I had just turned 16 years old and was fully able to drive. I had my own set of wheels, a cool 1965 GTO my Dad helped finance for me and my one possession that was exclusively mine at that age. I had numerous friends that were all “Car Guys” meaning we all helped each other keep our cars running. A new car was as rare as one of my friends with straight “A”s on their report car at school. As a sidebar, I have noticed that the biggest difference between today's driver age kids and my generation is as follows; this generation feels cheated if they don’t have a BMW, Volvo, or some other fancy scmancy (I'm tellin' ya, it's a word) European car as a way to say “Yes, I am a kid of overextended parents trying to live vicariously through my well dressed child who will eventually live in my basement because I haven’t made him/her wipe their own ass since they were old enough to form a sentence”. My generation knew that if it had four wheels and good tires and it could run, man, that was good enough. A car was a car and that was a good thing. No one in my age bracket drove or thought a new car was even a remote possibility. There were one or two spoiled rotten ass cracks that drove cars that might have been a few years old, but by in large we all drove cars that were a minimum of 10-15 years old.
Our parents, on the other hand, had the cash and the credit to buy a new car and that is the basis of the short story you are about to read.
My Dad, God bless him, had just purchased an exceptionally nice new car. It was the loaded out dealer demo model that had every option conceivable, from stereophonic sound with eight-track tape to the ubiquitous butt-scratcher seat option. That car was new and it had it all. It was Chevrolet’s nicest offering for a man who didn't have kids to haul around anymore, so he had graduated from the station wagons and Luxo-tanks to the nice mid-sized cars. He settled on the loaded out LX Nova, four door, due to the lone fact he had to transport folks around for his day job. “L” meant that it was the luxury edition, the “X” meant it came with the special Police package, bigger sway bars and springs/shocks, bigger engine meaning more power with upgraded coolers for everything from the transmission to the oil. It was definitely a “Dad-mobile” but that thing was like riding in your living room and it would handle like a Corvette. I went with him on the test drive with the sales man and that dude laid into that car like a fat man at a free Bar-B-Que and Pudding Bar. I remember hearing the salesman say “This car is so fast at take off, it would ’skin back’ and uncircumcised man” meaning, well, you know what it means and if you don’t, well, go back to your Mineral water Latte’s and re-runs of “Will and Grace”.
I sat in the show room of the dealership while my Dad filled out all the purchase paperwork and secured the financing on his new set of wheels. I sat and stared longingly at the Corvettes and the Z-28s sitting on the showroom floor knowing three things for sure. The only way I was going to have one was if one magically fell from the sky, I had a slip and fall accident in the show room and sued, or I won the lottery. I played football, so to fake an injury would mean I couldn't play the game I loved so that option was definitely out. If a new car fell from the sky or I helped a millionaire change a flat tire and he rewarded me with a new car (also very unlikely) I still couldn't afford the insurance and gas so that was also out. Georgia didn't have the Lottery and at the time I was too young to play so I was screwed on every possible chance of driving a cool car that was sporty. Getting the chance to drive my Dad’s new luxury Police car Dad-mobile, his very last American car before his career graduated him into Mercedes Benz’s, was my only shot at getting to drive a sporty new car…even if it wasn't mine. I felt certain that the chance of me getting to drive his new wheels was equal to Skylab falling into my front yard, so I just decided keeping my GTO running would do and that was good enough for me. Anyway, I loved my Goat and it was perfect as far as I was concerned.
I was finishing my day-dream when my Dad walked out of the finance office at the Chevrolet dealership in my county and he looked happy, even if he was in debt for a car for the next four years. He looked at me looking at the sports cars and tossed me the keys to his new ride and said “You Drive”. I drove that car 35 miles per hour all the way home, on the interstate, not wanting to be the person that scratched his new set of wheels. People were flying by us at nearly double the speed I was driving, blowing their horns and giving me the middle finger greeting usually meant as an insult. I would have returned the greeting, standard fare for guys my age, but I was with my dad in his new wheels and I was on my semi-best guard keeping my hands at ten and two following every rule listed in the Georgia drivers manual. He held the keys to my small kingdom in that my GTO was on his insurance policy and I had to convince him I wasn't going to race my car when my buddies and I finally had the engine rebuilt. It was a lie straight out of the bowels of hell, but as he put it ” A good attitude is worth faking”, meaning I needed to project the image of a law-abiding citizen behind the wheel of any car he and I were in so I played the game. He finally insisted I get his rolling Living room with the Police car suspension up to speed so I obliged. Dad asked me if I thought my brother was at home so we could show him the newest addition to our automotive family and of course I told him no. It was our way of covering for each other, meaning my brother usually had a girl or some unsavory friends at his house and didn't like surprise visitors…especially his parents.
When we finally arrived at our house I pulled up to the garage and no further. My dad asked me to go ahead and pull all the way in but I refused. I told him he was going to put the first scratch on his new car and that if I did, I might not ever get a chance to drive it again. He smiled and told me to hop out, he slid over and finished the job after I exited from the driver’s side. I was happy for my dad and I knew he would get a lot of years of enjoyment from his new wheels. When we walked in our house (his house, but hey, I cut the grass) the phone was ringing and my dad answered the phone in his usual business manner, only letting up if he knew the caller. I called it his “Government Voice” and it was effective on sales people and kids calling to say they were going to be late getting home or, God forbid, in jail. I realized he was talking to my older brother and he told him all about his new car and my brother chided him for not bringing it by for him to see. I heard him say “Jim will bring it by in a few minutes so you can check it out”. My pop was in a good mood and this was a good day for him. he said “Jimbo (me) take the new car and take it by and let your brother see it and maybe take it for a drive”. I was a bit surprised, and I was sure the salesman at the dealership didn't whack my Dad over the head to convince him to buy the shiny new car now sitting in our garage. I was sitting there watching him and the salesman banter back and forth through the sales dudes glass office, obviously dickering about the price and payments, but ended it with a smile and a handshake and no obvious head injuries, at least any I could see.
I was booking down the interstate, “Bodhisatva” by Steely Dan blasting out of the quadraphonic speakers dynamically placed in the optimal location for extreme listening satisfaction. By the way, I read that in the owner’s manual while I was breaking in the Police engine on Interstate 20, all windows down and 100 miles per hour reached for the first and probably last time in the “LX”s life. I was the king of the world, a small world, but king just the same. I was able to get the wider than stock police wheels and hi-performance steel belted radials covered in nice white-bread hubcaps to break loose in all the curves between the exit of the interstate and my brother’s house. I took the long way there and had planned to take the long way back, just to properly break in my Dad’s Hot-Rod luxury Cop mobile, knowing he’d never get the car faster than ten miles per hour above the speed limit. He was a good man and a great father, and not deserving of the fate his car was about to deal him. I didn't wreck his brand new car but, like the title of this story says, “One new car, 17 wrecks, and a mercy killing.”
I'll wrap this one up Wednesday, it's a good one!
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