Goodbye to all that
We’re taking a little break this week from my continuing saga about finding and buying a house in Portland, so that I might say goodbye to an old friend.
I will not look out in the driveway. I will not look out in the driveway, because then I will cry. I have managed to cry only a little bit this morning and I’m afraid what will happen if I unleash the floodgates.
It’s not what’s out in the driveway that will make me cry, it’s what’s not there. And what’s not there is my true-blue, trusty 1990 Honda Civic. I sold it this morning.
It was the adult thing to do. I guess that’s what happens when you buy a house. You start making adult decisions. My car had 193,000 miles on it and didn’t pass inspection in October. The work order said it would require nearly $1,000 to get it back up to road-worthiness. Putting that kind of money in a car that old just didn’t make sense. And yet, and yet.
I purchased my Honda 16 years ago, a couple days after my retreat from San Francisco. I had driven out west in a brand-new Honda CRX I had purchased with some money my dad left me when he died, but sold it not long after arriving. I put the money (like a good Yankee) into a separate savings account that I did not touch, no matter how broke I was. And I was broke, often. That was the Car Fund.
When I returned East in the fall of 1989, the first thing I did was buy my Civic. I went directly to the lot and told the salesman I wanted that blue one, there. I wrote a check for the amount on the sticker, never even thinking about haggling or shopping around or asking, “Is that your best deal?” I had had a rough few years, and even now, looking back as a sensible, get-multiple-quotes-for-everything, do-your-homework homeowner, I can say it was worth it just to buy the car without a fuss. What I needed more than anything at that moment in my life was not to have a fuss.
Shortly after my return, I accepted a housesitting offer about 40 minutes west of Boston. This stint was not a good one. No work, aside from temp jobs, could be found. I would limp back to Portland or to my mom’s in Bath every Friday night, and always put off returning until Monday morning. My car became my sanctuary.
Finally, I settled on a restaurant job. One night I came out of work and found my tires slashed and obscenities keyed into every panel of my beautiful new car. Two days later, I packed up my belongings and headed north. It was time to go home.
But life here wasn’t any easier. I spent the next few months living out of my car. When things were at their worst – when I was sleeping on a friend’s couch, knowing I had yet again outstayed my welcome, and was working a horrible job and was without hope or prospect – I would ball up and mutter before sleep, “At least I have my car.”
Things – as they do – got better. I started landing writing-related work – an assignment here, an article there. My brother helped me get set up in an apartment. And when I began my freelance life in earnest in 1995, the Honda became my Hi-Ho Silver. The two of us took on the whole state together – the western Maine mountains, the coast, the North Woods, the Golden Road, even Fort Kent in February – as well as all those slam poetry gigs from New York to Montreal. I was once again living out of my car – but in a joyous, “On The Road” way. I finally had a place of my own to live, but I never felt more at home than behind the wheel.
Then this Honda girl fell in love with and married a VW man. Now there were two of us tooling around the state in my car, which we nicknamed Little Car. It even got its own theme song (sung to the tune of the “Bonanza” theme): “Little Car, real good car, mmm-hmm-hmm-hmm-mmm.” As the time passed, I’d approach each year’s inspection with a bit more dread, but no matter what was required, the work got done. It was the rock ‘n’ roll thing to do. Moving on was a non-issue.
But when John and I bought our house, we decided we needed a grown-up car to go with our new grown-up lives. We did the research, we shopped around, we haggled. It was a very adult process. That same year, my car passed inspection without a speck of work. I knew I was driving on borrowed time, but it was time nonetheless.
The Honda would sit for weeks at a stretch in the driveway. It was hard to pass over the all-wheel drive of our Forester in the winter and its reliability for road trips. I’d feel guilty looking out at the heap of snow piled on Little Car’s hood and think I should take it out for a spin, but it rarely happened.
Then, last spring, we had a family emergency, which required me to head out on the highway at 4 a.m. But even before I reached the Cumberland exit in our new, sensible car, the alternator went haywire. When I got back home, I hipchecked my Honda’s frozen-shut door until it opened. Dropping down onto the ripped vinyl seat that pinched my butt, I turned the key after all that neglect.
She fired right up as though it were 1989 all over again.
So, why wouldn’t it be worth investing another grand in this steadfast friend that had been through so much with me? Why not prolong the parting another year? Because it was time to say goodbye. I put up a sign at the ferry terminal and sold it to a carpenter from Cliff Island for $100. Just like that.
But when I drove to meet him this morning, I took my time. It was a sparkly day with a stiff breeze, and I went via the Eastern Prom. As I sailed around the bend in the road, just past where I had lived for nearly 10 years, I thought, How many hundreds and hundreds of times have I taken this bend behind this wheel? How many changes and lifetimes and eras have I viewed through this windshield? I knew it was only a car. It really was just a car. And yet, and yet.
When I got to the terminal, my island man was waiting. As I handed over the key, I liked to think I was sending my car off to a nice retirement, an island life, much better than what might’ve been – the junkyard. I shook the man’s hand, and gave my old pal a pat on its mottled roof. As I set out on the East End Trail for the long walk home with tears streaming down my face, I leaned into the wind and shoved my hands deep into my pockets, but I had a song in my heart:
Little Car, real good car, mmm-hmm-hmm-hmm-mmm.
You better not tell Elizabeth Peavey the burbs have made her soft, or she’ll run over your foot.
