Chapter 5.

"A Letter for Emily"

Chapter 5. The Car.

No, he didn’t have to go. Never have to.

Looking out the front window, he saw the silver-gray Toyota Camry disappear down the street while his sister’s black pickup stood beneath the maples at the side of the road.

If not for the notion of his cold, he might have had to go. With those two. Matched set. Bitter, each in her own degree. Away.

He stood there listening from the front porch, heard the buzz like a bad ballast in a neon fixture, and closed the door behind. The old neighborhood was quiet late in the morning and a barely perceptible breeze touched his cheek. The sun shone brightly on face and ear, and the sizzling buzz rang out again, echoing from all the trees at once.

Cicada. Higher pitched than the ones at home in Alabama.

He folded back the convertible roof, careful to seat the frame in the back where it would not tear the new canvas top. Obsessively, he tugged the rubber cords that fastened the boot down snugly, taut, and watched the canvas stretch as it warmed in the morning sun.

There were things to do, but most would have to wait for this next trip to Schenectady to collect his check and mail. The thought passed of the junkyard where he and Richard had searched for wrecks for a functional fresh air fan, one to replace his that had frozen on a visit a few years back.

Richard had good-naturedly insisted on calling it the ventilator fan, just so the yard man at Williams Car Parts would know. The parts men had their own language.

And Peter could have used a large spring to fix the way the seat failed to pull forward when adjusted.

Like most, Williams Parts had a few Super Beetle wrecks on the premises. Four, the broad black man with biceps told him, cheerful as could be, while their truck wound through canyons of rusted hulks, toward the office while he gripped the greasy fan in his lap.

Four wrecks, assorted colors. All the same inside. Sure, they would never go anywhere, but each held territory proudly, among the weeds of late summer. Each worth a small fortune to treasure hunters like him who, with just that part, restored their road model to former perfection.

No, the fan worked. Even weeks later. He rubbed dust from his hands and closed the car door. Snapped the radio on a moment. Still worked.

Glancing down that quiet street of houses which were, by his later judgment, bungaloes, not houses, there was the faintest glimmer of something within. Was it hope? Or merely artificial memory of ambition, the residual of his younger urges to work as a scientist? What was it? He walked back toward the front door.

The portraits on his mother’s shelf. The faces shin and new. High school graduates, in all their colors. Long time passing. He turned to look out at the Beetle shining from the driveway. The white car.

The junkyard of their youth. Had he come home to look for something? The old city where he might ask for late models come to rest nearby, in this sector of the world. They were still here, many of them, and some still ran after all those years.

A car, by State law, became an antique after twenty-five years.

Wrecked cars, wrecked people towed in.

Treasures to be gleaned. He knew his sisters and brother were the same make and model, but separated by years and use. All composed of the same spare parts, and one had only to peruse the catalogue in the parents to read the limits. The limits of their possibilities.

Wrecks after their own fashion. Hell, with this source, a single functional psychology well might be constructed. Or reading the catalogue, any single one repaired.

He loved to fix things.

And why come to this hometown at all? Was that Volkswagen a mere excuse, a ticket to ride, a walk-through search of new and used, looking for replacement parts to fix a wrecked life?

He stood at the window, awake.

In dreams, it had been a white car. A large white car. No, a Super Beetle. His career: his car.

-eer.

Car: car-eer.

Oh, I get it, he prompted himself.

With the car restored, it would move again. No, more. It would fly. He would be rid of this village.

Ellsie made up of parts mother and father, from whose shop is own automotive psychology had also been assembled. Functional, once. Not all the parts were the same, no. But he recognized them for what they were.

It was a lot like Williams Parts. He could run the diagnostics himself, identify the problem. Check the parts catalogue. Call the parts suppliers and settle on the best price. Would do the work himself.

He knew the parts he needed. He could see how they were put together, his sisters and brother, and where the wear had been the worst. It would be fascinating to dust off his various wrecked and busted hopes, insufficiencies, and by the blueprint read in their faces, get on with repairs.

Sure. The lawyers would relent, the deal would be cut and he could get back to work. But sue? What if he had to sue? No mas.

He had to laugh. He knew the look. God, he knew the look for he had seen it enough to begin taking notes. In fact, there was his scrapbook of business cards left under a wiper the past few years.

The collection amused him. If you ever sell this car, call me first. I’m a postdoc on campus and I will buy your VW. Just call. What was it, the mysterious attractiveness of the little white convertible, that inspired them to shuffle through their pockets for a scrap of paper and a pencil?

No chance.

Mine.

And it should not have surprised him on the drive from Schenectady, when the owner of that antiques shop in South Falls had paused by a window, scratching his chin and turned to him.

“Haven’t seen one of those in years,” or something like that. “Worth a lot of money. Only other one around here up Warrensburg way…”

Yeah. His car. Not that it stopped there.

It had shocked him. No, he was not shocked: surprised and delighted. But not shocked. What was it the slender woman behind the bakery counter had said? Bluntly and matter-of-factly?

There was a curvaceousness to the way she’d said it, so bold, so irrepressible, that bald statement of desire.

“I want your car,” she’d said when he entered her shop. No greeting, no offer to help, no shy anticipation. Just the raw truth blurted out.

Others had said it more tactfully. “I like your car.” “I once had one.” “Great car.”

Remembrance of their first encounter. Back seats. That’s what it recalled. Not the shiny white finish and gleaming chrome.

The difference between I want your car and I want you, he congratulated himself, was the car. Only. She was nice, too. Bright.

I want your car. The potential implied. The look past social conventions, the admission of needs and undeniable lust. What would his car give her she didn’t already have? And what would giving deny him?

I want your car.

Well…

It was a thought. I want my car, he reminded himself. Words of freedom, not lust.