I sat on the side of the highway feeling more hopeless than I had in a long time. The cars that flew past me shook my entire truck and sense of self. This was not only my first vehicle; it was my first drive. And on the berm of that highway at thirty-something-years-old, for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was set to sea without a rope.
My teen years were unusual. While friends were celebrating proms, I was celebrating the transfer from lock down facilities to group home programs with supervised privileges to the outside world. While friends were getting their licenses and first cars, I was learning all the ways to extend and wiggle my thumb in the delicate art of solo hitchhiking; once, after crossing hundreds of miles, when I escaped my third half-way house through the second-story fire escape with no safe evacuation plan in place.
At eighteen years old, my dizzying world slowed down just enough for things to come into focus. Looking around, I saw nothing but carnage surrounding me. My life had been a chaotic loop of insanity, of doing the same things and expecting different results. Seeing nothing but an existence wasteland, I packed a bag – unlike the thousands of times I’d done before – and went on the run. Using my proficient nomadic skills, I found myself drifting towards Boston.
I remember getting off the platform at South Station. Walking out and seeing all of the cars zooming past me, people rushing by on their lunch hour, and buildings towering overhead; me and my troubles suddenly felt so small. Insignificant. And in that moment, I decided that’s how I would treat them. My opioid addiction and the older boyfriend who introduced me to the drugs he sold years prior? Small. My pain sustained from the years on the run, not knowing what I’m running towards or from? Tiny. My fear of never having a meaningful life? Microscopic.
After that day, the loop slowly unraveled to a straight line. A straight life.
Admittedly, it was entirely unappealing at first. I was poor, and my whole world fit over my shoulder. The majority of my belongings were distressed journals and tattered books I sifted out of donation bins. I hiked to a rat-infested group home in Roxbury and rented a twin sized bed by the week, sharing the basement room with four other men. Hanging bed sheets and linens divided us and lended privacy. I had to carry the few valuables I had on me at all times, in a fanny pack hidden beneath my sweatshirt; I slept with it tucked in my pillow case at night, trying to adjust the hardened lump of a rucksack to rest under my cheek. But slowly, I worked my way into a single room with a lock.
I blessed my new temple of solitude with an old record player I had purchased from the Goodwill up the street the same day. I perused the vinyl section at Nuggets Record Shop and purchased the one album I could afford from the “used” section: “Pearl” by Janis Joplin. I celebrated my privacy that night by lining my belongings across my dresser and dropping the needle to play “Crybaby.” I drifted to sleep that night on a lump free pillow, listening to the cracks of a previously loved record, smiling.
I eventually moved up to sharing apartments, and before I knew it, I had one of my own. But each year, I had to pack my belongings – which had slowly accumulated over time and could no longer fit over my shoulder – and bounce around chasing cheap rent. Despite all of the progress I had made in the beginning, I idled. I found myself at a personal plateau.
Justifiable excuses were my fall back, my safety net that I fell on (more often than I’d care to admit) when friends confronted me.
“Why are you still living with your ex?” They’d wonder.
“Just because we aren’t together anymore doesn’t mean we aren’t friends!”
Translation: we hate each other but can’t afford to live alone.
“Where did you go to college again?” They’d ask.
“I haven’t just yet, but I’m planning on applying for next enrollment!”
Translation: I’m waiting for free education to hit community colleges in Massachusetts.
“Why don’t you drive?” They’d question.
“I live in Boston. A car is not a luxury, it’s a liability. Plus, the T is right outside my door!”
Translation: I left home before I ever got a license, and now I’m in a financial cul-de-sac with a shit credit score.
As much as I’d save and scrounge, by the first of every month, all of my hard work and sacrifices would be gone; all I was left with was an empty fanny pack euphemism, and I’d start again from square one. A part of me missed the early days of straightening the loop. Where the progress was fast, since I had smaller and more attainable goals. This was well over a decade of shiftless idling. I couldn’t seem to switch from second to third gear in my life.
On my birthday weekend this year, I went back home ahead of schedule to help my parents clear out their garage. I felt like an archaeologist, unearthing remnants of our own history under one roof. Covered in dirt, debris, and dust with decades in the making, I couldn’t help but reflect on my family over the years.
I’d drastically and dramatically fractured every relationship I had with members of my family, having gone through an opioid addiction in my teen years. Trauma reverberated throughout my household. A chaotic cycle ensued. I’d run, spending weeks getting high before calling home and asking if I could return. Upon the sight of me, they’d band together to form a type of familial intervention. With desperate, loving words of pleading encouragement, I could never say no to them bringing me to nearby hospitals, rehabs, and further treatment centers. But after only a short stay, I’d inevitably flee, and the cycle would continue. I began to feel less and less welcomed whenever I’d make those calls or visits; unwelcomed to the point I’d decided not to return.
Even though I’d gotten my life together completely at eighteen, for a long time the damage was done, and I could see its destruction everywhere I looked. The altar of our family felt desecrated. Fear constantly engulfed them about the possibility of me relapsing. After seeing previous birthday or holiday gifts I’d been given sitting in display cases of our local pawn shops, to trading gift cards for half their cash value in order to feed my habit, they stopped gift giving all together. Refusing to enable my drug use in any capacity. Rightfully so; I always understood why and never had hurt feelings about it, nor expected gifts after what I’d done. And with my relatives having swept that unfortunate period completely under the rug, never to discuss or mention as a means of stress avoidance and survival, I didn’t even know if it was possible to regain that trust. I just knew I wanted to be someone they were proud of.
After fourteen years of my best exerted efforts, it wasn’t until my Dad was sick that everything changed. We all rallied together. We each took turns scheduling daily visits so he was never alone in the hospital. I’d stop in on my lunch breaks just long enough to check on him before leaving and returning again at the end of my shift. While he was recovering from a blood clot, leg amputation, heart surgeries, a stroke, and countless other health conditions… past transgressions no longer mattered. If I was there then, that’s all that mattered. And I took that very seriously, deciding to be there as much as I possibly could, helping whenever I could, if I could.
Stacking another cardboard box of mementos in the “keepsakes” pile, my Dad called me over.
“Want an early birthday gift?,” He grinned, rolling in front of my path in his wheelchair. I wiped my filthy hands on a rag.
“Right now? I mean, yes! Of course!” I rubbed my palms down the front of my jeans in hopes of getting the embedded dust out. He reached into his pocket, grin widening. In a closed fist, he handed me a small, old brass pin. A crucifix with a plaque at the top containing a message:
“The owner of this car is a Roman Catholic. In case of an accident, please summon a priest.”
I titled my head, observing it, flipping it over and back again.
“That was your grandfather’s,” Dad started, “This was in his Cadillac when he died…”
I gasped and let out a quiet sigh of shock. My grandfather was a notorious car lover, and a devout Cadillac man. This was his. I couldn’t hear the rest of what my Dad was saying over my state of awe. I could only focus solely on the small, old, now incredibly meaningful brass pin in my hand.
“Dad, I don’t…” I wiped under my eyes with the back of my hand, “I don’t know what to say…I can’t believe this was Grandpa’s!” Of all the belongings I’d boxed, sorted, and stacked, I suddenly had only one prized possession in the world. And it was all I could focus on.
“…You didn’t catch the rest of that sentence did you?” Dad said, laughing.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I can keep it, right?!” I grasped it, holding it close to my chest.
His laugh made me smile. “Yes, Darling. I said, ‘Go put it in YOUR Cadillac.’”
“…What?”
The key to my Dad’s Cadillac (that he drove when he was able to) sat on the table before me. “Happy birthday,” it said.
After many tears and hugs, I went to admire my first ever vehicle. Within five days, I had passed my permit and gotten my very first license. The truck, however, was not as quick to get going. It had previously sat for three years while my Dad was newly handicapped. It had a lot of problems and had trouble starting. It felt fitting.
It was mine, alright.
Getting back to cleaning the garage later that day, I found a box filled with CD’s. On the top of the heap, there she was. “Pearl” by Janis Joplin. I smiled, remembering each track fondly. I tucked the album under my arm and carried the rest to the donation pile. When my truck was finally registered and quoted safe to drive, I set out on the open road.
Windows down, I passed all of the old, familiar places where I’d stagnated in for so long: slum apartments; dead-end jobs; old boyfriends’ houses. I flew past, feeling like I was leaving it all in my dust. It was the most freeing moment of my entire life.
Then, merging onto the highway, I heard my truck roar, and a ding sounded around me.
TRANSMISSION OVERHEATING.
“Shit!” I panicked, turning my hazards on and slamming my foot on the gas to try and speed up to avoid causing an accident. Yet the speedometer stayed fixed at forty while my truck refused to accelerate. Pulling to a halt on the shoulder, I felt my hands shake on the wheel.
I sat on the side of the highway, after that incredibly fleeting moment of liberation, watching the sun slowly set on me and the road before me. Completely hopeless.
A week later, I’d finally picked my truck up from a shop after it was quoted as safe to drive for a second time. Pulling out, all of the same problems persisted. With my truck, and myself. We were unable to switch gears. After closely watching the RPM needle jumping high with each press of my gas pedal, I looked over to see my grandfather’s pin. A smile spread across my face. After all this time, I finally began recovering broken fragments of the trust I’d shattered. I was surrounded by people who love me. Who, for better or worse, accept me just as I am. In any gear. And that made me want to fix the parts that needed it most.
Opening the center console to double check it was where I had left it, I saw the torn open envelope. My acceptance letter to Bridgewater State University. One week later, it would be displayed with pride on my parents refrigerator.
But for that moment, I drove the rest of the way home, stuck in second gear, listening to Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz.” As she sang, I found myself pleading, praying along with her. Giving the gas pedal my all.
“Oh, Lord. Won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends.
So, Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?”
Amanda Izzo is a writer and undergraduate from Boston, MA. Though she’s enjoyed writing privately for years, recently she began sharing detailed recollections of her life and youth in the form of creative nonfiction. In the hopes of connecting to other readers, shy creatives, and elder freshmen alike. This season, she has been published in Levitate Magazine, Braver Collective, Argyle Literary Magazine, Querencia Press and the Ana.