Dax Shaddock was lost. It wasn’t that he didn’t know where he was. It was that he had no idea where he was going.

He’d taken a “gap year” after graduating from Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern, but he’d fallen into the “gap” and couldn’t seem to find his way out.  Most of his friends had gone off to college in places like Austin, Houston or even San Marcus.  None of those locations were all that exotic, though any of them afforded more excitement than anything in or around Fort Stockton.  

His performance in sports had been average, negating any of the scholarship opportunities his buddies got.  His grades were mediocre, not because of ability but effort.  His parents, Jim and Barbara, had tired of pressuring him to apply himself.  “We can’t make him,” Jim used to say to his wife as they drifted off to sleep.  “We can talk till we’re blue in the face, but he has to show a little effort if he’s going to make anything of himself.”  The fact that his older brother had done well in sports, consistently made the Honor Roll, and was self motivated only made their aggravation more intense.  The same was true for Dax. 

Dax had a part time job at the Rusty Hammer Hardware Store paying him enough to keep gas in his old’61 Impala, and take Jennifer out on the weekend, but little else. Rusty had offered him more hours, but Dax didn’t seem inclined to take him up on the offer. “Maybe this summer,” was all he said. Even Jennifer was starting to wonder just what the future looked like, if there even was one. She said she loved him, but when she tried to think of exactly what that meant, she couldn’t really pin it down.

They’d talked about getting married. That’s what people do who’ve dated for a couple years because it seems like the next logical step. But the reality of what that would actually look like if it happened seemed to have escaped her imagination. She assumed Dax had some kind of a plan for their future that he just hadn’t shared yet. He was like that. Quiet about deeper thoughts. Made her wonder sometimes if he really had any. But then he’d surprise her and share something about the immorality of the war in Viet Nam or religion or evolution. Topics that he seemed to have actually have well thought out, whether she agreed with him, or even cared about the point he’d made. It showed mental activity. Sometimes she thought he was simple in his complexity, other times, complex in his simplicity. Most of the time they just made out. And that was enough. It usually is when you’re almost twenty.

When Barbara pulled her new Bonneville into the driveway Friday afternoon she wasn’t surprised to see Dax’s Impala parked in the street out front; the pool of oil spilling out from underneath it, however, got her attention. She was cursing under her breath as she pulled the long dark green convertible into the garage.

A moderately successful real estate agent in Fort Stockton, Barbara traded cars in every three years.  A new car was good for business, a sign of success.  Folks want their agent to be successful. It means their house will sell faster than if marketed by someone driving an old beater. When she traded her ’67 Catalina hardtop sedan in a few months earlier she was on the endorphin-induced high from closing the biggest deal she’d ever done, the Jacobson spread west of town.  Walking into the dealership and seeing the green over tan convertible gleaming in the afternoon sun spilling into the all-glass showroom, she said “I’ll take it,” before thinking about the impracticality.  A convertible in Southwest Texas could only be fully enjoyed about six days a year.  Getting clients in and out of a two door to show them a house would be awkward.  The gas mileage of the big 455 V8 was ridiculous, especially around town, which is mostly where she drove.  In the end though, she had zero regrets.  The big old bird beak on the front of the Bonneville was a like firm handshake closing the deal.  Kind of motivated her every time she got in it.

Walking into the house she could hear Three Dog Night blaring from Dax’s bedroom.  Making her way down the hall she tried to be as loud as she could, and knocked on the door before entering, lest she see something that would scar them both.  Again.

Opening the door and stepping in, she was relieved to find him dressed, or at least covered.  She couldn’t tell if he’d ever gotten out of bed, other than the accumulation of plates and glasses on the floor beside the bed.  “The pavement under the Impala looks like a well just cam in over in the Permian Basin.  Not sure how you’re going to get all that oil cleaned up, but you need to figure it out before your dad sees it and comes unglued,” she said “You know how he is.”  She couldn’t tell for sure, but thought there might have been a nod in her direction.  Maybe just a slight tilt of the head indicating acknowledgment.  She wasn’t sure.

An hour later, Dax stumbled into the kitchen and greeted Jim and Barbara who were enjoying their second cocktail at the oval Formica topped kitchen table. The cloud of freshly applied Old Spice drowned out the scent of the Scotch, but at least he was fully dressed and apparently among the living. “The Impala’s crapped the bed. I’ve got a date with Jennifer tonight. Can I have the keys to the Bonneville?” Barbara and Jim looked at each other, neither wanting to be the bad guy. “Neither wanting to be the bad guy” would later be determined as the main cause of why parenting took such a decline in the 70s, sending society down a path of destruction.

Barbara reached into her purse.  “Here’s the deal,” she negotiated like it was a 3-2-2 ranch in Road Runner Estates, “the car stays in town. Don’t take it out on the highway. Tomorrow, after you get home from the hardware store, you wash it.  Not a half-assed wash.  Armorall the tires and everything.  And then take care of the mess in the street out front.” She’d given in, but with just a small enough dose of “Bad Guy” to make her feel like she’d won.

Dax provided some type of primal grunt in return as he took the keys from her hand that she took as a verbal agreement.  “Might be late,” he said as he headed to the garage.  As he backed the Bonneville out, he remembered how much he liked his mom’s new car.  ‘So much nicer than that POS Impala’ he thought to himself as he glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the injured Impala.  He felt like a king behind the wheel.

He told Jennifer he’d pick her up at 6:30, but figured he had time to take the Pontiac out on Highway 10 and open up the 455 V8 and see just what the ol’ girl could do. Turned out to be everything he thought it would be and more. Looping back to town and exiting the highway for the twelve minute drive to Jennifer’s house gave him time to plan the date, though he’d told her he’d been working on it for days. Swing by the Dairy Twin for a couple burger baskets before taking in a show at the Prairie View Drive-In. Not exactly rocket science. He circled Jenifer’s block a time or two so he could hear the rest of Bridge Over Troubled Water and sing along with Simon and Garfunkel on the chorus. As he pulled up in front of her house, American Woman started on playing on KFSX-Fort Stockton. He’d have gone around the block a couple more times if Jennifer hand’t bounded out of the house. He loved that song.

Jennifer was looking good.  Tight Daisy Dukes that showed enough of her butt to make him want to skip the movie and one of his old football practice t-shirts that’d been cut off to form a crop top that barley covered her bouncy boobs.  She opened the massive passenger door of the Pontiac and slid in, the smell of Heaven’s Scent perfume and strawberry lip gloss filling his nostrils and making him want to devour her.  Of course he knew her father would be watching out the picture window of the living room, so a peck on the cheek would have to suffice.  But his hand, hidden from the purview of the picture window quickly found its way to her exposed thigh, giving it an inappropriate squeeze.

“Where’s your car?” she giggled.  “I’m not used to riding in style!”

“The Impala’s wounded.  Maybe mortally,” Dax informed her.  “And you ride in style wherever you go, if I’m drivin’.”  He turned up the radio to get the full effect of the last half of American Woman and gunned the 455 V8 as he pulled away from the curb, nearly broadsiding  Mrs. Mason’s Monaco.  

Jennifer giggled and grabbed the inside of his upper thigh.  “Ridin’ in style, alright,” she whispered.

The burger baskets at the Dairy Twin were consumed in near silence. Apparently this wouldn’t be one of those nights Dax would share something he’d been thinking about for days and was ready to discuss. She tried talking about conversations she’d had with friends earlier in the day, but got agitated when he couldn’t even pretend to be interested. That was a courtesy he employed less and less frequently. “What are we doing after this?” she asked.

“Drive-In.  The Graduate is playing at the Prarie-View,” he told her.  “We’ve never seen it.  Thought it’d be good.”  Jennifer thought Dustin Hoffman was sexy and she’d tried to grow her hair out like Katherine Ross last summer, so she was on board.  Simon and Garfunkel would make the movie tolerable, if not the story.

The short drive to the Prarie-View from the Dairy Twin in a convertible with the top down and sun setting provided one of those moments where everything seemed perfect, just for a few minutes. A snapshot in time they’d both remember the rest of their lives, just for the perfection of it. A delight to nearly every one of the senses all at once that occurs only maybe a dozen times in life, if that. The view through the windshield of mountains in the distance at sunset. The feel of the early evening sun on skin, tan and taught. The scent of youth that can’t be recaptured once it fades. The wind billowing through chestnut hair and blowing up crop tops.

So lost in the moment were they that Dax forgot to pull over and put the top up before they got to the ticket gate.  Couldn’t very well do it once they pulled in without it being obvious they had no intention of actually watching the movie.  Dax was mad at himself for the missed opportunity.  Jennifer was relieved they’d actually see the film.

Without any privacy there was no need to park at the very back, as they normally did. Dax glided the massive ragtop into a spot about midway back from the screen, dead center in front of the screen, the bird beak grill pointed slightly skyward. He put it in PARK, and switched off the ignition, leaving his window up just enough to hook the speaker on the top. Getting there just in time for previews, a trip to the snack bar was to be postponed or put off altogether, saving Dax about two hours of wages at the hardware store, best he could calculate. Jennifer never finished het popcorn, anyway.

The sun fully disappeared over the horizon as the previews finished and the feature began.  Dax slid the front seat back as far as it would go, regretting the fact he hadn’t put the top up all over again, but thinking it probably was better he didn’t defile his mother’s new convertible, anyway.  He put his arm up on the back of the seat and Jennifer slid over and nuzzled next to him, the cool night air causing her to have goose pimples.  She sought Dax’s warmth, knowing it wouldn’t lead to losing all her clothes, a whole new experience.

Getting settled in for the film, neither was aware of the places it would take them.

Dax found his mind wandering to Jennifer’s mother and thinking about her in ways he’d never considered before.  Jennifer focused on the amount of alcohol the adult characters consumed and then considered Dax’s folks.  In her parent’s baptist home nobody drank at all.  As she looked at the adults in the movie, she wondered if perhaps Barbara and Jim didn’t drink too much.  

Jennifer and Dax both found themselves thinking about what it must be like to sneak away to expensive hotels to do the dirty deed.  They’s never been in a hotel room together.  Their encounters of the flesh had all been in each of their own homes while their parents were gone, or more often in either the front or back seat of Dax’s old Impala.

Dax felt comfort in the hopelessness of Dustin Hoffman’s character, a shared sense of not having a purpose, or not having found it yet.  

They each became engrossed in the movie, something that would’ve never happened had they been within the privacy of his Impala, partially disrobed, windows fogged.  By the end, Jennifer had slid over to the passenger side, next to the door.  She’d adjusted to the temperature of the night and preferred to put some distance between herself and Dax.  Dax hadn’t noticed when she slid over, still thinking about Jennifer’s mother and Mrs. Robinson.

At the end of the movie, as Dustin Hoffman and Katherine Ross sit in the back of the bus, staring at the camera, Dax and Jennifer were sitting at either end of the buckskin colored vinyl bench seat staring ahead.  The confusion in the eyes of the couple on the screen seemed to be reflected in the souls of the couple in the Pontiac.  Each seemed to be confronted with realities they hadn’t anticipated and had no idea how to process.

Dax hung the speaker back on the pole next to the car and turned the key in the ignition, a tight “click” breaking the silence.  The 455-V8 roared to life and then lowered to a murmur.  The audience watching the end of the movie had no idea where the bus was going to stop, or what would happen to Dustin Hoffman and Katherine Ross when it did.

Dax and Jennifer had the same sense of puzzlement when he pulled up to the curb in front of her house.  “We’ll talk tomorrow,” he told her.

“Okay,” she said.  But she wasn’t sure if they would.