The Ride Home
by Johnny Major Rivers III
My mother would pick me up from my grandparents house around 8pm.
After her shift at the hospital.
When she worked 3 jobs
so I could live comfortably.
Our evening ritual…
would be listening to music,
talking about our day and singing in between.
Concerts in the car
I learned patience with Cassettes
how to navigate the front and the back
the rewinding and fast forwarding
just to land on the song you wanted
and the frustration of those times you always seemed to miss the Intro.
I learned how to care for CD’s
one scratch could mean
your a song would never be the same
She taught me how to make a mixtape
placing the CD in the boom box
holding down the record and play button.
Building a playlist of our favorite tunes
to play on our rides home.
She introduced me to
Prince and the revolution,
Shaka Khan,
and Duran Duran
Music her and her best friend Sam would dance to as teens in the night clubs in Juarez
Until Sam was Claimed
a victim of the AIDS epidemic.
Their memories reshaped into moments my mother and I would share. Where I learned how deep her soul truly was.
I’m positive I learned how powerful metaphors could be through music.
Listened to singers
describe their heart break and happiness.
My ears,seasoned with 80s new wave and 90’s R&B.
But some nights she would play “Spanish music”
Marc Anthony
Luis Miguel
Alejandro Fernandez
Ana Gabriel
Paquita Del Barrio
And of course Juanga
El Rey de Juaritos
Un presencia
made of all things attitude and sadness.
Un cantante que comunicaba dolor
como Nadie más.
“Hasta que te conocí”
My mom would sing a line in Spanish,
lower the volume
and translate the ballad line by line
- so that I would understand the words
We were so passionately performing.
I didn’t have to know what I was singing
it just felt cathartic.
I was singing a song about something I knew nothing about.
A song that I would one day learn and with the context of my parents' relationship come to understand… maybe too well.
I learned Spanish while singing in the car with my mom.
I remember some nights on our drive home
our playlist wouldn’t be done by the time we arrived at the driveway.
Lauren Jill or Vicente Fernández were still playing and we would say
“just one more song”
Drive Passed our house
and around the block
till we had sung out the frustrations from the day.
We would drive and sing away the anxiety of being around my father
or her father.
We sang to celebrate and to sooth.
The music just articulated exactly what we were feeling.
Pat Benatar said it best.
“Love is a battlefield.”
And I learned it from a very young age.
I learned so much about life in between the verses.
Learned that my grandfather loved Mexican trios like Los Panchos
and when my mother misses him,
She plays them with a somber stare and sings
their songs with a shaky voice that tastes like beer, lime, and salt.
Learned that my grandmother loved a song called Vamonos,
We sing that song too.
My mother translated my grandmothers longing
Into a beautiful ballada
With Mexican violins and trumpets.
My mother gave me poetry.
It was a gift she blessed me with,
without even knowing.
She taught me so much just singing along.
The music, more than a soundtrack.
More of a how to.
How to sing away your sadness
How to put a bandage on a broken heart.
How to remember those that we can’t dance with anymore.
This tradition
is one that I will pass along to my children.
One that will connect us more deeply.
Singing along on the ride home.
Johnny Major Rivers III AKA Space Dragon: Born and raised in El Paso, TX., Rivers represented El Paso as a former International World Poetry Slam competitor. A Southwest Shootout slam poetry finalist. Founded and co-hosted, Acaplla, an open mic for poets and musicians in Abilene, TX. A McMurry University alumnus, Space Dragon was recognized by the University of Texas at El Paso, as a distinguished queer community leader. Johnny is a proud Queer, Latinx, father of two magical boys, and partner to one of the most loving and supportive men in the world. Rivers is a Virgo, a dragon , a poet , a photographer, and a storyteller. with a passion for performing.