Demolition Derby Queens, 1996

Come find us in the stadium with lacquered fingers in our ears, teenage menthol dears without a fig to prove. We pick our favorite cars by color while men parrot engines, knowing jeers and revs will bore the skirts right off us. Beer foams down the bleachers, bathing our sandaled feet. A belch then a cloud of dirt ascends from the track and we squint through it for the drama—a mangled wreck of rust and mud looking up like a wounded face, lurid and tragic as a soap opera death scene.

Our squealing men have never been so sentimental, so glamorous in their rage. Mine spent weeks dolling up his beater, spray-painting my face on its hood, christening it with my name. A real trauma pageant, this game—a way of trading places. When a zebra-painted Caprice rams my man, I shove my hand half-way down my jeans. At thirteen, I don't know why but I could come as he offs himself in a metal me—but then he reverses, guns it straight onto the grass, and leaves me hanging.

After the show, swollen bellies of smoke hang low as we all watch the quiet parade of wrecked derby queens dragged from the track, snag-lipped with loose bumpers. On the walk home, we try our best to mimic their sneering.