PERSONAL WORSTS: "'52 CHEVY POWERGLIDE COUPE"
BY DELL FRANKLIN
Unlike most kids turning 16 in Compton, California in the summer of 1959, I wanted no car. My pals wanted cars to impress the girls and because they were enamored of the car culture, which meant customizing a jalopy to cruise the local drive-in restaurant while looking “cool.” I was working in my Dad’s leather & shoe findings warehouse and he wanted me to graduate from stocking, filling out and writing up orders to making deliveries, for his own delivery route was a crushing demand that kept him in traffic until well after dinner time.
“You’ll need a car in L.A., Dell,” Dad explained. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to have one, because you can’t go anywhere without one.”
Dad found me a ’52 blue Chevy coupe with automatic powerglide transmission for $150. I paid, and he sprung for insurance, writing it off as a business expense. He immediately put me on a delivery route. Well, when Dad made deliveries he lingered and schmoozed with shoemakers, taking orders, building a rapport, while I dashed in, tossed a box or two on the counter, pulled out the invoice, placed it on the counter, and pointed at it, seeing no reason to take up a conversation and have to answer a thousand well-meaning questions about my Dad and me.
They always paid, couldn’t soften me up with excuses not to pay like they did Dad, and of this he was proud, telling mother, “the kid’s got more Jew in him than I thought he did, Rose, whether he likes it or not. He’s a born enforcer.”
My route included parts of LA and San Gabriel Valley and Long Beach and San Pedro and the South Bay, depending on which day. There was an air of freedom in getting out of the oppressive warehouse and the tense supervision of my father, though almost instantly I picked up some poor driving habits. For instance, if I was stuck in a long line of traffic, I passed everybody on the shoulder of the road, kicking up a dust storm, and then, at the light, I cut off the lead car in my groaning, gutless clunker and set off a series of honks and shouts and curses. I tail-gated, ignored and bounced over ruts, dips, pot-holes or whatever was in my path. Soon the shocks and springs were busted and within months the jalopy was lopsided and sagging. Dad wanted to know “what the hell I was doing,” while my grandfather, Louie, his book-keeper, chortled and told Dad, “Murray, the kid’s crazy. Getting’ him that car’s gonna back fire on you and jeopardize your livelihood.”
Gramps, more than anybody, knew my driving habits. A man of 80 who’d had both legs amputated above the knees from hardening of the arteries, I sometimes had to drive him home down Alondra Boulevard to Bellflower, where he and Gramma, who couldn’t cope with rush hour traffic, bought a home after moving out from Chicago.
At that time Alondra was a narrow 3 lane road, the middle lane reserved for turning left, though, to me, it was MY lane, a passing lane, and I drove it all the way, if I could, and, if it became clogged, I took the shoulder and shallow gullies along the rural dairy farm route connecting Compton to Paramount, Downey and finally Bellflower. During this drive, Gramps, in the front seat, held onto the strap above his door and gnawed on his false teeth like he would a cud. When there occurred a close call and a wild cacophony of horns, his stumps wagged up and down as his truncated body rocked and braced for a collision, and he gasped and cursed and muttered, “Goddammit, you’re gonna kill both of us! Christ, I’ve lived this long, through hell and back, and my crazy goddam grandson’s gonna kill me!
*******
My first ticket, the cop got me in Long Beach with radar, going 57 in a 35 mile an hour zone, and he was furious as he gazed into my car, which was a jumble of coke cans, baseball equipment, basketball, football, wiffle balls, hamburger wrappers, Cheese-It boxes, books, empty soda cups, empty coffee cups, straws, and other unmentionable debris.
“Can I see your driver’s license?” he asked, gritting his teeth, a young Boy Scout type.
I reached for my glove compartment, where I kept it, and he went for his pistol. I put up my hands. “What do you think you’re doing, buster?” he asked.
“My license is in my glove compartment, sir.”
“Why isn’t it in your wallet?” he asked sternly.
“I don’t have a wallet.”
“You don’t have a wallet?” He replaced his pistol in his holster, “Everybody’s got a wallet. You’re supposed to have a wallet for your driver’s license and personal ID.”
“Well, I don’t have one.”
He sighed. “Go ahead.”
I showed him my license. He took it, looked it over. “You’ve got to take better care of this document,” he barked sternly. “It’s crumpled up like something you throw in the trash. You’re responsible for this document.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
He lectured me on my speeding, claiming I could kill somebody or myself. I listened attentively and then told him I was making deliveries and behind and was sorry, I usually didn’t speed. He sized up the boxes of merchandise in back and informed me I should take better care of my car. I promised to do so and he wrote me up for 47 in a 35 zone and watched me groan away.
********
A month or so later another cop in Compton let me go because he knew my father and valued my worth as a star shortstop at Compton High, but then a month after that I got another speeding ticket (42 in a 25mph zone in Long Beach again) and Dad had to chaperone me to traffic court in downtown Long Beach. He made me wear a white shirt, cords and loafers instead of my usual T shirt, ragged sneakers and patched, faded jeans I refused to give up
“You’re gonna go before a judge,” he said firmly as we walked up the steps leading to the imposing court house. “You’ll make a better impression on him, Dell, if you’re well dressed. And listen, let me do the talking and keep your mouth shut. Maybe I can convince this guy you’re a normal kid and not a menace to society.”
“Okay, Dad. You’re a great salesman. If you can sell those shoemakers the stuff from your shithouse, you can sell me, too.”
“It’ll be the toughest sell yet,” he growled.
On a top floor down a long corridor we found the juvenile traffic section and were led to a spacious office where a black man around 50 with a neat gray goatee sat behind a solid oak desk. His throne was luxurious and on the walls were framed diplomas attesting to his education and rise in the world of law. A name plate said he was George C. Chester, and right off Dad reached out to shake his hand and introduce himself, and it just so happened that Mr. Chester was not only a sports fan and former local athlete of some renown, but had grown up in LA and remembered Dad’s playing days with the Los Angeles Angels and Hollywood Stars of the old Pacific Coast League.
Dad did a good job of drawing the man out. The judge disclosed that the Rams had given him a football tryout. It was almost as if I did not exist, and my blatant law breaking was not an issue. Finally, though, the judge got down to business, and I sat mum while Dad explained how I helped him in the business and he depended on me to make deliveries to help support the family. Dad also informed him I was a hotshot baseball player. Somehow, Dad praised all the black players on local professional teams, and I could see Mr. Chester finding himself irresistibly flattered and squeezed. Dad was a pro.
Finally, Mr. Chester addressed me. “Son,” he said. “May I see your driver’s license?”
“Yes, sir,” were my first words. I dug into my cords and withdrew what was left of my driver’s license and plopped it on his desk while Dad turned to eye me murderously as the dead serious mien of the judge became one of consternation. He picked up the license and tried to make sense of it, for the license was held together with Scotch tape and so rumpled and faded it was unreadable.
“Son,” he said in a very deep, slow baritone. ‘this…license…is…mu-til-ated.”
“I don’t know what to say,” said Dad. “For Chrissake,” he snapped at me. “What the hell did you do to your goddam license?”
“I would like to know that answer, too,” said the judge.
“Well, I left it in my pants, because when I took it out of the glove compartment for the police officer, he pulled a gun on me, sir, so I kept it in my pocket and then my mother washed my pants and kind of wrecked my license.”
“Don’t you have a wallet, son?” asked the judge sternly.
“I bought him a brand new wallet for his birthday, judge,” Dad said, really upset. “I don’t know why he won’t use it.”
“Why haven’t you used your wallet, son?” he asked. “A person who drives must carry identification, and if he doesn’t have a wallet to put it in, his identification will eventually be lost or mutilated.”
I couldn’t tell him the truth: That I was hesitant of transitioning into the grown-up world of documentation and responsibility, and owning a wallet with official papers was a first big step as well as a concession to WHAT I wasn’t sure but knew somehow wouldn't agree with me. “I guess I just haven’t gotten around to it yet, sir. Sorry.” I hung my head. “I may not be ready for a wallet.”
A deep furrow formed in the judge’s brow and he looked to Dad for help. Dad gave it to him. “Judge, as of this minute, this jug-head will use his wallet, I promise you. If I have to take everything away from him, including baseball, by God I will!”
Clearly the judge had had enough of both of us and wished to move on to other cases, for many miscreants were lined up outside his office. To get rid of us, he wrote on a sheet of official stationary I was to hand over to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get a new license, “Mr. Franklin is only allowed to drive his vehicle while making deliveries for Franklin Leather & Shoe Findings business.” If I was caught driving under any other circumstances I would end up in juvenile hall as a lawbreaker. We all shook hands and Dad was relatively relieved, though there was no doubt in my mind I’d drive when and where I pleased, if more carefully when NOT making deliveries.
“I conned that judge,” Dad confessed as we walked down the steps. “But you better shape up. Your old man can’t save you every time. And another thing, Goddamit, why haven’t you used that beautiful horsehide wallet I bought you, what? Six months ago?”
“It’s too nice, Dad. Nice things don’t feel right—they embarrass me.”
********
A month or so later, after an excruciating bout with traffic jams, I was headed home, pocket a-bulge with a rubber band bound wad of cash from eleven of Dad’s shoemakers. It was late, around six thirty, and as I pulled up to the curb I saw gramps in his wheelchair on our front porch laughing so hard he had to slap at his stumps, while Dad, standing beside him, was shaking his head and scowling. Then I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw a motor cycle cop, his lights blinking.
He was very upset, bounding quickly off his bike and ordering me out of my car. I complied, stood facing the man, who was seething as Dad strode toward us.
“I followed you for a mile,” growled the cop, a thickset 40ish man wearing Raybans, with a mustache and sunburned face. “And you’ve broken every goddam traffic law there is, you sonofabitch!” Now Dad was there, and the cop turned to him. “Mr. Franklin, this kid of yours…he has no respect for traffic laws. He drives on shoulders and gullies and ditches, and goddammit, somebody saw him drive on the sidewalk the other day. He’s gonna kill somebody, he’s gonna kill himself, I know you, I respect you, but goddammit, if he wasn’t your kid I’d throw his ass in jail and give him a good beating!”
Dad was grim. I hung my head, but peeked over to see gramps still banging his stumps, laughing so hard his pale face was red. Mother and my sister stood behind him, looking on, concerned.
Dad tried to calm down the cop, but was so pissed at me I couldn’t look at him. He managed to pull the cop away and have a heart-to-heart, doing a lot of hand pleading. I continued my pose of somber and abject penitence. Well, I don’t know how he did it, but the cop ended up giving me a ticket for a broken wing-window, loud muffler, broken tail light, etcetera, and then lectured me for about ten minutes about experiencing ghoulish and gory death scenes on the highway from speeding reckless drivers like me and added that if he ever saw me driving like I had been he had permission from my father to arrest and beat me in the Compton jail. I nodded, head still hung as Dad glowered at me.
When the cop finally left, Dad said, “You’re making a fool out of me. You’re disgracing me, making me a laughingstock. What if I have to go back to that judge in Long Beach after all the bullshit I fed him? It makes me look like a liar and an idiot, Godammit…”
I reached into my pocket and handed Dad a bulging wad of cash. “I got that deadbeat Gino to pay off his past bills, Dad. He’s been stalling for years, gramps says. I wouldn’t leave his shop, gave him the ‘we’re in the poorhouse act.’ We’re like good cop/bad cop. I’m bad cop.”
Dad snatched the wad and strode angrily back up to the porch into the house. At the dinner table that night, gramps couldn’t cease chuckling between bites, and we exchanged some secret winks.
********
I had to obey traffic laws after that, and did a decent job of learning where the cops stationed themselves and picked my spots for U turns, slipping through stop signs and general speeding; but the end came suddenly when the Chevy made a horrendous grinding, clanging racket on a freeway overpass in Long Beach and ceased running and emitted a burning stench. I lifted the hood and smoke billowed out. At a nearby pay phone I called the store and Dad cursed bitterly and sent his number one employee, my older cousin Bob, who at 21 already had two kids and was an ace mechanic and blossoming as a responsible grown-up. Bob pulled up an hour later in his lowered ’51 Mercury with yellow flames on the side and within minutes shook his head and pronounced the Chevy dead.
“You threw the rods,” he explained. “I don’t know how you did it. Have you ever put any oil or water in this heap?”
“Well, no…”
“Christ, do you realize the engines in these Chevy’s are the same ones the army uses for their jeeps? They’re almost indestructible.
You’re the only idiot I know who could kill this car.” He sighed, disgusted. “This baby’s going to the boneyard. Your Dad, he’ll be really pissed off at this latest fuck-up.”
“Well,” I said. “I never wanted a car in the first place, Bob. Now that I don’t have one it’ll be one less thing for me to be responsible for and fuck up, and one less thing for Dad to worry over and get pissed off at me for.”
“Cousin, there’s so many things you do to piss off your old man that losing this piece of shit car is just a drop in the bucket.”
Unlike most kids turning 16 in Compton, California in the summer of 1959, I wanted no car. My pals wanted cars to impress the girls and because they were enamored of the car culture, which meant customizing a jalopy to cruise the local drive-in restaurant while looking “cool.” I was working in my Dad’s leather & shoe findings warehouse and he wanted me to graduate from stocking, filling out and writing up orders to making deliveries, for his own delivery route was a crushing demand that kept him in traffic until well after dinner time.
“You’ll need a car in L.A., Dell,” Dad explained. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to have one, because you can’t go anywhere without one.”
Dad found me a ’52 blue Chevy coupe with automatic powerglide transmission for $150. I paid, and he sprung for insurance, writing it off as a business expense. He immediately put me on a delivery route. Well, when Dad made deliveries he lingered and schmoozed with shoemakers, taking orders, building a rapport, while I dashed in, tossed a box or two on the counter, pulled out the invoice, placed it on the counter, and pointed at it, seeing no reason to take up a conversation and have to answer a thousand well-meaning questions about my Dad and me.
They always paid, couldn’t soften me up with excuses not to pay like they did Dad, and of this he was proud, telling mother, “the kid’s got more Jew in him than I thought he did, Rose, whether he likes it or not. He’s a born enforcer.”
My route included parts of LA and San Gabriel Valley and Long Beach and San Pedro and the South Bay, depending on which day. There was an air of freedom in getting out of the oppressive warehouse and the tense supervision of my father, though almost instantly I picked up some poor driving habits. For instance, if I was stuck in a long line of traffic, I passed everybody on the shoulder of the road, kicking up a dust storm, and then, at the light, I cut off the lead car in my groaning, gutless clunker and set off a series of honks and shouts and curses. I tail-gated, ignored and bounced over ruts, dips, pot-holes or whatever was in my path. Soon the shocks and springs were busted and within months the jalopy was lopsided and sagging. Dad wanted to know “what the hell I was doing,” while my grandfather, Louie, his book-keeper, chortled and told Dad, “Murray, the kid’s crazy. Getting’ him that car’s gonna back fire on you and jeopardize your livelihood.”
Gramps, more than anybody, knew my driving habits. A man of 80 who’d had both legs amputated above the knees from hardening of the arteries, I sometimes had to drive him home down Alondra Boulevard to Bellflower, where he and Gramma, who couldn’t cope with rush hour traffic, bought a home after moving out from Chicago.
At that time Alondra was a narrow 3 lane road, the middle lane reserved for turning left, though, to me, it was MY lane, a passing lane, and I drove it all the way, if I could, and, if it became clogged, I took the shoulder and shallow gullies along the rural dairy farm route connecting Compton to Paramount, Downey and finally Bellflower. During this drive, Gramps, in the front seat, held onto the strap above his door and gnawed on his false teeth like he would a cud. When there occurred a close call and a wild cacophony of horns, his stumps wagged up and down as his truncated body rocked and braced for a collision, and he gasped and cursed and muttered, “Goddammit, you’re gonna kill both of us! Christ, I’ve lived this long, through hell and back, and my crazy goddam grandson’s gonna kill me!
*******
My first ticket, the cop got me in Long Beach with radar, going 57 in a 35 mile an hour zone, and he was furious as he gazed into my car, which was a jumble of coke cans, baseball equipment, basketball, football, wiffle balls, hamburger wrappers, Cheese-It boxes, books, empty soda cups, empty coffee cups, straws, and other unmentionable debris.
“Can I see your driver’s license?” he asked, gritting his teeth, a young Boy Scout type.
I reached for my glove compartment, where I kept it, and he went for his pistol. I put up my hands. “What do you think you’re doing, buster?” he asked.
“My license is in my glove compartment, sir.”
“Why isn’t it in your wallet?” he asked sternly.
“I don’t have a wallet.”
“You don’t have a wallet?” He replaced his pistol in his holster, “Everybody’s got a wallet. You’re supposed to have a wallet for your driver’s license and personal ID.”
“Well, I don’t have one.”
He sighed. “Go ahead.”
I showed him my license. He took it, looked it over. “You’ve got to take better care of this document,” he barked sternly. “It’s crumpled up like something you throw in the trash. You’re responsible for this document.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
He lectured me on my speeding, claiming I could kill somebody or myself. I listened attentively and then told him I was making deliveries and behind and was sorry, I usually didn’t speed. He sized up the boxes of merchandise in back and informed me I should take better care of my car. I promised to do so and he wrote me up for 47 in a 35 zone and watched me groan away.
********
A month or so later another cop in Compton let me go because he knew my father and valued my worth as a star shortstop at Compton High, but then a month after that I got another speeding ticket (42 in a 25mph zone in Long Beach again) and Dad had to chaperone me to traffic court in downtown Long Beach. He made me wear a white shirt, cords and loafers instead of my usual T shirt, ragged sneakers and patched, faded jeans I refused to give up
“You’re gonna go before a judge,” he said firmly as we walked up the steps leading to the imposing court house. “You’ll make a better impression on him, Dell, if you’re well dressed. And listen, let me do the talking and keep your mouth shut. Maybe I can convince this guy you’re a normal kid and not a menace to society.”
“Okay, Dad. You’re a great salesman. If you can sell those shoemakers the stuff from your shithouse, you can sell me, too.”
“It’ll be the toughest sell yet,” he growled.
On a top floor down a long corridor we found the juvenile traffic section and were led to a spacious office where a black man around 50 with a neat gray goatee sat behind a solid oak desk. His throne was luxurious and on the walls were framed diplomas attesting to his education and rise in the world of law. A name plate said he was George C. Chester, and right off Dad reached out to shake his hand and introduce himself, and it just so happened that Mr. Chester was not only a sports fan and former local athlete of some renown, but had grown up in LA and remembered Dad’s playing days with the Los Angeles Angels and Hollywood Stars of the old Pacific Coast League.
Dad did a good job of drawing the man out. The judge disclosed that the Rams had given him a football tryout. It was almost as if I did not exist, and my blatant law breaking was not an issue. Finally, though, the judge got down to business, and I sat mum while Dad explained how I helped him in the business and he depended on me to make deliveries to help support the family. Dad also informed him I was a hotshot baseball player. Somehow, Dad praised all the black players on local professional teams, and I could see Mr. Chester finding himself irresistibly flattered and squeezed. Dad was a pro.
Finally, Mr. Chester addressed me. “Son,” he said. “May I see your driver’s license?”
“Yes, sir,” were my first words. I dug into my cords and withdrew what was left of my driver’s license and plopped it on his desk while Dad turned to eye me murderously as the dead serious mien of the judge became one of consternation. He picked up the license and tried to make sense of it, for the license was held together with Scotch tape and so rumpled and faded it was unreadable.
“Son,” he said in a very deep, slow baritone. ‘this…license…is…mu-til-ated.”
“I don’t know what to say,” said Dad. “For Chrissake,” he snapped at me. “What the hell did you do to your goddam license?”
“I would like to know that answer, too,” said the judge.
“Well, I left it in my pants, because when I took it out of the glove compartment for the police officer, he pulled a gun on me, sir, so I kept it in my pocket and then my mother washed my pants and kind of wrecked my license.”
“Don’t you have a wallet, son?” asked the judge sternly.
“I bought him a brand new wallet for his birthday, judge,” Dad said, really upset. “I don’t know why he won’t use it.”
“Why haven’t you used your wallet, son?” he asked. “A person who drives must carry identification, and if he doesn’t have a wallet to put it in, his identification will eventually be lost or mutilated.”
I couldn’t tell him the truth: That I was hesitant of transitioning into the grown-up world of documentation and responsibility, and owning a wallet with official papers was a first big step as well as a concession to WHAT I wasn’t sure but knew somehow wouldn't agree with me. “I guess I just haven’t gotten around to it yet, sir. Sorry.” I hung my head. “I may not be ready for a wallet.”
A deep furrow formed in the judge’s brow and he looked to Dad for help. Dad gave it to him. “Judge, as of this minute, this jug-head will use his wallet, I promise you. If I have to take everything away from him, including baseball, by God I will!”
Clearly the judge had had enough of both of us and wished to move on to other cases, for many miscreants were lined up outside his office. To get rid of us, he wrote on a sheet of official stationary I was to hand over to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get a new license, “Mr. Franklin is only allowed to drive his vehicle while making deliveries for Franklin Leather & Shoe Findings business.” If I was caught driving under any other circumstances I would end up in juvenile hall as a lawbreaker. We all shook hands and Dad was relatively relieved, though there was no doubt in my mind I’d drive when and where I pleased, if more carefully when NOT making deliveries.
“I conned that judge,” Dad confessed as we walked down the steps. “But you better shape up. Your old man can’t save you every time. And another thing, Goddamit, why haven’t you used that beautiful horsehide wallet I bought you, what? Six months ago?”
“It’s too nice, Dad. Nice things don’t feel right—they embarrass me.”
********
A month or so later, after an excruciating bout with traffic jams, I was headed home, pocket a-bulge with a rubber band bound wad of cash from eleven of Dad’s shoemakers. It was late, around six thirty, and as I pulled up to the curb I saw gramps in his wheelchair on our front porch laughing so hard he had to slap at his stumps, while Dad, standing beside him, was shaking his head and scowling. Then I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw a motor cycle cop, his lights blinking.
He was very upset, bounding quickly off his bike and ordering me out of my car. I complied, stood facing the man, who was seething as Dad strode toward us.
“I followed you for a mile,” growled the cop, a thickset 40ish man wearing Raybans, with a mustache and sunburned face. “And you’ve broken every goddam traffic law there is, you sonofabitch!” Now Dad was there, and the cop turned to him. “Mr. Franklin, this kid of yours…he has no respect for traffic laws. He drives on shoulders and gullies and ditches, and goddammit, somebody saw him drive on the sidewalk the other day. He’s gonna kill somebody, he’s gonna kill himself, I know you, I respect you, but goddammit, if he wasn’t your kid I’d throw his ass in jail and give him a good beating!”
Dad was grim. I hung my head, but peeked over to see gramps still banging his stumps, laughing so hard his pale face was red. Mother and my sister stood behind him, looking on, concerned.
Dad tried to calm down the cop, but was so pissed at me I couldn’t look at him. He managed to pull the cop away and have a heart-to-heart, doing a lot of hand pleading. I continued my pose of somber and abject penitence. Well, I don’t know how he did it, but the cop ended up giving me a ticket for a broken wing-window, loud muffler, broken tail light, etcetera, and then lectured me for about ten minutes about experiencing ghoulish and gory death scenes on the highway from speeding reckless drivers like me and added that if he ever saw me driving like I had been he had permission from my father to arrest and beat me in the Compton jail. I nodded, head still hung as Dad glowered at me.
When the cop finally left, Dad said, “You’re making a fool out of me. You’re disgracing me, making me a laughingstock. What if I have to go back to that judge in Long Beach after all the bullshit I fed him? It makes me look like a liar and an idiot, Godammit…”
I reached into my pocket and handed Dad a bulging wad of cash. “I got that deadbeat Gino to pay off his past bills, Dad. He’s been stalling for years, gramps says. I wouldn’t leave his shop, gave him the ‘we’re in the poorhouse act.’ We’re like good cop/bad cop. I’m bad cop.”
Dad snatched the wad and strode angrily back up to the porch into the house. At the dinner table that night, gramps couldn’t cease chuckling between bites, and we exchanged some secret winks.
********
I had to obey traffic laws after that, and did a decent job of learning where the cops stationed themselves and picked my spots for U turns, slipping through stop signs and general speeding; but the end came suddenly when the Chevy made a horrendous grinding, clanging racket on a freeway overpass in Long Beach and ceased running and emitted a burning stench. I lifted the hood and smoke billowed out. At a nearby pay phone I called the store and Dad cursed bitterly and sent his number one employee, my older cousin Bob, who at 21 already had two kids and was an ace mechanic and blossoming as a responsible grown-up. Bob pulled up an hour later in his lowered ’51 Mercury with yellow flames on the side and within minutes shook his head and pronounced the Chevy dead.
“You threw the rods,” he explained. “I don’t know how you did it. Have you ever put any oil or water in this heap?”
“Well, no…”
“Christ, do you realize the engines in these Chevy’s are the same ones the army uses for their jeeps? They’re almost indestructible.
You’re the only idiot I know who could kill this car.” He sighed, disgusted. “This baby’s going to the boneyard. Your Dad, he’ll be really pissed off at this latest fuck-up.”
“Well,” I said. “I never wanted a car in the first place, Bob. Now that I don’t have one it’ll be one less thing for me to be responsible for and fuck up, and one less thing for Dad to worry over and get pissed off at me for.”
“Cousin, there’s so many things you do to piss off your old man that losing this piece of shit car is just a drop in the bucket.”
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