Two too bright lights come fast over the crest of the hill. Fast enough to make me nervous for my back end. And my neck. But the assumed high-performance engine must be complemented by high-performance brakes. And both meet the road with high-performance tires. He began braking soon after topping the hill and slowed to a roll with many car lengths still between our bumpers. I couldn’t yet make out the emblem on his grill, but it was sure to boast a brand too rich for my tastes. And my wallet. I have convenient preferences for a poor man. Or perhaps it is just that my perpetually empty accounts have shaped my preferences.
As I continue to inch forward, his lights come closer and duck beneath my rear seat. I’m distracted by the irrational braking of the car in front of me, so I can’t catch a glimpse of that logo. My impressive ignorance of cars keeps me from deducing the make or model from the gleaming outline off the hood and roof and mirrors. The city lights don’t offer much more than those faint reflections.
When I crossed the bridge into the city, the temperature rose about 5 degrees from a comfortable 80, to a bit too warm 85. I know this because my windows are down. It looks like he does not know this. It’s difficult to appreciate the beauties of nature when you are busy appreciating the beauties of what money can buy. Control trumps climate.
But in the glow of the constancy of my taillights engaged by the construction ahead, I see that he gets to appreciate another beauty in his passenger seat. I drive alone as usual, so in the rearview mirror, I too appreciate without distraction.
Truly, she doesn’t seem to be my type. It is the style of her hair and the application of her makeup and the shape of her mouth as she talks. In spite of her beauty, I don’t think she and I would get along. Nor he and I. His tattoos mock my colorless arms, as does the swoop of his hair from the top of his head as it tickles the buzzed sides.
We have not met, we will not meet, and if we did we would not be friends, yet I love this pair. In the other-worldly rose glow of my brake lights, they live in unwilling exhibitionism in a silent parallel universe irreparably removed from my own. I can hear their smiles though I cannot hear the jokes. I see a quick kiss, but feel nothing more than the dank warmth of a humid summer night.
These two never invited me into the intimacy of their private ride, from and to where they alone know. They never asked me if I understood, and they never described the history of their relationship. I do not know them at all. They know me less. And still, I love them. From the emptiness between our worlds I have received the invitation to spy on their sanguine scene. We share their lives.
And as the traffic ahead clears and the separation behind grows, I say goodbye to this peculiar love, ever to be lost in the darkness of parting tail lights, a darkness related to the distance and the power of the two.