should do it! He said.
But I’m scared.
There was plenty of time to re-think the decision as I packed for the one night I would stay at his place before driving us back to Austin to enjoy the weekend. A cumulative 12-hour exodus, half of that spent alone in a car I had only been driving for two months.
When we first bought it, my mother seemed to want to find anything possible that could be wrong with the car. She insisted the inside smelled like piss– it was a rental car in its old life, so honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had peed in it during its 30,000 mile tenure. There was a small chip in the windshield. It hadn’t been washed before getting loaded onto the truck, so a thin patina of grime covered its black surface.
Instead of letting me take the car for a test run, she piloted it cautiously around the pothole-ridden streets of West Campus before parallel parking after 10 minutes. I sat in the passenger seat as she judged the car’s capabilities– the trunk was too small, the gas was too touchy, she didn’t like how tinted the windows were. Somehow, I felt defensive of it. Like I knew it was just doing its best under the circumstances. I felt the need to protect the vehicle from my mom’s watchful, all-seeing eye.
“Honey, we aren’t married to this car. If there’s anything you don’t like about it, we can return it and pick out a different one.” From the tone of her voice, I knew she wanted me to. Perhaps just to slight Carvana, who delayed our car delivery twice.
I had spent too long being stationary. I was tired of getting rides from friends and taking the bus, or just staying home because I felt I couldn’t be bothered to make someone go out of their way to bring me somewhere. This was a way I could rely on myself instead of other people.
My fingers flexed around the armrests. “No. I want it.”
Cungadero had never given me any problems. She’s a great car. Hybrid gas-electric, so she gets a full tank– almost 600 miles– for only thirty bucks. The distance from Austin to Arlington was more than 180 miles one way. I would be traveling this path four times. Both my guide and my steed; we could make it.
I walked the five blocks and threw my bag in the passenger seat. The GPS already had the destination put in ever since he sent me his address. This was happening. I was doing it.
I felt like Samwise Gamgee– one more step, and this will be the furthest I’ve ever been away from home. That wasn’t true for me. I had moved once every two years of my life; travel was second nature. But now, for the first time, I was alone. My first taste of true independence should have been flavorful and filling, but when I was 20 miles away from my apartment, I could barely tell it had happened at all. I swallowed, dry. Had my journey begun? I wasn’t sure.
The scenery began to change. Spaghetti junction overlapping overpasses and roads with the same stability of ocean waves– already being nervous wasn’t helped at all by going 80 on the highway.
I remembered my father coaching me on how to drive over the years, accompanying me on practice drives and giving me rapid-fire instructions that made me sweat through the leather of our minivan. I learned how to drive in some of the most hellish places to be on the road– Honolulu, D.C., cities in Italy. Comparatively, the roads of Austin were tame. There was no dad over my shoulder, judging how I merged, now.
On the road were Christian billboards that declared monosyllabic statements in big, bold letters: “GOD IS GOOD.” “REPENT TODAY.” “CHRIST IS LORD.” I found it a little funny seeing these messages delivered with the same subtlety as a blunt-force weapon– the people on the I-35 move fast. No time for years of gentle indoctrination when they’re moving so quickly.
There’s a little figurine of Jesus that dances the charleston on my dashboard. I bought it from ToyJoy. It came with a little bible of biblical dance moves, like “the Lazarus” and “pour the water (into wine)”. He wiggles from side to side to any song that comes up on my playlist– my mom would think it’s sacrilegious and tell me to get rid of it. I think personally Jesus has a sense of humor. But I keep that idea to myself.
Somehow, all I could think of as I drove was everyone but the person I was driving to visit. Every landmark I passed was not an indicator of how close I was getting to him– it just felt like I was moving further away from others. From their approval, from the discomfort but familiarity of judgment. It was as if the world outside of them did not exist. I was destined to live in the shadow of their critique and observation until I died.
There was no reason to stop. I didn’t have to fill up on gas, or use the bathroom, or get a snack. My panic attack was relatively minor. But I pulled into the Buc-ee's parking lot anyway. It was full of people, their eyes passing and then locking onto me for a single moment– just absorbing another car, piece of the scenery– before moving away. The microsecond of recognition was like a terrifying assessment of everything I was. Somehow, I knew that they knew I was afraid, smelling the fear of someone pretending to be an adult, someone who was disobeying the will of her rulers.
I got back in my car.
I had never done anything this impulsive in my life; but even then, was this really that unreasonable? I was driving to see my partner. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. There was always the promise that I would be seen, and I would be judged, by someone. My parents, God, anyone who cared to have an opinion on me. And they would have an opinion on me. My anxious mind turned a stranger who would never remember I existed into a driving motivator on how to behave.
My parent’s ideals were law. They didn’t want me to drive to visit a friend of mine on my own, one who lived only an hour away– what would they think of me seeing a partner who lived even further than that? If they saw me now…
But, I thought. They can’t see you now. And neither can the people outside.
I looked up. The tinted windows obscured any clear sight into what was inside. No one cared to look any closer past the surface of Cungadero’s chassis.
It was like everything fell into place, all at once. What was I thinking, worrying about what random passerby that I would never see again thought of me?
No one knew I was taking this trip but my partner. This personal, lonely exodus that I felt shame for. I was just scared.
Then do it scared.
I arrived at his house and met his own parents in a daze. They felt like the opposite of mine– friendly, making crude, silly jokes and playing games. They treated me like they had known me for years, showing me baby pictures and making me tea.
We made the same trip, backwards, but it couldn’t have been more different. He commented on the Christian billboards, the swerving roads, the crowded parking lots and their patrons. It felt like I was seeing everything differently when I was with him– like he didn’t have a critical bone in his body. Like he reminded me that I could witness, the same way others witnessed; that I was not just an object to be criticized.
We spent the weekend together. It was perfect.
The time passed too quickly. We spent at least half an hour saying “okay, it’s time to go,” before we left the apartment. The trip back to his home was even faster, the hours spent talking and laughing and listening to podcasts. An exodus had turned into a dalliance– a previously insurmountable mountain into a concavity. I walked him to his front porch and stood there, hands in my pockets. It was over, until the next time, and I couldn’t walk away.
I was afraid of the crash. Of being alone again. But wasn’t that what I wanted? To finally do things on my own? To be by myself? That was the whole reason I came to visit him. To make a choice that was my own, and to enjoy what had come from it. I lingered in the doorway and found any excuse I could to stay longer-- let me say hi to your pet turtle again. I'll use the bathroom. Get a snack. But it was time to go.
I returned to Cungadero with no one in the passenger seat. I kept my eyes on the road.
The first time I had been alone since Friday– truly alone. No thoughts of judgement or being surveilled. For once, I was invisible.