Big Honking Haunted Chevy, Part 2
I gave my daughter Mr. Zilch's Chevy with a flourish of my arms and a Ta Da grin. It sparkled in my driveway, all perfect silver with a trailer hitch and a matching leather steering wheel cover, without dents and dings, a car much safer and newer and faster than her old beat black Toyota. But her face fell and though she said Thanks Mom and peeked inside, I realized all of a sudden that it was a geezer's car, with a license plate holder saying Don't Laugh It's Paid For and a faded black vinyl dash cover fastened with velcro, an old man's car, like the old man who died, old and Polish like a pickle and full of no surprises, probably a lot like Mr. Zilch. And I was getting to be a geezer, too, to consider such a safe and boring car.
"Well let's start by removing that dumb license plate holder," I said diplomatically, hands on hips, like a famous car designer Pygmalion.
Dead Mr. Zilch kept impeccable records of his car's maintenance and I rifled through the stack of papers in the glove compartment and showed Ms. 19 how he changed the oil every three thousand miles and rotated tires and changed brake pads and distributer caps and babied that car like a lover. She took the keys and I left her standing on the driveway, staring at the car, staring without blinking, like a scientist studying a cockroach.
The car ran great for one day. 19 drove it to work in the wee hours before the sun, and she stocked pillows and candles and French press coffee makers at the ethnic imports store. She drove it home six hours later, and I know she drove it fast because the engine spoke to me when I drove it with alive Mr. Zilch. It told me it liked speed, liked hills of highway and fast women drivers like me. Just fill me with gas, it seemed to say, just fill me with gas and get out of the way.
I asked 19 when she returned how her new car was, what she named it, and did she feel that engine?
"It's an old man's car, Mom. It doesn't have a name. It drives alright."
She was tired from work so I held my tongue and crossed my fingers that her car wouldn't hear. But it heard, it sure heard, because from that moment Mr. Zilch's car rebelled against 19 the way my surly young adult rebelled against it.
to be continued....
1:23:11 PM 
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