 The Car
This is for our guys overseas.
The Car
The garage is dimly lit; a vestige of light trickles it’s way through the cracks in the shuttered windows. It’s daytime. The meager light grows dim and shifts along the floor, pacing the advancement of the day to the surrender of the dusk and coming night. The lights procession and retreat is repeated for months. The only constant is the stationary object under the car cover nestled amongst the various trapping of an ordinary garage; furniture, tool chests, the odd bird cage and other forgotten dusty remnants cast aside and stored for future use. This scene is played out everyday across the country and the world. The car is far from forgotten however.
Far away, a 425-foot long tube of high strength steel that is a submarine is pacing it’s way on patrol. Within the sub is a sailor that clings to the thought of his car that is awaiting his return. The car is steel; an inanimate object that will only spring to life when started by a human hand. It knows or cares not that it is being thought of with the longing that only a young man can assign or project to a compilation of parts that comprise the object of the young mans desire. The sailor’s days, daydreams and conversations in the crew’s mess are dominated by the thought of being reunited with his car and the anticipation of starting the object of his affections. The sailor lives for his car. The sailor works for his car. In short, the sailor is obsessed with the car. The patrol drones on, just 60 more days until it’s over and then the sailor can be re-united with his pride and joy.
Far away, in the house that the young sailor was raised in, sits the father and mother of the sailor. The parent’s days, daydreams and conversations in the family kitchen are dominated by the thought of being reunited with their child and the anticipation of seeing their kid once again. The parents live for their son. The father works for his son, the mother works for the son. In short, the parent’s are obsessed with the son. The patrol drones on, just 60 more days until it’s over and then the parent’s can be re-united with their pride and joy.
The mother keeps the sons room clean and all his boyhood belongings in place, she strives to maintain the room the way the boy likes it. She loves her son and misses him dearly. She worries that every time the boys’ submarine clears port that it may his last voyage. She made the car cover that covers her son’s car from an old parachute that belonged to the father. The father was 101st Airborne.
The father opens the garage; light streams into the garage. Illuminating the shape beneath the car cover. The father carefully removes the cover and stashes it on the bench beside the car. The father misses his son dearly. They have had their disagreements as all sons and father do, but the father is not thinking of that as he opens the car door. Dad inserts the key in the ignition and turns the key. The car’s engine fires immediately; the father keeps the revs up as the engine warms. The car settles into a steady rumble at idle; all is well. This is the way the father shows his love for his son, it is the only thing that the man can do for his boy while he is away. He will repeat this weekly ritual for the next 60 days until his son is home, just as he has been doing it every week since the boy left. As the father is sitting in the car, he remembers the long nights the two of them had spent working on the car. He watched his son becoming familiar with the use of tools and he also was witness to the son losing almost all of them. He still runs into some of them as he mows the lawn, the mangled mower blades adorning the garage walls bearing silent testimony to this fact. He was mad then, but now all he thinks about is the dangers his son faces on a daily basis. He is fiercely proud of his son; the boy thought about and made the decision to join on his own. The son knew that if he remained in the town he stood a good chance of getting into trouble with some of his old running mates. When the son told his dad that he wanted to join the service, he did so with an explanation of why he wanted to join. One of the reasons given was the son’s pride in his dad’s prior service. All the father could do was shake the boys hand and ferry him to the depot.
The patrol is over, everyone is happy; the boy is home on leave. He and his dad cruise the car and long talks at the dinner table are nightly events. After mom goes to bed, the son and father speak of things that are not suitable for mixed company and more than a few beers are drunk. But submarines are not made to sit at the dock and so the boy is off again on another patrol. The cycle begins anew.
Soon the boy’s obligation is complete; he returns home and starts his life again, but he is a boy no longer. He is a man and confident in his decisions, wrong though they may be. He hooks up with a local girl and things get serious, he becomes engaged and then married a year later. They take the car to the wedding and then on the honeymoon.
As time passes, the sailor will become the parent. The parents will become grand parents and then pass on to their reward. The show of love by the parents to the young sailor will become a recurring theme and way of life as the sailor progresses through his own family’s life. His sons and daughters shall become the recipient and beneficiary of his love, the love that was passed on to him from his own mother and father.
The car that he and his father built has long since been sold; the money from the car helped settle the hospital delivery charges for the birth of his own son. His son is of an age now that dad is starting to teach him how to use hand tools. But nestled under the car cover that his mother made, in the garage behind the house that he grew up in, awaits an old car that will perhaps one day be restored to it’s former glory by his son and himself. The son is left wondering, now where did junior put that wrench?
Copyright 2006, Charles Emery – Bunkiedog Press | 
