Out our front door, Marin is so steep the mountain goats need crampons. But the Hispanic fellow, early 40s, GE Appliance truck, curbed his wheels and popped out. Adele had the garage door open and he’d spotted the Mustang. “Can I take a look?” .
He walked around it. Twice. “I’ll give you thirty-five, Cash.”
“Let me get my husband. He’s the one who drives it.”
We had bought it in ‘79 from a school teacher in Daly City who was planning to go diesel. You remember diesel? The oil embargo and all. It’s a silver-blue ‘67 white-topped convertible. We added a rollbar, re-built the motor (‘93) and transmission (‘02). It has 164,000 miles, legit. I hadn’t known we were joining a brother- and sisterhood, but, as a gal quoted in the Chron put it, “Mustangs meet you lots of interesting people. Like tattooed ex-felons.” I could fit what I knew about cars into a distributor cap, if I knew what a distributor cap looked like; but I had learned to say “V-8″ and “289,” though when a guy at the next gas pump piped up “8.3?”, he had to explain he was talking zero-to-60. People leave notes on brown bags under the wiper, “If you’re thinking of selling…” Sorority girls say “Nice car” like I could not be their grandfather. I could name four baristas want to buy it right now. “Then I’d just be another old white guy in a Honda,” I tell them.
A ‘93, at that.
“My dad owned this exact model,” the fellow told me. “He treated it like family. I wisht he never sold it.” He patted the hood. “I got the money for something meaningful, will bring me pleasure. I want my son to appreciate cars.”
Maybe he inherited it, I thought. Maybe won it at craps. Maybe, what Colonel Stingo called, “the Tease” was burning a hole in his pocket.[1] I’d had two clients spend entire settlements on classic Corvettes. Maybe he’d put in money and time and cash out in the collector’s market.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
Maybe he wanted to lock it in so it wouldn’t slip off into regrets. I knew how that went. There was this painting of Jack Johnson in the window of a shop on Union Street in 1969 when I decided I’d rather hang onto $95.
He wrote his name and number on a card.
xxx
Google set the median price for ‘67 ‘stang ragtops (That’s California-speak) at $27,500. The baristas were shocked by my offer, but not one fell on the floor – and none could come up with over ten. I let the idea of letting go play in my head. De-clutter had become a term of the moment among my peers. I had trouble cleaning off a desk, let alone out a closet, but times seemed right for making room, moving on. I’d been wearing cowboy boots around Berkeley for weeks so maybe I didn’t need the car to be cool. Not to mention – here, I thought, ‘s a sign – just that week, a fellow coming down the hill at 60 minimum, had launched off Spruce airborne, like a ski jump, flipped twice, killed himself and his passenger. Insane? High? Most thought his brakes failed – and his car was 25 years newer than my vehicle of desire.
I pulled together the maintenance records. I drew up a list of defects. Full disclosure. Honesty. Two hub caps missing. Aerial wouldn’t stay up. Windshield fluid bottle leaked. Sun visors rattled. You needed a second person pushing to close the top. Adele’s back wouldn’t let her help, so it hadn’t been down in years. “It would be nice to have a second car I could handle,” she said. “Even with power steering, it’s a load. Suppose you had to go in the hospital again and the Honda was in the shop.”
I googled “Stylish Cars $35,000.” We checked what was parked curbside on our cardio-walks. BMWs looked good but they bore that whole “Beemer” thing. Not that you couldn’t shake a stigma, Hadn’t Tom Wolfe slandered Mustangs as rides for airline stewardesses and junior ad execs?[2] The closest we had to a gearhead friend recommended a Miata, but I wasn’t sure I’d fit in one, and the nearest place to try it on was San Leandro, and we hadn’t driven that far since my OHS. Much as we drove, really, we could make do with electric scooters.
I told Jorge we had a deal.
“All right if I come by Sunday, take it for a spin?”
Maybe I’d let him have it for thirty.
Get closer to heaven.
xxx
Jorge arrived with his 16-year-old son and his brother. The brother was short and thin and wore a painter’s bib. The son was on his way to being hefty as Jorge. They had matching Raiders caps and windbreakers.
I had the top down and had snapped in place the – whad’y’call-it – “boot”? It looked slick enough for Steve McQueen.[3] I was glad to see Jorge turn righ on Spruce. He was back inside 10-minutes.
“There’s a dent I hadn’t seen,” he said. “Twenty-seven five.”
“WHAT?”
“It’s leaking water,” the brother said, crouching, looking underneath.
“It doesn’t leak,” I said. “Thirty.”
“Twenty-nine.” Jorge took out a roll thicker than a Cheeseboard baguette..
Fuck it. I thought. God had sent me a message in a GE truck. So we’d put six of our money into a new car.
xxx
The sun was overhead; the garage was dark. I had the pink slip filled out and was counting the bills on the trunk. The weight of the moment seemed to have collapsed nerves that controlled my sight and thinking.
The hundreds quickly turned into twenties. I lost track and started over and lost track and started again. I put the bills in piles. A thousand. Another thousand. The hundreds came back but not for long and, by that time, I already doubted the wad had been meatier than Wonder Bread.
It wouldn’t matter how many times I counted.
xxx
We didn’t think it had been a scam. We didn’t even think Jorge had thought these two old people in the hills were fools.
“It’s like Dylan said.” Ruth smiled, shaking her head. “‘Like if I say the word “house,” we’re both going to see a different house’”[4]
When Jorge had said ‘Thirty-five…’”
I had a slick Mustang with its top down and its boot on. I would fix the visors and the bottle for the windshield fluid. Maybe I would fix the dent.
There was not a damn thing wrong with the radiator.
Carpe diem.
Do not go silent…
All that jazz.[5]
Notes
[1]. For those non-conversant in the colonel’s native tongue, avail yourself of A. J. Liebling’s The Honest Rainmaker (1953). You will thank me.
[2]. Actually no; but yes. “In the intellectual world of California, there is no more scathing word imaginable. A bunch of fraternity men in their Mustangs.” (His italics.) The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968). P.358.
[3]. Or maybe not. His ‘68 GT from Bullitt sold a year-and-a-half ago for $3.74 million.
[4].https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPIS257tvoA. (About minute 32.)
[5]. Ought to add when I tried to raise the top, it wouldn’t. “Could be the motor,” Joe at the shop said. “Could be the lines. Won’t know till I take it apart. And your cover’s moldy.” I chose to replace the vinyl with fabric, dark blue. He can’t get to it till next month, so I’m riding around open to the air and sun, feeling groovy, hoping for no rain.