The Stolen Car's Story
4:27 a.m. - 2004-08-19

In November of 2000, something happened to my faded celestial blue �87 Chevy Cavalier that caused it not to go faster than thirty miles per hour. This forced me to really consider buying a new car. I had wished I could buy another car or at least paint it since the day Jorge and I had decorated it with a white shoe shine bulldog on the hood. We�d done this for my graduation and it had never washed off, but I never saved enough money for another car or a paint job.

My mom found out about my car being in bad shape from my brother Filly and told me one afternoon when I�d gone to pick her up from work, �I�m going to buy you a new car.�

That Christmas I was knee deep in work at Hel-Mart. It was my first Christmas season working at Hel-Mart and it left me with no time for shopping unless I did it at 3 AM when I�d get out of work. My mom, true to her promise, had given me $1,000 to go toward this new car. For some reason, I�d left the money in my car so as Gabi, who was in town for the Christmas holiday, looked at my royal blue vest with disgust I searched my pocket for the keys to the almost dead car so she could get the money. My mom had found a car that pretty cheap so she wanted to have the money in hand in case the car was worth it. However, when my mom saw the car, she was not pleased.

Christmas came and there was still no car. �You�re going to have a car mi�ja, I promise,� said Mom as the car slowly trudged along US 57 on the far right lane of the freeway toward Mr. Vayne�s house on that dreary Christmas morning in the El Paso desert.

When our �patient� Mr. Vayne had been fed, given the presents my mom and I had bought for him, and put to sleep, my mom and I got back in the car to head home. As we were driving home, my mom had one of those, �we�re doing this now� moments and I had one of those �yes ma�am, I�m glad you mentioned it� moments. I drove toward Alameda Ave, home of the used car lots, instead of home. �Let�s go with Saham. He�s always given me a good deal,� said Mom.

I had no idea where this Saham was, much less thought he would be open on Christmas day, but I drove in the direction that Mom told me to. �There! It�s right there! Turn left,� she said.

I pulled into what looked like a plastered adobe hut with a full parking lot. My mom got off the car and began asking Saham about a car in the $1,000 price range. He showed us a Dodge Charger. It was big and white to say the least. �Do you like this one? Let�s take it for a test drive,� she said to me.

The only thing I liked about it was that it was big and it was cheap, but driving it proved to be a task. The brakes were worn as were the tires and it would need a lot of work on the inside. We drove it home and picked up my brother Jorge for his expert opinion. When he saw us in the white Charger, he gave us the �what the fuck are you two doing now� look that was so familiar to us. We drove back to Saham�s to see what else he had to offer. He took us to the back of the shack to show us another car that was a little more expensive. That was when I saw the stolen car, my �87 Buick LeSabre. It was parked in front of the other car, covered in dust but otherwise clean. Jorge and I peeked in through the window and commented on its condition, �Looks pretty good, huh?� I said.

�Yeah,� replied Jorge in that acquired Texan accent.

�What about this one?� Mom asked Saham, �how much is it?�

�That one�s $2,400. It�s on hold for someone, but you can test drive it if you want to.�

He had to move about three cars to get the car onto Alameda Ave. Fifteen minutes later, we were on our way to my brother Filly�s house for yet another expert opinion. When we arrived, Filly came out of his Crayola brown duplex apartment and popped the hood of the car. �This car�s got the engine block sideways. It�s got a fault. Hear that? That doesn�t sound right,� he said to me and Mom.

We ended up taking him along to go back to Saham so that we could either return the car or try to buy it. Filly was not convinced, �it�s a piece of crap and too expensive.�

After many complaints from Filly, Mom went into the adobe shack to cut a deal with Saham. He lowered the price of the car to $2,000 and we�d give him half the money right then and the other half would come from my mom�s pay for the next month. Mr. Vayne�s daughter had cut her checks for the next month, so she signed them all over to him.

Mom and I were to drive back to Filly�s in my �new� car after we�d filled up at the gas station next door. After I�d put gas in the car, I tried to start it and it wouldn�t go. I tried again and still nothing. The engine was turning, but it just wasn�t starting. Saham, who was going home, came over and showed me how to get the air out of the gas system so that the car would start. This was a little trick I used until a few months later when I finally changed the gas pump.

The car didn�t turn out to be a piece of crap. It had a lot of little things that needed to be fixed which could easily be filed under maintenance. Almost two years later, I drove it to Houston where I�d he attending college. Almost two years after that, I woke up on a January morning to find my car gone. Seven months after the recent events occurred. Today, the car will be going to a new owner who�s going to indulge it with a car wash and all it will need after being gone for so long. I hope he�s as good to her as he was to me.

back || forth

Getting linked and saying adios - 2005-01-28
What's going on... - 2005-01-26
Fixed - 2005-01-21
Sex ed - 2005-01-19
And still on the same subject - 2005-01-18