Growing up, I was convinced that both the driver and the passenger had breaks. How else could I explain the stomping movements that my mother would revert to as my dad started to accelerate on the freeway? He grew up in Malaysia and began driving at eleven, and when he moved to the States and made a little money, the first thing he did was to buy a fast car. He wasn’t particularly knowledgeable or interested in the mechanics of the automobile; he just liked to go fast.

I, on the other hand, never had much of an affinity for driving. My parents bought a 1986 Volvo 240 DL when I was fifteen, and I started using it when I got my license. For those who haven’t had the pleasure of driving one of these exquisite automobiles, I must emphasize this; the 240 DL is a beast of transportation, not one of speed and excitement. When my car broke down on the drive to school at the beginning of the year, I was in no rush to see it fixed. In fact, it wallowed in the Clark I lot for over two months until persistent nagging by my mother led to slow and deliberate action.

I wasn’t eager to find a repair shop and call a tow truck, nor was I excited to waste money, be it my parents’ or my own. Then I remembered that there were people, students, who actually knew about cars and could fix them, or at least tell me what was wrong. A freshman in my best friend’s sponsor group fit the bill, and with the incentive of a nice lunch, he agreed to help me.

Let me cut the suspense out of this riveting tale. Tyler, the freshman, ended up referring me to a car shop after trying earnestly to figure out my car’s ailment. The shop, in turn, told me that my transmission was shot, and that replacing it would cost more than the car was worth. The car is in the process of being given away to charity.

What is the moral of this sad and lengthy introduction? Subcultures, of course. You see, in the process of Tyler’s repeated efforts to help my car, I was able to spend time with him and began to understand that my offer to take him out to the Sagehen Café was not what motivated him. He loves cars. He loves cars like a boy loves a girl, except that if a boy loved a girl as much as he loves cars people would think that the boy was creepy. You walk into the kid’s room and you see racing posters all over. You hear him talk with his friends and they’re chatting about hits of nitrous as something that your car takes. And his vehicle? Good lord. The car doesn’t even have handles. He uses a remote control on his key chain to open the doors.

In talking with Tyler about car stuff, a whole different life emerged. He had only applied to Southern California schools, because the scene here is the best in the country. I beamed with the pride of knowing that my school was in such a privileged area, until I realized that I had no clue which "scene" he was alluding to. The import car scene, he told me, which these days favors a clean exterior, meaning very few vents and frills (and door handles, apparently). He said that he has not yet found a "crew," and I, with a romantic vision of John Travolta in my head, inquired what a crew was. He answered by telling me that there are racing crews, who hang out and race their cars, show crews, who take their cars to shows, and crews that do both. My ignorance already apparent, there was no reason to restrain any of my questions, so I asked him what a show was. Apparently, people bring their cars and they all get judged like at a dog show or something. Aesthetics is a very important part of all this, and Tyler told me that ICE is crucial. Of course I asked, and he answered that ICE stands for In-Car-Entertainment, like a big sound-system or monitors in the headrests. An extreme case was his friend who removed his rear-view mirror and replaced it with a monitor and a small camera on the back of his car. Traditional cleanliness is extremely important as well, and judges will go as far as to run their fingers in the cracks of the trunk to see if there is any dirt.

In writing this now, far removed from my conversations with Tyler, I find myself entertaining the tone of absurdity that this subculture might inspire us to. Why spend so much time and money on a car? But his genuine love for what he does was so apparent that it somehow made it not only justifiable, but absolutely necessary. Imagine the amount of subcultures that could exist, and then realize that fellow students at this school pursue them whether we know of it or not.

Tyler took me in his car one day. He went 0-60 way too fast, and it truly was amazing (though if you had been on a street corner as we passed by, you would have sworn that both the driver and the passenger had breaks).