Destroy All Cars

by Blake Nelson

You think I’m kidding, don’t you? You think I’m joking. People aren’t robots. It’s just a little riff I’m doing. Having a little fun. WELL, GO TO THE MALL AND LOOK AT THE PEOPLE. LOOK AT THEIR FACES AND TELL ME THEY HAVE REAL THOUGHTS. TELL ME THEY KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE WORLD AND THEY ARE CAPABLE OF THINKING SOMETHING THEY WERE NOT TOLD TO THINK BY THEIR TVS OR THEIR COMPUTERS OR THE COMMUNICATION DEVICES STUCK TO THE SIDES OF THEIR FACES. PEOPLE REALLY ARE ROBOTS. THEY REALLY ARE. I DON’T CARE WHAT ANYONE SAYS. THEY ARE.

  THE END

  [not handed in]

  February 17 (continued)

  So I’m hiding among the Elton John CDs, in the Art and Music Room, and when I look up, there she is. Sadie. She’s spotted me.

  SADIE: James! Oh my God! Is that you?

  ME: Uh…

  SADIE: What are you doing here?

  ME:——

  SADIE: I didn’t know you still came to the library.

  ME: Uh, yeah…sometimes…

  SADIE: What are you looking at? CDs? They got anything good?

  ME: Not really.

  SADIE (looking around at the Art and Music Room): I never come in here. It’s nice.

  ME:——

  SADIE: It’s so weird I ran into you. What are you doing these days?

  ME: Not too much.

  SADIE: I always mean to say hi at school. I just…it feels awkward…and Will always got a little weird about it.

  ME: Yeah? Why?

  SADIE: I don’t know. He got jealous sometimes. And he hates it if I mention you. I figured it would be best to…you know…

  ME: Never talk to me again?

  SADIE: No. Not at all. But you know. Boys get jealous.

  ME: I guess so.

  SADIE: So what about you? How are things? Are you still writing?

  ME: A little.

  SADIE: You never joined the school paper, I noticed.

  ME: No.

  SADIE: That seems like such a waste. You’re such a good writer. And they need people.

  ME: All they have is articles about food drives. And student government.

  SADIE: But it would be fun.

  ME: Yeah.

  SADIE: And you write all the time, anyway. I remember you were always writing something. Do you still do that? Get up in the middle of the night and start scribbling away?

  ME: Sometimes.

  SADIE: I’m telling you. They need people. Jill Kantor is always bugging me to do an article—

  ME: So what happened with Will?

  SADIE: Nothing. We broke up.

  ME: That’s what I heard.

  SADIE: I know. It kind of dragged on in a way. So I had to say we were totally broken up. Officially.

  ME: Officially.

  SADIE: We still talk a little. Even though we’re supposedly not going to.

  ME: Huh.

  SADIE: He says I’m too obsessed with my causes.

  ME: You’re not too obsessed with your causes. That’s a stupid thing to say.

  SADIE: Well, even if I am. That’s me. You know?

  ME: Yeah.

  SADIE: What about you? Doesn’t seem like you’ve gone out with anyone…

  ME: No.

  SADIE: Why not?

  ME: Who would I go out with?

  SADIE: I don’t know. There must be somebody out there. I still don’t understand why you didn’t join the paper. Jill Kantor even asked me about you. You would totally like those guys. And it’s so pointless not to contribute something.

  ME: I did write this one thing I thought about sending in.

  SADIE: Really, what is it?

  ME: It’s called “Destroy All Cars.”

  SADIE: “Destroy All Cars”? Is it a joke?

  ME: No. Don’t you think we should destroy all cars?

  SADIE: No. How would we get to school?

  ME: We’d have to figure something out. It would force us to rethink our concepts of transportation.

  SADIE: But what about hybrid cars? Or cars that run on electricity?

  ME: Where are we going to get enough electricity to keep all those soccer moms in minivans, driving to the mall to get their nails done?

  SADIE: Through wind farms. Or solar power. And what do you have against soccer moms?

  ME: Nothing. Except that I hate them.

  SADIE: Your approach to these problems is not very logical.

  The first time I saw Sadie, I was walking past a student activities table in the breezeway at our school. This was the beginning of sophomore year. Some students were trying to get people to come to the Annual Benefit Dance. If you brought two cans of food, you got in for free, and if you brought four cans, you got a raffle ticket to win an iPod Shuffle. They did it every year. It was kind of a joke, and nobody really went to the dance except for nerds and freshmen.

  But that day, there were a lot of people gathered around the table. The whole breezeway was buzzing for some reason. I crowded forward to see what was up, and that’s when I saw her. Sadie Kinnell. She was tall, with dark blue eyes and long black hair that swung slightly as she moved her head. She was in full Sadie mode: handing out flyers, buttons; explaining things; talking to four different people at once. She had so much energy. The crowd was mesmerized.

  I didn’t understand why someone like her would be wasting their time on a canned-food drive. It didn’t seem right. I stood with the other people and listened to her talk about helping the needy. She really got into it. She sort of drilled her message right into you. When some people left, she turned to me and said, “I know the dance is sort of lame. But maybe we can make it better.”

  It was like she had read my mind.

  I didn’t know what to say back. I took one of the flyers. “But isn’t a food drive sort of a band-aid solution?” I finally asked, over the murmur of the other people.

  “What do you mean?” she said, handing buttons to some freshmen.

  “So we give some cans of food to people,” I said. “What does that solve?”

  “It solves the problem of what they’re going to eat that night,” she said, her eyes locking on to mine.

  I stared into her face. There was something about her that went right through me. She did something to my insides.

  I quickly folded up the flyer and stuffed it in my pocket.

  “Come to the dance,” she said.

  “I will,” I said. I glanced at her one last time. Then I went to class.

  All week I kept folding and unfolding that piece of paper. Then I went to the dance. I even wore my favorite shirt, which at that time was this dorky orange thing with a Star Trek collar. And the funny thing was, I went by myself, which no one does at our high school. Going to a dance by yourself is social suicide. But I did it anyway. I wasn’t even worried. It was like some other person had taken over my body.

  There weren’t many people there. It was pretty much like it always was. Totally lame. But I didn’t notice. I walked around. I looked for the girl in the breezeway, the girl who’d invited me.

  When I didn’t see her, I sat by myself at one of the tables. I didn’t dance. Nobody did.

  I finally decided she wasn’t coming, so I stood up to go home. I was heading for the exit when a hand caught my elbow. I turned around and there she was: that bright face, those shining eyes. I was like, whoa.

  She remembered me from the breezeway. She asked me my name. Then she asked me to dance. She said if we didn’t get people dancing, they never would.

  So we danced. And it was fun. Other people started to dance, too. And it got to be more fun.

  Finally, she went off somewhere to help get the raffle together. I took a seat along the wall. In the darkness, I ran my hand through my hair. I tried not to think too much, I tried to stay calm, but deep down I knew something was happening to me. Something big.

  Then a slow dance came on, one of the precious few. I immediately stood up and started looking around the gym for her. I tried to see back by the canned goods. I didn’t want to be too obvious, but at the s
ame time, I never wanted to find someone so badly in my life.

  I saw her. She was heading my way, weaving through the crowd. She was looking for me. Just like I was looking for her.

  We were both embarrassed, of course. And then when we got on the dance floor, we couldn’t figure out how to put our arms around each other. But it was okay. We worked it out. Then we swayed back and forth and rotated and held each other like you do.

  After the dance, Sadie waited for her mom to pick her up. I stood with her under the awning and watched the drizzle in the streetlight across the road. We talked more. I don’t remember what about. It didn’t matter. We were going to be together. We both knew it. What that meant exactly, I had no idea. I had never thought about having a girlfriend. I had no idea how that worked. I didn’t understand anything in those days.

  SADIE: That’s so funny I ran into you. Like here we are, back at the library.

  ME: Here we are.

  SADIE: You should give me your cell number.

  ME: I don’t have a cell.

  SADIE: Still? I just got one. My parents gave it to me on my birthday. I felt like the last person on earth to get one.

  ME: Well, you’re not. Since I don’t have one.

  SADIE: You should get one. They’re so handy. Maybe you should ask for one for your birthday.

  ME: I just had my birthday.

  SADIE: Oh yeah. That’s right. I noticed the day. I thought about you. It’s weird that I hardly ever see you anymore.

  ME: Yeah…

  SADIE: Maybe we should…I don’t know…hang out some time.

  Sadie’s face was always the draw. That was the killer for me. Her face. Because she’s so smart. She doesn’t always act it, but she is. And she’s reasonable. By that I don’t mean practical, I mean she understands the limits of things, and the limits of people. She never has stupid ideas. She never says she’s going to do something that you know she can’t or won’t do. You might think that’s not that unusual, but in high school, most girls still think they’re going to be the next American Idol. I’m serious. They do not quite have a foothold on reality. Sadie did. She was deeply intelligent, deeply real, even as she tried to recycle plastic forks in the lunchroom. It’s hard to explain. It was in her eyes. It was in her expression. It was even in the way she got annoyed with you (me). She got stuff. You did not have to explain it twice. She understood.

  There was a protection thing, too. I thought she could protect me. That sounds weird but that’s what it felt like. She’s the kind of person that is constantly moving forward. It’s hard to hurt a person like that. And if you’re with them, you think you won’t get hurt either.

  SADIE: Here, give me your home number. Also, I want to see “Destroy All Cars.” Is it a blog?

  ME: No. I don’t do blogs.

  SADIE: Why not? Everyone else does.

  ME: Exactly.

  SADIE: How long is it?

  ME: It’s short.

  SADIE: That reminds me. Did you hear about what’s happening over by Carl Haney’s house?

  ME: No.

  SADIE: Some developer is going to turn all those woods into a subdivision. Like where the pond is, on both sides of it.

  ME: The pond? Are you serious?

  SADIE: I know. Activist Club is going to do a petition. And I talked to a guy at Willamette Week. And I called the mayor’s office and I’m meeting with their special zoning person. That’s what I came down here for. To check the zoning records.

  ME: How do you have time to do all this stuff?

  SADIE: How do you have time to write in your journal all night?

  ME: I don’t. I just do it anyway.

  SADIE: That’s what I do.

  PART

  3

  February 18

  Rode around with Jessica Carlucci today after school. She had her mom’s car. I stared out the window a lot. Jessica asked me why I was being so quiet and I told her about seeing Sadie at the library.

  “I knew it,” she said.

  We drove to Pet World and I followed her around while she bought some vegetarian dog food for her dog. She told me about this college in New Mexico where you do nothing but read the classics of world literature. No Intro to Basketweaving. You start with Plato and work your way forward.

  She’s trying to get me interested in college. I don’t know what I think about that. Of course my parents want me to go.

  Later, I called Gabe and went to his house. We played ping-pong. Then we watched TV. I have not done any homework in three days.

  Scary, the effect talking to Sadie for five minutes has on me. I have become useless, lethargic, unable to concentrate.

  I don’t want to start liking her again, that would be counterproductive.

  Gabe counsels against it as well. “Get a new girlfriend,” he tells me constantly. “Don’t get caught in this all over again.”

  But what does he know? He still worships Renee, who barely acknowledges his existence.

  James Hoff

  Junior AP English

  Mr. Cogsweiller

  MAKEUP ASSIGNMENT: personal reflection on a place or location

  A NIGHT AT THE MALL

  I was at the mall, reading a book called The Bell Jar, when a goth girl started talking to me. She seemed to think I was goth, too, because of my black sweater and my long hair. Her name was Kristine. She had dyed black hair, red lipstick, and a ring in her eyebrow. She said that she had read the same book, and she liked it, and what was my name? I told her my name was Rob, though my actual name is James.

  She sat down across from me. We talked about different things. Because Kristine was goth, she mostly had goth-style opinions. She was depressed, for starters. She liked weird, dark music you never heard of. And she hated authority of any kind. All of which were consistent with the goth philosophy.

  After we talked for a while, she asked if I felt like going to a movie. I said okay and we went to see The Hills Have Eyes 3, which is about these mutants who got radiated by nuclear tests and murder people who happen to wander into the contaminated area. (Think about that for a second: There are now large sections of the earth where you can’t go because they are so poisoned and radioactive that if you went there, you would die.)

  Anyway, so then a Typical American Family gets lost in the contaminated area and that’s when the fun begins. Mutants vs. Typical American Family. There was lots of gore and splattering blood. It was kind of hard to watch, actually. Kristine liked it. I kept glancing over at her as the movie played. She wasn’t the most beautiful girl, but she was sort of appealing in her goth way. She had black nail polish on and bright red lipstick. I had never hung out with anyone who wore lipstick before.

  So then after the movie, Kristine asked if I felt like driving around. I said okay, and we went to the parking lot and got her car. It was an old Pontiac sedan. It was kind of sad. Even though I hate cars, I still recognize the status implied by the different brands. That’s another thing cars do for us. They put us in categories depending on what level of Consumer American we are. Poor people drive crap cars. You see a crap car, you know who’s inside it.

  Kristine wanted to get cigarettes. She was quitting smoking, or had been, but now, because of the scary movie, she was too riled up to not have a cigarette. So we drove to a not-so-great neighborhood, to a place called the Lucky Stop Market. We went there because Kristine knew the guy and he would sell her cigarettes.

  It was pretty grim there at the Lucky Stop. I think someone was selling drugs by the restrooms. Kristine got her cigarettes, and then as she was paying, she turned to me and said, “Should I get some condoms?” I swear she said that. I hadn’t thought about if we might need condoms. It was pretty much the furthest thing from my mind.

  I shrugged. I didn’t know. She bought them.

  “Just in case,” she said.

  I got a Pepsi.

  So now we were set. We had cigarettes and beverages and condoms. Also, back at the Lucky Stop, under the fluoresce
nt lights, I had noticed that Kristine’s forearms were covered with cut marks and burn scars. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I just mention it to paint a complete word picture.

  We drove around. We ended up parked in a vacant lot by the river. She lit a cigarette and started talking about this guy named Dale who screwed her over. She met him at her job at Walgreens but he cheated on her with her best friend. Then he gave Kristine crabs when he cheated on the best friend with her. Then the best friend got arrested for throwing a rock through Dale’s window and peeing in his car and trying to light his house on fire.

  I drank my Pepsi.

  At some point, Kristine decided that I wasn’t her type. “You’re like this nice boy from the suburbs,” she said. She wasn’t trying to be mean, that was her honest opinion. To prove her wrong, I leaned over and kissed her. She liked that. We started making out. She was a good kisser, slow and sexy, lots of licking and touching of tongues. But she tasted like lipstick and cigarettes and I was worried I might get crabs. Eventually we stopped, and I slid back onto my side of the seat.

  Driving back, I didn’t want to tell her where I lived, so I told her to take me back to the mall, I could walk back from there. She dropped me off. Just before she pulled away, she said, “Nice to meet you, Rob.” By then I’d forgotten I’d given her a fake name. For a second, I wasn’t sure who she was talking to. But I recovered.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” I said.

  The End

  February 19

  Mr. Cogweiller gave me an A—for my mall story paper and wrote on the bottom that I should submit it to the literary magazine as a short story. The problem is, it’s not a story, it’s true.

  He also said I shouldn’t mess up my writing with little asides. And that if I can, I should avoid constantly harping on my political agenda. That’s so funny he thinks I have a political agenda. DUDE, IT’S NOT POLITICS, IT’S THE SURVIVAL OF OUR PLANET.

  I think he’s just saying that, though, to prove I’m not shocking him. Old Cogs, he may look like Mr. Oxford Button-Down, but deep down he still wants to be cool with the kids.