JAMES BRAZIEL
Jick's Chevrolet
IS A PLACE UP THE HILL just out of Oneonta where the highway splits two ways. Doesn’t matter which one you take, both routes open up to county roads that curve by hay fields and the new houses being built where the March tornadoes struck. At some point they loop dead center through a long pine thicket no one’s cut down yet. But they will. One day they’ll replace those trees with the bottom of the blue sky, and for a moment you’ll breathe good, so good. Thing is, only so much pine tar can be taken in before you faint, fall against the wheel, crash against a stump. But don’t worry your sore head too much—that’s just one cut to home.
When you get to the top to Jick’s, his big blue board all lit up with the pop-light sedan and its pop-flash wheels flashing next to the word Chevrolet, you’ll find all the pretty cars you’ve never owned--Camaros, Impalas, Corvettes, and Corvairs. Names made for riding low and pretty, made up of unreal reds and hellfire yellows, and chrome, chrome, chrome! just out of reach from your bumper and your dusty windshield.
Now Jick, he’s a good guy. And his cars are good cars. They just out of reach. So after letting the thin card punch 10 hours off your life, head up slow to Jick’s, take a look and choose a route off the two-way that splits again and again like a ruthless root, dividing you up. Every afternoon let the rubber fly until the maps in your head get so dizzy, you forget the way home.
Wherever you land, you’ll crank up the ole 4-banger in the morning, I bet, and head back to Jick’s cause Jick, he treats his customers right. He’s ready to open the door to a pretty car and say, “Here you go! Kick a wheel! Give it a spin!” Throw those keys right where only you can catch them. And you’ll catch them right where the sun meets your hand in the bottom of the blue sky.
Jick’s cars crank easy and ride easy as you head down those same county roads. But this time’s different, whatever cut through whatever field you take to get to the thicket of pine. On the other side, the ride gets wider, emptier. And you can fill up all that space. Every last bit. Until you’re as big as the sun and the moon and all the light and all the dark.
When you get to the top to Jick’s, his big blue board all lit up with the pop-light sedan and its pop-flash wheels flashing next to the word Chevrolet, you’ll find all the pretty cars you’ve never owned--Camaros, Impalas, Corvettes, and Corvairs. Names made for riding low and pretty, made up of unreal reds and hellfire yellows, and chrome, chrome, chrome! just out of reach from your bumper and your dusty windshield.
Now Jick, he’s a good guy. And his cars are good cars. They just out of reach. So after letting the thin card punch 10 hours off your life, head up slow to Jick’s, take a look and choose a route off the two-way that splits again and again like a ruthless root, dividing you up. Every afternoon let the rubber fly until the maps in your head get so dizzy, you forget the way home.
Wherever you land, you’ll crank up the ole 4-banger in the morning, I bet, and head back to Jick’s cause Jick, he treats his customers right. He’s ready to open the door to a pretty car and say, “Here you go! Kick a wheel! Give it a spin!” Throw those keys right where only you can catch them. And you’ll catch them right where the sun meets your hand in the bottom of the blue sky.
Jick’s cars crank easy and ride easy as you head down those same county roads. But this time’s different, whatever cut through whatever field you take to get to the thicket of pine. On the other side, the ride gets wider, emptier. And you can fill up all that space. Every last bit. Until you’re as big as the sun and the moon and all the light and all the dark.
James Braziel is the author of the novels
Birmingham, 35 Miles and Snakeskin Road. He lives and writes in north
Alabama with his wife, poet Tina Mozelle Braziel.
