"Pink Pony Club" • Chappell Roan (by Daniel Miller)

To hear Harper sing is one thing, but to see it is something rarer, something even more special. To see Harper sing, one must glance carefully into the rearview mirror. To see Harper sing, truly, one must first put on an air of total nonchalance, for the moment she recognizes that she is being perceived, the singing will fracture into something much sillier, true in its own way, but more an improvisational performance than uninhibited singing. 

“I know,” she warbles, “you wanted me to stay…” 

I watch her in the rearview, head slightly tilted back, eyes closed. I imagine her imagining the warmth of the stagelights on her face. When Harper sings she sings with her mouth in a wide-O, her hands clenched on her knees. To record Harper singing is an impossibility. Both of the children cursed to be natural performers with an incredible sense of shyness. To record Harper singing would be a double-edged blade, a means to preserve a moment while at the same time focusing my attention on something other than the moment. 

“And I heard,” her head is swaying now, “that there’s a special place…” 

Both of the children, too, cursed by bloodline. Like their father. Like their mother. Anxiety disorders, a history of depression, an inability to find rest at night. Even now, I can see the ways their own minds betray them. To see Harper sing is to see her free of worry, a state of transcendence. 

“Won’t make my momma proud,” I never let my eyeline linger too long in the rearview, fearful of her stopping, “it’s gonna cause a scene…” 

We are driving to daycare. Or we are driving home from daycare. Or we are driving to the store, the park, to Memaw’s house. The children argue over what to play next. Harper pitches pop hits and animated movie anthems, Finley ripostes with Weezer and the Gorillaz. One must be careful not to let this erupt into a fight of more significance, deflate the tension, let the shuffle feature decide our aural fate.

“She sees her baby girl, I know she’s gonna scream!” 

She hits a crescendo at this moment, her singing out-of-pitch and wholly pure, so operatic and heavy with emotion that one might see in her future a career in theater. Hers, if we can help it, will be an easier life than ours. This is our unstated promise to our children, to our own parents. We will do what we can to pave the road before them, to prepare them for the ways that their bodies, their minds, the world will turn hostile against them, knowing that there is nothing we could possibly do to prevent any of this at all. 

“Pink!” She’s screaming now. “Pony!” Hands unclenched, palm up. “Club! I’m gonna keep on dancing at the…” 

If you are not careful, she will see you seeing her, and I am never careful enough. To see Harper sing is to know joy and love and play, which is why it’s impossible for me to be careful, to not overextend my perception of her. In the rearview, our eyes lock, and hers turn up impishly. 

“PINK! PONY! CLUB!” her scream-singing has become cartoonish, nearly a growl, before exploding into laughter altogether.

Daniel Miller helps edit hex literary. His work is perpetually forthcoming.