When Hugh Spafford saw the poster for “Kruze Nite,” he stopped his BMW so fast the bus behind him nearly crumpled his fender. As it was, the bus driver blared the horn the whole time Hugh took to jump out the door, run through a curb-side puddle in his Italian loafers and tear the neon-orange poster from the light pole.
Hugh didn’t care. He barely heard the racket behind him. This was just the thing he’d been looking for recently—since his fifty-fifth birthday last month, to be exact. He pulled into a convenient parking space, and examined the poster more closely:
KRUZE NITE!!!
All ’50s and ’60s vintage vehicles welcome
Meet at sundown
at the old Dairee Kreme Drive-In
on SR 17
for the ride of your life!
Be there or be square!
And at the bottom of the poster was Friday’s date, over a sketch of Hugh’s car. Not the stupid black Beemer everybody at the bank expected him to drive, but the candy-apple red fifty-seven T-bird stored under a tarp in his garage. His car. For years Hugh had saved all the money his father paid him in the Harrod’s Run hardware store, and bought the T-bird as soon as he got his driver’s license. Of course, it was white when he first got it, but a few years later, Hugh had painted it himself—the brightest, hottest red he could find.
Even when he’d gone away to college and then a stint in Nam, he’d kept the T-bird. When he couldn’t have it with him, he stored it on cement blocks behind his parents’ house. They’d threatened to get rid of it when he and Lauren finally bought a house on the Main Line in Philadelphia—Lauren’s dream, not his. And in spite of her glares and pouts and veiled threats, he’d towed it the seventy-five miles from his hometown, only to park it in the unused third stall of their new garage. He’d gently draped a canvas tarp over the still-bright paint and had nearly forgotten about it—except when Lauren complained each spring about the storage room it ate up in the three-stall garage. They needed the room for the kids’ toys, and later for the kids’ cars. Hugh ignored her comments, and eventually the kids were both gone to their own homes in distant states. And only the T-bird was left.
Now, sitting in the steamy BMW, listening to the hot summer rain batter against the metal roof, Hugh realized why he’d kept the Thunderbird. He’d known that someday, when he really needed it, he’d be given a chance to return to those innocent, simple days of his youth, even if it was for only one night. He wiped the moisture from his face and carefully rolled up the poster before driving home.
***
“You must be kidding.” Lauren slowly put her fork down on the woven placemat and stared across the table at him. “Don’t you think this male menopause thing has gone far enough?”
With some effort, Hugh swallowed another bite of grilled chicken. Usually, he changed into his sweat pants before dinner, but he had decided to keep the jeans on for a little longer this evening, even though the fabric cut uncomfortably into his thighs. At least Lauren couldn’t comment about his waistline.
“I wish you wouldn’t use that term,” he said. “It’s impossible for men to pause something they don’t have.”
“I’ve told you, it’s a psychological thing,” Lauren said. “What do you call it when a middle-aged man suddenly decides to grow his hair long and wear blue jeans and cowboy boots to work in a bank?”
Hugh forced himself not to touch the graying ponytail dangling over his left shoulder. “I’m a vice-president,” he said between clenched teeth. “I can wear what I want. And these are designer jeans. Anyway,” he muttered, hating the way Lauren always put him on the defensive, “I’m sitting most of the day, so people only see my coat and tie.”
Lauren just shook her head and continued eating in silence. After a few minutes, she said, “You don’t even know it’ll run.”
“Of course it runs,” he snapped. Lauren frowned, but said nothing more about the car during dinner. Hugh felt he’d lost an important battle, but couldn’t quite put his finger on the turning point.
As he helped her load the dishwasher later, Hugh tried a new tactic. “You know, you could come with me.”
She looked at him blankly. “Come with you where?”
Hugh wanted to slap her. How could she forget something so important so easily? “Friday,” he sighed, “to that Kruze Nite thing. It might be fun.”
“Fun?” Lauren peered at him incredulously, as though he’d just told a joke at a funeral.
“Sure.” Hugh felt his armpits grow damp. He wished he could just shut up, but somehow he felt it was important to convince Lauren. “We could dress up in fifties duds. I’d wear a tee shirt with cigarettes rolled into the sleeve, and you could get a poodle skirt and a tight button-down sweater. You’d look pretty foxy, babe.”
He moved closer to her, and bent to kiss her neck. She moved away a step, still staring at him. But now her look was softer, a little sad. She ran her fingers through her short hair, and Hugh was startled by how many silver strands were mixed in with the dark ones. He hadn’t noticed them before.
“I don’t think so,” she said quietly. Then she turned back to the dishwasher. “But you go ahead, if you need to.”
Hugh felt a wave of relief, and realized he had secretly hoped Lauren would decline. For some reason, he wanted to do this alone. He tried to sound disappointed.
“If you’re sure.”
She didn’t turn around. “I’m sure.”
She pressed the buttons on the dishwasher, and it hummed and sloshed as the soft glow of evening radiated through the kitchen window. The rain had stopped, and bands of gold streamed from between the purple clouds. When Lauren turned toward him again, her face was indistinct in the dying sunlight. Hugh saw again the young woman he’d first asked out during his senior year in college, and suddenly he wished he’d known Lauren earlier, during those bright high school years in Harrod’s Run, when the world was still crisp and new and she was just budding into womanhood. Regret and loss stabbed through his chest, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. He turned away, unable to look at her any longer.
Hugh went to the garage. He wanted to check out the T-bird, but instead of using the door from inside the house, he grabbed the remote control and went out the front door. He stood for a long time, staring at the square panels of the garage door. What if Lauren was right and the car wouldn’t run? He hadn’t really driven it since he’d put it up on blocks—what? Thirty years ago? More? His jaw ached as he ground his teeth. Hugh pressed the button to open the garage door. The car hunched beneath heavy cloth, barely visible in the dim light. Hugh pulled the tarp off.
And there she was—the symbol of his youth, gleaming cool and crimson, like Snow White’s apple. He inhaled the metal-and-leather smell of her, laced with a musky underlying scent of petroleum. He ran his fingertips gently along the chrome edging the windows and sighed heavily. He looked out the open garage door into the pale purple air. Wisps of fog drifted along the driveway, undulating in the pink light from the street lamp.
And suddenly they were there, waiting for him. All the boys and girls he’d loved back at Harrod’s Run High: Johnny Brazos, the handsome star quarterback who’d been killed by a sniper’s bullet in Vietnam. Blond prom queen, Jill Wallace, hung on his arm. She’d dreamed of going to Hollywood, but became a teen mother instead, and drank herself into an early grave.
Shirley Todd and her twin brother, Stan, were there, too, though Shirley had been killed in a plane crash on her way to serve in the Peace Corps three years after graduation. Stan had hanged himself three months later. And Hugh’s best friend, Frank Lucas, sat grinning behind the wheel of his baby blue Chevy. Good old Frank, who’d retired early to Florida last December, only to have a fatal heart attack while moving furniture into his new apartment.
But here they were in Hugh’s driveway, laughing to each other and hanging out in saddle shoes and ponytails, just the way they had back in the school parking lot. The light was bad, and he couldn’t see them clearly, but well enough to know they were teenagers again. No grey hair, no wrinkles or scars, no grief or fear or disillusionment. Just the enthusiasm and beauty of youth, their whole lives ahead of them.
As Hugh watched, stunned, they waved at him. Frank motioned for Hugh to come over, still grinning his famous lopsided grin. But Hugh hesitated. Was there something dark at the edges of that grin, something a little too enthusiastic about those waves?
Then Lauren opened the door from the house, startling him. He whirled, his heart beating wildly with fear and anger. When he turned back to the driveway, his friends were gone.
“What do you want?” he asked, still facing the driveway.
“Do you think the car will still run?”
“Of course she’ll run,” he said.
He was sure she would. But he’d have to put the tires back on first, and check under the hood. There was a lot of work to be done in the next couple of days. He’d have to call in sick tomorrow. Without rolling up the sleeves of his blue silk shirt or even removing his sport coat, Hugh set to work.
***
By Friday evening, the T-bird was ready for action—and so was Hugh. Lauren had watched him from the doorway as he worked feverishly for two days—polishing, draining, tightening, greasing—all the things old cars needed. She’d said nothing, but her face had spoken loudly enough. The spidery creases at the corners of her eyes and around her lips deepened as the worried frown became permanent. No matter how he tried, Hugh could no longer find in her the young woman he’d once loved.
He’d bought a black leather jacket Friday morning, and pulled it on over his white tee shirt, though the late afternoon was quite warm. He’d even gotten his hair cut, and smoothed the sides with his palms. He liked the feel of the slick hair, curling at the nape of his neck, though he wondered whether he should have touched up the grey. He shrugged: too late now.
Lauren was at her usual post, standing in the open door leading from the garage to the house, arms folded across her chest.
“What do you think, babe?” Hugh asked brightly.
“Please don’t call me babe.”
“Sorry.” Hugh sighed. Why did she always have to rain on his parade? He unfolded a road map, and began studying it. “Where’s Route 17?”
After a moment, Lauren came down into the garage. She leaned against the side of the car, and held out her hand for the map. Hugh gritted his teeth. He knew she’d never understand, but couldn’t hold the words back.
“Please don’t lean on the car.”
Lauren straightened and moved away from the car, but she said nothing. Hugh resisted the impulse to run a rag along the hood where she’d been leaning.
“Thanks,” he muttered, then pointed at the map again. “I can’t find 17 anywhere around here.”
Lauren stared at him for a long moment, then said, “Route 17. Isn’t that the little road between Harrod’s Run and Willow Hollow, where you and your buddies used to drag race? I remember you always joked about Route 17 being lucky, because that’s how old you were when you got this car.”
Hugh slapped the map. “Of course!” he cried. “That’s why the Dairee Kreme sounded so familiar. They served the best chili dogs in the whole state. God, I’m such an idiot. How could I have forgotten?”
He tried folding the map, but suddenly the creases all seemed to run the wrong direction. Cursing, he threw it to the ground. “Forget it. I’ve got to get going.”
“Willow Hollow’s nearly sixty miles from here,” Lauren protested. “You’ll never make it in time.”
“Sure I will,” Hugh smiled, peering at the cloudless sky. “Kruze Nite doesn’t start until sundown. I still have a good two hours ’til the. Plenty of time if I put the pedal to the metal.”
The now-familiar frown clouded Lauren’s face again, but she said nothing about not driving too fast. Instead, she came past the front of the car, careful not to touch the red metal, and put her hand on his cheek. Then she kissed him softly on the lips.
“I wish you didn’t have to do this,” she said.
He opened the door and slid onto the white leather seat. “I don’t have to,” he protested.
“Don’t you?”
“Of course not. I just think it’ll be fun, that’s all.”
Hugh slammed the door—a bit harder than necessary—and started the engine. Lauren stepped away as the car roared. Hugh backed out of the drive and squealed away, glancing only once into the rearview mirror as he approached the stop sign at the end of their block. Waving from the drive, Lauren seemed less real, like a character in an old movie. Then he turned the corner and she was gone.
Hugh eased down the ramp onto the turnpike and drove west, into the sun, toward his hometown, toward Willow Hollow, toward Kruze Nite. His hair whipped around his face and the combination of wind and sunlight reflecting off the hood made his eyes water, but he refused to allow himself the luxury of prescription sunglasses. Bifocals simply were not cool. They were for old people.
As the trees and farmlands flew by, Hugh felt as though the years were being torn from him by the wind, like tattered clothes. He turned on the radio, found a “golden oldies” station, and sang along with his favorites at the top of his voice: Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, Richie Valens. Where were they all now? he asked himself. When Hugh couldn’t remember the words, he just made them up. As the turnpike disappeared beneath his tires, the sun dropped until it glittered behind the hemlocks. The air turned a bit cooler.
Finally, he found the exit that would take him through the hills to Route 17 and the Dairee Kreme Drive-In, where he’d meet with other classic car owners and cruise the local towns in a rock ‘n’ roll caravan. Hugh felt his stomach tighten in anticipation, and turned off the radio so he could concentrate on his driving.
The two-lane road snaked through the woods, and traffic trickled down to the occasional rusty pickup truck. He nearly missed the turn-off to Route 17, the sign partially hidden by leaves. The sky to the west was a deep magenta, and the air streaming past was dampening as the dew point approached, but he knew he must be almost there.
“Please,” he murmured to the darkening woods, “don’t leave without me.”
At last, he rounded a sharp bend, and there it was—the Dairee Kreme Drive-In, at the far side of a rutted, overgrown dirt parking lot. The old wooden building huddled in the light from his headlamps like some angular animal, frozen with fear. The sign still dangled dangerously from its metal post by one chain, swaying slowly in the gentle breeze. There were no other cars, no signs of life. Venetian blinds shielded the large front windows from prying eyes.
Hugh cranked up his windows against the encroaching dampness and climbed stiffly from the T-bird. The damp air made him shiver, and he was glad for the leather jacket. He stopped and gazed around him in the dim light, afraid they’d left early. But there were no tire marks in the surrounding dirt, none but his own, no crushed tall grass other than what he’d just driven over. Nobody else had been here yet.
Hugh headed toward the dark building. Perhaps someone was waiting inside or around the back to greet the drivers, to let them know what was going on. High grasses whispered against his blue jeans, and he slapped at mosquitoes and gnats, roused from their nests by the scent of warm flesh and blood. He found a door at the side of the building, but it was bolted with a heavy padlock.
Hugh continued around toward the back, where the purple shadows faded to black among the trees and dense underbrush. He found another door, and this one opened when he turned the knob. Rusty hinges screamed loudly, and a bird answered in the distance. He went inside.
“Anybody here?” he called, though he didn’t really expect an answer. The air inside the diner had the neglected, motionless feeling of long-deserted buildings everywhere.
He had entered through the small kitchen. A door into the main serving area was barely visible in the gloom, and he headed that way. The front of the building was dark, as well, except for the glow from his headlamps pinstriping the windows through the venetian blinds. Hugh pulled the filthy, frayed cord, raising the thin metal strips of the blinds until the center window was clear.
He looked around. To his left was the familiar sliding window and counter for the drive-up customers. He ran his fingers across the top of one of the round metal tables, for the few older customers who didn’t care to eat in their cars. The old Coca-Cola clock had stopped at two-fifteen. The whole place was silent, as though it were waiting for something, listening for something.
Then Hugh heard it. Very faint at first, then gradually louder—the rumble of tires and deep thrum of motors. He squinted through the dusty glass, shielding his eyes with one hand. Behind the T-bird, he could barely make out a long line of classic cars driving past the overgrown Dairee Kreme parking lot. Three of the cars pulled out of the line and drew up beside Hugh’s car, engines idling, headlamps burning through the grimy panes. The others pulled onto the shoulder of the road.
The doors of the three cars opened simultaneously, as if on cue, and the occupants emerged. The figures moved a few steps toward the diner, until they were silhouetted by the bright lights from the cars. Hugh couldn’t see their faces, but he’d known who they were even before they got out of their cars.
Jill waved first. Her charm bracelet glittered on her wrist, and Hugh remembered when Johnny had given her the bracelet for her sweet sixteen birthday party. Then they were all waving at him, looping their arms in big circles, motioning for him to come with them. He rubbed at the window, trying to see them better, but the dirt only smeared, creating odd distortions in the bodies of the five teenagers.
“Wait up,” Hugh called to them. “I’m coming.” His voice seemed unnaturally loud, and seemed to bounce around the empty room, frightening him a little.
He pushed through the kitchen door, his eyes straining to adjust to the darkness. As he stepped out into the cool damp air, a voice in the back of his mind—a grown-up, serious voice—reminded him that the people he’d seen out front couldn’t possibly have been the friends of his youth. Those friends were all dead.
But Hugh pushed that voice away. He didn’t want to hear it. Because there was another voice, a younger, desperate voice shouting how it didn’t matter. Either these people looked very much like his friends, or he was hallucinating them there because he wanted it so much. And either way, he didn’t care. Hugh was going back tonight, back to a better time, a younger time, and it didn’t matter to him how he got there. It was just for one night, after all.
He stumbled around the corner of the diner, terrified that they’d have left, gone on without him. But they were still there, five young dark figures outlined in the glare from eight headlights. As Hugh approached, they all turned back to their cars: Johnny and Jill got into his black M.G. convertible, Stan helped Shirley into their dad’s Desoto, and Frank opened the door of his blue Chevy.
“Wait,” Hugh called to them. He couldn’t think of what else to say, but he didn’t want them to just leave like that. There should be more.
Frank shook his head as though he’d heard Hugh’s thoughts. He motioned for Hugh to get into his own car, then slid behind the Chevy’s wheel. After a moment, Hugh climbed reluctantly into the T-bird. He closed the door behind him and removed the emergency brake. The smell inside the car seemed musty now and cloying, the fumes a little too strong. Hugh wanted to roll down his windows, but the cars on either side of him were moving now, circling around him to join the long line of old cars waiting at the side of the road.
Frank drove past him first. Hugh smiled and lifted his hand to wave. But in that moment, Frank’s face was illuminated by Hugh’s headlights, and Hugh saw it clearly. It was not, as Hugh had first assumed, the face of vibrant youth. Frank’s skin was pale grey, mottled with purple blotches under the colorless eyes. His mouth drooped sharply, in a death rictus, a bizarre imitation of the familiar lopsided grin. Something crawled from the corner of his lips, and Hugh gagged.
Then Stan and Shirley rolled by in the Desoto. Shirley was mercifully hidden behind her brother, but Stan’s head lolled to one side at an impossible angle, flopping loosely as the car bounced over a pothole. His hands were clasped to the steering wheel, but he couldn’t have been controlling the Desoto’s movement. Hugh tried to scream, but didn’t have enough air in his lungs.
Suddenly, Hugh knew with an awful certainty what he’d see when Johnny and Jill joined the procession. Johnny’s head would be blown open in the back, and Jill’s peaches-and-cream complexion would now be bloated and pasty, like the flesh of some pickled animal. He pounded his foot onto the clutch and grabbed the gearshift, desperate to get far away from the Dairee Kreme Drive-In and its terrible customers.
But when he wrenched it toward him, nothing happened. The stick wouldn’t move. He pulled again, with both hands, but to no avail. He tried to yank it in different directions, but nothing worked. Panting, Hugh wiped sweat from his eyes. The car wouldn’t respond, no matter what he did. Panic gripped him.
Hugh bit hard into his lower lip, hoping the pain would help bring some clarity to his mind. It did. The grown-up voice returned, reassuring him that even if the people in those cars were really the specters of his long-dead friends, they couldn’t hurt him.
Just wait for them to go away, it said. Then you can relax and figure out what’s wrong with the T-bird. And you can go home. Hugh clenched his teeth and closed his eyes, and waited. His tee shirt felt clammy beneath the leather jacket, and he could smell the ripe, metallic odor of his own fear.
Suddenly, he felt something move in his right hand. He realized he was still holding on to the gearshift. The knob was moving by itself, putting the T-bird into first gear. And the car lurched forward.
Hugh jammed his right foot onto the brake until his leg ached. But nothing happened, the pedal never moved. The car continued forward until it was moving slowly behind Johnny Brazo’s black M.G. Hugh yanked at the door handle. It remained locked in place, as though welded there. As did the window cranks. Hugh began crying, pounding at the windows.
“Let me go,” he shouted against the glass. “I’ve changed my mind. I want to go home.” But the pale young faces in the other cars never wavered, dead eyes fixed on the long journey ahead.
Hugh screamed. And the candy-apple red T-bird moved quietly into place at the end of an unending line of shiny old cars.