- Vol. 10
- Chapter 10
Landing
The first time Dee set a brick on the gas and sent his car flying off the North Rim, he hadn't bothered to scope out potential landings. He went back to the lodge, pounded back a couple beers, then retraced his steps to watch the sunset torch what'd been a Bahama-blue sky. He lined his sneakers up with the crumbly edge, then caught a glint below.
He laughed. His old beater had gone and parked itself on a fossilized stump. Perched like a prize on a pedestal, the car became a monument to miracles. Dee whistled and thought back to the new models on display back home. He thought about springing for something bold. It wasn’t like he had anything to lose.
The second time Dee said goodbye to his car, he brought along an astrophysicist boyfriend.
“Thelma,” he said and pointed to the dusty car below.
Together, they plotted a course for Louise. They spent the night tracing constellations over sky and skin. Come sunrise, Louise stuck the landing with a crunch. They whooped and crushed their mouths together. They talked marriage and drove home in the boyfriend’s sensible sedan. They named it Giovanni Junior, or Gee-Jay for short.
When it was time to send Gee-Jay over the edge, the boyfriend-turned-husband had turned into a tombstone and their daughter had already been accepted to his alma mater.
Landing
She corrected Dee’s math their first night on the Rim. She said Louise was sagging a bit too much over the front, worried a third might knock the whole thing over, then proposed another angle of attack. A course-correction, Dee agreed, and when they were ready, they waved goodbye. They held hands and squeezed.
Gee-Jay pulled Lousie back from the brink, and back home, Dee found a car he called Bahama-blue.