One Piece at a Time

Jan 5, 2018
3 min read

Updated: 1 day ago

by Claire McCully

“You only understand perfection if you attempt it.”— Jonathan Ward, founder of Icon 4x4

My dad always said he favored Originally manufactured equipment, Not aftermarket modifications. I know how it is: people are so afraid Of voiding the warranty, of pissing off A bunch of old white guys in Detroit.

But who died and made Henry Ford god? Who thinks the soul of a vehicle Is churned out on an assembly line? That it’s all about the base model, Assigned at birth, a blueprint In Sanskrit, in ancient Greek, Lee Iacocca dictating design: Obsolescent plans in a tattered codex?

As for me: spoiler alert! Everything is not stock. Some cars, after all, are smuggled Out in Johnny Cash’s lunch box, One piece at a time, my mind A set of mismatched gears, Set in motion before memory, My tailfins from a Mercury Comet, My heart’s a Pontiac Firebird, My engine runs just fine, And no trouble with this tranny: Just gliding smooth With satin black outlaw wheels.

Whether it’s a 49 or 51 automobile, Whether there’s two headlights on the left And one on the right, or if my front end, Doesn’t quite match my rear? What’s wrong with a custom flame job? Why judge the rice burner’s fondness For air foils, for pin striping. A piercing Here and there? A tramp stamp? Collagen high beams, tail pipes at 130 decibels Barely street legal, and everything amplified?

But it’s not just about cosmetics. It’s about performance too. Custom hydraulics, A-line aerodynamics.

So abandon vestigial parts to the rust bin, Leave antiquated components in the junk yard. Sure, keep the 8-track players, But lose one track thinking. Let us gather at night in side streets, To consort against conformity, Conspire the downfall of conventions, Rattle windows with our discontent of the binary, Or being on the wrong side of it. Our subwoofers give bounce to our baselines. Drag queens and kings trim Their undercarriages in neon, Glint their curves with chrome, Become everything our mothers warned us about.

Come one, come all: muscle cars That will not be muffled, The sleek convertible just from the chop shop, Imports, exotics, and those made in America, Maybe domestic, but never domesticated. Cosworths and Cosseys, Teslas and Tulas, Cadillacs and Caitlyns, Jaguars and Jorgensons. Volvos and Bonos, Boylans and Bentleys, Calpernia Adams waving the checkered flag.

And when the black and whites come To insist on fix-it tickets, to complain that our Wiring is bad, that it’s nothing A factory conversion kit can’t solve, Or to cite us for being a nuisance, a noise violation, A discordant strain in otherwise harmonious music, We’ll give them the squeal of our tires And the smoke of rubber on asphalt.

But maybe, more often than not, It’s about this: the car rolling by you On your way to work, The sleeper that never makes you look twice, Going with the flow of traffic, Minding All the signals and signs. No tells. Totally stealth. The car passes, leaving you untroubled, Your thoughts consumed with something As trivial as your need to use the bathroom, Never tripped up by what’s under that other driver’s hood.

And that is me. That is us. I am the Icon Derelict We are the sacred and the marginalized. Some might see the stuff of nightmares, But we are made of only daydreams.

And, yes, we all want the same right To use the service station.

When it comes down to it, Whether we are stock or entirely other, Stick shift, automatic, fire right up, Or require foreplay with our starter, Whether you have a hot rod, Whether you are a low rider with a stiff suspension, Whether you have a blown hemi, a straight six, a hybrid, Or even better, are purely electric, Whatever letter you are in the LGBTQ, In the right, left, cis, straight, xy&z We all just want the open road, The unbounded horizon, the opportunity To drive and the chance to love. The freeway belongs to everyone, And these streets are our streets, From sea to shining sea.

Claire McCully is a writing instructor, poet, a single parent, and a transgender rights advocate who lives at Lake Tahoe.