AJ
Oh shit! The
squeal of our screen door told me I was in big trouble. “Anastacio Joaquin
Ortiz!” my mum whispered fiercely over the din of tinking metal and ACDC. I
could hear her just fine, but I knew that whether I responded now or in a few
seconds, she would still be pissed. So I decided to wait it out. “Anastacio
Joaquin Ortiz! It is almost one in the morning! You need to get to bed! You
have work tomorrow and you are going to be exhausted! Get out from under there
and get to bed!”
My mum, a stocky
woman with long, but prematurely salt and pepper hair, knew what it meant to
me. She was raised in a family of boys. Not a big deal. But her brothers and
father were racers. They lived for the slightly nauseous smell of burnouts, the
black stripes in the road, but most importantly, they lived their lives 15
seconds and a quarter mile at a time. She refused to have her brothers touch
her car. She fixed and tuned her own car. That was the way she rolled.
That is also how
she met my dad. One Saturday my mum and her brothers went down to Eubank to get
some racing in before they needed to come home for supper. The passes she made
weren’t amazing, but they were getting better. As in, she didn’t stall out
before even starting the race. She was waiting on the starting line. “Keep”
–inhale labored from adrenaline– “me” –exhale – “safe” –inhale again – “as I” –exhale—“make
this” –inhale—“pass.” –exhale—Swish. Swish. She rubbed her hands together, not
because she was cold, but because she was a nervous wreck in between passes.
Vroom. Vroom. The
universal signal for “wanna race?” She revved her engine in response. The
bandanna moved upward as if time was slowed completely. And it went down faster
than a cannon ball shot out of a cannon. The dinky little Chevy Nova and the
brand new bumblebee Camaro launched and the pass was over in the blink of an
eye. The race master began jumping up and down like a bunny rabbit. “The Nova
won! The Nova won.”
At the end of a
pass, it is customary for the drivers to shake hands when they return to the starting
line. The driver of the Camaro exited the car. He sauntered up to the driver of
the Nova just as the driver pulled off a baseball cap and shook out her long
brown hair. “Hello Ma’am. Great race. Wait. Ma’am!?” My mum just laughed and
offered her hand. The guy, realizing he had lost to a girl, shook her hand
numbly. “My name is Jay Ortiz and I was wondering if you would like to go out
for a milkshake sometime?” My mum laughed out of confusion. She was a tomboy
and was not used to being treated like a girl. But she agreed. Just to be nice.
The milkshake date
that night turned into many more over the years and eventually turned into
marriage.
My dad loved to
race and shortly after they were married, my dad purchased a red 56 Chevy that
he named “Rowdy Red.” It was his baby. That baby broke records at many tracks
before my dad stumbled on “The Monster.”
“The Monster”, a
pile of junk that resembled a 55 Chevy, was not a monster. It was a frame. Between
their daily jobs, my mum and my dad toiled away at “The Monster.” The late
nights. The records being warped from playing them so many times. The tinking
of metal on metal. All of this to finish the car before the 1998 race season.
Maria
I
was an ordinary Joe. Well…actually I was an ordinary Jane. And by ordinary I
mean a kid that came out crying like any other normal baby, slightly ugly yet somehow
cute at the same time. Apparently I got a lot of attention as did any first
born child, but I have a hard time believing that considering my two younger
sisters hog my parent’s attention now a days.
But
just because I resembled a normal kid at birth, that doesn’t mean that I was
normal. Little girls at age 4 or 5 are stereotypically associated with Barbie
dolls, pink and other disgustingly girly things. I shudder at the thought. I
had a collection of Hot Wheels cars, screamed if I was forced to wear a dress,
and just enjoyed being gross, disgusting, dirty and sweaty. All my friends at
school were guys. My mom, for fear of teasing, told me not to tell people that
I loved cars.
So
as a good little child would do, I put it into the back of my mind. I still
played with my Hot Wheels at home, but never at school. But the teasing began.
“Why do you like to play in the mud?” “Are you gay?” “Are you even a girl?”
Harmless, but never the less it escalated to physical levels. I got so sad that
I cut my arms. But thankfully since I fainted from the sight of blood, I never
tried that move again.
I
became the chubby kid. It wasn’t because I was eating a butt-load of food each
day. It was because my thyroid stopped functioning correctly. “Fatty.” “Fatso.”
“Fatty, fatty. 2 by 4!” The one day I told Liam to shut up, he whirled around
and hit me in the head with a 4 inch thick Bible. How very Catholic, right? The
administration told me to stop irritating Liam. It was also about then that I
stopped eating. I figured that if I was thin, they’d stop teasing me. That was
also about the time that I started fainting. My parents didn’t know what was
wrong, but I did. And I wasn’t going to tell them. By the time I was a seventh
grader, I was 5’4” and about 100 pounds. Not scarily thin, but still bad
enough. From all the teasing that I endured in Catholic school, I became the
girl who always ducked her head from the lack of self-confidence.
My
Uncle worked on classic cars in his spare time. Whenever we were visiting,
Uncle David would always be bending over the engine bay and cursing under his
breath. “Where the fuck did I put my glasses? I swear I just had them!” That
always sent me into titters of laughter. I found it amusing because his glasses were always
on his head. He didn’t let me actually work on the cars, but he would let me
watch and ask questions. The questions had novels for responses. Uncle David
was also the one that told me about the joys of manual cars. But that was the
only place that my hidden passion could surface.
I
transferred from Catholic school to Albuquerque Academy my 8th grade
year. My first friend at Academy, senior Elizabeth Anderson, told me about
Senior Projects. “So it’s like when you do what you like really want to do in
life. Like as a job.” Boom! I knew exactly what I wanted to do. A transmission
swap (from automatic to standard) on an old car. I was just starting to come
out my Catholic School enforced shell with the help of the Beatles.
There
was a girl at my advisor table that looked lonely. One day she came in wearing
a Beatles shirt. “Oh my goodness! You like The Beatles too? Who’s your favorite
Beatle?” I don’t think Schifani liked me screaming at his advisor table. The
girl nods. “George.” I think I near about died on the spot. Someone who’s
favorite Beatle was George also!? Maia was my first and best friend at Academy.
But no one was to know that I liked cars. I didn’t know anybody except for Maia
and I really didn’t want to be teased for liking cars.
AJ
Summer
2014. “The Monster” has been retired almost 10 years. It is still a beast that
can out run any street car today. It was transformed from a pile of junk to the
most badass race car I have ever seen. I mean “Rowdy Red is cool”, but it
overheats so often that it just sits in our garage for weeks at a time.
Sometimes we take “The Monster” out to the car show every Wednesday at Fastino’s,
but that is a very rare occasion.
Summer
is summer. Not much to do except work on Saturday. So my summer is boring. We
still haven’t found a frame that I can use to restore from scratch to be my
daily. And Dad decided that I needed to learn how to parallel park. The horror
of it. He took “Rowdy Red” and “The Monster” and put them in the street. He
gave me the truck. “Park in between then and don’t hit them.” Dammit Dad! No
pressure, eh? I didn’t hit them, but I definitely know that I hate parallel
parking.
It
was my birthday yesterday and I’m rewarding myself with some tinkering around
on “The Monster”. I am always almost done with something when Mum is all like
“AJ let’s get going. We’re taking ‘The Monster’ to Fastino’s today. Hurry UP!”
After letting out a long discontented sigh-grumph noise, “Yes Mum. I’m coming.”
As
usual, we get there and the only spots are by Discount. No one is going to see
“The Monster” from the normal parking lot.
Maria
Ugh!
2014 has been rough so far. Well first off, in January, I asked Brandon to
Winter Ball. I had had a massive crush on his since the beginning of 8th
grade. He was in my history class, english class, and science class. He was
literally just so nice to me. So to ask him to Winter Ball, I made basketball
shaped cupcakes with the black vinyl basketball lines spelling “WINTER BALL?”.
Well that ended up to be a flop. He said no. On the spot. Then my best friend
Peter Le liked me and was being super flirtatious, then told me that he liked
Ella. And I punched a wall. Then I developed a huge crush on Chris Mooty. Oh my
goodness was he gorgeous! Well he turned me down over text. This all happened
within a time span of 6 months. I decided that I needed a break from this shit
called “love” and throw all my energy into cars.
I
started telling people that I was into cars. And people laughed at me. But if
they can’t accept me for who I am they don’t deserve to take up my attention. I
begged my mom and dad to let me go to Fastino’s that Wednesday. But, of course,
it would be after church. Fine. At least I will look nice. Very funny. I hate
dresses and to be seen in public with a dress is still humiliation for me.
When
I get there, I am in car heaven. Classic cars everywhere. I think I might
actually die happy. I see my 8th grade diving coach, Dawn Smith and
her husband Tal as well as Ms. Lydon. Oh man. I really hope that my skirt is
long enough and that she won’t dress code me. I start talking to Tal and he
told me to stay right here. He wants me to meet someone.
AJ
Tal
Smith has been one of my longtime friends. He’s cool and pretty funny. He also
gives good advice. He comes up to me and tells me that he wants me to meet
someone. So I follow him.
In
front of me is this girl. She is quite pretty. Oh wow. Look at her legs! I
mean, WOW! I hold out my hand. “AJ Ortiz. Nice to meet you.” “Maria Vianco.
Same to you.” She shook my hand and you could see the muscles in her arm flex.
The insane pressure of the handshake was also quite insane. I normally don’t
know how to shake hands with a girl. Because some will be like “here shake my
finger with the lightest of tough possible so that you don’t ruin my hand” and
others barely make contact, as if they are afraid of touching a guy. But she
gave a guy’s handshake. I think I might like to get to know her.
“So
how old are you?” she asked. “16…17?” “Uh no. I turned 14 yesterday.” “Well,
happy birthday man.” Tal and her parents started talking as all adults do.
Maria
“So
which one is your car.” And he led me to his car. It was a blue 55 Chevy. I
asked him if we could pop the hood. But since it was a front tilt, that wasn’t
possible. The wind was killing me! I mean pants would’ve been more suitable,
but Dad made me wear a skirt. And yes. My skirt was threatening to flash AJ. But
I did what a non-skirt wearing person would’ve done: I bent over with my arms
at my side to look at the engine of this car. “So it’s about a 305 engine. V-8,
definitely not stock.”
I
look up to see AJ’s mouth open in a nice “O” of surprise.
AJ
Hell yeah I
was surprised. She was wearing a girly skirt for goodness sakes. I mean Jamie
is another woman friend who loves cars, but Jamie is not girly at all. Marie?
Mary? I mean Maria is a badass. She comes to a car show all girly and knows her
cars. Wow. I want to keep in contact with her. “What’s your number?” She just
kinda laughs and tells me that she doesn’t have a phone and doesn’t need a
phone. Wow. So I get her email instead.
“The
Monster” helped me meet my best friend ever. Yes she is older, but I can tell
her a lot. She has counselled me through horrible girlfriend incidents. Her
being older gives me current advice from someone who has been through it, but
put into my age perspective. She is strong and independent and the type of
person that isn’t afraid to do things. I like her. And Tal was right: we do
only have eyes for each other.
