Irene is one of my more laid-back friends, and I love borrowing her car. I love borrowing cars in general--probably because it feels like a very grown-up thing to engage in--but I especially like borrowing Irene's car because, tidy as she keeps it, a close inspection of the console reveals a fine scattering of ash. In other words I don't have to feel guilty about smoking in her car.

Not that you being a non-smoker and being nice enough to lend me your car would stop me from smoking in it--as Logan will tell you, I borrowed his car (it might have been his dad's car, can't remember) and smoked that piece up. Boy did I get an earful. But as with many things in life, I can't help myself; I know it's wrong and I do it anyway. Plus Logan and I have a Spy-vs-Spy-like prerogative to attempt to screw the other person over at every turn, and so far it's working like gangbusters.

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Speaking of wrong, so here I am zipping down Route 280 in New Jersey with the printed directions to my destination in the passenger seat, and I start doing what I usually do when I'm in a car by myself outside the city: I start figuring. Figuring how when I reach the exit, I'm going to drive right past it and keep going, like in some Springsteen song. I'll drive south and west and far. I start calculating how much money I have in my pocket, how much money I could get my hands on at a gas station ATM with the credit cards I've got on me.

I'll drive for hours or days, tuning the radio to local stations and I won't stop until I see cornfields or plains and hear Patsy Cline or the Allman Brothers being selected by the local DJs. Then I'll know I've gone far enough and I'll stop in whatever town has buildings not taller than three storeys. My cell phone lays shattered in pieces by the side of the highway three states back, my driver's license transformed into ash in the metal can of a truck stop men's room.

I tell myself Irene would forgive me when she reads my postcard, and I calculate what kinds of jobs I could pick up in my new small-town home to survive. I'd work in a restaurant, maybe a bar. At first they wouldn't want to hire me but I'd show up every day until they did, sleeping in the car until I had the scratch to rent some shithole on the edge of town. I would work hard and in complete silence. And every day--

ZZZOOOOMMMM. A State Trooper whips past me in the left lane, sirens going, and I drop what I'm thinking about to check my speedometer. I'm only going 68 but I slow down a little more. Can't afford to get a ticket. I've got bills to pay back in New York, I can't have to pay a two hundred dollar fine or deal with a court date, because I've got the Con Ed coming up, and some credit card debt, not to mention the rent in three days, the holidays are near and just yesterday I blew ninety dollars on two fifths of Scotch of the finer sort I oughtn't be drinking.

No, no, that wouldn't do. I slow down and re-check my directions. It's just a few exits to go, and I'll be there.

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The fucked-up thing is, these thoughts occur to me every goddamn time I get into a car and leave the city, and the kicker is I don't even have a wife and kids to run away from. Maybe it's some age-specific timer that's automatically been activated, unaware that even though I'm six years on the wrong side of thirty I've yet to get married. Like when your neighbor goes away and forgets to turn his alarm clock off, so every day at 7:15 you hear the blaring chirp, even though the body it's intended to rouse simply isn't there, it's just doing what it was programmed to do at that time.

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An hour later I've tried to take care of what I needed to in Jersey, and even though I've failed at it I won't find this out for another three days. Either way, I feel, it was worth trying. I pull Irene's car back on the highway and my mind starts to wander, even though it ought to be easier to resist temptation when your car's pointed in the wrong direction, back towards the city.

On the stereo I'm blaring Agent Orange. After not hearing their music since I was a teenager, two days ago I was shocked to discover they're actually selling Living in Darkness on the fucking iTunes Music Store, of all places. I couldn't click the "buy" button fast enough.

The music is total trash, puerile lyrics with the unconvincing level of anger you'd expect from a California punk band because the weather's too nice there to get truly pissed off, but that's besides the point. I often listen to music not because it's good, but because it reminds me of something, a time, a place, some girl I couldn't get over, you name it. And here I am doing the same shit I was doing when I was sixteen, smoking cigarettes in someone else's car, not wanting to go home, in between girlfriends, blaring the same music, only difference is now my clothes fit a little better.

Holy shit, I still remember the lyrics.

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Don't lend me your car. I'm going to ask you, but don't. 'Cause I'll smoke it up thoroughly before I sell it in New Mexico, and I have no illusions you'll forgive me because the postcard I picked was pretty.

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