the red wagon dragon, the name of my bug a '72 super beetle, was a birthday gift from my grandfather for my 18th birthday. or maybe my 17th birthday. i honestly don't remember. i don't remember because i didn't get to drive it for very long. i drove it senior year, i think most of that year. i do remember going off campus a lot for lunch: eegee's, mama's pizza, mickey d's. i remember going to gretchen's house. i remember driving down oracle with gretchen, kevin, matt ashley, and a few other people. yes, i think i had 5 people in that car at once. kevin was riding in the gap behind the back seat.
it had an awesome tape deck and it's engine was tuned like a mofo. i would zip around tucson, blasting r.e.m. and scrounging change to buy gas. it was a blast to drive. i loved that car.
when i went to college the next year, freshmen, ahem, i mean first years students, weren't allowed to have cars. so the dragon languished in the warmth, while i adjusted to the grey raininess of portland. summer break came and i went back home. again, i scooted around tucson in the bug.
i wasn't home for long, and my parents decided to take a roadtrip to el paso to see my grandmother, leaving me in charge of amber. the afternoon of the day they left, my sister and i went out to turn in some cans at the recycler, on the way to meet shelley on 4th avenue for lunch. amber was around 11, and already extremely headstrong. (nothing at all like her older sister.) we got back into the car, after collecting the money, and i started the car.
"amber, put on your seatbelt."
"i don't want to."
"put on your seatbelt."
"no."
by this time we were driving up a side street heading toward 4th but on the opposite side of speedway blvd, which we needed to cross, and she still hadn't buckled her seatbelt. now speedway is a 6 lane street, three lanes one direction, 3 the opposite, and one of the inside lanes switched direction during rush hour. and it was always busy and moving at 50 mph, at least, even though it was a 35 mph street. i was on 4th ave, stopped, looking left and right, waiting for an opening to cross the boulevard. i had "green" by r.e.m. in the tape deck and "losing my religion" was playing. i saw my opportunity, clear both directions.
i gunned it, and made it half way across. it wasn't the first car that knocked us over. it was the third car, that hit the first two. the red dragon slid on the driver's side about 50 or so feet. luckily, being summer in tucson, and not having air conditioning, the windows were open. i scraped my elbow on the pavement. amber, since she wasn't wearing a seatbelt, slammed into me and hit her head on the steering wheel.
ambulances, police cars, firetrucks. sirens and lights. tears and blood.
as amber and i were being walked to the ambulance, she looked back at the car and cried, "oh no, yaya! you were going to drive the car to college!"
