I wrote parts of this story a couple years ago, but changed it today. I know it's kind of long.
A History of Bad “Carma”
We head home, in a borrowed white
Oldsmobile with two massive doors that I strain to open and red pleather
sticky-on-my-leg-seats, but not tonight because it’s winter. I am eight maybe nine, my sister in an infant
car seat, my two year old brother struggles to stay belted in his booster seat
and not touch everything in sight. Thunk. The car tilts to the right. Mom pulls off onto the shoulder, the wheel is
tilted out to the side. She drags us out of the car, I squeeze my brother’s
hand, cars whiz past us on the dark road. She’s clutches my sister to her chest,
we walk on the shoulder to the nearest gas station. She calls some neighbors to
come pick us up.
A few years
later the front seat of Mom’s ancient blue Dodge Aspen, no air conditioning,
ninety degrees outside, my feet on the yellow dashboard and we see steam eeking
from the hood. The Tappan Zee bridge looms as we pull over and let the car cool
off. We make it home somehow.
My Mom never seems to have good
“carma.” I am in seventh grade my Mom’s Chevy Eurosport sports a voracious
muffler because she doesn’t have the money to fix it. Varrrroooom!
She peels out of my school parking lot. Two eighth grade boys start laughing at
her. I want to hide, feel hurt for my
Mom and her crappy cars. But she doesn’t
care, because it gets us where we need to go.
Her later “Carma” wasn’t much better, driving home from work a pick-up
truck t-bones her brand new Ford Focus, her Subaru Outback’s engine seizes and
dies on the way to a family wedding in Vermont.
So, I suppose that it could possibly be genetic, to have bad luck with
vehicles. My personal bad “carma” starts the day I get my driver’s license.
My first car. We own two
cars, both black, a lemon of a Toyota Camry and a no-frills Ford Taurus. I get
the Taurus. It is ugly. It is
clunky. It has a cyclops front headlight
and key that falls out of the ignition while the car is running.
But it is mine, well sort of mine.
My newly minted
driver’s license and I head to the most obvious place any young Jersey girl
with the need for independence must go, the mall. I make it there the with no issues, but then... just some ticking sound when I turn the key. I broke it.
Back into the mall and because it
is the nineties and no one has cell phones yet, I find a pay phone. Scramble into my purse for spare change, home,
just call home everything will be OK. And
no one is at home. So I leave a voicemail. Psycho-dialing on a payphone, in the
food court is not a pretty sight. Middle of December, dark and I don’t have much change left. I reach a neighbor and they get in touch with
Mom and help me. That car goes on for
another two years(unbelievably), that day at the mall it was the alternator but
eventually the engine on that thing just gives out. I don’t care because by then I am on my way
to far-away college.
My second car. The family I
work for as a nanny gives me their old silver Toyota Celica. The headlights
flip up, which remind me of a strange robotic bug-creature. It is the first non-automatic car I drive. I pick it up from the garage and psych myself into driving home. When I easily find the clutch and shift from
first to second, then to third; I know I am some kind of manual driving savant.
But, I forget that in order to get home I have to drive up a large hill, with a
stop light and of course that light turns red just as I hit the hill. I am fine
when I stop, but then first gear, the
car begins to roll backwards. I slam on
the brakes. Try again. Rolls. Step on the brakes! Then
again. Rolling, rolling down the hill.
The car behind me honks its’ displeasure. Must
get car into gear and quick. The
other cars, begin to drive around me.
The light turns red again. Deep breath. I know what I have to do. I have to gun it
through the green light. The road is clear ahead of me and as soon as that
light turns green, I pick my left foot off the clutch and slam down on the
accelerator. I don’t roll backwards…but
I forget to shift into second gear until I hear the car making a strange sound.
Clutch engages, second gear…I am a lazy shifter. A couple weeks later, my shitty shifting is NOT the
reason the engine seizes as I drive South down Route 287, merely an internal oil leak I know nothing
about. The loud TICK TICK TICK, DRUM
DRUM DRRRRRUM sound emanates from the front end is cause enough for me to pull
over. I have my first cellphone…Mom
calls a tow truck. My second car bites
the dust.
My third car. Is a red 1994
Honda Civic, with an engine like a lawn mower and a manual transmission. After the whole “Celica incident” as it is
referred to by my family, I am car-less.
Twenty years old, knee deep in my third semester of college, I work
twenty-five hours at a law firm— I need a car.
So, one night when I am out with my
friends Mom calls my cell phone.
“I bought you a car.”
“What?” Oh man. What kind of car did
she get me?
“It’s something you’ll like, a
Honda.” She knows I want a Honda
five-speed, good on gas.
“Alrighty, what color(s) is it?” Please don’t be something awful.
“It’s cute.” My Mom doesnt answer a
question while answering it.
“It’s a Civic. Red.” Too bad I hate red cars. It is a good car so
I don’t care.
The most that happens with the
Civic is:
First, I lose my keys in a huge
lecture room, but they turn up in the lost and found on campus.
Second, I consistently forget to
turn out the headlights and go through several batteries and several
jumpstarts.
Third, At my cousins communion party
some lady in a minivan backs into my car, and dents the driver door. Of course the cops try to blame me. My granddad gives them a piece of his mind.
Unfortunately, during my parents’
divorce I can’t afford the payments and it gets repossessed. It is a very sad day. I am without a car for almost an entire
year.
My Fourth Car. I work at a chiropractic office, I get up early and
have my Mom drive me. We stop off at the
hospital so she can have her radiation treatments. Then she drops me at the office where I work
from 8 AM until sometimes 10 O’clock at night—with a three hour lunch thrown in
for rest. My Mom wants a new car, so she
arranges to trade in her 1999 Green Ford Taurus. The dealer is a friend, so he sells the car
back to me for a lovely 500$. Another
friggin Ford Taurus… I don’t really care because I have history with the
car. I met the love of my life while
driving that car, we had spent hours talking and listening to music in it. After nine months of no-freedom I am able to
go when I want, where I want.
First heavy snowfall, my brother
wants to clear my car, with a shovel, breaks ice and my trunk ends up with a
huge shovel shaped gash.
A month later the green egg shaped
Taurus bites the dust. I guess my Mom
forgets to do regular oil changes, I guess I forget too because the engine
seizes and dies. I get 50$ for that pile
of scrap metal.
My Fifth Car. AKA “The
Trap”. A gorgeous May day, blue sky,
lilacs blooming; time to take my new/used car out for a drive. I work non-stop for several months, catch
rides with Mom again. I manage to save
up 2500$. I know that I want a Jetta,
hopefully a a manual transmission. My
brother works at a car dealership(the same one where I re-purchased the
Taurus) and someone turns in a Jetta, so my brother tries to help me
out. "The Trap” ,as it comes to be known,
is a lovely shade of dark blue, standard transmission, with about 100K miles
and a cross-country drive under its belt.
I don’t like how worn out the driver seat is, and I notice the looseness
of the steering wheel. My brother
assures me that it was in good condition.
After several months sans
transportation, I am ready to hit the road.
Sunshine and blue skies call me as I turn onto Route 17 north, lost in
my own world. Until…
I have a steering wheel in my
lap. The
steering wheel! Holy shit, I can’t drive without a steering wheel!
Coasting closer to the concrete barrier, cars fly past me blasting their
horns. I slam the car into neutral and place the wheel back on the steering
column and stop right before impact. I ease the car back onto 17 and take
the next exit off onto a less crowded road and call Mom.
“You’re not going to believe what
just happened to me!” I wheeze with stress-asthma.
“Are you alright?” She asks.
“Yes,”I say,” the steering wheel
fell off! It…it just fell into my lap.”
She instructs me to go to our auto
mechanic. He laughs and employs some heavy-duty
superglue and cements that wheel back on.
I don’t believe in omens, but perhaps I should.
A few months later I spot a police
car following me on a country road, he rides right up on my tail. I am not speeding but he makes me super
nervous. After six miles, he pulls me
over.
“License and registration.” He’s
young, shaved head, cocky—a total dick.
“Can I ask why you pulled me over?”
“License and registration.” Monotone
asshole. There are no streetlights
where he pulls me over and I’m nervous.
I grab my paperwork and hand it to him
“Please, tell me why I got pulled
over.”
“You were driving erratically, and
I saw you throw a cigarette out the window.”
“What?!!! Are you kidding me? I’m
not smoker. You need to get your eyes checked!” I screech. He isn’t happy and
walks back to the cruiser. I call my
Mom.
Hushing my voice, “Mom, I think a
cop is harassing me. He pulled me over for no reason on a dark road…and accused
me of throwing cigarettes out the window.”
I hear her laugh.
“Well drive to the police station
and report it.” She tells me then I ask her to stay on the phone when he comes
back. He is at my window with three
tickets.
“Just so you know,”I inform him,”I
have someone on the cellphone just in case you’re not a real cop.”
He hands me the tickets and I
immediately drive to the station to file a report of police harrassment.
I wish that that I fought “the law” and won,
but I stupidly don’t get an attorney.
The cop sits in court and lies.
He says that he saw me throw several
cigarettes out the window, and that
he suspects I was driving erratically because I was drunk. I pay several hundred dollars of fines. “The
Trap” wants to kill me:
Summertime—but don’t roll down that
window!
Because it won’t roll back up!
Oh boy, winter the door is frozen shut, climb over through the passenger side.
Oh boy, winter the door is frozen shut, climb over through the passenger side.
Oops, windshield wipers randomly
stop working, when it is snowing.
Hmm gas gauge won’t register the
gas I just filled it up!
Ran out of gas!
The brakes should make a car stop
right? I downshift my whole way home and use the hand brake to stop. The trap
is a tank though. Pulling out of a
parking lot, some guy speeds down the street and hits the side of the
trap. Not a dent. I hit a deer too, not a scratch.
Inspection.
“Excuse me, ma’m but this car
failed.”
“Why?”
“It didn’t pass emissions.”
I bring it to get fixed. O2
sensors. Still fails. My friend
discovers that someone(the guy I bought it from?)removed the lightbulb for the
check engine light.
The “trap” never passes
inspection. I ride around with a red
REJECTED sticker for two years. I stop driving it ,not because of any of the
mechanical issues but because I forget to pay a traffic ticket, get spotted by
a cop on my way to work, pulled over, find
out that if you forget to pay they put out a warrant! Patted down. Handcuffed. Angry and crying in
the back of a police car. For a traffic
ticket. They are young cops , but when an
older one on duty yells at them for putting the hand cuffs on my now bruised
wrists, I stop crying.
“You have pretty eyes.” The young
one says as he takes my photo. Fuck you,
it’s a stupid traffic ticket. My
roommate comes and bails me out and I drive to work. I explain to my new
employer that I am late to work because I got arrested. My friend Johnny sells the “trap” and we
split the 500$.
My sixth car. After “The Trap,” I need a decent vehicle. My boss gives
me a big raise, I se that as the opportunity to make the largest purchase of my
life. I decide on a Toyota. I want a run-of-the-mill, good on gas, easy
to fix, last forever Camry.
My brother comes with me, we pick
out some used, gold thing, and I plunk
down twenty-five hundred bucks. My credit isn’t so great so Mom is my co-signer,
she wants me to have a decent car. I
purchase insurance and have my roommate drop me off to pick up the car.
“Um we have
a problem.” The sales guy tells me.
“What? I am fully approved.” Full
of pissyness.
“Well, since we weren’t sure if you
were going to buy it, we took it off the board and it got sold.”
“Are. You. Telling. Me. That. You.
Sold. The. Car. I. Put. Two. Thousand. Five. Hundred. Dollars. On.
To-someone-else????” I stand up and say this
in the middle of the showroom so all of the other customers can hear me and know
just exactly what they are getting into.
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME???” He
wasn’t. So I call Mom, and she comes
over and speaks nicely to the man while I freak out. He ends up letting me pick a more expensive
car and sells it to me for the same as the other car. Once again, I have a red coupe, this time a Toyota. I am certain that I will NEVER have problems
with this car.
Two months later, a serpentine belt
snaps on my way home from work—in a snowstorm.
Then several years of no problems other than basic maintenance, regular
oil changes, new tires, brakes, a recalled sunroof etc. On at visit to my Grandma’s house, south on
287, middle lane, my car de-celerates. Stops. In the middle of the highway, a
semi swerves, doesn’t want to hit me. I
manage to turn it off and back on and limp to the shoulder. I phone Mom at work.
“I almost just died.” I say.
“What happened now?” I explain in detail, my sure death by
Toyota. Triple A tows me away, and the
repairs cost 1000$. Toyota refuses to
admit that their cars have a problem, but it was the same thing as unintended
acceleration just in reverse. I will
never buy another Toyota after that experience.
The day after Christmas, Mom asks
me to drive her to the supermarket—in a snowstorm in her Subaru Impreza. We make it almost to the store slow, when I
hit a patch of ice and lose control of the car and slam into a telephone
pole. No airbags deploy, I hyperventilate,
we are bruised, my Mom’s port in her shoulder intact, the bumper is wrecked. We drive to the store and buy what she needs
and limp home.
Now. Today I am reaching across the
ether of author to reader, performing some kind of “magic” as Stephen King
calls it. And because it’s new, another
incident fresh in my mind this very day.
Yesterday,
I drive four hours to Martha’s Vineyard for de-stressing. I am all alone save
for my brindle boxer, Darla. Pull off
the ferry, my car makes a funny rattle sound, but I figure it is just the AC
which sometimes sounds funny or the muffler or something not important. Last night, I grab some clam chowder, beer,
and fresh vineyard peaches, pass out at nine and wake up at eight. The most non-interrupted sleep I have had
without some kind of medication in eight months. We get an early start, head down to the
organic farm to get supplies. Almost
there when, the engine light pops on. Shit. I pull into the parking lot of the farm. There is steam or smoke coming from my
hood. I reach for my cell phone and
call, my Dad. He tells me to get to a gas station.
My Mom died two months ago.
I turn my
car back on and drive to a gas station, as some new light comes on and I lose
power steering. In the mini-mart I spot
a police man.
“I’m sorry,
but my car just broke down. Do you know a good mechanic?” I look desperate, sweaty frizzy hair. It takes everything within me to not say,
”My Mom died two months ago, I’m
kind of a hot mess.” But I hold it inside while he says,
“Sure. Let
me take a look at your car.” He is so
sweet, polite, a real gentleman. I pop
the hood and he notices right away a belt missing near my transmission.
“There is a
good mechanic down the street, let me go ask him what he thinks.” He comes back and tells me the good and bad
news. The mechanic will take it but it
may take a day to fix or possibly into next week. I only have a rental until Saturday at 10 in
the morning. I freak ok. I call Dad.
He says call triple A. They come
and tow me. My friend gets me through,
offers to notify her friend on the Vineyard as a place to stay. The
kindness of strangers.
I have
Darla. We wait on the corner for the
bus. Honeysuckle fills the air, we hop
on and the bus passes through Oak Bluffs.
There is an albino married couple sitting across from me. They look like siblings. I think, even they are not alone. There must be some albino club where they can meet and gather and marry and ride a bus together. I have a dog. Everyone loves Darla. I take a bus map to help me get around. I realize that I don’t have a charger for my
cell phone, except the one in the car.
I pray that everything will work out. We ride down Beach Road past all the people
jumping off the bridge into the ocean.
There are no clouds. Peace fills
me. Terror fills me. Left my bag with tampons in the trunk of my car and I am getting my period. Forgot a phone charger and have been using the one in my car. I am all alone on an island with no family,
with no friends. I came here to get away
from everyone. Now I wish they were all
with me. I wish I could pack them all
into a suitcase and never leave home without a single person.
My mother is dead.
I
can never call her again. She has
passed on her “carma” gene, along with her hair color, her thick calves, skin
tone, large eyes to me. And this isn’t
really about my cars, it’s about my life.
Where I am right now at this moment, alone on an island far away from
everything I’ve ever known. But I am on
Martha’s Vineyard! The president
vacations here. This is the playground
of the rich and famous, and it is truly gorgeous. I’ve seen five different colors of
hydrangeas, smelled honeysuckle, eaten the best clam chowder ever, seen a yacht
with a helicopter, and a fantastic sunset.
The brutal
mind-numbing ordeal of seeing a parent suffer through end stage cancer has
brought me to a place I never knew existed.
We can read stories of how we are supposed to feel, or how the dying
person will be, or what may happen. How
much pain is past level ten? How much
morphine should we give? How many times
can I change a parents diaper/sheets etc? There is a point where I almost
couldn’t remember anything from lack of sleep, stress, fear and then it’s over
just like that. The night before my Mom
died, I was in my bed. I kept
saying/praying that she wouldn’t die, because I wasn’t ready. And I thought that I was, that I knew she
would be out of pain, that I will see her again. Those are all great things to hope for and
people say them. But saying them, will
not make the pain within me go away. No
one will ever take the place of my Mom in my heart, she will never not be missed no matter how much time
goes by or how many self-help books I read or how many well-wishers tell me
that she is in Heaven with Jesus. My Mom
will not be there for Christmases, my Birthdays, when I get married, publish a book or have a baby. She won’t be around to see a
movies, go out to eat, or call when my car breaks down.
Martha’s Vineyard was my Mom’s
favorite place. She dreamed of retiring
here. Many times we would look online
for a house in her price range.
“If I moved there,” she would say,”would
you move with me? Help me with the cost?”
“Of course!” We talked about it many times. We would even say to the dog,
”Beau do you want to move to Martha’s
Vineyard?” In such a tone that made him all crazy and excited. Next year hopefully my Mom will “live” here
in a way when we spread her ashes. I thought if I came here maybe I would find some closure feel close to her. So, my car broke down in classic Kate
fashion, maybe she doesn’t want me to leave.
I miss her everyday but she will
always be living on within me.
