How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive

by Christopher Boucher

  These stories weren’t easy to find—they never are!—and the trips were difficult for the VW. Some of them were far—we read through Sunderland, Huntington, Chicopee Falls—and the VW would have to take frequent breaks to nap or cough up oil. Some tunes were productive, but others were wild storychases down strange antiroads which led us, when we reached the supposed destination, to the Memory or Promise of a story but no actual story. There were many days, then, when we came back to Northampton with nothing.

  As the weeks passed, the VW stopped bothering me about the Castaway or lobbying to follow the Tree west. In fact, he grew steely quiet and hardly spoke to me at all. We often drove in silence, and when we got home from a storytrip the VW usually went right to his room while I made a cup of chai and sat down in the living room to read, write or revise. I knew that my son was still carrying a grudge, but I expected that to change—soon, I predicted, he would forget about missing fathers and farms and focus his energies elsewhere.

  Which is exactly what happened when, early that winter, the VW developed an interest in engineering. Somewhere along the way, he’d picked up a book on the subject at one of the used bookstores. He read that book cover to power, and was soon buying other books on the subject, which he carried in his front compartment and read while he was waiting for me. He didn’t talk to me about what he was reading, but I saw from the books’ covers that one of them was about small engine repair and another about automotonal technology.

  Soon, he’d turned his room/garage into a workshop and started building projects; he spent all his free time using materials I didn’t recognize to build machines I didn’t understand. He wouldn’t tell me what these projects were—he was still not really speaking to me—and I didn’t want to pry, but one Saturday afternoon I was in the kitchen making soup when the VW opened his bedroom door and said, “Hey Dad?”

  “Yo,” I said.

  “Remember when we used that outboard motor to get through the Main Street canal?”

  “ ‘Shimmies and Shakes?’ ”

  The VW nodded.

  “You just fastened the engine to the sheet metal, right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “Cool,” he said, and he started to close the door.

  “Wait a second,” I said. “Why?”

  “Just curious,” he said, and slammed the door.

  One day soon after that, I heard muted construction noises—singsong saws, choruses of hammers—coming from the VW’s room. I knocked on the door, and when the VW appeared his face was sooty. “What?” he said.

  “What’s going on in there?” I said. “I hear the sound of carpentry. What are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  I put my hands on my hips.

  “I’m just listening to music is all,” said the VW.

  There was a smell coming from his room—the smell of welding. “What kind of music?”

  “Just—a band, Dad, alright?”

  “What band?”

  “The—” The VW paused, and then his face brightened. “The Carpenters.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Cool.” That made sense. The Carpenters were a real band who made music in the 1970s—One Side of My Mother used to sing me their songs.

  I should have read the roadsigns—should have remembered that The Carpenters, despite their name, did not really make construction-style music. Or I should have asked more questions when, a few days later, a problem came to the door with some sheets of tin. “Delivery for a Mister—” he read the paperwork—”Nineteen seventy-one—”

  “That’s for me,” said the VW, coughing. He signed for the delivery, picked up the tin and carried it back to his bedroom/garage.

  “Wait a second,” I said. “What’s all that tin for?”

  The VW ignored me.

  “VW,” I said.

  The VW turned towards me, and his face audited my face. “You know what?” he said. “It’s a surprise. A present! It’s for a present for you. OK?”

  “A present?”

  “For your birthday,” the VW. “Alright?”

  “Seriously?” I said. “Is that why you’ve been so secretive?”

  The VW just stared at me.

  This did strike me as strange—my birthday wasn’t for six months—but I didn’t question it at the time. “Wow—that’s really thoughtful of you, kiddo,” I said. “I won’t even try to guess what it is then. That way I can be surprised!”

  The VW gave me a thumbs-up sign, picked up the sheets of tin and carried them into his room.

  He spent the entire next day in his room with the door closed. That night, I was sitting in the living room, reading a diagnostic about wind narratives—stories written and composed, entirely, of wind—when the VW opened the door. Billows of smoke spilled into the living room. “VW!” I said. “What are you doing in there?”

  “I was—reading,” he said.

  “What’s all that smoke from?”

  “What smoke?” the VW said.

  “I smell smoke,” I said.

  “You do? I don’t,” said the VW.

  I shook my head and went back to my reading.

  The VW stepped into the living room. “I’m going to sleep now,” he said.

  “OK. Goodnight,” I said.

  He didn’t move. “Dad?” he said.

  I looked up from my reading.

  The VW’s eyes were bleary. “Can I say something?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  He seemed to weigh his words carefully. “Just, sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you.”

  “What—the noise?” I said.

  The VW idled.

  “No problem,” I said. “It sounds like you’re really taking an interest in carpentry composition, which is great. Your grandfather would be really proud of you.”

  I turned back to my reading, but when I looked up again the VW was still standing there. “You OK?” I said.

  His engine stalled. “This was always the way it was supposed to go. OK?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “The way what was supposed to go?”

  “The next chapter,” he said.

  “Wait—what?” I said. “What about the next chapter?”

  “The futuresongs,” he said.

  “VW,” I said, “Can this wait? I’m in the middle of this excursion on literary windstorms. Can we talk about this another time?”

  His eyes wednesdayed. “Sure we can,” he said.

  He went to his room, and I turned back to my reading about the wind. It was a captivating chapter. Was this was the problem with my power—that it lacked wind? Every word in my stories just sat there on the page, not moving at all.

  For a few minutes after that I heard the sounds of construction from the VW’s room—the revving of engines, the whining of a saw. Then the noise stopped, and the apartment was completely quiet.

  GOLD RUSH

  That morning, I woke up early and booked for a while. I’d collected a few Northamptons over the past weeks, as the bookstore bridge had suggested, but fitting them into the book was another matter—I often had to bend the stories, or break them and reshape them. I began that particular day by taking out the ogeltree to clean it, but then I snapped a piece of the plastic by mistake. I called around and found a place that had one—Amherst Typewriter—and then I knocked on the VW’s door. It was only eight in the morning, so I assumed that he was still asleep. “Storytime, VW,” I said.

  The VW often slept late, and sometimes slept through the day if he was sick, but he usually mumbled something—a custom-made, a u-turn-term—when I woke him up. That morning, though, he didn’t say anything.

  “Kiddo,” I said, “we need to get to Amherst—I need an ogeltree for the book. Can we leave in ten minutes?”

  Again, no answer.

  “Hey.” I knocked again. “Ten minutes, OK?”

  I put my ear to the door. “VW?” I didn’t hear anything. “You’re worrying me—are you OK?�
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  He wasn’t answering.

  “I’m going to open this door now, alright? VW? I’m opening the door.”

  I opened the door into a plume of engine parts, books, tools, maps.

  But there was no VW. The VW was gone.

  VIII. VOLKSWAGEN DOESN’T STOP

  TRANSMISSION II (SLIPS AND JERKS)

  Your Volkswagen will lead you through multiple versions—this version and others as well. Don’t read this as a malfunction—this is how Volkswagen Beetles (and/or books about Volkswagen Beetles—Muir’s, mine, or anyone else’s) work! They move, they shift, they change.

  Sometimes, though, one of the transmissions can unshift. You can lose ground. You shouldn’t worry if your VW shifts or revises, but you should absolutely worry if the car stops shifting, or if the version stays constant. If that happens, something is wrong.

  In the event of an unshift, open up the engine compartment and remove the control unit. Then, take out the momentpump. Underneath it you’ll see a middle transmission, encased completely in glass. Some Beetle owners describe the transmission as taco-like—I’ve heard others say it looks like a bird in a glass coffin. Like I say, every car is different. Plus, the transmission is still a sort of mystery-vision for me—I know that it connects to the engineheart (where stories are bred), for example, but I can’t say how. All I can tell you is that the transmission connects the story to the reader, and thus, that it’s an integral part of the car.

  If the transmission is unshifting, you may have a storylinkage problem, in which case something is keeping the story from moving forward. To investigate this, undo the sufferbolts around the edges of the glass casing and take a look inside. You’ll see a series of interlocking narratives. Is there any schmutz between them, any wrinkle or disconnect that you can see?

  Once, my car’s transmission was malfunctioning because of a piece of storyfuzz, and as soon as I removed it the car ran like an awning. Usually, though, I’m not so lucky—it’s more likely that you’ll open the casing and find a narrative deteethed or twisted, in which case you’ll need to order a replacement for it.

  If you want to drive the car in the meantime, you’re going to have to shift it yourself—to push the story forward manually.

  Let’s say, for example, that the story is:

  Your son is a 1971 Volkswagen Beetle who has disobeyed you and left the house on his own. When you open the door to his room you find the afterstory: condensers, scraps of tin and steel, diagrams, translators, pages of verbs in various languages. These words are the first things you see, depaged and collected in a shoebox by the door. You pick up the box and look through the words: “mlape,” “svesket,” “marchon,” “balinquoo,” “quandary.” There’s not one term you recognize.

  You step into the room and see strange engine components, some books about aerodynamics, a notebook full of sketches, charts and diagrams on the wall. You scan one of these charts, which appears to denote topographical musical notation. Another drawing, which is taped above the VW’s worktable, appears to be a hand-drawn map. You study the jagged, intersecting lines. That crooked trail there appears to be a river, but which river?

  Then you study the volksenscratch notes—here he’s written the number two, and there the number five, and—

  No.

  Suddenly you see: This is a drawing of Route 91, from Northampton to Greenfield.

  The Volkswagen has gone after the Heart Attack Tree.

  That explains the maps, the engineering books, the projects. He wasn’t working on a birthday present, but the very opposite—an unpresent, the gift that keeps on taking away.

  Understand that your Volkswagen has no concept of the highwaysong—what the tune is, how to hear it or steer it. He won’t even know if he’s in the verse or the chorus. And he’s sick—he’s very, very sick.

  He won’t make it to Deerfield.

  And you, suddenly sans car, have no way to catch up with him. The narrative has unshifted.

  Were that the case, you might shift the story manually, like this:

  First Gear: The Volkswagen is your responsibility. This is your fault, and no one else’s.

  Second Gear: He will die in the sound if you don’t find him.

  Third Gear: What are you waiting for? There is not a second of time-of-money to waste.

  Fourth Gear: Go! Go now.

  GRINDS AND GROWLS (TRANSAXLE)

  I grabbed the heavy power-in-pieces and ran out the door, down the hill to Prospect Street, over to King Street and towards the entrance to 91. In twenty minutes I was sprinting up the on-ramp, my mind a needle. Before I reached the top of the ramp, even, I could see the flush of vehicles—Veggies, bioleggers, riffs and phrases, traveling vests and fences, etcetera. The choruslanes were jammed; vehicles switched aggressively from one staff to the next and some even jumped over the driver in front of them. Up ahead, I saw a biolegger elbow a fence on its way past, and the fence spin onto the median.

  It began to rain. I put my hands over my ears—the drops of sound were deafening.

  I stuck out my thumb and began running along the breakdown lane. I was crying and waving for help, but no one would stop—VeggieCars and bio’s shrilled past me, yelling insults out the window. “Get off the road, you crazy vosk,” shouted a woman in a carcoat, and then a shower on bio’s viced “Don’t you know the storysong is only a metaphor?”

  “For what?” I shouted back. She couldn’t hear me, so the question ran along beside me. And it was just one of several: Did I really think I could catch the VW? That I would find my father this way? And which direction was I going, anyway—towards the past, or fast-forward towards a future?

  Yes. Yes to every question. I was running towards my family, towards life. I believed—I still believe—that his heart was still beating. That my heart was still beating. That your heart is still beating.

  • • •

  I’d been sprinting along the highwaysong for about ten minutes when I suddenly saw a blue 1971 Volkswagen Beetle driving in the other direction. I stopped running and tried to flag it down. Thank god! “VW!” I shouted.

  But the car was driving ethereally fast, and when it sped past me I saw that it was brand new—the notes bounced off of its shiny blue paint. This car wasn’t my son. I stopped waving to it, and watched it disappear around the bend of the previous verse.

  As I was standing there a jazzy, syncopated riff approached and pulled over. Inside was a trio of instruments—a piano in the front seat, a bass and drums in the back.

  I was drenched by the musical rain, and I’d been weeping and mumbling so I’m sure my face was red and swollen. When the piano rolled down the film, he read my face and said, “Need a ride?”

  I got into the riff. “Noisy night, huh?” the piano said, steering us back into traffic.

  “Did you just come from Springfield?” I said.

  “Hartford,” said the bass fiddle.

  “You didn’t see a Volkswagen driving in the other direction, did you?”

  “A what?” the drum set said. His voice was smoky and cracked.

  “A Volkswagen,” I said. “It’s a kind of car. They’re sort of round? This one’s blue.”

  “Jesus,” the drums said. “I’ve never even heard that word before.”

  “I think I might have seen one of those as a kid, in a museum somewhere,” said the piano.

  “Is that why you’re out here?” said the bass. “Did you lose your car?”

  “My son, yes,” I said.

  The bass asked, “Is he traveling south?”

  “I don’t think so—I think he’s going north, towards Greenfield,” I said. “But I’m not sure—he left home this morning and didn’t tell me where he was going.”

  “He ran away?” the piano said, furrowing his wooden brow.

  “It’s a long story—a whole novel, actually, and this is the wrong version. He left to follow—to track—a farm.”

  “A farm?” the piano said.

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p; I nodded. “And I forbade him from traveling on ninety-one. Who can navigate with all this noise?”

  “Tell me about it,” the drums said. “We weren’t even supposed to have come this far—numb notes missed our exit a few miles back.”

  “Numb-notes,” the bass said, smiling dumbly.

  Then the drums leaned forward—I could feel him studying me. “What’s that?” he said.

  I looked back at him.

  “That,” he said, pointing.

  “It’s a power,” I said.

  “A power?”

  “—book,” I said. “I call it How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive.”

  The piano shook his head and hunched over the riff’s steering wheel. “It’s pretty dischordant out here,” he said.

  “What’s it do?” the drums said.

  “Oh,” I said. I looked down at the book. “I don’t know. I always carry it with me. It holds stories.”

  “Does it project them, or—”

  I shook my head.

  “Does it do calculations or solve problems?” the drums asked.

  “No—it just stores the experience.”

  “Converted?”

  “No, raw,” I said. I looked down at the book. “So it doesn’t do much of anything, I guess.”

  The drums looked at the book with disdain.

  “Sturdy,” I said quietly.

  “I’m sorry?” said the piano.

  This book was a true friend—I wasn’t going to be embarrassed about what it did and didn’t do.

  “That’s the other thing about this book,” I told the drums. “It’s sturdy.”

  A VOYAGE TO ARCTURIS

  But no one told me this when I was raising my son, when he was sick, when I was working frantically to heal his skincrust, fix his failing memory, his weak axles and wheels. I didn’t know about Jaws or the dump until later—at first I was ordering all of my parts new, which cost me hundreds of years! Finally, when the VW was two and a half and sick as a forest, I clutch-cabled. I’d lost my job at the newspaper and wasn’t making an income from my father’s house, and I’d already sold everything I had of value: my banjo, my mountain bike, a few pieces of history that I wasn’t using anymore (I sold all of my experiences with the Lady from the Land of the Beans one Sunday for an hour and a half, and a thief projector scene-talked me into selling the Cape Cod Wedding—fast dancing with the Other Side of My Mother—for a measly forty minutes.)