The day I had my old Porsche delivered a guy around my age who lived in my building came down into the parking lot for a look. He had shaggy blond hair, a small belly hanging over his stone J Crew pants that fell over Gucci Loafers, his blue oxford shirt tucked in except for the back which hung over his bridle leather weathered belt. He looked like a typical wealthy southern boy from an upbringing foreign to my own and of course I didn't like him for one second. However we started talking about cars for a while and he told me I inspired him to go get his old jalopy out of the garage for a spin. I had to go back to work for the remainder of the afternoon so I said I'd see him later and maybe we'd catch a drink but I said it in the way we ask someone how they are doing as a greeting and never pause to hear an answer.
When I returned home I saw a silver 1962 Ferrari 250 with red leather interior sitting next to the Porsche. It had some patina to it, the seats were torn, the headlights were inoperable and it smoked terribly. He threw me the keys saying "Have you ever driven a Ferrari?" which I had many times but never one from this era, followed by "...well if you can fly a plane you can drive a Ferrari" We cruised around town with thick blue smoke wafting through the air along with the notes of twelve cylinders of steel clanking up and down five thousand times a minute.
We would go on to be great friends. And he would tell me how he thought I was a tanning salon douche bag from Miami with bad taste when he first saw me. That first day we saw each other before the cars when he was looking at the apartment that he would eventually buy. We would go on to have nights upon nights of drunkenness, whether it be at his place at the Ritz Carlton where we made a pitcher of martinis in a pewter cask forged by Paul Revere or at the Timuquana Country Club where Ella would feed us drinks until we headed to the men's locker room where a big old black man would make us some more until the final one when he would pour it into a Styrofoam cup and send us on our way. We'd head out to my old Range Rover, put both of them in the cup holder, fire up that eight cylinder, roll down the window and put this song on. Like many things he introduced it to me. He also introduced me to TSI which was some strange hipster bar downtown which was usually our next destination.
In TSI we stuck out like pornstars at a NOW rally. Khaki pants, button downs, Rolex Submariners and some form of Italian loafers for both of us. We'd sit at the end of the bar and watch old communist propaganda videos that were projected on the wall while the Brooklyn Carpetbaggers (or wannabe Brooklynite dreamers) danced the night away in their usual sway and uninterested manner. I remember drinking ice cold Kronenbourg 1664 while hacking Marlboro Lights. I remember him telling me this song was about me and remember thinking about it and not fully understanding what the hell he meant, it could have meant a lot of things and to this day I am not quite sure I know for sure.
But what I know for sure is that Rosanne Cash is a wonderful talent. As much as I don't like her father as much as 99% of the rest of the world (read: as much as those hipsters who had no idea who he was until he did a Nine Inch Nails cover and became cool to them) I think she certainly got a good share of his genes. Her voice has the range and her lyrics have that simple dead in you face purity that the old man had a knack for nailing down. I have always loved the way so many of her lines in this song roll off the tongue and while the 80's style engineering in the behind it is so passe I think it works.
So what does it mean? I always took it to mean I was slumming it with the women I was running with around town at the time. Of course there were good ones but there were a lot of sleeved tattooed ones walking in and out of my door with substantial emotional problems. There was an ex Playboy Bunny with two kids who flew off the handle constantly, another who drank Jack Daniels like a Hell's Angel, a bosses twenty year old daughter...Then I also think it speaks to where I was then in life and how I was holding myself back in so many ways.
However I don't really care what the song means, who I was or how many years we took off of our lives those two years. It was one hell of a ride, often times quite literally and as much as I hated being in that town we sure made the best of it while we were there. He moved more south, I moved up north and am always waiting around for him to call at the last minute to tell me that he is in town and if I wanted to grab a drink later, just like that first time surrounded by those two beautiful machines on the river in our parking lot.
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