Worthy Successor

She weren't much to look at, she weren't much to ride
She was missing a window on her passenger side
The floorboard was patch up with paper and tar
But I really was something in my old yellow car

An American girl with her hands on the wheel
Of a dream that was made of American Steel
Though the seats had the smell of a nickel cigar
I really was something in my old yellow car

Somewhere in a pile of rubber and steel
There's a rusty old shell of an automobile
And if engines could run on desire alone
That old yellow car would be driving me home.

I remember the songs that the radio played
In love for the first time, young and afraid
And somebody, somewhere, you know who you are
I cherish that night in my old yellow car

Somewhere in a pile of rubber and steel
There's a rusty old shell of an automobile
And if engines could run on desire alone
That old yellow car would be driving me home.

Take a look at me now, throwing money around
I'm paying somebody to drive me downtown
Got a Mercedes Benz with a TV and bar
But god, I wish I was driving my old yellow car.

--My Old Yellow Car, Lacy J Dalton

Well, aside from the rich now part, that was me. You see, I had this car. This Car, even.

A 1985 Buick LeSabre limited. The Land Yacht, my dad called it. My friends and I all called it Le Behemoth. My insurance agent called me one time on the phone to ask me about an alleged hit-and-run that I might have been involved in. "Where were you on December 17th?" After I told him, "Williamsburg. I almost never leave," he said "Yeah, I was dubious when they described the car as being 'a Ford Taurus.' No one's gonna mistake that car for a Ford Taurus. Two Ford Taurus's, maybe."

This car was huge - seriously huge. At one point I think we shoved eleven college students into that car to drive to a party where James Doohan was going to be. Of course, we were eleven college students who were all fairly fond of each other, but still, a fairly impressive feat. On more normal days, the car held five - or six, or seven - people headed down to the Newport News anime club on Sunday afternoons.

Le Behemoth got crappy gas milage - about 12 miles to the gallon. And this was back when gas cost about 97 cents a gallon. It leaked coolant to the point that I never actually bought the stuff. I just filled the reservoir with water. Not like it usually got cold enough in Virginia to be a problem. (I went through four water pumps. I wonder why.) There was a wandering electrical problem - sometimes the side mirrors wouldn't work, sometimes the windows, sometimes the auto-door-locks. Before I got the car, it was my mother's. She rolled the odometer over once. I rolled it over twice more. Three hundred thousand miles. That's enough to drive from New York to California - round trip - fifty times. Or around the planet a little more than 12 times.

The second time I ever drove that car after I got my license, I ran it into a tree. (Admittedly, I was attempting to park in my parent's driveway and was driving at a whopping three miles an hour so I didn't do any damage to the car. The tree on the other hand, wasn't really happy about it. By the way, I never, ever turned into the driveway from that direction again. I always drove around the block so I could park to the left. I still prefer to turn left to park.)

Gods, I loved that car. Mechanical problems and all. I defended it, constantly. I'm sure Matt remembers one winter night, with freezing rain, when the defroster wasn't working, and he had to get out and scrape the windshield off every half mile or so from campus to home. "It just needs to warm up a little," I said.

The car loved me. I backed into a parkinglot pylon once in CW. Dave and Linda were behind me, waiting to steal my parking space, so I have witnesses for this. I got out of the car and looked at the V-shaped ding in my bumper. "Fucking great," I said. Le Behemoth shuddered suddenly and there was a distinct "thunk" and the dent popped itself back out. (I note that Dave always gave the car a very wide berth after that. Of course, he was a little paranoid and weird anyway.)

I drove that car from 1989 to 1999. I cried when we sold it to Greg. (Of course, Greg had a bad habit at the time of turning cars into scrap metal. Shortly after he got the car, he had two or three unexplained seizures and lost his license for a year, so he sold le Behemoth to someone else before he had a chance to drive it into a cement truck or something.)

For Christmas, my dad gave us his old buick - a 1995 Buick Lesabre. I have been dubious. The "new" buick is more streamlined than the old one. Le Behemoth looked like a block on wheels.

A few days ago, the "new" car developed an unpleasant burbling noise in the engine. Yesterday, driving up to Williamsburg, the noise got worse and started being accompanied by a shuddering. When I left Liz's house to go pick up the baby (my mother-in-law was watching Jess while I attended a "sell me something expensive" party that my friends have gotten into the habit of throwing.) I had a long, stern talk with the car. "This is not how buicks are supposed to act," I shook my finger at the steering wheel.

I got out of the car at my MiL's house, shut the door and looked at the car. "You are seriously not living up to my expectations. You think about that for a while."

When I got back out to the car, loaded the baby in, and started the engine. Shudder, shudder, BANG. And after that, the engine made not one peep, shudder, or burble the entire ride home.

Kevin reports that it didn't make any noise this morning either on his way to work.

Good car.

Maybe it will be worthy, after all.

Posted by tisfan at February 28, 2005 09:31 AM