She looked like she sprung herself from the cages of a Bruce
Springsteen song and roared through the Badlands on her way to the hilltop in
Seattle where I lived. This was no
gleaming machine from a dealer’s lot.
The lady in question was a 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle that was born before
the advent of unleaded gasoline. Her
dark blue skin was blemished all over the place from almost 25 years of hard
living. She was built like a fullback-
not too tall but wide enough to make her presence known. On many occasions, I had to jump the solenoid
as the car wouldn’t always turn over with the key. In order the jump the
solenoid, one has to open the hood and jam a screwdriver in just the right spot
in order to get juice to go from the battery directly to the engine. I'm amazed to this day that I didn't end up
as one of those cartoon people who turn into x-rays and levitate when zapped with a surge of electricity. That car took me on some
amazing adventures, including the Oregon Country Fair and the Grateful Dead
shows in Las Vegas. As much as those
adventures are stories unto themselves, what I'll remember most was her smell.
My girl was born
in an era before the EPA and other pesky legislators poked their noses around
and decided that cars should have things like “environmentally sound
emissions”. Every time I started her up,
huge clouds of smoke would bellow out of the exhaust and cover the entire
street like it was a KISS concert. Because the floor had holes in it, the smoke
would enter the car and make me cough if I was driving for a while. After one long road trip, I could taste the
exhaust on my tongue as I drove. When I took a shower that evening and
rinsed my hair, the water turned black.
There are times where I find myself amazed, almost 20 years later, that
these long fume-drenched trips didn't earn me a tumor or two. The real concern I had every time I took this
car out on the road was whether the car would die on me or if it would be
impounded for being a public menace.
She survived an
inquiry by the Washington State Police somewhere near the town of
Ellensburg. On my way to Las Vegas, they
pulled me over after smelling me drive past them. I didn’t get a ticket for the emissions as I
happened to be driving without insurance but thankfully, I was able to connive
my way out of that situation. One of my
neighbors used to leave notes on my windshield threatening to call the police
if I didn’t do something about the clouds emanating from my tailpipe. I was eventually forced to get an emissions
test so I could renew my auto registration.
Somehow, perhaps via divine inspiration, the car passed. Shortly thereafter, I was starting her up and
putting on another KISS show in the street when my neighbor began pounding
angrily on my driver’s side window. As
he yelled at me, I revved the engine and shoved the emissions test results up
against the glass, taunting him with gleeful shouts of “I passed! I passed!”
Sadly, as is
inevitable with used cars, the only thing she couldn’t dodge was Father
Time. There were a few visits to my
local garage, some via tow truck. I had already
replaced the brakes and a few other components as part of the process where all
used car owners are forced to justify to themselves yet another expense for
their aging vehicle. One day on my way home,
the car was wheezing and lurching as I tried to get up the hill. I got as far as the mechanic before the car
died. A couple of days later, the
mechanic declared her dead as in “you can either buy a brand-new engine and
spend more than the car is worth or say goodbye”. Euthanasia seemed like the logical
choice. I left the car on the side
street around the block and said I’d figure out what to do. As I walked down the street past the spot
where the car now resided, I would steal little peeks as if it were an ex that
I really didn’t want to see but had to glimpse at anyway.
After a month had
passed, I received a phone call from the mechanic. Not only was he tired of seeing the car,
there was a new odor emanating from the trunk.
I ventured down the hill and opened the trunk to discover a cooler full
of mucky water that used to be ice.
Floating in the water was a pile of what used to be ground beef. I
cleaned everything out, walked around the corner to the mechanic’s office and
handed over the title so that he could either dispose of the car or bring this
rusting Lazarus back to life for his benefit.
I never learned what the mechanic did with my car but I never saw (nor
smelled) her again.
Photo courtesy of blogcatalog.com
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