It’s after Angie’s memorial. We’re at El Indio, where Angie would have wanted us to go. It’s Brad, Annette, Annette’s church friend whose name I do not remember, and me.
It’s good to catch up with Brad. I haven’t seen him for years and, as always, we talk about cars. When we were young, it was his ’68 Camaro and my ’77 Mustang and Angie’s blue Falcon, which she hated. Only the Camaro has survived.
And it occurs to me for the first time to ask. “Annette, do you still have your dad’s Mustang?”
“Which one?”
There were others? “The blue one. It was always in the carport on Mitchell.”
“Yeah. It’s still there. You want it?” She throws out a ridiculously low price. “It’s yours.”
I do not hesitate. “Done. I want it. Sold.”
I don’t know where the money will come from. I’m sure my mom will be (rightfully) ruffled that I’ve reached the point in my life when I start dragging old cars home. I have no business even considering this.
I don’t know what condition the car is in. I’ve never seen it move. It was just always there.
I start making plans.
***
A week later, I text her. “If you’re serious, I’d like to come look at the car.”
It’s a rainy Saturday afternoon in November. The car is in the carport, cover draped haphazardly over it. It’s up on blocks, no wheels. It’s nose-in, so I know it’s been moved since the last time I saw it, probably fifteen years ago. Under the dirt, it’s a different shade than I remember, a deeper blue.
The interior looks clean. I don’t really know what else to look at. I snap a picture of the door tag, but it’s scuffed up and hard to read. Annette doesn’t know where the title is and it will be several months before I think to ask her if she has the keys. “I think the transmission is in that storage container,” she says and I nod. At least it has a transmission. Stuff is piled up in the carport around the car, so we don’t try to open the hood or the trunk.
I want the car, but I know a part of me just wants my friends back and this is a little piece of one of them that I can drag home and take care of.
***
If I don’t know Angie, I don’t know Carrie. If I don’t know Carrie, I wouldn’t know this car. If they both hadn’t left us too soon, I wouldn’t know Annette. I think about this a lot: the way the cards fell in order to have reached this point. The luckiest unlucky hand.
octoberthoughtspdx 