Cah talk

The one that got away

by Sally Cragin

Illustration by Lennie Peterson

"Through the wildly contorted sheet metal of their automobiles consumers dreamed the fulfillment of their desires for freedom, power, and distinction as they rushed frantically between their suburban retreats of consumption and their urban centers of alienated production. And these dream machines often assumed horrific, nightmarish forms that were almost as terrifying as delightful, revealing that all was not well in the fantasy world of American consumers."

-- David Gartman

Auto Opium, A Social History of American Automobile Design (Routledge, 1994)

With our frequent change of seasons, sometimes three in one day, you'd think Tritownies could handle other kinds of transition, but no. Even Hasky Tarbox, of Tarbox Automotive ("Collisions? A specialty") seems to be having trouble adjusting to the fact that soon he will be married to $erena, the woman he's dated for a significant portion of his life.

"What's the big deal?" asks Hollis one evening at the Rod 'n` Reel, the roadhouse on the old Post Road.

"I dunno," grunts Hasky, slumping on his stool.

"You're already living together; you've known each other forever," says Hollis. "It's destiny."

Hasky turns his head and blinks his watery blue eyes. (All the Tarboxes have pale blue eyes that look iridescent in a certain kind of bar light.) "I'm just thinking that if I end up getting a Corvette we're gonna have to `discuss' it."

"Huh?" says Hollis. He is momentarily stymied, having no idea how joint finance works. All his life he's supported himself, more or less, and now he has a part-time job driving the truck for Tri'd 'N` Tru Potato Chips.

So he takes another tack. "Whaddya want a Corvette for?" he asks. "You're a bodyman -- those things are made of glass. They shatter. If you wanna V-8, get something metal."

"That's the beauty of it," says Hasky. "I spend my day banging out rocker panels and straightening dings. The beauty of your 'Vette is that a) it's a classic, and b) anything happens, you just replace the whole panel."

"Nah," says Hollis, "Give me metal, or give me death. Literally." He raises his empty glass to Myrt Scully, the former Old Howard showgirl who runs the R 'n` R. Her blond bombshell beehive is a marvel to all. She sashays over with two open bottles. As she takes their empties she says, "You boys talkin' cahs?"

Hollis nods. "Especially the ones that got away. Hey, Hasky, remember Christine?"

Hasky's round face creases into a demonic grin. "That was pissa!" he says, when another face appears alongside.

"Piece-a-what?" asks Lorencz the Hermit, who has his beard tucked into a flannel shirt he's wearing over a worn tuxedo jacket. (Myrt lets him drink at the R 'n` R if he behaves. As it's mushroom season, anything can happen.) Behind him is Delia Ellis Bell, the Partial Yankee (there was a questionable great-great-grandmother), who'd found Lorencz sleeping in the library and decided to give Ozzie the Wiz, Tritown's resident librarian and sage, a break by schlepping him home. Or close enough.

Myrt brings bottles for all, and Hollis explains: "Remember when that Stephen King movie Christine about the possessed car was playing at the Tritown Dollar Show?"

Lorencz looks confused. Everything up to age 18, and everything forward from three days ago, is fresh in his mind, but he nods anyway. Delia knows the story but can't resist: "Was Christine that rusty Pinto that leaked so much carbon monoxide you had to wear a snorkel when you drove it?

"Well," says Hollis. "At the time, Hasky happened to have bought, and was repairing, a large, red '58 Bel Air with a chrome grin that stretched between the custom hooded headlamps."

"That cah was a real back-yard beauty," says Hasky. "Two tons before anyone got in it, and seated six on the bench seats."

"Wraparound windshield and tinted rearview," reminisces Hollis. "Creamy white tufted vinyl -- stored in a windowless barn -- no cracks. The cah was wider than most of the parking spaces downtown."

"`Not as wide as a church door, but 'tis enough/'twill serve,'" quotes Delia, who's been assigned the "Romance Module" in the Tritown High School curriculum.

"Mercutio!" says Lorencz, who's found a part of the conversation that makes sense.

Myrt taps him on the sleeve with her bar rag before going off to serve other customers. Hollis continues. "We'd seen the movie earlier -- man, that was great -- it's all about a killer car who goes after all this geeky guy's friends who mistreat him. You'd hear the menacing rumble of a six-pack dual-header under the hood before it ran someone over or crushed them against a wall."

"Then the car miraculously restored itself, which you'd wish would happen sometime in real life," adds Hasky. Delia and Lorencz are leaning on the bar, their chins cupped in their hands. Hasky continues. "So the last night it was playing, a bunch of us, including Whitey Leblanc, met at the theater. It was snowing that night, so Main Street was deserted. I'd parked the Chevy between a couple of buildings and turned off the lights."

Hollis speaks: "As soon as people starting coming out of the building, we all started running in slow-motion up the street. Slipping and falling in the snow and yelling. Then Hasky put the headlamps on and ducked down below the steering wheel."

"And chased them up the street!" Hasky explodes. "Everyone at the theater was like, `Huh?' and a coupla girls really screamed," he says with satisfaction. Delia is giggling now, and even Lorencz is grinning.

When the laughter subsides, Hasky says, "the next week, the car threw a head gasket goin' down to Woostah."

"Revenge!" shouts Delia, but Lorencz's beard pops out of his shirt in indignation.

"What's the point in locomotion?" he says. "Why go anywhere? Once you get there, you're there so what's the point?"

His thin voice is hard and shrill, and Myrt hustles back. "Everything okay here?" she asks.

"Jeez, there've been some great cahs," says Hasky, whose REM cycle is dominated by a sleek ebony Sting Ray III, with 300 horse capable of going 165 mph, that he keeps thinking will turn up in the Tritown Pennysaver.

"The ones we've had and the ones that got away," says Hollis.

Myrt scowls. "You boys are just living in fantasyland, thinking some perfect cah is going to fix your lives," she says. "Ya gotta be happy with what you got."

Hasky looks up. "Easy for you to say, Myrt," he says. "You're still driving that white Lincoln Continental. That's a nice cah."

Myrt beams with pride. "That it is," she says.

After a few more beers, it's time to call it a night, and Delia, characteristically, starts bringing empties to the bar. Before she bundles Lorencz into her car (a dependable yellow Winksta that she tries not to get sentimental about), Myrt calls her over. "Don't let on to your friends," she begins. Delia glances at the door, where Hasky and Hollis are still arguing about whether the ideal dream car is a '62 Comet Cyclone with a 427 under the hood, or a Studebaker Hawk with a wedged-in supercharged V-8 from the Study Avanti. Myrt continues. "My dreamcar is a 1956 Buick Century Convertible in candy-apple red. But I'd settle for a powder blue Mercedes, any style. If you're gonna dream, dream on." n

Thanks to my cah-crazed family and friends: Hal Cragin, Andre Goguen, Peter Dunn, Chris Mulholland, and Pete Greelish. They've suffered and gloried automotively so we don't have to.

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