Car Trouble Read online

  Dedication

  To my mother

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  I.: The Blue Max One

  II.: The Green Hornet Two

  Three

  III.: The Black Beauty Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  IV.: The Red Devil Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  V.: The Pink Panther Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  I.

  The Blue Max

  One

  It was time to move the Blue Max. I was out front, waiting for Himself. He was probably combing his hair in the bathroom mirror and that would take forever. I sat on the cement edge of the garden, careful not to lean against the sweet alyssum on the border. I wanted to go back to bed. That’s where I was, drifting off, when Mom shook me and told me he wanted me to help him. Because that’s what you did at one in the morning. You got rid of the car.

  After Mom left me, I thought I could close my eyes for a minute before I absolutely had to get up. I didn’t doze for long, though. A memory from a summer night not so long ago woke me up for good: me pinned against the basement door, fists slamming into me, my mother and uncle pulling his arms off.

  This would be the last time I helped him. In a few weeks, I would be gone.

  The Blue Max was parked in the driveway, the latest in a long line of junkers Dad had picked up at police department auctions. He’d nicknamed this one, a Chevy Impala, after the German military decoration given to fighter pilots during World War I. Of all the cars he’d brought home the Blue Max was the most stylish, with blue bat wings that spread out over the trunk and red catseye taillights tucked underneath. The hubcaps had spokes like a bicycle wheel, with the Chevrolet logo imprinted in the center. I wish I’d seen the car when it was new, in 1959, the way Himself remembered it. Everything inside and outside was blue. The body and hardtop were a dusty royal color, with snazzy chrome strips running down the sides. The interior matched, down to the steering wheel, dashboard, and glove compartment. The leather seats, though, were a deep cobalt. When we went somewhere as a family, the Blue Max was wide enough to fit everyone, with our long legs and big mouths. Nobody had to sit on anybody else’s lap.

  We’d had the car about six months and during that time Himself had driven it into the ground, eventually falling asleep and nearly setting it on fire with a lit cigarette. That was some morning, the second time firemen had come to his aid. After the contraption cooled off, we moved it from the other side of the street into our driveway, Dad pushing the car while I steered. I didn’t know where we were taking the Blue Max tonight, but I doubted we’d be pushing it. He must have something else in mind.

  I had worked till eleven at the theater, and my legs were cramping up. I got to my feet, stretching, and glanced up at the sky. One or maybe two stars, very faint, were riding on the purple surface. A streetlamp across from our house buzzed. I could pick out the pungent scent of the marigolds, planted in a circle around the Japanese yew. My last garden.

  Then I heard him coming, finally, his deep mumble drifting through the screens in the front porch windows. I stifled a yawn. He came down the stoop, tripping over one of the broken steps. Himself in the flesh. I stood there, hands shoved in my pockets, waiting to see what was what.

  His dark pants were rumpled. The collar of his yellow polo shirt stuck up behind his neck, but his hair was freshly combed in the modified ducktail style he’d worn since high school.

  “We keepin’ you up?” He was fully awake, almost jaunty, ready for an adventure. The night was his favorite part of the day; after midnight he could get into anything. No doubt he’d come up with this brilliant idea while spending several hours at the Dew Drop Inn.

  “Let’s knock this out. Forty-five minutes. Tops.”

  He fished in his pocket for the car keys. I leaned against the car and looked at the house. The second floor was covered in green shingles, the first floor was done in white stucco. We’d been living here for over ten years and every year the place looked worse. There weren’t enough bedrooms for all of us kids, there was only one full bathroom, and on rainy days, we had to put pots in the second-floor hallway to collect the water dripping through the holes in the roof.

  The front door was still open. Mom was standing in the dark vestibule, leaning against the doorjamb. A Newport filter dangled from her left hand. “I don’t see why you don’t call a tow truck, Pat,” she said. Queenie, our tricolor collie, poked her nose into the scene.

  No way was he paying for a tow truck. He didn’t go for spit, as he would say, on anything. He ignored her and climbed, headfirst, into the front seat. As long as we’d lived here, he had driven old cars. Some were even older than the Blue Max. No one used the word “vintage” then, but he defiantly preferred the nostalgic glow of an eye-shaped taillight or a sharp tail fin to anything a brand-new Buick Skylark or Dodge Charger had to offer. The cars he liked were all new when he was young, just barely out of his teens—before we came along.

  He tossed junk from the front seat onto the backseat so we could sit up front. I looked up at the front bedroom windows, wondering if any of my sisters were eavesdropping from the window bench. Dad turned the key in the ignition and the car grumbled in protest, the way he did when we had to wake him up when he was conked out. The Chevy didn’t want to budge. It wanted to die, whitewalls slowly deflating, fancy hubcaps collecting dust, sleek twin hood ornaments defiled by rust and passing pigeons. The nickname seemed especially ironic or sad, probably a little bit of both, since the Blue Max’s fighting days were clearly over.

  “I don’t see why you have to do this now,” Mom said, sounding more irritated than usual. The collie now sat at her feet, front paws crossed.

  He stuck his head out the window. “Mother of God. Claire, would you get back in the house?”

  Mom took one last drag on her cigarette and flicked it into the street. She wore a nightgown, pale green, and a cotton bathrobe, though it was hot out. I guess she thought someone might see her standing on her front stoop. “Come on,” she said to the dog and went inside.

  He backed the car out of the driveway, letting it roll into the street. The catseye taillights were bright as bicycle reflectors. After he straightened the car, the passenger door opened with an arthritic creak and I got in. The stench of old smoke and scorched leather still lived inside. I quickly rolled down the window.

  “I know,” Dad said, blue eyes looking out the windshield. “It stinks to high heaven in here.”

  He was six feet and powerfully built, and he shifted his weight so he could better see out the panoramic rear window. I still don’t know how he managed it, backing the Chevy up for two miles. The gears were jammed, and the engine sputtered when he tried to drive normally, which is how we had ended up pushing it into the driveway. And here I was, about to take a backward journey to God-knows-where—an insane scheme, yes, but so Patrick Flynn. Pick the one thing anyone with half a brain would never attempt to do and you would find my father doing it, with a grin on his face.

  I was sure he was tanked; he
always was when he came home in the wee hours. But I couldn’t smell it on him, at least not under the mantle of Old Spice. He steered the car carefully, and it moved, in spurts at first, and then in a more fluid motion till he was just cruising in reverse. Through the back window I could see a procession of parked cars, telephone poles, and the houses of friends I used to know—the block I’d soon be leaving behind.

  “Do we really have to do this?” I asked.

  “We have no choice, Nicky. The last time I got rid of a car, I got a ticket for one hundred thirty-five dollars. This time, no cops.”

  He wasn’t much of a talker so there was never any pressure to keep a conversation going. But I wanted to know where we were dumping the Blue Max.

  “So, what hellhole are you taking me to?”

  “Ah,” he said, “I thought you’d never ask. I have a place in mind.”

  I was no stranger to his secret errands, but this one was different because we were doing it together. Usually, I acted as his go-between. Sometimes with strangers, sometimes family members. Once, he made me go see this guy he knew from the phone company. Pete San Filippo. They played cards once a week. Himself was looking for work and thought Pete might know about any jobs coming up. And I was the one who had to ask. He gave me Pete’s address and I walked over to his house, a few blocks away, wondering what to say when I rang the bell. Pete was a handsome, stocky man with curly black hair, who opened the screen door partway to talk to me. Whatever I said made him smile, but I felt like a complete weirdo, like some kind of beggar. Another time I had to go to Uncle Tim’s house at the crack of dawn one January morning when I was suspended from school to pick up a check that would pay my tuition and readmit me. He should have taken care of it, but I was the one who took the bus to Rockaway so he could save face. You just didn’t ask questions. Nobody did, not even my mother. Not only was I the eldest child, I was the only son. It was ridiculous, the things I was asked to do, but I would never think of handing them off to one of my sisters.

  The trees along Snyder Avenue were heavy with late summer, the leaves at their darkest and densest green, singed at the edges from a recent heat wave, and the air was filled with the murmur of crickets. Dad swiftly turned the steering wheel and maneuvered the car into the westbound lane to see the oncoming traffic. At first, the Blue Max went one block at a time, alongside Holy Cross Cemetery, until the sheer emptiness of the street spurred him to lean on the accelerator, gliding through bands of blackness and fluorescence until we reached Schenectady Avenue. Ten blocks. Then he stopped at a red light.

  I gripped the handle inside the door. “Jesus, are you trying to get us killed?”

  “I’m trying to get this over with,” he said, looking through the windshield. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

  What was he going to do for wheels now? He didn’t have money to buy another car, not unless he got lucky at Pete’s poker game or picked up extra shifts tending bar at the Mermaid. That’s where he was working. Sometimes I’d bring him a clean white shirt on a hanger when he worked a double shift; it wasn’t like the regulars, blown-out lightbulbs one and all, were going to notice if his shirt wasn’t fresh. Catholic schools were charging tuition now, and Mom needed every last cent to pay for that. As the sole support of the family, she was all about the money, keeping on top of the bills, the mortgage.

  She was carrying him and he hated it.

  I could hear the relay switches changing in the traffic-light box on the corner before the red turned to green. Dad straightened his neck and rested a minute, looking down the long black street behind us.

  “So far, so good,” he said; he almost always sounded hoarse. “No cops. I really appreciate you doing this.”

  I tried to smile. “It’s okay. It won’t take that long, right?”

  “You in a rush or something?”

  “No. I just want to know, that’s all. I have a matinee tomorrow.” I’d spend more time than usual ushering the Massapequa ladies to their seats.

  “We’ll be done when we’re done.”

  It was hot out, one of those Augusts that make you wish it were October. Dad resumed his reverse position and backed the car onto Schenectady Avenue. The graveyard came into view again, the headlights revealing the polished granite surface of the tombstones. Their silence seemed to guarantee our success.

  “We are going to the Brooklyn Terminal Market,” he said suddenly.

  In that case, we weren’t that far away. The streetlights cast faint beams on a deserted, concrete playground on Tilden Avenue. There were silver baby swings and a torn, twisted chain-link fence, benches without seats, graffiti scrawled on the concrete wall in the handball court. I knew he was worried about a cop car pulling him over. But neither of us was thinking about fire engines. We were coming up to the intersection at Utica Avenue when I heard a siren, at first distant, then louder, more urgent and shrill. I looked out my window to see if anything was coming from the southbound lane. Then Dad said, “Holy shit.” A nasal horn sounded and a fire engine came barreling out of the darkness from the north. He hit the brakes hard. The Chevy swerved and he bumped his head on the steering wheel. I steeled myself against the seat, pushing my feet on the floor. We were going to get killed. That’s how the night would end—cops ringing our doorbell.

  “Are you okay? Didn’t you see that coming?”

  He released the brake and looked out the windshield. The car was aslant in the middle of Utica Avenue. He got out of the car and looked down the street. I got out too. No sign of the phantom fire engine. I knew we hadn’t dreamt it, but it was almost like we had. He slapped his meaty hands on the roof of the Chevy and stretched his bulky legs, head bowed.

  We just couldn’t leave the car here; we’d have to push it back to Holy Cross. That would be the easiest thing; it wouldn’t take long, fifteen minutes maybe. I knew too well about his superhuman strength. He once carried a broken washing machine out of our basement and up the cellar steps and into the backyard, wrapping his massive arms around the gleaming white contraption and picking it up, tilting it against his chest, and finding his way out of the cellar. When he’d put the thing down, scraping the cement, his face was boiling red but he wasn’t even breathing heavily.

  Why had I let my mother talk me into going on this joyride? “So what are we going to do now?”

  He said nothing; he just stared down the length of Utica Avenue as if the answer were written on the asphalt’s double yellow stripe. The longer we waited there, the more likely a cop car would eventually find us. I suggested pushing the Blue Max back toward the cemetery, but then he said, “Gotta keep going. We’re almost there.”

  That wasn’t really true. And then he had another brilliant idea—that I should take the wheel.

  “Me?” My voice went up half an octave. “I can’t drive in reverse.”

  He was getting in the passenger seat. “Piece of cake. I’ll show you.”

  I wiped the palm of my hand on my dirty denim shorts and slid in next to him. My wristwatch said one thirty in the morning. I hoped Mom wasn’t still up. I adjusted the rearview mirror. “And if we get stopped by the cops, I’ll be the one who gets a ticket.”

  He winked. “You have more money than me. You can pay it.”

  That much was true, but I needed all of it to live on when I went to college.

  “Come on, Nicky,” he said. “My neck is killing me, and I don’t see too good at night. Fifteen more minutes, you’ll see. And then I’ll never ask you for another favor.”

  Famous last words, but his pleading took me by surprise. And then it dawned on me that he didn’t need me for the company; he had always planned for me to do part of the driving. Was I a moron or what?

  “All right. Let’s just get out of here.”

  As I turned on the ignition and backed the Chevy down the street, the Blue Max swerved and lurched.

  “Easy on the gas. Keep the wheel straight,” he said. Even with half a bag on, Himself was a much better driver than I would eve
r be.

  I stared out the back window, determined to make the car behave. The engine muttered all the way. At Kings Highway, an ambulance idled past the eight lanes while we stopped at a red light. When it changed, I asked Himself to guide me. He walked into the middle of the street, about fifty feet behind the Chevy, and beckoned the car to him like a reluctant pet. My high school, St. Michael the Archangel, was a five-minute walk from here. This was one story about Himself I could tell in public. But there was no one to tell it to. The friends I had made in high school had receded—some were ghosts—and I was only looking to tell new stories when I got to Carnegie Mellon.

  When I made it to the other side, I looked back and grinned. Himself leaned on the windshield and smiled. “See? Driving backwards, there’s nothing to it. Want me to take over?”

  “Maybe you remember that McDonald’s near St. Mike’s. It’s open all night. Someone might see us. We can go around.”

  He was in my head now and that was never a good thing. The longer I sat in the driver’s seat, the more I began to think like him. Like a sneak. I did know one way to get where we were going that would attract the least attention. In two lurching maneuvers, I backed onto East Fifty-Seventh Street, where Tilden High School took up one side of the block. We called the school Killden, after race riots there made headlines.

  I was getting better with the steering wheel, straightening out the Chevy while I looked out the back window. The Blue Max slipped across the dark intersection at Clarendon Road. St. Mike’s was the long, tidy, rectangular building on the right side of the street. We were almost done and I was pleased that I had found the best way to get there. I half-expected the principal, Brother Theodore, to sidle up to the front window and ask in his merry brogue, “Fellas, that’s quite an automobile you have there, but have you noticed that you are driving in reverse?”

  Looking out at the rose granite façade and the steps that led to the front doors, Dad said, “Jesus, I forgot this place was in the middle of nowhere.”