Metallic Green Paint and Lemon Yellow Housecoats

Oh no! I sat down on the stair so hard that I felt it in my teeth.

As soon as my eyes cleared the second-floor landing I was blinded, squinting hard against the morning sun as it reflected off metallic lime-green paint. There was only one thing in my entire thirteen-year-old existence that was this color, and it was parked right there, in front of our house, where everyone could see it.

It was too late.

I instantly understood two very important things. First, my day was going to begin with the soul crushing humiliation known only to a teenager desperately trying to disappear while being raised by parents who embrace the idea of living out loud. And second, there was absolutely no way I was going to get in that car.

Heavy sigh.

If you’ve ever been to Hot August Nights, you know it’s a roaring, high-octane celebration of classic cars while the music of The Beach Boys or Little Richard rolls through the streets, vibrating up through the pavement beneath your feet. Most dads go there to buy a ’65 Mustang or maybe a Chevy with enough power to tow a freight train - where one could almost imagine the tiny orange needle on the gas gauge twitching just at the thought of turning the key.

My dad went there and bought a moving public indecency charge.

I was thirteen when he rolled home in a massive 1970s Cadillac Sedan de Ville with a blinding metallic-green finish. I felt the rumble of the engine before I even saw the car. And there he was - elbow resting casually out the driver’s side window, his cigarette dangling from his mouth like he had not a single care in the world - driving the largest, loudest, most impossible-to-ignore vehicle ever created.

As I silently worked to scoot my rear back up the stairs, hoping my mother had not noticed me, I realized it wasn’t the color that was offensive.  No. The real crowning glory was the artwork.

From the bumper to the rear taillights, the Cadillac was a moving gallery of naked ladies, custom painted and draped casually across the hood, doors and trunk. Nowhere was safe.

My mother stood holding the screen door open, waving enthusiastically in her lemon - yellow housecoat and her Candies slide-on-heels. She never wore underwear, and at that particular moment, with the morning sun pouring through the fabric, this was information the entire neighborhood was forced to process.

Slowly, as if time itself had decided to stop and watch my humiliation unfold, I slid my rear up one more. Thank you, sweet baby Jesus, for the carpeting.

One more step. Just one more and I would be clear.  Free from my mother’s wardrobe choices. Free from the metallic-green monstrosity waiting with my father motioning for everyone to get in. I could disappear until my family finally pulled away on its maiden voyage.

Then my mother turned and looked back over her shoulder. Our eyes met. She knew. She knew exactly how I felt. She knew exactly what I was trying to do. And, most importantly, she knew I was one carpeted stair away from getting away with it. The amount of communication that passed between us in those few seconds could have filled the Bible twice.

Then she smiled.

“Come on! Your dad’s waiting!” She was not going to save me.

The back seat alone could have held Wilt Chamberlain, and he still might have struggled to see out the windows. It wasn’t a seat so much as a private lounge upholstered in vinyl and bad decisions. Surely, I thought, this was where I would disappear. But my mother had other plans.

Instead of allowing me to sink safely into the cavernous back seat, she opened the passenger door and dragged me in. Suddenly, it wasn’t carpet I was sliding over but vinyl, until I was wedged between them, my parents, on full display.

The View From the Dashboard

There are certain indignities you survive at thirteen that you are convinced will kill you.

Riding through town wedged between my father and my mother in her translucent yellow housecoat, surrounded by naked women painted across a metallic line-green Cadillac, was apparently not one of them.

My dad drove us to Dairy Queen.

And somewhere between the embarrassment, the rumble of that ridiculous engine, and the first crack of the chocolate shell on my dipped cone, I forgot that I was supposed to be mortified.

At least until we had to drive home.