How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive (12 page)

After a few minutes of reading she looked up from the page. “And you have a car?”

“A son? Yes,” I said.

“And it’s dependable?” she said.

“When he’s in the mood to be, yes,” I said. I laughed, but Louise stared at me like a wood-burning stove. “Yes,” I said.

The next morning I woke the VW up early and told him that he wouldn’t be going to school that day. Instead we drove down Route 9, onto Conz Street and into the
Wheel
parking lot. The VW pulled into a space next to a line of cars that were for some reason (they were either sleeping, shy or dead) completely silent.

“What now?” the VW said as he slowed to a stop.

“What?” I said. “I’ve got to go inside.”

“And what am I supposed to do?”

“You stay here,” I said.

“For how long?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll probably be out in a couple of hours.”

“Oh, come
on
,” the VW said. “You want me to just sit here? Why can’t I go back to school?”

“Because I need you for transportation,” I told him, closing the driver’s side door and walking towards the office entrance.

“When do I go back?”

I turned around. “If this job works out, I don’t know that you
will
go back to school,” I said. Then I pointed at him. “Take notes on everything you see.”

“This
sucks
,” the VW said.

I can still remember the offices of the
Wheel
, the way the place reverberated and turned, the feeling of those words against my lips, still warm from the pressing. I remember, too, how good it felt to be there, out of that howling house and
doing
something. It was only when I got away from the apartments that I realized how much of a toll it took on me to keep them going. I was living in a structure of loss, and as I breathed in that loss it was changing me. I rarely tasted my food. Sometimes I’d open up a book and all the words would be the same.

But writing for the newspaper turned out to be much harder than I thought, and Louise had her hands full trying to teach me the basics. We spent hours at her desk reviewing articles together, talking about how they were built—where to put the front door and the porch lights and the plumbing.

“See, these things don’t really work like fiction does,” she explained, pointing at the printout with her cheese-arm.

“You mean, like fuel?”

She blinked my question away. “What I’m saying is, everything in here is true.”

“The engine is true, too,” I said, snapping my suspenders. “True as in,
literal.
”

“Look,” she said. “See how this story cascades from the top down, with the most important information first?”

“I love that idea, of words
      cascading,” I said.

“And check out the lead,” she said, pointing to the first line. “See its teeth?” She read my face, the power that had appeared. “No—lede,” she said. “L-e
-d
-e.”

My face changed.

“Are you with me?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” I told her.

I learned from Louise that a story is nothing more than a series of events, and also that a reader cares more about a story when they see themselves in it. This was totally new information for me. Was this why the VW was ill all the time—because people couldn’t see themselves in the fuel? Or because more needed to happen?

A few days later I was sent out on my first official story: Somehow Main Street in Northampton had transformed from a street to a canal. Louise called me in the middle of the night and told me to get down there and find out what had happened—how the streets had filled, who was hurt, if anyone had been killed and what would happen now.

I said I’d be right there.

“Sorry if I woke up your wife, by the way,” she said.

The closest thing I had to a partner in those days was a future pile of shattered glass. “No no,” I told her, “I am completely alone.”

She said she’d see me in the morning and we hung up. I thought fast: Canal. Volkswagen.

I picked up the cordless phone, busked down to the basement and called the Memory of My Father. It was four in the morning. I didn’t have a ready memory of talking to my father that late, though, so the voice that answered the phone was the one I heard whenever I called around 11:30, just after my Dad went to bed. If I called that late my Dad would know it was me, and he’d answer the phone without asking who it was. “What’s up,” the Memory of My Father said when he picked up.

“Dad,” I said. “Didn’t we used to have an outboard motor somewhere down here?”

He thought about it for a minute. “Jesus, _____—I don’t have a
clue,” he said. “I can look next time I’m up there.”

“I need it now,” I said.

“You need it right this minute,” he crullered.

“I do—for a story,” I said.

“Cris,”
he swore.

“Wasn’t it in the room with the furniture?”

“I moved it,” the Memory of My Father said. “How about under the worktable?”

I took the phone into the dusty, junk-filled workshop and turned on the lights. Bugs scurried in every direction, swearing and muttering insults.

I looked under the table. “I don’t see it,” I said.

“How about the boiler room?”

I went into the boiler room—all five burners were humming in the modal key of heat. I stepped between them. “Where?” I said.

“The only place it could be in there is behind those drop tiles,” the Memory of My Father said.

I pushed a pile of drop ceiling tiles over and saw the motor in the corner, leaning against the brick and covered with a thick layer of pink dust. “Found it,” I said.

“It’s there?”

“I have it right here,” I said.

“Son of a bitch,” the Memory of My Father said. “Talk about a lucky guess.”

“Sorry to wake you,” I said.

“Not a problem,” the Memory of My Father said, just like my father would, and he hung up the phone.

I dusted the motor off, carried it upstairs and leaned it against the wall outside the VW’s bedroom door. Then I knocked. “VW,” I whispered.

He was snoring, loudly.

“VW,” I said in a normal voice.

I heard him stop snoring. He murmured something unintelligible.

“Gotta wake up, buddy.”

“Dad! What time is it?”

“There’s a story downtown,” I said. “We need to go.”

I heard shuffling across the floor, and then the VW opened the door. “I’m sleeping!” He was dressed in pajamas and his eyes were almost completely dark.

“I know, kiddo,” I said. “But there’s a story—”

“Can’t you just walk?” he said.

“With the power?”

He threw his arms in disgust. “I can’t believe this,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “It’s totally—” Then he saw the motor leaning against the wall. “What is
that
?” he said.

•  •  •

The night was amazingly, astoundingly
dark
. I carried a jigsaw, a screw-gun, some tools and the motor. The VW trailed behind me.

“This is crap,” he said. “It’s the middle of the night!”

“I can’t control when things
happen
,” I told him. “All I can do is respond to them, alright?” I stopped and told the VW to stand still and I placed the jigsaw against the metal.

“Well it’s lame, Dad,” he said. “I finally get to drive and all I do is taxi you all over town.”

“I’m trying to concentrate, alright?” I barked, and I pulled the trigger on the jigsaw and began cutting a small hole in the VW’s engine panel.

“Ouch!” the VW said. “That freakin’ hurts.”

“That’s why they call it a
job
,” I said between my teeth. “No one said it would be fun.”

“If it’s your job, why am I the one getting cut?”

When I finished cutting out the square, I drilled pilot holes at the corners. Then I fastened the motor to the sheet metal. It fit almost perfectly, but the VW complained that it was too heavy. “How am I supposed to drive with this thing?” he brumbled.

“I don’t have time to go through every detail with you right now—it’s my first assignment and the story’s getting cold,” I told him. “You’re just going to have to figure some things out on your own, alright?”

I took a spare morning cable from the VW’s storage compartment and ran it from the distributor to the second transmission. Then I started up the car, told the VW to stay still, and got out to check the outboard motor. Pure as pork, its blades were spinning.

I stood back. “Hey. Not bad, huh?”

The VW shook his head.

I got in and we pulled out of the driveway and down Crescent, the outboard motor bouncing and finning as we tore through the pre-dawn. We drove out to 9, took a left and approached the city center. As we came down the hill towards Main Street I could see the water line; it crept right up to the steps of the Academy of Music. Main Street, I saw, was completely submerged.

“Are you serious?” the VW said, staring at the water.

“Didn’t I tell you?” I said. “It’s like I’m always saying, you’ve got to be ready for anything. You can’t just assume things will stay the way you remembered them.”

“No shit,” the VW said.

“OK—you ready?” I said. I pressed the narrapedal to move us forward.

“No—wait a second, wait a second!” the VW said. We stopped abruptly. “I can’t do this, Dad—I’m not a
boat!
”

“Just read the water and stay open to it,” I said. “Think very buoyant thoughts. And stay close to the curb, alright?”

The VW didn’t say anything.

I checked his fuel gauges. “You have enough fuel?”

“Right this minute? Plenty,” he said sarcastically.

“OK,” I said. “Release the break, will you?”

“
You’re
on the pedals,” he said.

I shook my head. “They’re all the way out—it’s your fear, not mine,” I said.

Slowly, the VW let go of his fear and we eased towards the water. As he inched forward it covered his wheels and headlights, then rose to his fenders and almost to the windows. I felt the wheels leave the ground and the motor kick in—it kept us afloat and pushed us forward through the darkness.

I was immediately proud of myself. “You see?” I said to the VW “Your Dad knows what he’s doing, doesn’t he?”

“Isn’t this really bad for my skin?” the VW said.

“Why do you always have to focus on the negatives?” I said. “Anyway, I don’t see why it would be—it’s no different than swimming in a pool or going through a carwash. Is it?”

“Those things aren’t good for my skin, either,” the VW said.

“Bah—you’re fine,” I said.

It was clear as we moved down Main Street that there wasn’t much happening yet; some CityDogs were standing on the sidewalk, staring at the water that ran from curb to curb, and a crane was shining its lights down into the black water and lifting cars out onto the sidewalk. But that was it—the stores were closed and the sidewalks were still sleeping.

I steered us past Cha Cha Cha and the Mercantile and towards one of the CityDogs on the curb. When we coasted up next to him I grabbed my book of power,
How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive
, pulled myself through the driver’s side window and up onto the sidewalk and asked the CityDog if I could speak with him. I told him I was ____________, that I was reporting for the
Wheel
. I held the book up to his face. “Can you tell me what happened here?” I said.

“Street filled with water,” he said. His eyes were glazed and he was eating a piece of fruit.

“Does anyone know how it happened?”

“Nope,” he said.

I could hear the engine of my book turning as it recorded his testimony.

“And what’s being done about it?”

He took another bite of his fruit, and when he did I saw what it was. This Dog was eating a
Kaddish Fruit
—a grown prayer, a religious high. “Right now we’re just trying to clear out the street,” he said. “Mayor Statue-of-Coolidge is supposed to address the town later today.”

“Do you know what time?”

“Don’t think they’ve announced it,” the CityDog said.

I tried to think of more questions to ask, anything to get at the story,
but I was distracted by the fruit in his hand—the color of it, a violent blue. I lowered my power book and looked into the Dog’s eyes. His corneas were soft as pillows.

He stared back at me. “What?” he said.

I pointed to his paw, the Kaddish. “Mind if I ask where you got that?”

He smiled. “You can ask,” he said.

“There used to be a field of those near the house where I grew up,” I told him. “I didn’t think they grew around here anymore.”

“Well,” he grinned, “they do.”

“I could use one or two, you know?” I whispered.

“Who couldn’t?” the CityDog said.

“No, I mean I’m in a particularly bad lane right now. My father was killed by a tree not so long ago, his body driven off.”

The Dog pointed at me with his paw. “Those orchards out near Hampshire?”

“Yeah—Atkin’s,” I said.

“Sure, I worked that case,” the Dog said. “That was your Dad?”

I nodded.

“Man—I remember how
bare
that place was when we got there.” He shook his head. “Those trees strike and fucking
vanish
. Seen it happen a bunch of times. Anyway,” he said, looking down at his boots. “I’m sorry about it.”

I looked down at the VW. He was treading water and pleading with his eyes for us to go.

“Hey,” the Dog said. “Can you keep a secret?”

I turned the book of power off. “Of course I can,” I said.

The Dog leaned over and whispered in my ear. I could smell the prayer on his breath.

•  •  •

I handed in the story that afternoon, and I stood by Louise’s desk as she read it over. But she didn’t even get past the first line—the
lede
. She slapped the page with her cheese-wrist and looked up at me. “What is this supposed to be?” she said.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Why am I reading about a grove of Kaddish Fruit trees here?”

I happened to have a fruit with me at the time, and I took a bite from it. “The CityDog gave me
directions
—it’s out behind the high school. I went and saw it myself—rows of them, perfectly ripe, all shining and commanding. I saw it and thought, ‘Now
there’s
a story!’ You know, we used to have a grove of these in the town where—”