“Old” is not really a word that can capture the essence of that truck. In the grand scheme of the world, of course, it was but a zygote, the freshest addition to the ever-growing pile of human trash. Even through the lens of my relatively brief life, it wasn’t so ancient. Younger even then my teenage self, so young that if it had been a person it wouldn’t have had anything but the vaguest infant memories of the 90s. And yet. It had that character of frailty and brittleness about it that is common to the very elderly. Riding in it was a noisy and frightening affair, it rattling around on its rickety axles, the stick shift responding to a certain brand of coercion that few had ever mastered. Most of the time I spent in it involved my right hand curled so tightly around the door handle that my fingers lost feeling, while my foot pressed urgently against the passenger side floor as though if something went wrong I might magically gain control of the brakes there.
Even from the outside, it exuded a distinctly expired atmosphere. The tires were near-bald, the once gleaming red paint faded to a glum brick color reminiscent of some austere civic building. The stature of the thing, though it qualified technically as a pickup truck, was laughable. I, a girl caught somewhere between average and tall, towered above it. The cab barely left room for my boyfriend’s and my legs after cramming our torsos in.
Only once did I say something to him about the truck, and it was the last time I dared. He, for some inexplicable reason, was deeply proud of the thing; he talked at length about the numerous memories it held for him, it being a gift from his father that had (somehow) carried him through his college days. I realized quickly that any attempts at getting him to replace it were entirely fruitless.
The interior of the truck was so saturated with the scent of him that I still sometimes wake up feeling as though I’ve just lifted my head from the washed-out seat of it. I used to nap often there. The rumbling of the engine soothed me, rocking me like a child until I couldn’t resist drifting off any longer. Much rearranging of my body had to be done in order to lie down, knees digging into the door of the glovebox, seatbelt buckle punching into my ribs. Once I achieved the position, though, my head more often than not having no place to go but onto the warmth of my boyfriend’s thigh, a peculiar contentment and comfort smoothed over me like an old and familiar quilt. From that place I could look up through the windshield like it was a skylight, tree branches whizzing by, hovering in the foreground of the massive expanse of stars and sky above. My boyfriend’s arm rested snugly against my shoulder, having been forced around me since it was the only way he could reach the stick shift.
Almost a year has passed since I’ve had a ride like that. Last time I rode in that truck was the last time I ever cared to see it or what it stands for, and opening its whining door that day felt like escaping a trap. The smell of it still hangs thick in the air around me, I don’t think it could ever go away, but the mustiness of it is no longer hospitable and loving but sickly, more a stench than a scent. It makes my stomach fold into itself, my eyes water with its rancidity, and it creeps into me like an infirmity. I can say almost certainly that by now, its engine has failed for the final time, and I pray that that truck and all its parts stay rotting where they belong.