“What happened to the Cougar?”
“I didn’t give a fuck then and I don’t give a fuck now. It was dead to me after that day. The way I look at it, any car that breaks down on me when I’m drunk or in a traffic jam is no longer my car. I give no second chances. I hoped they crushed the shit out of it and melted it into bedpans.” Houston stopped and took a long drag off the cigarette. “It was a great-looking car, though. I spent three grand on the paint job alone. White with silver sparkles. Man, it was something else.”
Eddie parked the work van in front of the Le Mans. Houston sat in the passenger seat and listened to the radio while Eddie walked to the owner’s house.
“I only have a couple minutes,” the man said when he answered. He was dressed in an Applebee’s work shirt.
“Here’s the four hundred,” Eddie said and gave it to him.
The man counted it and handed Eddie the signed-over title and two keys. They shook hands and Eddie walked back to the van and got in.
“You get it?” asked Houston.
Eddie smiled and waved the title at him. He started the van and took a small air compressor he kept in a milk crate, plugged it into the cigarette lighter, and went out the back to the Le Mans. The driver’s-side door opened and he looked in. It smelled of dust and mold, and the front seat was in worse shape than he’d thought, as was the floor carpet. But the backseat was decent and so was the dash. He opened the trunk to find eight old car batteries sitting on a piece of cardboard.
“Why you think there’s so many in there?” asked Houston, who was now watching from the sidewalk.
“I don’t know,” said Eddie and shut the trunk. He lit a cigarette and opened the hood.
“At least it has an engine,” said Houston.
Eddie looked it over. A tired-looking 350 covered in dust and oil and rust.
“You going to try and start it?”
Eddie shook his head. “I have a tow rope. I was thinking you could tow me in the van to my place. After that I’ll take you back to your car and set you free.”
Houston nodded and Eddie shut the hood. All four tires were nearly bald but they held air and Eddie hooked the tow rope from the van to the front of the Le Mans. With blue painter’s tape he spelled out IN TOW on the back windshield, and Houston put the van in low and towed him out of the neighborhood. They went the four miles to Eddie’s house and parked on the street.
Russell must have been waiting on the lawn chair in Eddie’s backyard when he heard the van because he came out front and walked across the lawn to see Eddie get out of the Le Mans.
“Why are you in that car?” he asked.
“I just bought it,” said Eddie.
“You just bought a car?”
Eddie nodded. “You think you can steer? We need to get it into the carport.”
Russell nodded. “This is really your car?”
“It is,” he said. “Now get in and steer and we’ll push it up.”
The boy got in the driver’s seat and held on to the wheel while Eddie and Houston pushed it from the street into the carport.
“Does it go fast?” the boy asked when he got out.
Houston laughed.
“I don’t even know if it runs,” said Eddie.
“But you bought it anyway?”
“It looks cool, doesn’t it?”
“If you like dents and Bondo, it looks cool,” Houston said.
“I like it,” the boy said.
Eddie looked at Houston. “See, I told you Russell had taste.”
Houston again laughed.
“Will you make it run?” Russell asked.
“Eventually,” Eddie said and that set off Houston laughing again.
The next evening Russell sat in the lawn chair next to the dog while Eddie worked. He took the eight batteries from the trunk and set them in a row at the back of the carport. He took the best-looking one from them, put it on a charger, removed the one from under the hood, and put that on another charger. He checked the fluids. The oil was full but the transmission was empty. He wrote a note to get a transmission filter kit and fluid, a fuel filter, oil, and an oil filter. The top radiator hose was bulging and covered with duct tape and would also need to be replaced.
“Do you think it’s going to be fast?” asked Russell.
“Probably not unless I put a new engine in it.”
“Are you going to put a new engine in it?”
“Nah, I don’t care about going fast. Even when I was your age, I didn’t. I’ll get it running, though.”
“Are you going to paint it?”
“Nope,” Eddie said. “I’m going to keep the dents. You might think I’m crazy but I like dents. I’ll get the front seat reupholstered, new carpet set in, and I’ll put in a good stereo. It’ll be nice inside when I’m driving around but I don’t want to be one of those guys who has a meltdown if a bird shits on the hood.”
“I can wash it if you want,” the boy said.
Eddie laughed. “I like the way you think, but it probably hasn’t been washed in years. It’ll be a hard job.”