The Pathfinder Strikes Back: Day One

It’s Saturday morning and if I want to get clean I have to go to the gym.  Months ago I stopped using our home shower as the remodeling has stopped short of the bathroom.  I closed the shower doors and didn’t look back.  Now I get my money’s worth of gym hot water.  Sometimes I even work out first.

Charlie sits in his big-ass honkin’ truck out front waiting for me.  Before I walk outside, I can see his shoulders shaking and his mouth wide open.  I can’t see anything else in the truck and it’s too early for “Prairie Home Companion” on the radio.  I hope whatever he’s laughing at is funny.  Just because you’re married to someone doesn’t mean you have the same sense of humor. 

I open the door and understand what he’s laughing at: Cheyenneh.   She’s hunched over the “Auto Trader,” talking on her cell phone to one of her friends.

“Charlie wants to look at a car that looks like someone took a dump and molded it into a car.”

“It’s a Cabriolet,” he says.

“It’s a piece of sh*t.”

“It’s a convertible.”

“How am I supposed to haul all my bitches in that piece of crap?”

This is the way the day starts when you’re car shopping for the General. 

One of my friends told me, “The day I got my license is the day my Dad signed me up for insurance and got me a car.  ‘I’m sick of driving your Mom and sisters around,’ he said.  ‘I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.’” 

I’ve heard variations on this theme from other people (Neva, for one).  Not everyone dreads their offspring fleeing the garage and becoming mobile.  There’s a tipping point when expense is secondary to being summoned at midnight for ice cream runs.  We’ve tipped.

My oldest, Evan, worked for my Dad getting his house for sale and bought a beautiful white Jetta with his blister-producing earnings.  He drove it for an hour and five minutes before he smashed it into a U-Haul on an Oakland freeway driving home.  He’s been vehicle-free ever since. 

Now he’s ready to try car ownership again.  Charlie, whose idea of heaven is buying and selling used cars – the more the better - agreed to help.  It was my dumb idea to combine Evan’s car shopping with the General’s.  I wanted to be efficient but I also wanted extra support.  The General couldn’t bully all three of us at once, could she?

Evan got in the back and opened up his iBook.  He bookmarked all the listings for cars he was interested in.  He started to tell us about them when Cheyenneh took his computer out of his hands and started her own search.

She’s quiet so he didn’t complain.  We talked a bit about what Evan wanted and could afford.  I’m happy he’s getting a car but I’m not happy he won’t be getting something as nice as his short-term white Jetta.  He wanted a white Jetta since High School.  I think about him every time I see one.

“1995, A/C, A/T, good tags,” Cheyenneh says.  “Good tags.  What does that mean?”

“We called on that one,” Charlie says.  “It’s already sold.”

“Damn!” she says.

“You swear more than any girl I know,” Evan says.

“Look at me,” she says.  “I’m better than any girl you would know.”

<>“Give me back my computer.” 

“You let me borrow it.”

“You took it out of my hands.”

“Same thing,” she says.  “You need to call on this one, Charlie.  It’s at Affordable Auto.”

“We’re not going to dealerships,” Charlie says.  “They rip you off.”

“They won’t rip me off because I’m curvy.  Let’s go to Affordable Auto.  All the ones I like are at Affordable Auto.”

“That’s because you’re looking at the Affordable Auto listing,” Evan says.  “Do you eat diet pills nonstop, Cheyenneh?”

“You need an Astro van, Evan.”

“Yeah.”

“Everyone thinks I’m Sacajawea because of my name.  They think I’m the Cheyenneh tribe.”

“Everyone thinks you’re a crackhead,” Evan says, “because you talk so much.”

“I was up all night eating pop rocks,” she says.  “We had ten packages and I ate them all.  I kept talking all night long.  Even after everyone else went to sleep, I kept talking.”

“Tell your Mom about what else happened last night,” Charlie says.  “Something about getting kicked out of Pizza Schmizza.”

“Weird,” she says.  “Your dreams of kissing my ass are going to come true real soon.”

“No, you . . .”

“This isn’t a two-way conversation,” she says.  “Just listen.  I’ve got pull.  I know where I can get some big horns.  I need you to mount them on the front of my new car.”

“She’s serious,” Charlie says.

“It’s good,” I say.  “People could see her bullsh*t coming and get out of the way.”

She hands her cell phone to Charlie.  “It’s ringing,” she says.  “I called Affordable Auto.  Now you ask for directions.”

“Go ahead,” I say.  “She won’t listen to us that they’re a rip-off.”

“Hurry up,” she says.  “I have to pee and I have wet my pants before.”

We get to Affordable Auto and it’s as nasty as only used car dealerships can be.  Cheyenneh doesn’t see the women’s restroom, so I rush in and lock the door.  When I come out, she meets me in the trashy hallway.  It’s worse than any building I’ve been in for a while.  It smells toxic and looks like Tyler Durdin’s house in “The Fight Club.”

Cheyenneh holds out her hand, touching the wall like a game show girl.  “Nice,” she says.  “Looks like our house.”

We head outside to look at the cars.  The second we step on pavement, a sales guy rushes over.  “What am I selling you today?”

“I’m not the one with money,” Charlie says. 

“I’ll take plastic.”

“Right.”  Charlie’s Dad was a used car salesman after he retired.  That’s how Charlie got his pea-green brush-painted Rambler Americana for $300.  It takes a professional to find something like that.  Charlie knows their tricks.

“Don’t say you like something, even if you do,” he tells the General.  “If they see you like it, you’re doomed.  You can’t talk them down.”

She pretends hard not to like a big, black Chevy Blazer.  Charlie looks it over and checks under the hood.  The salesman comes over again.  “Nice car,” he says.

“No, not really,” Charlie says.  “The driver’s side window doesn’t roll down and the A/C doesn’t work.”

“You’ve got eight months until you have to worry about that.”

<>“Knock $1,000 off and I’ll keep talking to you.” 

<>“$1,000?  It’s in great shape and it’s way below blue book.”

<>“I’m not stupid.  It’s got 154,000 miles on it.  It’s on its last leg.” 

“Oh,” he says.  He keeps walking right past Charlie and right toward someone whose Dad probably wasn’t a used car salesman.  We never saw him again.

Evan couldn’t find anything in his price range which would also pass DEQ.  He kept walking toward the back of the lot.  He found a Jetta without a price on it.  “This looks like my friend Heather’s old car,” he said.  “I think I’ll call her to see what her license plate was.”

Cheyenneh and Charlie walk around looking at all the SUV’s.  None of them looks better than any other and they all look awful.

“It’s Heather’s old car,” Evan said when he got off the phone.  “We ran that thing into the ground and she couldn’t get anything for the trade-in.  Let’s go.”

We got back in the truck and kept calling on cars for both Evan and the General.  The ones we called on for the General were either sold or nobody answered.  We concentrated on Evan.  Cheyenneh concentrated on herself, in the back seat, alone.  We decided Evan had had enough torture for one day and asked him to sit up front.

No matter who said something, she said something rude back.  We ignored her as we often do.  Evan smiled and shook his head.  He wasn’t used to ignoring her.  If you don’t have a lot of practice, it’s difficult.  You can quickly get a lot of practice, though, as she doesn’t stop.  He decided instead to tell her, “Don’t diss us anymore.”

“Better to stay quiet rather than open your mouth and let the whole world know how stupid you are,” she said.

All three of us laughed.  No explanation needed.

We looked at a $2,400 VW Golf Evan thought was perfect, except for the price.  He only had $2,000.  “Let’s look at it anyway,” Charlie said.  “See what they say.”

Cheyenneh stayed in the big-ass honking truck looking through the “Auto-Trader.”  I went out into the cold air and looked at the Golf.  It was green.  I went back into the truck.  It was warm.

Evan and Charlie took the green Golf out for a test drive.  When they returned, I saw them and the owner standing around talking.  The owner was holding her very new baby daughter – the reason she had to buy a bigger car.

“They’re going to buy it,” I told the General.

“No, they won’t.  It’s green.  Who’d want to drive a green car?”

I look over again as the owner shouts, “I can’t believe it.  I sold my baby!” 

She was talking about the green Golf.  I was thinking about her baby.  I wondered if she imagined, as I did, how exciting it would be to have a daughter.  I wondered if in sixteen years she’d be car shopping so she didn’t get summoned at midnight for ice cream runs.  I wondered if I was looking at another little General.

I wondered if I should warn her.  It was all I could do to stay in the truck and be quiet.  She wouldn’t believe me if I told her.

A little help? [] 9:48:03 PM