Can Am Story

by Oliver Rill

  “Oh Aaron, ring that one up right now. We’ll get it brought over here, then we’ll have a look see if we can find a place that peps up old-timers.”

  “You want to sup it up?”

  “No, but I want a little modern technology in it. Just enough to keep it looking like the original, but with a satnav built in and suitably disguised, some speakers and so on. Things you can’t see, but will bring it a bit more up to date.”

  “You know what I think? Honestly? I reckon that would be just awesome. I’ll get right on it.”

  A week later the car was standing in the garage in L.A. and I was walking around it in amazement. It must have been twenty foot bumper to fender to fender. You sank into the straight cushioned seats and the doors with its unframed windows were thicker than the walls in some houses.

  “Can I start it?” I asked full of awe.

  “It’s yours! Drive it round the block, before we start taking it apart.”

  The sound was incredible. It purred quietly. There were none of the expected rattles and shakes but then, it had only been driven 988 miles, so apart from where a rubber seal had petrified here and there, there shouldn’t be any. I was so excited. The hood seemed to stretch for ever in front of you and the view to the back of the car was the same. The angled shape gave you a good indication of where the front and back of the car were though. I rolled carefully out of the yard and pulled the wheel to the right. I smiled. The movement was feather light but the reaction was something else.

  I noticed as I drove out along the road that I could pull the wheel almost a quarter of the way around before there was any movement to the left or right. There was no air suspension but you wouldn’t know it from the cushioned drive. It felt like an airbed floating on a lake.

  “And? How is it?” The boys called as I came back into the garage yard. The big garage itself was made solely of corrugated iron, even up to the gabled roof. The massive door was painted in a bright, cheerful blue. In front a jumble of cars, ready to be consigned to the scrapyard stood, waiting silently for God knows what. The workers in complete contrast, muscles rippling and mouths whistling, brought life and soul back to the yard. Several were calling out, clanging and banging on sports cars.

  “Definitely a dream, I can live with the suspension, but I’ll never get used to the steering. That’ll have to change. And if you could install ABS and slip control in the braking system that would be good.”

  The larger guy pulled a grimy, curled pad and pencil out of his bib and brace overalls.

  “Ok what do we have? Brakes, steering, satnav, radio, speaker system. Then change the oil and brake fluid, treat for rust, check the seals, is that it?”

  “Yes I think that should do it.”

  “We’ve gotta see what we can do about the brakes and the steering. Everything else should be ok. I’d say we’ll be done in about a week, maybe two, depends on how difficult it is with the brakes.”

  “Ok. I can’t wait.”

  “It’s a really cool car you got hold of there.” The smaller guy said.

  I exchanged a glance with Aaron, who nodded and said “The white one in Myers isn’t cool. Not in the least. It’s an embarrassment.”

  Aaron drove me home.

  “You sure do have some eccentric ways, do you know that?”

  “What do you mean? A new car would cost more than the Lincoln and wouldn’t be half as cool.”

  “Not just that, I mean the whole shebang. A house here, one there, cars, staff …”

  “Staff! We have to find someone to take care of Santa Barbara. I want to move in when the car is ready.”

  “Take Gavin with you.”

  “Of course I’ll take Gavin, but I won’t be there all the time and I’ll need someone to keep an eye on things.”

  “A company?”

  “I’d rather find an individual. Someone who’s on the spot and reliable. With a company you get first one person then another and nobody knows anything about anything. I don’t fancy that. I want another Jason.”

  “A Jason from Jamaica with a massive thing, I take it.”

  “Aaron!” I called out in mock horror. “Wasn’t it you who said it’s not appropriate to talk like that to your boss?”

  “That just slipped out, when you talked about Jason.”

  “Why? Does he have a massive thing?”

  “No he has a perfectly normal thing.”

  Daniel was doing quite well and extremely busy. I gave him the title of Director of Customer Relations. He got on really well with Sharon, I often heard the two of them laughing. I felt quite comfortable with the decision I had made there.

  Aristo had to get stuck straight in when he got back, but he had persevered, and his personnel department was up and running well. I felt I had been dealt a lucky hand when I had chosen him. He had withdrawn a little socially. He didn’t have a steady girlfriend, I kept hearing one name then another and wondered about him letting off steam.

  It was the same with Matt. He had withdrawn anyway since we went our separate ways. The girl that was the cause of the break up didn’t last long and then a name popped up in conversation here and there, but nothing steady.

  I never heard from James again, unfortunately. I had hoped that he might have changed his mind, but if he did, I never heard. I almost dialed his number several times, but stopped myself just before pressing ‘call’.

  The Town Car was ready. I would be able to pick it up in the morning and drive off with it. I packed the few bits and pieces together that I would need. I wanted to buy a new wardrobe in Santa Barbara. I want a weekend base or hideaway there, in case the city gets too much. Gavin asked if we only had one car there and would have to share. He would need to go shopping and get things for the house. I pondered a while.

  “Why don’t you drive the Range Rover over? I’m still working things out. Will you take my stuff too?”

  The next morning, Aaron picked me up and we drove over to the garage in high suspense.

  “Don’t get too excited, it looks just the same as it did last time you saw it.” The guys explained what they had done. Of course they said if there was anything wrong, I should bring it back, but they didn’t expect any problems. It would need an oil change now and then and perhaps a checkup once a year, but other than that, it should last for years.

  The whole thing had cost nearly $10,000, but the steering did work as you would expect it to now. Hopefully I would never need to test the ABS and the satnav seemed to work fine. The screen for it was hidden behind a door that fitted seamlessly into the dashboard, and was practically invisible when it was shut. The sound was unreal! Bose is definitely the best. I could turn up the sound and float for the two hour journey to Santa Barbara as though on a cloud.

  Gavin had had a head start on me and was nearly finished packing. I chucked the few bits I had into the cupboard and shoed Aaron away from the pool.

  “Come on, drive me to the mall. I need some clothes here.”

  We strolled through the shops and fooled around. I always had fun when he was with me and I felt free, somehow. That evening, we sat on the terrace outside, watching the sun go down.

  “Aaron, you’re going to have to find another gym here.”

  “You really want to live here? Properly live, like every day?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m going to try. We’ve actually got a flight that comes here. It was put in under protest, but we did get it.”

  “That short distance?”

  “Yeah, well, even when the roads are clear, it can take two hours to get here. But who manages that? It’s actually more like three. That’d be six hours a day, travelling. That’s too much.”

  “Yeah. I think it is a bit starched around here. L.A. and Myers are at the top of my list, I think. I can’t wait till Sifnos is up and running.”

  “Yeah, me too. I know exactly what it’s going to be like. I’ve got a picture of it in my head.”

  I began to commute. I often managed to catch the
flight to Santa Barbara, sometimes I didn’t though. And on those nights I stayed in Hollywood.

  Aaron dragged me with varying degrees of success into the gym on a regular basis. Since starting with Matt as my trainer, my body was just a little bit firmer. Not much, but I could see it. It didn’t seem to be so shapeless. I had the beginnings of a shape now that was a figure like other people and was no longer a shapeless blob. I was feeling much more healthy too than I used to.

  I went to Aristo in April.

  “Do you know how the work’s going on my house?” I asked.

  “I had heard that they stopped work. Didn’t Debbie say?”

  “No, I’ve not heard from her. I’ll call her. Wait up.”

  Debbie was as stressed as she always was. I had caught her at the airport on her way to Sifnos. She moaned about the bad connection from L.A. to Athens.

  “Do you know what’s up?” I asked on the subject of the house.

  “The garage door was too much for the house structure, so they stopped. I want to take a look myself, but I think we are going to have to take some drastic measures. I think we’re going to have to dig the door into the ground.”

  “Did the surveyor miscalculate?”

  “It seems that the winds were so strong that the construction has done some very obvious damage to the wall on the upper part of the house, when it was left open. So let me get back to work, I’m too busy to talk to you right now. You’re coming over in May, aren’t you?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Ok, I’ll call you. I. Will. Call. You.” She enunciated the last quite clearly.

  I explained to Aristo and he was as astounded as I.

  “So are we flying over in May then? The first of the month? There’s a direct flight from New York. Another two weeks and we’ll arrive in summer again, what d’y’think?”

  We had to leave the whole thing until June. Debbie really had closed the road off for a couple of days to get the door into the ground. Then the wall had to be repaired and painted before it was all set up and working. I could imagine that the neighbors were not happy.

  Finally the first of June was upon us. I checked the figures with Melvin and he let me know that we had made a profit of 475 million in the first half of the year. Our fleet had grown to 245 planes and the office building grew fuller by the day. My own account stood at a healthy 31 million. I still had trouble believing that I had really managed to build a proper, profit making company from practically nothing. And what a company it was! The profit did not sit idle any more than any other part of the business. It was ploughed back into more stock. Airplanes. I had no real private life anymore. I had all the trappings, several houses, cars and staff, but it was hardly private. It didn’t bother me that much though, I was having fun and, of course, the much more than moderate salary helped sweeten the pill.

  Aaron for some reason had been enormously excited about our trip. He busied himself before we left with extra shopping forays, buying new and cool shirts and bathing gear to wear on the island. I took a suitcase with stuff I wanted to leave there and there was stuff already waiting there that I had left with a friend on Sifnos.

  Aristo didn’t have much luggage. Most of his stuff was already at his parents’ house. Gavin wasn’t coming this time. He would get some well-earnt time off. I gave him two open ended tickets, so he and his girlfriend could chose somewhere nice to go and spend time together.

  And now, thinking of the trip, I chartered a helicopter to take us from Athens airport to Sifnos. I felt since I had so much money, I might as well embrace the lifestyle just like Kylie Minogue.

  I didn’t tell anybody about it, apart from asking Debbie to pick us up at two, so it was an enormous surprise for Aristo, when he saw the ‘copter. I had never flown in one myself before, which was exciting, but to know that instead of an hour driving through Athens, then a three hour wait for the ferry, which sometimes turned into a six hour wait, was definitely worth it. The extra €5,000 it cost didn’t make a dent in my account and at the same time I was doing something for the Greek economy. Well that’s how I justified my eccentricity to myself anyway.

  Daniel did say that the helicopter pilot was hot. I thought that he was a good looking southerner, who waved us into the cockpit in a real nice friendly way. He explained what all the strange noises were and why it was all shaking. He also gave us a running commentary on the area, putting names to strange shaped blobs on the ocean that turned out to be islands that we had seen and travelled to. Stavros was a typical pilot and very cool. He looked at us through his aviator sunglasses, framed by his short, gelled black hair. Thick tufts of dark hair peeped through the almost completely undone white shirt and left us in no doubt about his figure, which was full but well-shaped. He had to go straight back to the main land, but gave me his card and I was in no doubt that I would be calling and booking him again in the near future.

  “Man, Oli! This is so cool! Arriving on Sifnos in a helicopter. It’s mega!” Aristo was almost beside himself with excitement.

  Debbie was waiting for us and asked why we couldn’t have taken the ferry like everyone else, which fell on deaf ears.

  “Come on, Debbie. Show me the house. I can’t wait to see it!”

  “First, welcome back. It is ready now and we had to make an enormous effort. The neighbors all hate you and yes, I’ll happily show you. My bill is on the way.”

  “Ok, so just one question. You aren’t that happy with your girlfriend, are you?”

  “Yes I am very happy with my girlfriend and she’s been here since April, which you will see from my bill. But I want to go home now. I’ll come back, but for now, I’ve had it up to my back teeth. I want to eat burgers and go shopping and talk to normal people again!”

  “Debbie, take the helicopter. You’ve earned it. Put it on the bill.”

  “I was going to do that anyway.”

  The house was ready. Debbie showed me the critical item. The garage door. You couldn’t see from outside that the wall sank into the ground, if you weren’t looking for it. It really looked like a wall with two windows, whose dark blue framework matched the rest of the house. The wall sank and the Range Rover fitted easily into the garage. My scooter was already in place there. The light came on automatically with the movement of the door. And once inside, the door closed again. All that could be heard was a light buzzing sound, then a click as it locked, as that too, worked with oil pressure.

  From the garage we moved along to the lobby, with doors to the kitchen, the two guest bedrooms and the terrace, or you could take the elevator downstairs.

  “I still have trouble imagining this place with an elevator!”

  The first guest room had kept its walk in wardrobe, but didn’t have a balcony and the view wasn’t particularly enticing. But for all that, it was one of the most comfortable rooms. In a cloud of pastel blue and white, its plush furniture made it feel all the more elegant.

  The kitchen with its brushed aluminium surfaces looked more commonplace to me, it could have been anywhere in the world, but it did the job. It was clean and had everything that you needed in a kitchen.

  “We had so much room here; we managed to put in a washer and dryer over there.”

  The dining area was, in contrast splendid. A large wooden table painted white with matching white wooden chairs covered in a light blue velveteen. The second guest room opened onto the terrace from the bedroom. There was a built in cupboard on one side and behind the bed area, was a small shower room, whose window captured the light from the side of the house.

  “Brilliant solution, Debbie!”

  The terrace was beautiful anyway, Debbie had simply retiled it with new gray, asymmetrical natural stone and classic white grout, just like the downstairs.

  Our tour took us to the lower half of the building using the new elevator. There was also a staircase to the left side of the house leading up to the road, but that could also be used by passers-by occasionally. The elevator was more or le
ss soundless and brought us to the luxuriously furnished lounge area.

  Although the concept of a Greek couch was a well-known one, I had no idea what one looked like or if said couch would be comfortable, which was doubtful. Debbie had stuck religiously to her instructions and kept everything in pastel blue and white, with silver accents in such things as a vase here, the light switch there, the sockets and a few lamps and such-like. Finally we reached my bedroom. There was a small white writing table, a large bed with a long blanket box in front of it. To the right was the dressing room and walk in wardrobe, and to the left, the bathroom. Quite simple and succinct.

  “It is just as I imagined it, Debbie! You’ve done a super job. Thank you.”

  “It nearly drove me mad. We had to rip out almost all of the upper floor. All because of the surveyor. I’m pleased you like it, but above all, I’m pleased I like it. When you aren’t using it, maybe Rachel and I can come here, if you’re ok with that?”

  “Of course you can.”

  “In spite of that. I do have to put the garage door in my bill twice. The surveyor won’t pay for his mistake and I’m certainly not going to.”

  “How much was it then?”

  “The upper part cost about seven, the lower part, wait for it, 15!”

  “Ah it’s ok, Debbie. The main thing is that it doesn’t break down as soon as we use it.”

  “You are supposed to make sure that no stones get into the workings. You can bring it upwards a few inches, then rinse it out to clean the recess out. There’s a little drain to allow you to do that.”

  “Great. Let’s go out to eat. I’ll park at Antonis’ and we can go to Drakakis. No Aaron. I’m going to drive!”

  “Shall we meet there at nine? I’ll take a cab and fetch Rachel. Aristo, do you want a lift?”