I think it is safe to say that cars have been a significant
part of my life. I’m pretty sure my first word was “car”. When I started
reading at age two, I was reading about a dozen new cars for under $10000 in Car and Driver. By the time I could
string long sentences together, those sentences were usually naming every
vehicle in a given parking lot, even down to the trim level. Halfway through
grade school and I was spending far more time studying car brochures than
schoolwork, memorizing option lists and packages better than whatever drivel
was being put in front of me in gifted and advanced placement English classes
at the time.
With all of this in mind, there was little doubt to me that
I needed to dive headlong into all of this madness as soon as possible. Even
though I had been telling stories to anyone who would listen (even if they
weren’t actually listening) that I was a fully licensed (for age 12) driver and
the proud owner of such illustrious automobiles as the 2002 Mitsubishi Galant
DE, the fact was my family was of only modest means and the chances of me
getting my own car were rather slim. Even my mother’s 1998 or 1999 Kia Sephia,
as basic as transportation could get, was purchased for her by my grandfather.
In high school, video gaming and computing gave me actual hobbies to tell
people I was into instead of telling everyone I was a preteen driver, but the
visions of having my own car never left the back of my mind. Watching my peers
get their own first cars for their 16th birthdays even further stoked
the fire in my loins to have my own.
I had signed up to take driver’s ed as soon as possible, the
summer after my sophomore year in 2006, but even before that I was poring
through every classified ad I could get my paws on, ardently searching for my
first set of wheels. What was me? What was my price range, even? West Monroe,
Louisiana has never been the cheap-car capital of the world. Cars costing much
less than the mid-four figures were somewhat difficult to find, then as now.
Craigslist was not well known back then, so all one had was the car
classifieds. There were, however, a few off-brand dealers in town who
occasionally advertised a handful of cash cars for only a few C-notes. Ignoring
my mother’s dismissal that any car sold for a three-figure price must be the
mechanical equivalent of a sack of loose Spaghetti-Os, I resigned myself to
scouring the small print to find such a vehicle. There wasn’t much work
available for a 16-year-old, and what was out there would have been barely
sufficient to pay insurance premiums for a brand-new teenage driver in
post-Katrina Louisiana (even more than 300 miles from the worst-affected
areas), meaning a monthly payment was out of the question. That same summer, I
took the first job that would accept me, cashiering at a busy grocery store for
$6.25 an hour. Even with my bare understanding of the value of what I was
bringing in, I knew my budget would be low if I wanted to stick to my desires
of gaining mobility as soon as possible. Every payday I put a $20 bill in a
shoebox I kept under my bed.
I never had any particular vehicle in mind. Most of my peers
were getting pickup trucks or sporty cars, with a few practical options here
and there, depending on their own family’s financial worth, but I just wanted something. My shiny new learner’s permit
began burning a hole in my pocket. I found a Geo Metro hatchback for $790 at
the local Dodge dealer, complete with most emaculent
Wal-Mart faux chrome spinner wheel covers, and which my mother thought was far
too new to be that cheap, not knowing that the Geo Metro was only worth about
10 times that amount brand new, before incentives. I pursued it, but the
combination of my box of twenties and my most recent full paycheck was
insufficient to cover the balance, and earnestly begging my grandfather to make
up the difference got me nowhere. I had to let that one pass. After that
disappointment, one of the Louisville Avenue buy-here-pay-heres had a small
crop of cars for just $100, so I went to see them. I arrived at the dealer lot
on a hot August afternoon to find that their inventory of $100 cars appeared to
have been brought there along with the back 40 they had been clearly been
dragged out of, plopped down onto the back of the dealer property. All of them
featured multiple flat tires, thick films of grime all over their paint from
years of sitting under trees, and any combination of insurmountable mechanical
issues. Only one, a 1970 or 1980-something long-bed Chevy pickup, its front
bench worn to the springs, was near drive-off-the-lot condition, despite the
fact that all four of its tires featured absolutely zero tread and held about
as much air. I let that one pass as well, and so the school year started with
me not having my own car, but I wouldn’t have to wait long.
With my Xbox having recently been stolen, I had resumed my
old habit of taking long walks throughout Monroe and West Monroe out of
boredom, walking several miles all around town before returning home. On one of
these walks, I was passing through the parade of buy-here-pay-here and shady
shadetree car lots on Louisville, eyeing the inventory, when I spotted it. It
was in the back like even the shadiest of car lots keep their cheapest wares, a
mid-to-late-80s Buick Electra sedan. My mother had since come into my
grandfather’s 1997 LeSabre Limited after he purchased a sparkling pearl white
2005 LeSabre Limited for his 75th birthday, and several years
earlier my mother had a silver-on-red 1993 Buick Skylark which was wonderment
for my eyes even though it spent most of its time with the temperature gauge
pegged, so I had long appreciated the brand of Premium American Motorcars.
It was a grizzled survivor. The clearcoat of its champagne
paint shrank away from all the panel gaps, while the brown landau roof was
baked from years of harsh Louisiana sunlight and humidity. Its Whorehouse Red
interior was rough from decades of abuse of gumbo and crawfish-boil-fed asses
falling and sliding in and out of the seats and the headliner sagged from years
of collecting the smoke of millions of Marlboros. The last inspection expired
in March 2005. But the tires (two white-ring and two all-black, on Pontiac
alloys) all seemed to be solid enough and held air and the white concrete
beneath was not stained with any fluids. More than that, it seemed to be
speaking to me, its quad eyes peering out at me with weary friendliness from
their faded and cracked chrome surrounds. This had to be the one.
Several days later, I cajoled my mother into coming with me
to the lot, the contents of my box of Jacksons fattening my wallet. I was
ecstatic to find the Buick was still there. I learned it was a 1985 Electra
300, with 167000 miles, for which the dealer wanted $400. The dealer brought
out the key, which looked like it had been cut from one of those roadside key
shops built out of an old mobile home, twisting it in the ignition to show that
the engine, a carbureted 3.0 liter version of the venerable Buick V6, fired up
with little reluctance or display of contempt. Without so much as asking to see
my license, the dealer stood back as I excitedly got into place in the cracked
seat behind the grimy-wheel-covered wheel. My mother reluctantly got into the
passenger seat, and the dealer waved us off for a test drive.
The interior smelled like the packs of Marlboro Reds that
had evidently been smoked by the hundreds in its confines, but the dashboard
showed no warning lights, the horizontally-oriented speedometer and gas gauges’
faded needles did their job, and the AM/FM/cassette stereo even played LA 105.3
mostly through most of its speakers. All four power windows even worked! It
accelerated (as much as its 110 horsepower could against 3500 pounds), it
shifted, it turned, and it stopped. Sure, it was also quite bouncy, which made
it difficult using its Novocain-battleship steering to stay straight in the
lanes, and the A/C didn’t work so well, but in a $400 car you can’t have
everything. My mom was wary, but my mind was made up. As soon as I walked back
in the cramped office of the dealer, my wallet was out and I was counting cash.
Keeping in mind that I still needed to take care of the tax, title fees, and
insurance, as well as displaying appreciation for my moxie in paying for a car
with my own money at age 16, the dealer knocked 100 bucks off the price. Electra
300 for $300. It was mine.
We drove straight to my mother’s insurer, where even the
sticker shock of car insurance for a 16-year-old boy couldn’t dampen my
enthusiasm. After that, we drove to a title agency where I got an honest-to-God automobile title, and my very own license plate. My hands
shook as I affixed the plate, number NQB 278, to my Buick with a borrowed
screwdriver. Even though I technically was not supposed to do so alone, I
immediately took my new car on a
lengthy drive, first showing it off to my friends at their place, then cruising
with them all over town, not returning until it was nearly dark. Once home, I
sat on the hitch end of our trailer and admired what I had just acquired for
quite some time, forgetting for a moment that I was now almost broke for the
next week at least, staring down the barrel of a $130-per-month insurance
payment, for a $300 car with an unknown mechanical history and future.
It was mine.
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