Birdy

This is a way you get to drive a car without knowing how to shift. My father says soon they’ll have cars you won’t have to steer. People’ll go around killing each other without knowing it.
    Doris turns to me. Her face is soft as a baby bird with just the lights from the dashboard. Her cape is pulled back and she looks almost naked. She reaches over and turns on the radio. She must’ve had the dial set beforehand, maybe even called up the radio station to have the right music played. They come on with Glenn Miller’s ‘Sunrise Serenade’. It’s one piece of music I really like; it has the inside completeness of a good canary song.
    ‘Let’s go for a little ride out to Media.’
    It doesn’t matter what I say, we’re going to Media. She’s most likely already gone out and mapped the route. I settle back to relaxand let it all happen. This is probably the night I get fucked. She has to be back by two o’clock. The clock glowing green in the dark dash says quarter to one. How much can actually happen in an hour?
    Doris isn’t paying too much attention to what her father said. We’re whipping around these tight curves, on roads one car wide, through the heavy green overhanging trees of Media, at about fifty. There’s a straightaway under the high stone arched railway overpass and she gets it to almost seventy. She’s so little, she’s peering up over the edge of the dash. I scrunch down and concentrate on those tiny silver shoes pushing on the accelerator and brake. I wonder what Perta’s doing. What would happen to the dream if I wind up welded into that dashboard in front of me, with an eight-cylinder engine hot in what’s left of my lap.
    She has the place picked out. We swing off the macadam road and along a dirt road so small, the branches on both sides are scraping the edges of the car. She isn’t saying anything, just driving, peering up to avoid potholes. We’re following through. Doris is going to have her Junior Prom with all the trimmings. I feel like a candle on the cake that’s about to be blown out.
    We cross a little stream with that monster car and the road turns into nothing but rocks. Finally, she stops, turns off the motor, pulls on the emergency and puts out the lights. She turns the ignition so the dash and radio stay on. This car has everything. It gets about nine miles to the gallon but they have a Bration sticker, so what the hell.
    At first, she sits there holding onto the wheel of the car, like a kid pretending to drive while the car’s sitting in a driveway. I unscrunch myself and sit up. I turn toward her and pull my inside leg bent up on the seat. Anything can happen. I know it’s going to be embarrassing.
    Doris climbs up onto her knees. In the darkness I see she’s left her shoes down there by the accelerator. She holds out her wrist with the orchid on it for me to take off.
    ‘I’d like to keep it as a souvenir.’
    She says this as I try to untwist the rubber band in the dark.She’s wiggling the end of her hand at the wrist like a snake. When I get it off, she takes it from me and puts it on the shelf over the dash. In the dark with the magnified reflection from the curved windshield, it’s frightening. The whole car is filled with the smell.
    I’m expecting we’re going to have one of those great conversations which start with ‘Don’t you like me?’ or ‘Why is it you don’t like me?’ I’ve already had several of those. There’s practically no answer you can give that isn’t either insulting or a lie. I’m all ready to lie for the illusion of the great Junior Prom but I don’t have to. Doris starts humming to the music and somehow she’s leaning on me, rocking back and forth as if we’re dancing; dancing in a Buick Dynaflow! I put my arms around her and try to keep up my end. Maybe if I fuck Doris it’ll help the dream with Perta. The dream is made out of things I know.
    Doris lifts her face and we start kissing. We get to kissing along and I’m having a hard time keeping my nose out of the way. Then, she starts opening her lips so I open mine too. I’m doing my best. Next, she’s breathing into my mouth and sucking in! I feel the air being pulled in through my nostrils! Holy God! Is this kissing or is good old Doris Robinson some kind of vampire who gets you by stealing your breath. I’m thinking this when, suddenly, she sticks her whole tongue into my mouth! It’s like sucking a bubble gum wad in. I can’t breathe at all except