I can’t stop kicking myself. I’m sad and it seems like it’s about the truck I don’t have anymore but I guess it’s about more than that. Surely it’s about more than that, right? While A–, L–, and C– and I were out looking at pronghorns and prairie dogs and feeding the burros on the wildlife loop, my stepmother texted to say she and my dad were wiped out and were going to bed.

It was not even 8 pm.

My dad forgets things, asks the same question three or four times in a single conversation.

The truck was a handed-down embodiment of his memory. My memory of him, that is, that I could hold on to, driving around with my bare elbow hanging out the window, other arm draped over the steering wheel, the way he used to drive the Gran Torino. Big, loud, solid, square, American. He’s not loud or all that big, really, but he is American — in the old sense, the farmer sense — before all of this.

The truck was practical but impractical. A blend of mannish utility and boyish delight. In the wrong hands, it would’ve been oppressively redneck; as it belonged to him, it was civilized — with an unruly undertone in its V8 rumble.

A couple years ago, the rear end got smashed by a stolen BMW fleeing the cops down 35th St in Milwaukee, and I had to bang the inside of the wheel well off the tire with a crowbar so I could drive home. I made a hasty decision to sell the truck rather than get the bodywork done. I realize now, this was a mistake.

This afternoon, my dad lent the girls and me his Tundra to drive through Custer State Park — it’s a decent truck but it’s no 2003 Silverado. The ergo is all wrong. It’s too tight, too new, poor visibility actually. It’s out of the groove. I can’t slouch the right way in it. Its frequency is too bright. In a high-strung world tuned to A440 and beyond, my old Silverado was a reassuring A435.

Plus it was a physical vessel for my dad’s memory. It had multigenerational visibility. When I drove it, my dad and my grandpa could see a little bit of what I was seeing through its high wide windshield, and maybe offer some perspective, with a sense of humor — though my grandpa preferred horses to tractors or trucks.

Every time I drive a truck, or something reminds me of driving a truck, I start kicking myself again. I can’t figure out how to stop. Damn, I miss that truck. I’ve had some other nice vehicles, but nothing carves a hole in my grimy little heart like the absence of that goddamn truck.

Well, anyway, let’s see what tonight’s pigeon is.

pigeon

I’ve been breathing since I was twelve!

That’s funny. I’ve been thinking about my college days quite a bit lately. UMKC and then Mizzou, and some of the people I knew, like Leann for example — and this pigeon takes me back to the music building just off the library plaza in Columbia, MO. Being a teacher now (of some sort), I definitely appreciate the urge to make a snide comment when a kid says something asinine — but not too snide; you don’t want to be mean, you don’t want to be aggressive, you just want to bleed off a little of the frustration that comes from how indignant and entitled young people can be sometimes. You want to do it with a smile that says “keep going,” not a snarl that says “you idiot,” and that’s exactly what my vocal teacher did to a classmate of mine in a singing class I took during the ill-fated period of time when I thought I was going to be a music major.

This kid was the son of another faculty member in the music department, and he never tired of letting everyone know it. He was superior to the rest of us plebes, see, having grown up steeped in the tradition of blah blah blah and the techniques of whatever. You know how snooty some people can get, by virtue of knowing about something. Doesn’t matter if they’re any good at the thing, or genuinely fascinated or passionate about it, as long as they know the jargon. Erudition itself is the badge, and they expect it to open all the doors.

We were working on some exercise — diaphragm support, chest tones, I don’t remember exactly. The kid took his turn while the rest of us listened. Then our professor offered some critique, some feedback other than unfiltered praise: “If you try breathing more like this,” he said, demonstrating, “your tone will be stronger —”

But the kid did not want to hear all that. “What are you talking about?” he demanded, incapable of imagining a world in which even his most offhand performance could have struck anyone as anything other than consummate. “I already know how to breathe. I’ve been breathing since I was twelve!”

The prof’s smile was sweet, with just a hint of cayenne. “That long, huh?” he chuckled. “Well, most of us here have been breathing since we were born.”

The slow dawning. The rest of us snickering before the kid realized what he had said. The professor’s quick uptake gave us all a cozy little space in which to subvert the nepotistic tendencies of this irascible man-child. We had all bonded over how insufferable he could be. Nothing mean-spirited, just playing the game, like how the spins and kicks in a Capoeira roda aren’t malicious — unless someone wants to take it that way. Confronted with your own fatuous face in a mirror helpfully held up by the society of your peers, you can choose to scowl or smile.

The kid grumbled and spluttered and turned a bit red, but I suspect he got over it eventually. I never saw him again after that class, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he grew up. The world is horrifying enough in these end times of our so-called civilization; let’s hope the best for him and trust he’s doing the best he can, just like the rest of us.

I wonder if this is a pigeon for him, too? Does he remember that moment? Does he look back and kick himself for acting like an ass? Does it ring a bell when he’s tempted to lean on credentials as a substitute for humility, status as a stand-in for curiosity?

What does any of this have to do with the smashed-up truck? Nothing, I guess, except the common theme of self-kicking. Living with mistakes. If you only started breathing when you were 12, you got a late start. You’ve got some lost time to make up for. That sounds about right. My dad barely drives any vehicle anymore, besides occasionally to Lynn’s Dakotamart to get groceries for him and my stepmother — and the other day, A– (who has been out here all summer, kind of looking after them without being too obvious about it, while working at a local restaurant and writing a play) told me, he forgot what he even went there for. He came back to the cabin with a bunch of random shit — everything except the ice cream. And he loves ice cream!

I wonder when I started breathing. I wonder when I’ll stop. I play around with the idea at night — stop breathing for a moment again and again while I’m sleeping. Tease death. Baby death. The big one is out there. We’ve all seen it, arcing in and out of the water, sluicing beneath the waves, a hideously beautiful sea monster, improbably bright in the submarine murk. We stand on the deck of our charter vessel, check the moorings, check the engines, take inventory of our provisions, and shake our fists at the lowering sky.

“We’re coming for you!” we say, more boldly than we feel.

Let’s sing together as we leave the marina. Don’t worry — you can join in, whether you’re polished and trained in the proper techniques or not. Breathe. Start now. You can’t save up those breaths, can’t bank ’em for later. You only get so many. You gotta let them go.