He loved the car as much as any possession a man could have. The antique, lovingly restored years ago and meticulously maintained since, kept him rooted to his being better than anything else in the integrated, cybernetic, on-line, virtual one thing or another that everyday life had become. Only Carol had more power to keep him sane in a crazy world. To Brandon, a house full of expensive Baby Boomer antiques was the ultimate Cypermuppet status symbol. To Ed, they were creature comforts.
He’d kept the car through the worst days after the Crash, even when he had to put everything he owned on the line to keep the hardware store open. When he had his first heart trouble a few years back, he was afraid he might lose the beautiful machine—and at times he resented his ability to replace the worn out parts in her while he had to live with his own.
Sometimes, when Carol wasn’t around and he was missing her terribly, he’d sit in the car and reminisce. Sometimes, when he had a headache or wasn’t feeling well, the comfortable surroundings worked better than any doctor s cure. And sometimes it was all right to sit in the old car, for no reason at all other than to just be alone. Just listen to whatever he could pick up on the old AM radio, sit back, and think. Carol always understood.
“When’s the last time you drove this thing?”
Startled, Ed turned sharply in the front seat to find C.D. leaning against the door frame. He’d gone home after leaving Brandon’s, as he had retrieved the bulky fatigue jacket that was his trademark. Oversized and badly frayed, he nearly disappeared into it as he leaned there with his hands thrust deep into the side pockets. How many had he owned over the years? He’d always bring them home all new and deep olive green, wear them till they faded to dull green and finally fell apart, then find another at some surplus store before starting the cycle all over again. C.D. crossed the few steps from the door and leaned in the open window on the driver’s side of the Chevy, nodding approval at the immaculately restored interior.
“Hell,” he went on, “when’s the last time you even rolled the door up and let some sunshine in on it?”
Ed leaned back in the seat, gripping the oversized steering wheel in both hands. “I was six years old when this car rolled off the line.” He shook his head, not bothering to do the math. “The clutch is going; it’s all right for now but I’ll have to replace it one of these days. The tires are thin; I can special order them, but they’re expensive. The radio would probably work if we gave the battery a good charging.”
“I can do that.”
Ed looked at his friend, one eyebrow raised. “How about gas? Have you tried to find gasoline lately? Have you priced it?” He ran his hands lovingly around the steering wheel, then fingered the polished chrome of the horn ring briefly before hooking a thumb toward a dusty picture frame nailed to the garage wall. Inside the frame was a yellowed document, the words PERMIT: GASOLINE FUELED ANTIQUE VEHICLE barely visible through the hazy glass. “Besides,” he added softly, “my ticket expired years ago. Never bothered to renew it.”
C.D. stood up and walked around the rear of the car, saying, “You are one sorry sight. You know that?” He got in the passenger side and closed the door with a refreshingly solid thud they both knew they would never hear on one of their modem lightweight electric vehicles, then dug into one of the pockets of the fatigue jacket. “Here,” he said, handing a can to his friend. “Brought you a present.”
“A little early for—hey, it’s cold! How in the hell did you…?”
C.D. laughed and, producing another can of beer from the jacket, snapped the top and took a loud slurping chug. “The day after the power went and it looked like it wasn’t coming back for a while, I chucked everything I had into the chest freezer in the basement. You know, I don’t think I’ve cleaned the damned thing out since Tammy—” He paused suddenly, reflecting quietly for a moment. “Well… it’s been years. There was so much frost and ice accumulated in it that it’s made a wonderful cooler this past week. Starting to thaw out fast, though. These wouldn’t have stayed cold much longer and I thought…. Well, after that nonsense with Jason this afternoon I figured I’d find you here.” He held the can out and tapped it lightly against Ed’s. “Cheers, pal.”
“Yeah.” Ed snapped the top on his own can. “Cheers.”
Neither man said anything for several minutes as they sipped quietly on the cold beers. Finally, C.D. turned to him. “Tell me: What would you do if you could get this thing running again?”
Ed considered it a moment. “Oh, I don’t know… drive to the beach and cruise for babes?”
“Not without Carol, you wouldn’t,” C.D. laughed.
“You’re right there.” Ed sighed deeply and finished the last bit of foam at the bottom of the can. “I’d probably do something sensible like drive down to Paul and Joanie’s and stock up on my heart medicine and Carol’s pills.”
He crushed the flimsy can and tossed it out the window at the recycling bin. The can clattered far short of the mark and disappeared somewhere behind a box of dusty Mason jars, but he didn’t care.
“You’ve got no sense of romance or adventure, Eddie,” his friend said. “I like the beach idea better.” C.D. finished what was left of his beer, then in one smooth fluid motion he crushed the can, flung it out his window over the roof of the Chevy dead center into the recycling bin. Saying nothing, he got out of the car, went to the garage door and tugged it open, rolling it noisily up and over the garage ceiling. He stood there a moment, his hands gripping the bottom of the roll-up door above his head, and leaned in over the gleaming hood of the Chevy.
“I know where we can get some gas.”
The junkyard was little more than the rotting corpse of what was left of America’s love affair with the internal combustion engine.
A lot of junk dealers had gotten into the boom when the 20th century auto was made obsolete by the introduction of efficient flywheel driven electric cars. Most of the old vehicles were recycled for their metal, but very shortly the market for recycled cars was glutted and no one wanted to buy the things. There were so many junkers at the end that a lot of small yards went belly-up before they could find someone to haul away their scrap. This particular junkyard was not all that small and extended nearly all the way down to the railroad tracks that passed within a mile of Dutch Elm, on their way to Hartford to the northwest.
“A 1968 4-4-2,” Ed said, indicating a rusting hulk three rows down the hill. The car had once been dark green, but only a few remaining patches of weathered paint remained to give the fact away. He leaned back against the rear fender of the car they were tapping, arms crossed and head tilted back in reflection. “My mom’s was a silver blue color that was real popular then. I remember begging her to let me take it to the prom in.…” He turned, addressing the pair of legs sticking out from underneath the car. The legs thrashed as the man struggled with the gas tank, but Ed, lost in the remembrance, barely noticed. “What would that have been? May of ’69? I was a senior at Western Hills.”