Lifemobile

by Jonathan Rintels

  “What do you say we celebrate your big day by fixing this car? What about having this Corvair ready for you to drive when that letter comes from the DMV?”

  “I’m going to college, Dad! I need to learn math.”

  “You don’t have to go to college tonight. You have other nights to study.” I could barely believe I had to beg him to play hooky for a few measly hours, especially when the alternative was studying for that detestable test. “As your father, I am allowing you to take a night off. I won’t tell anyone.”

  He considered this highly unusual act of irresponsibility. Fixing the Corvair wasn’t on today’s schedule for him. It verged on anarchy. But he finally agreed, saying, “Okay! I hate that test!”

  We donned work clothes, then met at the Corvair. I rolled up my sleeves, opened the engine compartment, took a deep breath, and then tried to summon my flagging courage. Gone were all thoughts of the satisfaction and accomplishment and fulfillment and pride and Zen that came from working with my own two hands to fix this car. Instead, with my own two hands quivering, I just wanted it over and done with. For I had not ignored or forgotten this repair job over the past weeks; rather, I had obsessed over it. On this routine repair that took most halfway competent Weekend Wrench Warriors no more than 15 minutes, I had compulsively prepared as if I were performing my first brain surgery. Wally, the car’s former owner, had sent me his own directions and encouragement. Various Corvair websites contained detailed instructions I had downloaded. Corvair repair manuals and how-to books served up intricate, busy diagrams. YouTube videos purported to show how easy the operation was, one taunting that it was “so easy a caveman could do it with one hand tied behind his back, if his five year-old hadn’t fixed it first.” All this should have given me confidence. Instead, Kenny’s cackle filled my brain; I was sure to hear it after I inevitably failed.

  I did consider hiring a professional. I even thought about calling Kenny to come help. In fact, I was thinking hard about it right now as I stared at the beltless engine. But I had watched and read, and watched and read again. I was prepared. And I had my son here to assist; he knew how to do replace this belt better than I did. We would experience quality time now working together on the car. The heck with Kenny’s cackle; let it ring in my ears all night. I would not back down from this challenge now. No! I could do this!

  “Dad,” Benjy prodded, interrupting my reverie.

  “What?”

  “You’re just standing there like you’re stuck.”

  “Yeah, so I am.”

  “When I get stuck on something, you tell me to get un-stuck.”

  “That’s good advice. I will now get un-stuck.”

  “We should start. It’ll get dark.”

  “I’m just making sure all my ducks are in a row.”

  “What ducks?”

  “It’s just an expression. It means to be fully prepared.”

  “We should call Kenny. He says he can do it in five minutes with his eyes closed.”

  “We are not calling Kenny. I can do this. If you have the guts to face that math test again, I sure as hell should have the guts to face this, don’t you think?”

  Benjy drew a blank. “I don’t see the connection,” he said, then added, “Dad, the mosquitoes will be out soon. I don’t like mosquitoes biting me.”

  I firmly urged myself on, telling myself out loud, “I have the right tools. I have the right part. I have the knowledge. I have the skill. I have the tenacity. I have fully prepared myself to confront and conquer this challenge. I am ready.”

  “Dad, you’re talking to yourself. You always tell me not to talk to myself.”

  “That’s good advice. I’m just trying to psych myself up.” Still paralyzed, I stared at the engine.

  “We should call Kenny,” Benjy repeated.

  I was not calling Kenny. In fact, Benjy’s repetitive suggestion un-stuck me. It was the push I needed. “So which set of instructions do you remember?”

  “All of them.”

  “I liked Wally’s best. They were conversational. No jargon. Let’s try those.”

  “Okay,” he said. He started flapping his hand and pacing; it helped him recall the instructions, as if they were orchestral music and he was the conductor waving an imaginary baton. “First, remove the air cleaner housing above the turkey roaster.”

  “Turkey roaster?” I questioned. I removed the air cleaner housing and stared at the engine. What the heck was the turkey roaster?

  Benjy stopped pacing and joined me in staring at the engine. “Dad, if a Corvair can roast turkeys, can it also roast the ducks in the row?”

  I laughed at his joke, then realized it was not a joke. I eyed the black arched engine shroud that covered the engine’s innards. “I’ll bet this big shroud is the turkey roaster,” I told him. “It sort of looks like the big black enamel thing we roast the Thanksgiving turkey in.”

  “We don’t roast a turkey,” Benjy corrected. “We buy a cooked one from the grocery store.” It was true; we hadn’t cooked a turkey since Annie died.

  “Okay, let’s keep moving. That’s the turkey roaster. I’m sure of it. What’s the next instruction?”

  “Dad,” he said, not satisfied. “Calling that a turkey roaster if it doesn’t really roast turkeys is jargon. You said ‘no jargon.’”

  “That’s good advice. But I’m making an exception for good jargon that metaphorically speaks to me and will help me fix this. Let’s keep moving. What’s Wally’s next instruction?”

  Benjy eyed me, hung up on the idea of jargon that spoke metaphorically.

  “Next instruction,” I prodded. “Keep moving.”

  Benjy didn’t move and kept his big brown eyes trained on me. “You tell me to communicate clearly when I ask you my questions,” he went on, growing perturbed. “This time, you didn’t communicate clearly with me. You said ‘no jargon,’ but then you said that some jargon is okay. How am I supposed to know which jargon is good jargon?”

  “When you’re working with Kenny, do you have these discussions?” I was growing perturbed myself. “Don’t you keep moving?”

  “Kenny communicates clearly. Unlike some people I won’t name.”

  “I see. Well, we’re off to a flying stop here.” The sun was sinking. “Can you give me the next instruction, please?”

  He eyed me again, processing my words. Flying stop? What? He drew a blank.

  “That was a joke, Benjy. The expression is usually ‘we’re off to a flying start,’ and we’re not, so I made this dumb little joke—that we’re off to a flying stop.”

  “It’s not all my fault that I don’t understand your jokes,” Benjy complained. “If you told better jokes, maybe I would understand them.”

  “You are right. It’s not your fault at all, I do need better jokes. I apologize. And I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing with you because this is a fifteen-minute job and at the rate we’re going, we may not finish in fifteen years. So no more jokes, word play, jargon, failures to communicate, okay? Just tell me the next instruction.”

  “You keep saying all the things you tell me are good advice, but you don’t obey any of them yourself. Why does good advice only apply to me? That’s discrimination.”

  “I promise I will take my own good advice from now on,” I sighed. “Please, Benjy,” I begged, “what is the next instruction?”

  After 20 minutes of work buried within two hours of questions, clarifications, miscommunications, cajoling, confusion, and begging, the sun had dropped down in exhaustion, and Benjy and I were about to do the same. At last I tightened the wing nut that secured the air cleaner housing. It was over. The Corvair had a new fan belt. Whether it would work or not—who knew?

  Before I started the car, I ordered Benjy to take cover just in case the Corvair threw the belt. As I sat behind the wheel, I murmured a silent prayer. Then I turned the key. The balky engine finally turned over, the GEN/FAN warning light burned bright orange—and then dimmed. The car idled peace
fully.

  I returned to the engine, waiting for an explosion, smoke, flames, coughing, wheezing—anything that betrayed failure. But the belt freely made its way above the turkey roaster, over the alternator pulley, turned down 90 degrees to circle the crank below, then rose up again over what I thought was called the idler, making another 90-degree turn to the fan, and then circled around again. Just like the diagram showed.

  As the seconds became minutes, and darkness enveloped us, I finally began to feel the satisfaction. The karma. The nirvana. My own two hands, guided by Benjy’s instructions, had created order and usefulness out of mechanical dysfunction. I had become a Doctor Frankenstein, giving life to a dead pile of parts.

  “We’re getting ice cream, dude!” I yelled triumphantly.

  “Dad, it’s only a fan belt,” Benjy said, still taking cover near the front door. He slapped his cheek, then his arm. The mosquitoes had arrived.

  I wasn’t about to let minor details burst my karmic bubble. “We’ve got a lot to celebrate! C’mon! Your awards! This fan belt! We’re having an amazing day! We’re hot! We should buy lottery tickets!”

  “That’s gambling, Dad. You always say the lottery is a waste of money.”

  “So let’s go waste some money! We need to test the fan belt out on the road anyway.”

  “The mosquitoes are out. I may have been bitten. They can carry diseases, you know.”

  “I’ve got bug spray in the garage,” I countered. “I’ll get it.”

  Benjy yawned. “I don’t want to be in the car if it breaks down in the dark. I’m going to bed.” He retreated into the house.

  Finding a flashlight, I shined it on the engine and watched the fan belt slither easily around the engine for minute after mesmerizing minute. Then I shook myself, as I recalled similarly basking in triumphant satisfaction after installing the seat belts and rotating the tires, neither of which turned out to be, in Benjy’s phrase, “all that we’d hoped for.” He was right; the new fan belt might not survive five minutes out on the highway. Circumspect humility was in order. It was better to test the car during the day, in case I’d screwed it up again.

  Besides, without Benjy around to joy ride with me, there was no satisfaction or triumph. The Corvair, I realized, was not the end; it was the means to the end, which was sharing something with Benjy in a way we’d never shared anything else. I turned the engine off and went to bed. We would road test it together tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 14

  The next day, after returning from school, Benjy stuck his head into my office and asked, “Did the envelope from the DMV come?”

  I handed him the envelope. He eyed it for a moment, as if unable to believe that it had actually come. “Aren’t ya gonna open it?” I asked.

  “The last letter I got wasn’t good,” he said, referring to his rejection by Wheeler. He eyed the envelope as if his entire future depended on its contents. Finally, his hands trembling, he ripped it open. His eyes ran over the words, digesting each one, as if he was memorizing them. I had my words of consolation ready. As had been the case with Wheeler, a letter that arrived too soon had to be a rejection.

  “They said I can take the learner’s permit test,” he finally announced, without any note of celebration.

  “What?” I sputtered, stunned. “Wow. That’s great,” I finally managed to get out. He handed me the letter to read. “You see, they didn’t discriminate against you,” I said. “They were very fair. And prompt.” For which I cursed them. There were still more than 30 days to the race—enough time for Benjy to turn his learner’s permit into a driver’s license.

  “I have to send them a doctor’s report every year,” he groused. “You don’t have to do that, do you?”

  “No, you’re right, they are treating you differently. But you take meds that might impact your ability to drive and I don’t. It seems fair to me that they monitor that.”

  Benjy shrugged, un-persuaded. “We should go to the DMV. It’s only open another one hour and six minutes.”

  I agreed. In the driveway, we came to the crossroads between automobiles. Down one path lay the Toyota. Down the other lay the Corvair, which I had allegedly fixed last night. One path led to boring yet reliable. The other led to innovative yet temperamental, and another possible fan-belt break before we reached the DMV. “Better safe than sorry,” I said. “Let’s take the Toyota.”

  “Corvair,” Benjy shot back.

  “What if the fan belt breaks again?” I asked. “We won’t get to the DMV before it closes, and you’ll lose another day.”

  “It won’t break,” Benjy said confidently. “You did it right.”

  “I thought I did the wheels right,” I pointed out.

  “You did that yourself,” he pointed out right back. “You should have waited for me to help you. We installed the rear seat belts together and they’re okay. Except for the rust prevention.”

  I relented and held my breath as I turned the Corvair key. The starter cranked until the engine sputtered; each of the six cylinders marched to the beat of a different drummer until they all fell in line, a single synchronized aluminum dance team. I let the motor warm, then punched the accelerator hard a few times to stress the fan belt, reasoning that if I was going to break it, I might as well break it now, in our driveway, so we could take the Camry.

  “It’ll be fine, Dad,” Benjy scolded.

  He was right, it was fine. Less than an hour later, Benjy had his learner’s permit. The Corvair had performed flawlessly and so had he; he hadn’t missed a single question on the written driving exam. The road test to get his full driver’s license—that might be another story.

  “My dad held autocross races here, back in the day,” Kenny mused as he looked out to his field. He had mowed it low and had scattered orange safety cones across it, creating a course that weaved around the old rusting Corvairs.

  “What’s autocross?” Benjy wanted to know. He had insisted we drive straight here from the DMV for his first lesson behind the wheel.

  “Racing one car at a time around the cones,” explained Kenny. “Tight turns, shallow turns, long straightaways, short sprints—wherever you drop the cones, it’s always a different course. Fastest time wins.” He eyed Benjy seriously. “But don’t get any ideas about a fast time, Kid, at least not yet. You ain’t even driven a car. You go slow and steady.”

  “I know, I know,” said Benjy impatiently.

  “Besides,” said Kenny, “a good driver always makes sure his vehicle is ready to drive. Right? That it’s not going to break down.”

  “Right!” agreed Benjy.

  “So let’s check that new fan belt,” Kenny grinned, winking at me, which he thought would get my goat. But, in fact, I wanted him to check my handiwork. I was sick of calling the wrecker. And I was gaining confidence; the Corvair’s engine had whined at just the same pitch as before on the long drive to Kenny’s. No squeaks or squeals signaled that I had fouled up.

  Still, I braced myself for Kenny’s inevitable onslaught of Dad the Doofus jokes and the news that I had blown yet another repair. With trepidation, I lifted the Corvair’s engine cover for his inspection. “It’s still on there,” he observed, “which is a good sign.” He reached in and squeezed the belt. “Lotta slack,” he harrumphed, disapprovingly.

  “It’s supposed to be slack,” I bravely shot back. “Right, Benjy?”

  “Do not over-tighten the belt,” Benjy recited from memory. “Tension is correct when you can rotate the alternator pulley with one finger, but not spin it.”

  “I was testing you,” confessed Kenny. “Feels just right.” But then he suddenly got very serious. “Uh oh. What’s this? What in the heck have you done to this engine? Benjy, please get me a 9/16th inch socket and ratchet handle.”

  “What?” I demanded, peering into the engine over Kenny’s shoulder. Had I managed yet again to butcher a repair?

  “This belt guide is dangling,” laughed Kenny, fingering the guide to show me. “You gotta get i
t up, Man!” He lifted it, then let it drop, again and again, cackling. “You cain’t keep it up!”

  I cursed myself. How could I have missed it?

  “No biggie,” said Kenny, as Benjy returned with the correct tools. “Look at my apprentice here, I couldn’t do a thing without him,” he complimented. With a few quick moves, he twisted a bolt with the socket wrench, lifted the guide, then snugged the bolt tight again.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Glad you caught that.”

  “They didn’t even install this guide on the Early Models,” Kenny said, “so it really isn’t a big deal. But if you’re gonna do something, might as well do it right. Right, Kid?”

  “Right,” agreed Benjy.

  “Still,” Kenny conceded, “you didn’t over-tighten the belt like most people do so that it breaks again in a month. For a couple of first timers who don’t know a fan belt from a French fry, it’s not half bad.”

  Benjy raised his hand. “High five, Dad.”

  I gave Benjy’s hand a powerful slap. Psychic and karmic satisfaction coursed through my veins.

  “Can I drive now?” he then asked.

  “No,” I said. “The DMV gave us this nice guide about learning how to drive. And the first lesson is to get to know the car, outside and in.”

  “I already know the Corvair, outside and in,” Benjy insisted. “Can’t I drive it now?”

  “No,” I said again, firmly.

  Benjy looked over to Kenny before he decided whether to protest. “Lesson One is Lesson One,” Kenny shrugged. “Might as well do it right.”

  Benjy rarely relented, but Kenny persuaded him. “I will start with Lesson One,” he announced.

  Three decades earlier, in a remote parking lot at the Pentagon, where my father worked as a civilian accountant, I sat for the first time behind the wheel of his blue four-door Corvair. It was a Saturday, Dad’s day off and the day after I’d received my own learner’s permit. The usually packed lots were empty, crisscrossed by a parking grid of horizontal and vertical white lines. It was the perfect place, thought Dad, for him to teach me how to drive.