What's in the box?

What’s in the box?

I pulled the large box from the back of the shed and dropped it on the ground gently. I’d been forced to make room and so far I’d thrown away a boxes full of bubble wrap, packing paper from Amazon, old shoes, extra large rubber corner protectors, and a container full of old computer parts.

Because I’d gone through so many boxes I pushed this to the side and resumed pulling out camping equipment. I had incorporated my son to help me and he was dutifully asking to throw everything away that he thought was broken, meaning it was five years old and showed some use.

“Just pull it out and stack it to the side, I’ll have to go through everything,” I said.

I swear, his eyes are going to roll out of their sockets some day.

The early August heat had me thoroughly soaked and I was contemplating just torching the shed with everything in it and starting over.

Sitting in the driveway a rocking chair I made without the bottom runners. I sat down and pulled the box over. It was black, with green lettering, and picture of Mackie speakers. It came from my job when I was in college and the lid was taped down with some duck tape that had dried out from years in the hot shed.

I didn’t really want to go through another box. It meant steeling myself again for the emotions and memories attached to whatever I had shoved into this box and buried in the shed. I popped the tape with my fingers and opened the panels to the cardboard box.

A tan, furry lump met my eyes.

The memories washed over me like a mudslide. It was my car seat cover for my 1979 Pontiac Firebird. I had bought the covers for prom because I wanted to impress my girl, Kara.

I slowly pulled it out, the texture adding more memories to the flood already overwhelming me. My buddies and I would take our girls, all six of us, out on our weekly Friday night day in my car. We were poor high school students so we did all the cheapest dates you could imagine. Sidewalk chalk, picnics, art festivals, public music performances, and sometimes we’d save up enough to go see a movie that was playing at the old dollar theater. (It wasn’t really a dollar, it was three dollars and fifty cents, but everyone called it that).

I drove my car everywhere. When I tried out for the football team and then when I went to daily practice I drove the long distance to school and would pack towels so I could cover my seat and protect it against my soaked-in-sweat body because I hated showering at the school.

I was seventeen when I got that car and I had worked for three summers before that, saving my money. I washed it saturday mornings and once a month put a coat of wax on it.

I gave everyone a ride when the needed it. I had ridden my bike everywhere, and when I turned sixteen and watched the rich kids get brand new BMW’s or Audi’s, it hit pretty hard how poor we were. Everyone in my neighborhood. Rusting old pickup trucks was our fare but we grew up with a ratchet in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. I could fix my car with a few select tools and some elbow grease.

I had three friends by the name Angie, and we had call them Angie B., Angie D., and Angie Nee, to make it rhyme. We had become close friends because we all drove old cars and never had designer clothes. We added Jeff to the mix and a short time later we realized we were all dating each other’s friends.

Jeff had blazing red hair and he shaved his sides so he had a magnificent Mohawk, and we all took to calling him rooster. Angie B. played soccer and had a lot of guys chasing her. Angie D. was the most level headed of us all, while Angie Nee was the exact opposite. How we jammed all of us into a car that was meant to hold two adults and their bags on the jump seats, I’ll never know. I’m just glad I never got a ticket in that beautiful car.

When I got the car, I had promised my dad that I would never race anyone or do any drag racing. But one day, when I was at the stop light right before the freeway entrance, a guy in a two tone blue Camaro pulled up beside me on the left, and revved his engine. I could tell he could beat me, but I also knew that his lane had dirt and gravel on it from recent construction, and the road turned to the right. Which put me on the inside curve.

It was destiny.

I turned to him and revved my engine, causing my car to cant to the right from the engine trying to rip me out of my hole on the brakes. He replied and we both turned to watch the light. Twenty seconds later the light turned green and put my pedal to the floor, my wheels spinning. I could hear his wheels spinning but it was mixed with the gravel sound, and we shot off.

My wheels were still spinning and my back started drifted a tiny bit, so I turned into it, straightening myself out. I could barely see him out of the side of my eye as I stayed focused on the road because a sharp curve was coming up and the speed limit sign said twenty five. I wasn’t going to lose my first drag race so it dialed in my nerves and hugged the wall, fighting for the lead position before the road merged into one lane

At the same moment, we both took our foot off the gas so we could handle the corner better, all eight wheels screaming like Hell, smoke chasing us.

I saw the highway patrol officer and knew I was screwed, so I did what every logical teenager does, and slammed my pedal back down to the floor. If I was going to get a ticket, I was going to at least earn it. I tore past the officer going ninety and glanced at my mirror.

The Camaro was pulling over as he had somehow ended up behind me and I let out a scream fueled by adrenaline. I sped to the next freeway exit, got onto state street, and drove the speed limit for the rest of the year.

I had never driven fast with my friends in the car because Kara was one of those sweet, tender hearted types, and I never wanted to panic her. We had an amazing friendship. I had gone through a couple of bad experiences with girls because they wanted a football boyfriend for the status and treated me like property. I wasn’t your typical football player.

I loved reading and I sang in the choir. Kara and I had met because we both discovered we loved books and we had read a lot of the same books. The fact that she had read most of Jules Verne and Terry Brookes put her in an elite class. Plus she was secretly gorgeous, dark brown hair and blue eyes hid behind those classic 1990’s glasses. The car seat cover was from her side of the car.

I pulled it close to my face, wondering if I could catch the scent of Kara’s cheap perfume from K-Mart. It only smelled like fleece and leather. Part of me secretly wanted to catch that smell just one more time. I had moved far away after high school and never went back. Kara was a small hometown girl and I was a farm boy who wanted the big city.

I folded the seat cover up, slowly letting my fingers go over the soft wool. It was clean, a beautiful light brown that matched my car’s interior.

Regret settled like a rock on my bosom, digging painfully into my soul, and I could almost feel her hand in mine. I completed the last fold and quietly slipped it into the garbage bin.