Night Moves has just shown up on the playlist, crashing into me like every year since I was six, when I first saw American Pop in the Drive In. My dad sat in the front seat of the truck we lived in, I think my mum had fallen asleep in the back. We shared a bag of sour candy and he explained where all the music came from, instilling a worship of sound into me one scene at a time. It was dark summertime somewhere in the middle of ontario, the smell of fields coming in through the windows with the sound pouring loudly from thirty car windows, that guitar just flowing in, little chords glittering. I remember women singing on the stereo and people singing along. All of it classic and perfect and so close to meaning something.
We weren’t in love, oh no, far from it
We weren’t searchin’ for some pie in the sky summit
We were just young and restless and bored
Livin’ by the sword
And we’d steal away every chance we could
To the backroom, to the alley or the trusty woods
I used her, she used me
But neither one cared
We were gettin’ our share
Workin’ on our night moves
Tryin’ to lose the awkward teenage blues
Workin’ on our night moves
And it was summertime
Classic rock now, memory entwined on the radio burning into me. It was hard to go downtown with blonde hair, knowing my father lives there somewhere. It’s not him I’m scared of, it’s more the thought of him, the idea of the person. My insane father, violent and strong with years. The address I created to send him letters has been closed. I left it alone for too long. I don’t know if he’s written anything more past what I posted. It’s amazing where this song puts me, how I feel so happy and heavy and wanting all at the same time. The seats were brown, like the molded plastic that hinged over the engine. It was a white panel truck, two tons. In the back was a fold out couch and boxes of music gear, black with silver clasps. When they were driving I would play in the back or sit on the ledge connecting the cab to the back. I was tiny and safe. Every time we got pulled over on the highway, I would have to hide because there were only two seatbelts. I would slide myself inside the cushions and cover myself with an old green jungleprint blanket. There’s pictures of me wrapped in it as a baby. My father had it around his arms the night he smashed the bedroom window into our faces. The night all my training kicked in and I grabbed my baby brother Robin and ran into my room, barricading the door with my chest of drawers. I remember brushing glass out of our hair and hearing my mother crying.
The only charactor in American Pop I ever really felt with, ever really understood was the mad songwriter. Sometimes I almost feel like I know why.
Richard McDowell summed it up nicely. He surprised an answer out of me. Usually I tell people that I have no father, but instead he looked at me and asked, “How long since he fell off the world?”
