Thursday, January 16, 2003

Yeah, I know this one’s

Yeah, I know this one’s kind of long, but I’m posting it anyway. 

I guess it began in the early 90’s with Kel’s first soob, a little red wagon with lots of low-torque heart.  True, my testicles were not enlarged by driving such a vehicle, but still it served our purposes quite well for several years; we felt a sense of loss beyond mere inconvenience when it was totalled by a redlight runner.  Next came a vehicle that wanted to be a minivan but wasn’t tuff enuf - we drove it till only second gear was operative. 

Then came the second red soob wagon, undistinguished in the extreme, with broken 4WD and a crack that spanned the windshield.  It smelled of the former owner’s dog and looked extremely tired.  We drove that sleepy little car to every place we went for five long years.  It carried us through the time my 626 self-immolated and when the old beemer stopped responding to defibrillation.  That little DL wagon, which I rued each time I sat in it, kept hauling us even up to the top of tall steep hills and rugged mountains, rattling and coughing, only one speaker for the broken tape deck, host to a world of woes but going on without complaint and almost without maintenance.

Until that morning when, in deference to my injury, Kel drove me to work and we noticed it was gearing up to overheat.  We filled it with emergency water and got it to the shop to have it tuned; our unreasonably ethical mechanics refused to take the job.  Head gasket blown, the cost of repairs exceeded value.  We were advised to drive it so long as we could, and doing so, to find another car.  And quick. 

I really like the new car, another red soob wagon, this one pumped on low-grade steroids.  It is everything the old one wasn’t (except for being a red soob) - quiet, well-appointed, cosmetically acceptable and reasonably powerful. Driving is again a pleasure.  Meantime, the defunct old car sat at the curb as we tried to sell, and then to donate, it, without success.  Over time it started looking very shabby, carpeted with eucalyptus dust and needles from the pine trees overhead.  Soon it needed jumper cables just to move it for bi-weekly streetsweepers.  It billowed gouts of acrid pale smoke each time we started it. 

Finally we bit the bullet.  Despite the stalwart service it had done for us, to the exhaustion of its physical capacity, it had to be hauled off as junk.  With more than just a little guilt, I arranged for the wrecker to tow it away.

That morning I unlocked the old soob one last time and popped the hood to jump it and avoid a final parking ticket.  Then I got the other - working - car, pulled it round, fished out the cables - found I’d lost the other keys, the ones for the car they were coming to tow.  I’d held them in my hand not thirty seconds prior - now I searched my pockets, both the cars, the street and sidewalk - finding nothing.  I went back inside and got the spares.

Keys: these were on a little ring, one for the ignition and the doors, and one to work the trunk.  Along with them, a dog tag: Bozo, 4518 Wortser, NoHo 91604; a (213) phone number also.  Bozo - we got her when I was four; a good and personable dog throughout her life.  When I was 19, home from college for the summer, I could not ignore the ravages that time had wrought on her - so weak and tired, nearly blind, unable to get out to answer nature’s call.  I drove her to the vet and said goodbye, held her as she pased from me.  I hated to have lost her but the time had come for her to be set free forever.  I miss her still and kept her tag with me for longer than she’d been alive. 

And now, as Al from All-Star Towing hitched up the good old soob I’d held in such disdain, crushing a virtuous rear tire into the curb till I felt the pressure in my heart, I scanned one final time for the ring with the keys for the car I was junking and the tag from the dog I’d had destroyed.  Th search, again, was fruitless.  The driver cinched the tow chains tight and pulled away, the car obedient as always, trotting along behind the truck.  The good old car was gone, the keys that ran it gone as well.  The dog, that good old dog, was so far gone as to be but a ghost of memory.  Her tag, that, while I kept it, tied me to another era, now is lost forever, I’m afraid.  Time to lay the dog to rest, to let the past evaporate. 

Now my keychain sports another dog tag, one I found across the street from where I’m living now.  It was unearthed when city crews tore up some ratnest ivy and it’s dated 1947.  One more dog that’s dead, but this time I have no attachment.  Maybe if I’m forced to part with this one I will find it easier.  But something quite ineffable is gone from me.  My keys, once keys to history and heart, now only open future doors.