The last time I held a real job I sat in an airy room filled with flat wooden desks, each stocked with a black princess telephone and a stack of twenty index cards. My job was to call the people on those cards and sell them a $384.00 Phonics is Fun kit. I remember the price exactly, even though it's ten years later. I remember speaking low and slow into the phone, using my measured bedroom voice, pausing at the end of each phrase, breathing in the dusty air of the room through my nose, letting it out through my voice, the voice I used when I had a red-headed lover and told him what I liked.
Oh, I want to speak like that again. I want to feel the air coat my words, make them carry my passion, the hole in my heart. I want to hear a man hear my words, tell me he'll buy my kit, damn the three-hundred-eighty-four dollars, damn any price, damn the kit's color cards, damn anything but those words, that voice, that tongue.
I ate dinner with a man last night, a man who collected pieces of history and sold them to the wealthy and wanting. We spoke on the phone once before this meeting, and I told him I would wear red, a red dress. I used my Avon voice. I sounded chipper and fun, slightly professional, like an airline reservation clerk, helpful and kind and flexible. Dinner at 6? No problem! Dinner at 7? Great! Whatever works for you, whatever you need. I'll be wearing red! Easy to find!
I figured my voice would alter, would move modes down the scale, slow to a pulse, start at an appetizer of Avon Lady and end with vixen dessert. But that didn't happen. My voice didn't make the transformation. It didn't have opportunity. My voice wasn't heard at all. Collector Man told me his life story, his dreams, his salary, his places of employment, his back stories and middle stories and I listened and smiled and nodded, my mind drifting to the waste of the sexy red dress and black rhinestone heels, scarlet lipstick. I tried to tell him one of my stories, a story about my music, my banjo playing days, but he stopped me twelve words in with an "I play guitar! I used to play in a band and my friends blah blah blah blah blah" and I realized then that he collected his own history, too.
I said goodbye, and it was the not-quite-sharp voice I use with my kids, on the edge of mothership, and I gave him a friendly wave and sent him on his way. He never knew I could speak like a black cat. He'll never know.
My Turkish friend was gone for hours. I peered out the window every five minutes, wondering where he was, wondering why he didn't call. I worried the Chevy stalled, then I worried he crashed in a fiery mess on Interstate 5, finally worrying he stole the car and drove it across the Mexican border to strip for parts. He finally pulled into the driveway, his tall brooding brother riding shotgun, with a crazed expression across his dark face.
"I think it's the air idle motor," he muttered as he pulled the lever to open the hood.
"What? What? Did it stall? Did it stop working?"
I didn't know what else to ask. I never heard of an air idle motor and I hoped it wasn't an expensive part.
"Yes. I'll pick one up and put it in, but don't let 19 drive it until I do. There's something wrong with the idle. It stalls at intersections and revs up a bit before it stalls. It's either the air idle motor or the fuel pump. It might be the speed control sensor. I'm not sure. I want to start with the air idle motor and test it out."
He said these things quickly with a wave of his hands as if I were a bothersome mosquito. He leaned into the engine and examined gadgets and wires. He wiped greasy hands on his jeans. His brother bent beside him, two Turk twins crossed over into the ether of mechanical madness. Men and cars, I thought. Men and cars.
Well, it wasn't the air idle motor. It wasn't the crank position sensor or the speed control sensor or the fuel pump or the transmission low speed sensor or several other parts I can't remember. Every day for a week my Turkish friend and his silent brother tried something new. I forked over fifty dollars here, a hundred dollars there, kept my freelance mechanics happy with homemade brownies and bottles of imported beer. And every day for a week they drove the hiccuping, beligerent car and shook their heads. And every day for the same week I drove the Chevy and felt nothing but fast pavement beneath my feet, a thousand whistling telephone poles flying past, the brash rumble of the motor tame and tight in my hands.
"Ha ha ha ha," the car seemed to say, "Give me olive complected brooding men and smart ass young women, and I will laugh at them, laugh at how they try to tame me, how they forget I am alive. I am the ghost of Mr. Zilch."
The Turkish duo removed the fancy computer unit from the Chevy the othe day. They shipped it to a secret factory in Florida where they massage it with new life. There aren't any more parts to be replaced. It's either the computer or a demon. They're voting on the former. But I know, oh yes, I know, it's dead Mr. Zilch.
The Conclusiong of the Car Story...
but First! A word from our sponsor...
I received three emails overnight from folks who pointed out that when I made my custom icon yesterday morning, I chose the largest of the noses from the icon nose collection. Did I know this? Was it a mistake? Does the Avon Lady have a huge honker?
Yes. I have a big nose. This was no mistake. I chose the biggest and longest and most Roman-looking nose in that collection and the icon still does not do this nose justice. Believe me, I've thought about applying the Avon Cellu-Sculpt Anti-Cellulite Slimming Treatment to it, but I don't think I could deal with the smell all day.
I had the longest dinner date in the history of the known universe last night. Yes, I will blog about it, once I've digested the sheer boredom, not to mention finished my daughter's haunted car story. I'm awake, I'm trying to type, but I've misplaced my brain and I'm wondering if anyone's found it?
