The Pathfinder Strikes Back: Day Two

“When I die,” the General says.  “This is really important so listen.  When I die I want to be cremated and my ashes spread out over the Abercrombie carpet.”

“Which Abercrombie?” I ask.  “The one in the mall?  You want to be stuck in a mall for eternity?”

“Why are we talking about you dying while we’re shopping for your car?” Charlie says.

“I’m car-sick,” she said, and with great drama put her head down on the back seat.

We were rewarded with a quiet one hour drive.  Charlie called on a 4Runner which sounded too good to be true.  All the SUVs still available sound too good to be true. 

If they are too good to be true, how come they’re still available?  Next time I sell a car, which living with Charlie could be next week, I’ll remember not to embellish the ad.  Embellishment doesn’t sell.

We slow down looking for the house and drive by the car.  “Is that it?” Cheyenneh says.  “It’s perfect.  It’s got a Yak Rack for my snowboard.”

“You don’t have a snowboard.”

“That’s because I don’t have a rack.”

“Don’t get excited,” Charlie says.

“If they don’t let me use their bathroom, I’m peeing in the gutter,” she says.

“Anyone mind if I stay in the big-ass truck?” I ask.  “I’m comfortable here in the front seat.  I notice it’s bigger and nicer than any of the Goodwill-reject furniture we currently own.”

The General is already halfway to the front door.  Charlie rushes to catch up.  It’s nice and warm and clean in the truck.  I put my feet on the dash and listen to anything I want, including nothing.  I wouldn’t mind being homeless again in this truck.  Don’t ever spend a winter in Montana in an Isuzu Trooper.

After not enough time, Charlie and the General return.

“I walk into the guy’s bathroom and there waiting for me, was a big dump in the toilet,” she says.  “It went downhill from there.”

She gets in the back and lies back down.

“What a piece of crap,” Charlie says.  “The radio was crap, the tires were bald, it was all scratched up and dirty inside, it had way too many miles on it and it was green.”

We took a long, quiet drive in the opposite direction.  Charlie may like buying and selling cars, but even he seems tired.  When he drove by Peet’s, he didn’t even ask.  We knew we needed refueling.  Cheyenneh was still carsick and quiet until her large mocha with extra whip kicked in.

“Are we going to sit here all day?” she asked.  “Somebody might be buying my car while we sit here.”

“The one you want,” Charlie said, “the big Chevy with Eddie Bauer interior, isn’t ready.  They won’t let us come over for a few hours.”

Normal sixteen year-old girls, full of mocha and waiting to buy their first car, aren’t patient.  Cheyenneh isn’t normal.  She’s exceptionally not patient.  She’s proving it  this morning.

“One more time, Cheyenneh, and I’ve had it,” I say.

She couldn’t help it.

“Okay,” Charlie said, “that’s it.  We’re going home.”

There are quiet rides and there are quiet rides.  When a vehicle is full of angry passengers, that anger seems to get bigger than it should.  It becomes something overwhelming, thick and awful.  The big-ass honkin’ truck had a lot of room for a lot of bad energy.

<>The General may be the most headstrong human on the planet, but it’s bearable for two reasons: her sense of humor and her quick recovery.  Maybe it has to do with her impatience, but she couldn’t hold a grudge if you dropped it in her hands.   

It took four blocks until the air cleared.  I caught myself humming.  The quiet was nice again.  I tried not to be happy but I was.  I needed a shower. 

We got out of the car and Cheyenneh went straight up to her room.  Charlie and I both went to the gym and didn’t leave her a note.  We can act sixteen, too.

When we returned, she met us in the driveway with a note.  She wrote she was sorry and she was wrong.  For her punishment, she wrote, she should be grounded for a week and do some extra work.  When Charlie and I got to that part of her note, we started laughing.  She’s always trying to ground herself.

“Grounding you would only punish us,” Charlie said.  “Let’s go look at the Eddie Bauer Chevy.” 

<>“My bitches will love it.”

<>This time we drove east.  We drove past the malls and housing developments and strip malls until we hit farms.  It could be 1965 here and you wouldn’t know the difference.  Everything looked worn out. 

“I’d love you forever if we moved way out here,” Cheyenneh said.  “Kidding.  Come on.”

She looked out the window like she was at the zoo.  “Ew, farms.”

We drove down a bunch of muddy roads into a muddy driveway and up a muddy hill to a muddy farm.  Two large women with alcohol on their breath came over and wouldn’t stop talking.

“Daddy died so that’s why we’re selling it,” the younger one said.  “He couldn’t drive  so he’d come up here and he just sat in it, you know?  He loved this thing.  He was a Chevy man.”

“The stickers are extreme,” Cheyenneh whispered.  “I want this car for the stickers.”

For a Chevy owned by a dead man, this SUV sure had a lot of snowboarding stickers on it.

Charlie got in the driver’s seat and the General beat me to the front passenger seat.  “You owe me,” I told her.  I sat down in the back, knowing I get to share the seat with the younger woman dressed in something from each of the past several decades.  This must be the look for when you live in the mud.

“Aaaah!” she said as she landed in the back seat.  “Feels good to get off my feet.”  I almost asked her when she was due but I know better than to assume pregnancy in someone I might want to buy a car from. 

“It’s a good vehicle,” she said.  “Priced exactly right.  I’m not Chevy or I’d keep it.  I’m Fords, myself.”  She smacked her big pink lips and pushed her big bangs up under her black hat.

“I think one of the tires is flat,” Charlie said.  “It’s kind of swaying.”

“By law I have to tell you the car’s been totaled,” the woman said.  “Don’t have a clear title but the frame’s straight as an arrow.  I know.  Living around here, we do all the repairs ourselves.”

“I’ll pass,” Charlie said.

“I felt like I was riding in a boat,” I said when we left.  “That was the scariest test-drive I’ve ever been on.”

We called on every SUV left in the paper within the General’s price rang, even Isuzu Troopers.  “I’m leaving right now,” one seller said.  “Call back next weekend.”  Another seller said, “It’s in Arizona so you can’t take it out for a drive.”  Many were either sold or nobody answered their phone.

“Why do you have to get an SUV?” Charlie asked.  “They use up too much gas.”

“Last time I checked, I could get any kind of car I wanted.  I need a big SUV to haul all my bitches around.”

“It’d be easier if you’d give a little.”

“You can take it up crying hill because nobody cares down here in normal land.”

“One more, then,” Charlie said.  “You pick.”

“This one,” Cheyenneh said.  “We called on it and never went there.”

“If it’s still for sale, there must be something wrong with it.”

“OBO, it says.  Or Best Offer.  Talk them down.  I need money for pants.”

We pull up to the address and see a beautiful red Pathfinder sitting on the side of the road.  It looks way too good.  There’s a “For Sale” sign in the window, so it must be the one.  Cheyenneh isn’t talking.

I am.  I can’t shut up about it, even when the owner comes out to meet us.  Cheyenneh poked me with her elbow so I’d shut up.

The owner seemed normal so I didn’t mind riding in the back again.  I noticed even Charlie was grinning up front so I tried to make conversation with the owner to distract him.  Charlie can’t talk him down if he knows we’re desperate.

Rather than hide my enthusiasm, I went back to my living room on wheels.  I put on the heater and the radio and tried not to think about how nice that Pathfinder was for only $3,500.  That’s exactly the amount of cash I have in my pocket right now.

I saw the owner crossing the street to his house so I looked back at Charlie and Cheyenneh.  They were both grinning.  Charlie held up three fingers and nodded.  He lives for a good deal and it looks like he got one with plenty of money left over.

The General can go shopping for pants all she wants.  She can visit her future final resting place at Abercrombie and I don’t have to drive, although I think I bonded with this big-ass honkin’ truck.  It’s so nice I might stay in it a while after we return home.  Come to think of it, this might be my future final resting place.

A little help? [] 12:14:21 PM