LOVE DAYS
Dead men are often the more attractive is the point I often tried to
argue with a cute girl I met once because she was a friend of my
ex-girl and I wanted to seduce her immediately especially after I
dreamt I held her hand and kissed her lips. I don't consider it a sex
dream. It was just warm and beautiful and my life changed after that
because I couldn't think about a whole lot else.
The easiest demonstration was to crash a car with us both inside. She
had agreed enthusiastically to be a part of the test so in the
afternoon one day we put on thick coats and scarves and drove my
parents saloon to a busy area on the main road out of town. It was
thick with cars and the girl told me that a lot of people seemed dead
anyway. I told her she might be right but that they weren't dead
enough. She laughed at this and I laughed too, and she asked me if we
could go to the beach later. Sure, I told her.
I had parked the car in a place where the hard shoulder was wide enough
to face the road head on, like we could drive all the way through the
middle and come out on the other side.
We had each bought a sandwich with us, I had ham and cheese and she had
salami. The salami smelt very strong and made the entire car smell with
it. The only things it ever smelt of in that car was old cigarettes and
salami. Every time I took it back to my parents at home who had gotten
themselves worried about where I was till so late with their saloon
they said to me "Goddamn boy it smells like a salami factory in here!".
They were polite enough to overlook the cigarettes but mom and dad
couldn't ever stomach highly spiced or reconstituted sausage.
We ate the sandwiches in the kind of silence that really hungry people
do. Even if you wanted to speak to each other there were more pressing
concerns, like the eating of the sandwich. After that we watched the
traffic move and sometimes said things to each other that didn't seem
important at the time.
They were probably crucial and beautiful parts of the drab week we had
had together but at the time they just filled in the occasional quiet
that followed a barrage of cars.
It was the middle of winter and got dark at about four o clock. The
dashboard said it was 16:46 and the girl had long dark hair and blue
eyes.
We made a long attentive love in the headlights. We sat in our seats
afterwards and had to share one cigarette between us because she didn't
really smoke and I was running low.
She looked very attractive when she glowed after an orgasm and it
sounded as though the silhouettes of trees were applauding us in the
front seat.
I turned the ignition and waited for a space to pull out in front of
some cars. When it came I drove at the last minute and stopped across
both lanes. She held my hand and smiled and neither of us looked
scared.
I didn't hear any sound when the cars started hitting against our side
or when the steering wheel went through a part of my chest. I could
feel something warm running somewhere down the inside of my
trousers.
When the car stopped scraping along the road and the sounds started
again I could hear shouting and see smoke coming from the engine. We
were both alive, she had a cut on her forehead just underneath her long
hair and there were orange sirens reflected in the tears in her eyes. I
am pretty sure she had never been much happier than this.
Even though I couldn't move my legs she kissed me on the lips and told
me that I was right all along. She said I was beautiful and she was so
in love with me it hurt. That the love hurt more than her cuts and
bruises.
The car still smelt of salami when two men with moustaches of varying
mass in reflective jackets managed to free her from the wreck and she
wasn't even shaking.
