Bye-Bye Barracuda Mama

Mama had been at it again, running the law, now she was out back hiding in the hay barn, and her car had to go. Grandad told me to take the car out of town. He held up the key in front of my face. A lucky rabbit foot and a metal, dime bag scale hung from the key. He slipped them into my breast pocket, the weight sagged down. “Good luck,” he said.

The keys tossed around, beating on my chest as I ran out to the barn, the police sirens screaming off in the distance.

Mama was sitting against the stable when I entered the barn. Her face nearly hidden by red hair. A pistol cradled in her lap. She winced and said, “You best get moving.”

Mama’s car was a 1969 Plymouth Barracuda. Mama’s pride and joy. American muscle hidden behind blue metallic paint; a super charger jutted out of the hood. I opened the door, and it popped loudly when the hinge bent. I shut the door and grabbed the key from my pocket. The hair on the rabbit’s foot was gone, so it looked like a mummified claw hanging from a short, beaded chain. I stuck the key in the ignition and felt the pins tumble into place. With a flick of the wrist, a pump of the gas pedal, the beast awoke.

The exhaust spit deafening flames when I stomped down on the pedal and gave it hell out of the barn and onto the county road, leaving Mama behind, dust and gravel straying from the positraction. The cops saw my rooster tail out across the field and as planned, they followed.

County road 836 is straight and narrow, it has a series of hills named Dead Man’s Fist. I hit those hills going seventy, the tires lifting off the ground, my guts lurched up into my lungs. I gripped the stirring wheel, white knuckled, and brought it back down. When all four tires connected with the ground, I punched the gas and met the next hill at eighty. The only way to make it safely through the hills at such speeds was to grab hold and haul ass.

At the end of Dead Man’s Fist was a four way. South bound on 836 went straight down into Little Rock, Arkansas. I slowed the car down. I had a lead on the cops and waited for the dust to settle. I swung left onto County Road 808, the engine gurgled. I was set for the interstate to Nashville, Tennessee.

I opened the throttle halfway down 808, the loose gravel hitting under the chassis.

The interstate put an end to 808, abruptly. If you were drunk or not familiar with the road you could wind up dead. I coasted up to the stop sign covered in Virgina Creeper.

At the stop sign I questioned if the chase was worth it. I’d been arrested trying to help Mama, this time the lawman would make it worse.

Down the long stretch of road, across those miles of naked field, I saw the whirling lights of the parole cars. A rooster tail issued from the back of each car, the last car in the pack couldn’t see ten feet in front of them because of the dust.

I took my foot off the brake and the car crawled out onto the blacktop. Southbound. I opened the throttle, dumped high octane down each throat of the V8 block and the thing screamed, laying down two solid strips of rubber and a trail of chocking smoke. Eighty, ninety, one hundred, it just kept climbing. I shifted to granny low and let it walk. I slid further back in the seat. The cassette deck loaded; the volume knob set to max. I pressed play and Mama’s favorite, The Talking Heads, blared from the backseat.

The highway shot straight into Nashville. The car ran rich and ate through the fuel. I stopped at a Chester’s gas station and got a full tank of gas.

A killer whale lurked two miles before the city limits, scanning traffic, so I dropped my speed and drove past. I flashed a right signal and took the exit into Nashville. I turned the music off. Thankfully, the sun was setting as I made it into town because Mama’s blue car might as well have been a flashing neon sign. A classic muscle car turns heads, but less so during night.

I wasn’t familiar with Nashville. This was Mama’s town. When she was young, she had the voice of a sweet songbird, and it seemed as if she was destained for fame. Her songs made men fall in love with her and made every woman instantly jealous. She had a band, and her shaggy-haired guitar player became my daddy.

When she got pregnant and started to show, the record studios wanted nothing more to do with her. She ran away leaving Daddy and the band behind. She came back in time to give birth to me before she hit the road again. That’s when Daddy and I went to live with Grandad in Missouri, at the time Daddy didn’t know he was sick.

I turned left onto Simmons Avenue, the streetlights glowed like dandelion wine. Mama told me stories about playing the honky-tonks here. She’d raise up her shirt, revealing a scar made by a knife on her right side. Every time she told the story about the scar she would laugh and say, “I messed that sonofabitch up. That’s the last time he pulled a knife on me.”

When I was young, Mama’s stories seemed like legends, filled with too much action to be real, but as I grew and Mama wasn’t there to paint the perfect picture of herself, I began to understand that Mama lived by her own rules, and was drawn to the life of crime like a moth to a kerosene lamp. The times Mama thought her luck was hot, was really when her world was on fire. With all that running she didn’t have time for anybody.

Off Simmons Ave, I took a left at Rite-Aid next to the blazing guitar. “Take some turns,” Grandad’s voice drifted into my mind. “Make sure you aren’t followed.” I checked the rearview mirror. I would know if I was followed; Mama taught me to always check the rearview.

I took another left, drove three or four blooks and swung a right. The city lights got spotty, the streets were lined with family-owned butcher shops and wide shouldered hookers sporting stubby chins. The north side of Nashville carried a different tune, a sad song.

Mama was born in North Nashville; she grew up poor and had to endure a drunk mother who beat on her. Mama was tough, hung out with boys, gave them their first hand jobs and first blackeyes. Mama got lucky and had a pretty face, bright red hair and a voice that could draw a crowd. Strangers said she was the best they ever had, but Mama never gave me anything besides her red hair. It wasn’t from the lack of trying, but the more Mama got involved, the worse things got.

I drove around North Nashville. The gas gauge petered on empty. I would need to park the car someplace nearby. Here, the car would be gone before morning, taken to a garage, scraped, and sold. Soon, the car would be someone else’s problem. I wish sometimes it was that easy with Mama.

The longer I sat behind the wheel of Mama’s car, the more I started to miss her.

A curb across from a Baptist church provided a perfect place to park the car. I tucked in close, parallel to the curbside, under a burnt-out streetlamp, and put the car in park. I turned the key and the engine died. The street was quiet. My thoughts grew clear. I was lost in Nashville behind the wheel of a hot car.

I wanted to scream; my breathing got heavy. Grandad told me to drive. Mama told me to be quick. I didn’t want to disappoint them. It’s hard to explain why I wanted the approval from someone who was more like an older sister than a mother to me. The reason I wanted the approval from Grandad was easy: he was all I had.

I couldn’t sit in the car forever. A hooded kid on a bicycle rode on the sidewalk and in the street, getting closer to the car. Word would go out, a flashy car with aftermarket parts. Someone would get brave enough to open the unlocked door, climb in, and start it up. By morning, the car would be gone, Mama would be gone, and Grandad and me would have to try and settle down. Our days would return to walking on eggshells, waiting for Mama to show up again.

While I waited for the kid to go back up the street, I checked the glovebox. Inside, the small incandescent bulb revealed an overstuffed envelope. The reason for this whole mess. I reached over and took out the envelope, thick and heavy, there was no need to look inside, I knew I could start over, leave her and everything else behind. But I had to get back to Grandad.

I stuffed the envelope into my tight sock. I fiddled with the keyring and placed a little luck back in my breast pocket. I exited the car and left the metal, dime bag scale dangling from the door lock. My foot was numb when I found the bus station.