You Can Tell an Awful Lot About a Guy from the Shape of His Vehicle

Dad and Grandad conspired to surprise me with my first car when I was fifteen. Under Dad’s guidance, Grandad scoured the Fargo Forum classifieds for weeks looking for a practical used model. Grandad must have loved this — in retirement, he made a hobby of buying inexpensive used vehicles, fixing them up, and reselling them to make a bit of money. Every time I saw him, he was driving a different car. Ultimately, he and Dad made a decision together and finalized the sale.

We were living in Minot at the time, and Dad somehow enticed me to spend a weekend traveling to Fargo with him. I was in my punk phase then: pink hair, pleather pants, safety pins in my ear, studded dog collar. At fifteen, I didn’t have time to go visit my grandparents. I was too busy plotting the important details of my immediate future. My band, The Atomic Snotrockets, had an upcoming gig, so I needed to rehearse on Friday night. My heavy-petting partner and I were getting together to watch X-Files on Saturday. There was homework to cram in at the last possible moment Sunday night. Nevertheless, Dad coerced me to ride along for the five-hour drive from Minot to Fargo. We pulled up to Grandma and Grandad’s place. Parked in front of the house was a robin’s egg-blue ’84 Volkswagen Golf with vanity plates: 4-BUDDY, my parents’ nickname for me. There’s a photograph somewhere that Grandad took of me opening my car door for the first time. I have a huge grin on my face. I never smile in photos.

Six months later, Mom came downstairs and tapped on my bathroom door as I was getting ready for school. “Buddy,” her voice wavered as she laid a hand on my shoulder and told me that Grandad had died in his sleep. I felt my knees tremble. “I think your dad could really use a hug right now.” It was the only time I have ever seen Dad cry.

Seven years after Grandad passed, I was living in Charleston, South Carolina, and getting ready to move to the west coast. Dad flew down to help me make the cross-country road trip. I had plans to trade in my purple Chevy Cavalier for an Acura Integra coupe. It was a sexy, silver two-door with a spoiler. The interior leather was glossy and black. It had a five speed on the floor and a booming sound system with a Rockford Fosgate amplifier and two twelves in the trunk. Dad calmly guided me towards a more practical choice: a forest-green, four-door Mazda 626. It was the polar opposite of the Integra. The interior wasn’t shiny black leather, but boring beige polyester. No sound system — not even a CD player. The 626 had a stock AM/FM tuner and a tape deck.

Dad and I drove the 626 from the South Carolina Lowcountry to the Puget Sound, where I would live for three years. I drove the Pacific Coast Highway from Seattle to San Diego and back in that car, windows down, playing the mixtape I made specifically for the journey. I folded down the back seat and slept in the 626 along the side of the highway there in the shadows of the towering redwoods near Crescent City. I made a second cross-country trip in that car when I moved to Virginia Beach in 2005, and put more miles on it when I finally settled in Chicago in 2007.

The 626 was the only car I ever paid off. I remember getting the title in the mail from my bank, after paying off the loan. The paper was ivory card stock, with purple purfling in the margins and an official-looking watermark from the bank. I framed it and hung it on the wall. Eventually, the transmission went out and I had to have it towed to a junkyard.

After Dad retired, he started wheeling and dealing used cars. An expert haggler, he’d buy them for cheap, fix them up a bit, and resell them for a slim profit. These were not major overhauls; he wasn’t investing in dilapidated ’57 Chevy Bel Air hard-tops and restoring them. He’d buy dependable, modern cars which had a track record of longevity: Camrys, 4Runners, Civics. He would detail the tires, wax the hood, Armor-All the seats. It was a hobby.

A while after my 626 broke down, Dad surprised me by showing up in Rogers Park. I was celebrating my third year in Chicago and it was the first time he ever visited me there. The second and final time would be for my wedding. He pulled up in a used 2002 Toyota Avalon and handed me the keys. I couldn’t believe it. I drove that car for four years. I could never tell if it was grey or light blue; its color was mercurial, like Lake Michigan. Avalon — it reminded me of that Roxy Music song of the same name. I could almost hear Bryan Ferry singing it — and your destination…you don’t know it.

At some point, the Avalon’s trunk latch broke and I had to keep the lid tied down with bungee cords or it would fly up while driving. One headlamp burned out and I never got around to replacing it. The check engine light was perpetually on. Then one day, the low oil warning light lit up on the dashboard. Dad had taught me to check my oil each time I filled up the gas. I didn’t, of course. After a few days of this light staying on, I bought a quart of oil and poured it in. Things would be okay for a week or two when the light would come on again and I’d repeat the process. I tried to remain optimistic, but my stomach twisted every time I started the car and saw that ominous light on the instrument panel. I was recently unemployed, and couldn’t afford to pay an ungodly sum of money to fix it, so I kept buying a quart of oil at a time and pouring it into the car. One day I flicked the ignition switch and it wouldn’t turn over. The low oil light had been illuminated for several weeks by then. I shouted in frustration and pounded on the steering wheel. I had it towed to a nearby mechanic where they told me the oil pan had cracked which led to the engine seizing up because it wasn’t getting the regular oil supply it needed. CarMax gave me two-hundred bucks for the vehicle. They told me they were going to “part it out”.

I ran the Avalon into the ground one month after quitting my day job as a government bureaucrat. I rode the Amtrak back to Fargo to explain myself to Dad. I was rambling, like usual, trying to tell him why it was so important for me to leave a good paying job — with benefits — to sign up for Yoga Teacher Training and pursue my nascent, albeit outlandish dream of opening a non-profit yoga studio for veterans. He didn’t bring up the Avalon, but he looked worn out. “What about saving for retirement, Son?”

“Retirement!” I scoffed, “My generation doesn’t get to retire.”

Later that week, I hailed a 2 a.m. cab to the Fargo Amtrak depot to wait for the Empire Builder line to Chicago. I had just taken out my pen to work on some YTT homework when the depot’s lobby door swung open. I was dumbfounded to see Dad walking towards me with a thermos at three in the morning.

“I thought you could use a coffee,” he said. “Hold this. I’ve got something in the car.” He carried in three bags of groceries for my twelve-hour journey. Alongside the bananas, granola bars, and bottles of Vitamin Water, he had picked up a fresh six-pack of Hornbacher’s Peanut Butter rolls — my favorite treat from back home. He sat down next to me and opened up his wallet, handing me several bills. “Here. I want you to take this for the trip, in case you get hungry.” I shook my head, but I knew refusing was impossible. We chatted there for about an hour until I had to board my train. As the Empire Builder lurched forward, I watched, with tears in my eyes, as Dad got into his clean, always-properly-maintained truck and drove away.