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Show no baby moons, my father changed the rules. He wanted a kiss when my mother saw a Cadillac. "You can't do that," I said from the back seat. "Sure I can," he said. "I'm head of household. I make the rules." "It's not the same." "Mommy's grown tired of baby moons," she added. "If you play Cadillac, I get to sit in the front seat." "You don't like it here. Remember? You've gotten too big. You squirm." "Yes I do." She turned and looked at me. One of her hands rested on the top of the front seat. Her nails had a fresh coat of polish. "You remember the last time," she said. It was at this perfect moment that we saw the car. Parked in the curving driveway of a house that could be justly called a mansion, the car rested on a trailer that was attached to a pickup truck. My father pulled over to the curb so we could take a longer look. The car, a '57 Chevy, had been fundamentally changed. The fins on the back fenders had been remolded. They rose in a steep, almost sinister curve, and then broke downward like a wave. Special custom-made taillights adorned the trailing edge of each fin. The taillights ran from the top to the base. Without them, the fins would have looked whimsical, but they added the proper sense of purpose to their extravagant rise. The roof of the car was glass. Its transparency was miraculous. Exhaust pipes grew right out of the front fenders. On either side, the three tributaries of chrome met in a loud confluence which ran in subtle expansion to the back wheel. The car was painted a space age blue. "Incredible," my father said, "the amount of money." "Why don't you take a closer look," mother said to me. I started up the driveway. A woman watched me through the expansive window of the living room. I felt like fleeing, but my curiousity overcame my fear. The circular porch was enclosed with pillars that climbed sturdily to the level of the roof which was three stories high. Ivy grew upward among the many shuttered windows, but it was not prevalent, and looked exhausted from the effort of clinging to such a demanding wall. As I neared the wondrous vehicle, the woman came out a door on the side of the house. |