Inspired by a Song

inspired by a song

I got my first car because Tommy couldn't pay me up straight. We argued for a while, and eventually I told him that I would get Johnny to straighten things out. Tommy owed me $250 off of the dope I had sold him. I didn't even keep any for myself.

When I mentioned Johnny's name, Tommy hesitated a bit before offering me his piece of shit car. I didn't care that it was a piece of shit, it had wheels. All I could think of was how much easier it would be to drive around town scoring as opposed to dealing with Philly's crappy public trans system. I don't even want to get into the cab drivers.

First, I drove around town a bit, making sure everyone saw me in my new car. It was beautiful. It was an electric blue Ford LTD. It moved like no other car on the road. It was amazing. It made me feel like I had wings.

I knew that Kelly would be hanging out at Dirty Frank's, so I drove by to pick her up. I pulled the car up in front of a fire hydrant, and ran into the bar. She was there, already trashed, hanging out with a few dope fiends that we knew. When I walked up to her, she was as excited to see me as she could be.

I told her I had something to show her, and she walked outside with me to see. When she saw the LTD, she went crazy. “Drive me to the ocean,” she yelled, “Or maybe the cape!”

She was so happy to see that I had a car, anything else didn't seem to matter. “I don't care where we go, just drive me away from here,” she said, “Drive me out of this town.”

I think I promised to drive her places. Instead, I drove us to the park. Nelly was there, with King and Jonah and all the cool dope addicts and rockers who hung out in Washington Square back then. They all ran to the street to see me and my car. King wanted to check it out, so he hopped in the backseat and off we drove. He wanted to see if there was this guy he knew on Fairmount Avenue, around fourth. We drove up that way, but we took our time driving through Old City so we could see all the hip kids decked out and bar-hopping. We all took turns flicking lit cigarettes at them as we drove around. We must have wasted twelve unsmoked but lit cigarettes on all those cats from New Jersey.

Kelly and I watched all the models and such walking out of the Continental and Swanky Bubbles, and we imagined what the bars and restaurants would be like as we drove around the country. We imagined the mountains between Pennsylvania and Ohio, and we convinced ourselves that we would skinny dip in a nice lake somewhere around Nevada. Neither of us were smart enough to know there aren't any lakes around Nevada. King was getting anxious, so we drove up to Fourth and Fairmount Avenue. He met his dealer there, and we all had our own share of dope for the night. Since I was driving, I just snorted it. King and Kelly shot up while I parked outside of an abandoned restaurant whose sign read “The Ass Restaurant.”

We drove down to South Street where underage girls flashed their breasts at us, and King decided he wanted to get out of the car and wander the streets. We let him off outside of Tower Records because Jimmy Gold was there. Jimmy and King played in a band together once, I don't remember what they were called.

Kelly and I were running low on dope, so we drove up towards Girard Avenue. On the way, we stopped at the 700 Club and Kelly got into a stupid fistfight with some girl who grabbed Kelly's martini by mistake. The bartender broke up the fight before anything serious happened, but recommended to me that we leave. Kelly threw her drink towards a table of people and asked me when we were going to the ocean. She had never seen the ocean, she told me.

I took Kelly out to the car and we drove up to Girard Avenue. I parked along Fourth street and we walked over to the storefront Chinese restaurant and tried to wait. I ended up having to order two dishes of shrimp fried rice and we had to just stand there in front of the bulletproof glass pretending to eat until someone finally asked us what we were looking for. He told us to meet him outside of the church.

We were waiting outside of the Cathedral where Saint John Neumann is encased in wax for what seemed like an eternity. I pretended to go into the alley behind the church to piss, but really I sniffed the rest of my heroin. I just didn't want Kelly to know I was holding out on her. He finally showed, and Kelly and I spent our last fifty dollars on dope. This time we both shot up and I drove the car as far as I could until I couldn't see the road anymore. I pulled over somewhere around Penn's Landing. I climbed into the backseat and kissed Kelly, who had already passed out. I should have known then. I didn't feel anything when I kissed her.

I woke up, she didn't. I screamed at her and pulled her out of the car onto the sidewalk, but she was gone. I screamed at her and hit her and kicked her once, and then some waterfront drunk told me to stop bothering. I knew she was dead, I just kept hoping.

After I got out of jail, I drove away. I was too happy that they gave me my car back to stick around. I didn't even say good-bye to King or Jonah. I just drove. Besides, they were putting Kelly in the dirt, and I didn't want to see that or know about it.

I saw mountains as I drove, and I passed what might have been lakes or rivers, I wasn't sure. I finally reached the ocean outside of Los Angeles. She was with me the whole time. I know she was. To this day I feel like I drove her everywhere I said I would.