Virgin Cadillac – Shadi El-Dah

August 17, 2026

All kinds of stupendous bric-a-brac circle my mind. I mean, I have so much to do.
        Yesterday my dad bought me a Cadillac. Now, that baby of mine is scratched and dented on the outside, but inside you just wouldn’t know. It’s a real virgin. Seriously, just hear me speeding down the Utah motorway. Last night, I barely escaped the cop on his fat motorbike. Briefly I courted the idea of stopping by and shooting him in the head.
        No, but seriously, I got the Cadillac as a gift from my parents for enrolling at the University of Utah. I am to study law. Serious stuff. Don’t you know I love Law & Order? That’s why I carry it in my right holster. At lectures it’s all John Doe this and Jane Doe that, but I am pretty sure the monstrosities walking Salt Lake City wouldn’t know much about the Blue Book before deciding to chew my face off. Now I am pretty handsome. There are some people who could afford to lose their face—others it would even help, what with the wonders of plastic surgery. Me? Nossir.
      First principle of being a freshman…you just can’t go on looking at ‘em all like this. You wanna do it, so do your guy friends, but you just keep your cool, man. There are enough of them here, and even if you could, it would be impossible to fuck them all. I just keep telling myself this, but why am I already at a hardware store in South Jordan, watching the bearish man handle the length of rope, the wrench, and the knife? ‘Hunting?’ he asks. ‘Coyotes,’ I say and pay with cash and leave and drop into my Cadillac. Thing is, my neighbours, I have a book on hunting in Colorado flung over the passenger seat. Straight from the library. It’s been perused by many hands. None mine. You see, I am pretty sure I’ll read it one cosy night and then take my Pa’s Winchester and go on and do the hunting. In fact, I might even take the old bastard himself along with unc and gramps. Call it a rite of passage, sorta thing. All people do it. The Latinos, the Jews, the Redskins and the Japs.
        But I must’ve cracked open half a dozen Buds by now, and the wheel seems infinitely separate from the hands doing the steering, and yet there is some invisible friction there which propels me along the I-80—Oh, but I forgot to mention. I have this damsel in the back. Her name is Francesca. We are headed for the Great Salt Lake Desert. You see, it used to be a lake, but now it is only white sand. We call it a lake because we Americans love our past, even if it’s in contradiction to our present. But anyway, Francesca, I call her Cesca. She’s a brunette hippie, slouched rural style in the back. I had removed the passenger seat, and with it the book on hunting. Only the rear doors lock, you see. But she is a babe—is my Cesca. She doesn’t have much on her chest, but she must have big, great lungs because she just wouldn’t shut up. She talks of tarot cards, Joan Baez, astrology, and Ayahuasca. I watch her slim white throat working under the melody of her voice and light up some zaaa and pass it around. Booze and marijuana have a subtle but odd effect on me. They make me feel big and invincible. They make me feel like the Lake Desert entire.
      I must’ve hit something big. Something alive and chemistry driven. Cesca screams and yanks at the door and asks why it’s locked. I say for safety reasons, of course. Outside I see her kneeling by a bloodied coyote. I double over and start laughing, but she thinks I am crying and starts to hug me. Now my Cadillac has a big dent in its bonnet—but it is a real virgin. Just you watch as we straddle this hot beast once more, and off we go gliding into this island of salt and gold. I try to talk to Cesca, but she won’t say anything. This is completely out of character for my girl. My Cesca. I look for clues. But I can’t find her in the rearview mirror. It’s too dark now.
        All kinds of stupendous bric-a-brac circle my mind. I mean, I have so much still to do.         Salt Lake City and I are really hitting it off. It’s like well past midnight, and I am roaming these street bowels. Probing these wanton insides with their squatting banks and sprawling blocks. A siren ululates somewhere and closer still a bozo sleeps under a bench. Dead or unalive. O’ America and its democracy. Its struggle against fascism. Against communism. Its war on drugs and blacks and hippies. How I love you, my sweet white virgin America…
        All day I was wearing my dungarees and a City Angels cap. I looked so swell and American, I mean, how else do you reckon I charmed Jenna, I mean Stacy—no, Ria, and convinced her to get into my car? But something real terrible happened next: as I knelt and fiddled around with the little door to the crawl space underneath Pop’s ranch, I accidentally pushed down on the carcass, and warm blood went shooting everywhere. Now, with all that juice dripping down my face, I looked like a joke. Some lousy pantomime performer. Jeez, my mood was well ruined now.
        But here is something I didn’t expect in a million years. This coyote of mine, this wild animal which I took back purely out of mercy—it starts to talk. It whispers and it whimpers. I had it wrapped in a felt towel and now stroke its powerful coat. O’ you idiot. You jackal. Why did you have to go on so recklessly through life? Are these Yankee wolves really that beautiful? Those blue eyes. That soft mouth. Is it possible?
      I put my ear to its face and listen. Its breath tickles my jaw. Fine, I know I am probably imagining all this; after all, I have grown used to the Lord talking to me in just such a manner. He speaks to me in a motherly tongue and—this I never understood—asks for mercy. But it all makes sense now. He needs me more than I need him.
      I kiss the coyote goodbye and send it off to her subterranean bed.
      You see these things in my life, itself fleeting, are not mine forever. But no one can take away my memory. There are housed all my trophies. My winnings.
      My Cadillac. My Cesca. My Coyote.