Smooth As Silk

Since this platform is called WineSnark, I should point out that, although this tale never actually mentions wine, I did drink several bottles while I was writing it. And the story begins with the protagonist suffering from a hangover that would probably kill a Kodiak bear so I think that qualifies as wine-blogworthy.

Smooth as Silk was recently included in Tulip Tree Publishing’s anthology; Stories That Need to be Told 2021 and received the book’s Merit Award for Humor.

With a year of high school yet to complete, I looked west from the interstate entrance ramp, stuck out my thumb and turned my back on New Jersey. Three days later I woke up in a Racine, Wisconsin hospital. My throat was raw from a stomach pump, my back ached from the impact of a hundred cars plowing into one another, and my head throbbed from the impact of several gallons of Milwaukee beer and a bottle of cheap scotch. I was happy to wake up alive but unfortunately a hundred thousand brain cells had perished during the night.

It was this chain of events that brought me to live with my older brother Doug and paved the way for the tremendous bond that was to develop over the next year. Yes, this is the story about the love between me and my first car.

Doug was four years older than me but we were from two completely different generations. We exemplified that strange gap that existed between the Beach Boys and the Beatles, between pompadours and longhairs, between beer drinkers and weed smokers. But we were brothers and Doug didn’t hesitate to drive up to Wisconsin and bring me back to his apartment in the Chicago suburbs to mend … as long as I paid for the gas. He called Mom and Dad in New Jersey to tell them the news and they said, “Wisconsin? We thought he was asleep in his bedroom.”

While recuperating I decided to finish my senior year of high school in Illinois. I broached the plan to my family and a week later my parents flew to Chicago, we all went to court, and at the unlikely age of 21, Doug became my legal guardian. What could possibly go wrong?

Doug and his roommate Mike occupied the two bedrooms in the apartment while I slept on the couch. That arrangement became untenable when my new roomies moved their motorcycles into the living room for the winter. You may be wondering why they didn’t move them into the dining room like normal people. That wasn’t an option because the bar was in the dining room.

I was in need of an upgrade so I moved my sleeping bag into the walk-in closet located opposite the bathroom. It was a perfect arrangement – just three paces to the bathroom, ten paces to cold beer on tap, and a hundred paces to my new high school.

It soon became clear that if I wanted to go further than a hundred paces I was going to need a car. Hitchhiking was fine in a pinch but it didn’t make much of an impression on a first date. Doug offered to give me his old ‘67 Chevy Belair if I could get it running. A few months earlier the beast had rolled to a permanent and lopsided stop in the parking lot after a night of field-hopping. If you’re not a hoosier, buckeye or cornhusker, I should point out that field-hopping is a popular Midwestern pastime, much like cow-tipping and beer-shooting.¹

While hopping through the fields the Chevy sustained a gash in the fuel tank and when Doug returned to the apartment, a river of escaping gasoline dissolved the parking lot stripes, rearranging them into a swirling yellow stain that zig-zagged down to the storm sewer. I later learned that Doug gave me the car because the apartment management told him to get rid of it, and not out of some big brother benevolence. No, he explained, that was not the role of a legal guardian; a legal guardian is someone who buys beer for you, and then buys weed from you. I guess I would have known that if I had read the legal brief.

I tackled the repairs with the ease and skill of a seasoned mechanic, which is to say I immediately cracked open one of my knuckles with a torque wrench. After three days under the car, two more smashed knuckles and a shitload of swearing that would make a death row inmate blush, the gas tank was repaired. With tremendous pride I took my place behind the wheel, turned the key and felt the powerful engine roar to life. I smiled at Doug, who actually left the apartment to witness the momentous event. I slipped the transmission into gear and … the driveshaft fell off and rolled down to the yellow-stained storm sewer.

Doug looked like he just remembered there were Pop Tarts in the toaster oven and quickly retreated to the apartment. Sure I was angry, but did I mention he sometimes bought me beer?

After three more days and another swollen knuckle, the Chevy had new U-Joints and a reattached drive shaft. I was becoming an accomplished mechanic but I was also running out of knuckles. There were a few parts left over but once the car started I figured they couldn’t be very important. I sat quietly in the driver’s seat and listened to the motor hum. I depressed the gas pedal and heard the engine ramp up, growing louder and more ominous as I bore down on the pedal. When the engine was at an all-out roar, I backed off the gas and, and, and … the engine continued to roar! It wasn’t decelerating – it was stuck at full throttle! I slammed the steering wheel, stomped on the gas pedal, and said a quick prayer to Saint Christopher – the patron saint of Chevys.

I turned off the car and waited for my panic to subside. After changing my underwear I came up with an ingenious fix that you won’t find in Auto Repairs for Dummies. The first step was to install an eight-track tape player. Oddly enough that didn’t fix the problem so I moved on to step two: alligator clips and rubber coated wires fashioned into a stirrup-like harness that fit over the gas pedal. To stop the throttle, all I had to do was pull back my foot like I was reigning in a horse. In fact I named that old Chevy “Nellie” because that seemed like a good name for a horse, or for the Chevrolet equivalent … 275 horsepower.

The harness did create one small operating issue, but I was not deterred because I felt that braking was overrated. Sliding my foot out of the stirrup and over to the brake pedal proved to be cumbersome – not to mention life threatening – but hey, God gave us two feet for a reason and I soon learned to brake with my left foot while simultaneously restraining the gas pedal with my right.

Nellie was painted a dull matte combination of primer red and primer grey because, as nine out of ten decorators will tell you, they complement each other so well. The paint was in a camouflage pattern so I couldn’t park the car anywhere near an auto body shop for fear of losing it.

Doug’s friends had spray painted obscene pictures on every available surface which compounded my first date dilemma and also meant I couldn’t go out without getting pulled over by the cops. Back in the day cops would usually cut you a break if you got out of your car and walked back to their car.² This was particularly effective if it was raining or 20 degrees below zero because cops don’t like to get wet or cold or put down their donuts. If you were a hippie they’d make you stand outside until your nose developed frostbite but it was better than getting busted.

I usually told the cops my erratic driving was due to Nellie’s unique set of tires and to prove my exceptional mechanical expertise I’d wave my hands about so they could see my swollen knuckles. Nellie had tires from four different manufacturers; there was a Continental, a Michelin, a Firestone, and a Schwinn. The only thing the tires had in common was they were all balder than President Gerald Ford who was a popular American golfer at the time.

To make Nellie a little less conspicuous and put an end to my nightly visits with the police, I painted her with a roller and a gallon of black house paint, eggshell finish of course. Then I penned “Smooth as Silk” across the hood because, as you have probably already surmised, “less conspicuous” is not something I do well.

Nellie was my escape when I needed diversion, my refuge when I needed solace and my muse when I needed inspiration. She was my steadfast and dependable steed for two years. Nellie got me where I needed to go and restraining her sticky throttle helped me develop really photogenic calf muscles. My right leg was so well developed that to this day I still tend to walk in a circle.

One day, without much forethought and even less gas money, I pointed Nellie east and drove off into the sunrise. It was good to see my parents in New Jersey again but little did I suspect that the trip would quickly turn disastrous for Nellie and me.

We had been through tough times before. Our relationship stalled several times during the gas crisis and there was a bumpy stretch when Nellie’s shock absorbers broke. By the time we got to New Jersey we found ourselves on thin ice and I just lost control. In our final embrace, we spun around and around – Nellie’s brakes and my sphincter clinched tighter than a Crohn’s patient in lockdown mode. We hit the guardrail backwards and the impact forced Nellie’s rear end to kick up in the air like a horse that’s been spooked by a snake. We came down on top of the rail but the impact was softened when the drive shaft snapped off. I suspect that’s what those extra parts were for.

Nellie settled on the guardrail with her rear end pointed skyward. Suspended beneath her by gangly tendons of steel hung the tattered remains of two bald tires. Michelin and Firestone I think. I tried to free her, to push her off the guardrail, even to knock the guardrail down, but Nellie just jiggled in the air like the underside of a fat diva’s arms as she waves farewell in an Italian opera.

And farewell it was. My hands were wet with dissolving black paint and I feared the worst. I noticed the rainbow residue of gasoline flowing through my scarred knuckles and my eyes swelled with tears. The gas tank I had nurtured back to health had ruptured and Nellie lay wounded and bleeding in my hands. I stood motionless amid the unravelling bonds that had drawn us together and in that moment I caught a reflection of the setting sun in the silky eggshell finish of Nellie’s paint job; watched as the drive shaft quickly assimilated into the discarded auto parts that defined New Jersey’s roadways, and followed the river of gasoline as it ran down the linkage, around the slowly revolving Michelin tire, and drip, drip, dripped into oblivion. I knew it was a lost cause. I didn’t think insurance would cover the damages because for insurance to work, you have to buy insurance.

Like some forlorn cowboy who must put down his faithful horse because it went lame, I placed my hands on Nellie’s hood and felt her warmth slipping away. I leaned over and there – between the words Smooth and Silk – I kissed Nellie’s as goodbye.

Later that night my parents called Doug in Illinois to tell him the news and he said, “New Jersey? I thought he was asleep in his closet.”

¹ Shooting beers has nothing to do with guns, but it has everything to do with getting drunk while cow-tipping and field-hopping.

² Do not try this today. You will be beaten, tasered, shot and could even face misdemeanor charges.

Stories That Need to be Told 2021 can be purchased at Amazon.com.