Sportswriter Matt Crossman defines cool as “not giving a rip what other people think”—and his car’s the proof
There’s nothing cooler than a man and his car. A man and his red car. A man and his red sports car. I’m happy to have two of the three—so if you’re looking for the pinnacle of cool, I submit to you: the Red Dragon.
The Red Dragon is a 1991 Dodge Spirit—mostly red, I should say, with splotches of pink on the hood and elegant splashes of rust along each side. Felt hangs from the ceiling, making the interior feel like the inside of a circus tent (and never mind the clown behind the wheel). Also, the radio works randomly—sometimes all of it, sometimes just one speaker, sometimes none of it. At least the presets are consistent: Three of the five always work. And the windows cause no problems whatsoever unless I try to roll them down.
Despite having no air conditioning, the Dragon is still way cool. She’s so cool, she shakes—or maybe that’s just the suspension. Either way, she shakes at45 mph and again at 70. I can’t get her to go any faster to see whether there’s a third level of shakitude.
My wife will drive the Dragon only if her car is engulfed in flames. My friends have made it very clear that if my 9-month-old daughter ever so much as sets foot in the Dragon, they will call child-protective services. Despite what they say, I still think that the Dragon is way cool, and not just because she’s mine. No, it’s because she’s mine and paid off.
I must confess, though, I’ve thought many times over the last 10 years about getting an upgrade—like the time I was coming home from the bowling alley and the steering suddenly went kerflooey. When I tried to turn, it felt as if somebody was trying to stop me. An awful noise, as though somebody had just thrown an aluminum bat into the gears of a giant clock, issued from the right front tire. I nearly put the Dragon in a ditch. (Technically, I did put her in a ditch, but I also got her out, so that doesn’t count.)
I’ve spent far more than she’s worth fixing her up. (Of course, that was true after one oil change.) I can’t get rid of her, though. Not because I’m sentimental but because I’m a journalist, and my income is only slightly better than a panhandler’s. Then again, if I collected all the change in her seats, I’d probably have a down payment. I clean her out once a year, whether she needs it or not. A co-worker once found, and used, an unopened container of floss. I think that says more about the co-worker than it says about the Dragon or me.
My other co-workers say that they love it when we all pile in the Dragon to go get coffee, but they may just be humoring me. There’s irony in going to get coffee in a car whose only cup holder hangs limply, pathetically, uselessly, from the console. But because I have the rare combination of an expense account and little of importance to do, I often take intern and job candidates out to lunch. I tell them it’s a great honor to ride in the Dragon, but considering that this is what I drive and I’ve been a professional journalist for 13 years, it’s also a great encouragement to quit journalism school and pursue something more lucrative—say, being a street mime.
The closest I ever came to getting rid of the Dragon was the day she got hit while sitting outside our former apartment in University City. The culprit fled, leaving only a telltale stripe of white paint on the Dragon’s driver-side front bumper. If CSI had been on back then, I might have known how to swab the paint, find the culprit and break his kneecaps.
Seriously, I live by a few rules, and one of them is, you just don’t mess with a car with a nickname. The Spirit became the Red Dragon one night in 1997. I was listening to a song by Rush called “Countdown,” about a space-shuttle launch. (At some point I’m going to write an essay exploring why St. Louis thinks Rush is so cool. That band wins or almost wins every contest KSHE has.) “Countdown” describes the space shuttle as a “sleeping white dragon.” Listening to that song, linking the lyrics to the car parked outside under a streetlight ... I obviously had no life whatsoever. At least I had dropped the starter mullet. But was I—am I—really the guy to be writing about cool?
I think so. Coolness is about not trying too hard. It is, in the end, about being yourself—however perversely uncool that self is.
