You gotta know when to hold 'em...

Know when to fold ‘em,
Know when to walk away,
And know when to run…

Well, it started off auspiciously enough--a line of thunderstorms and tornadoes running the length of the state. But, it did move through early, so by the time we pulled out on our great safari at 8 this morning, the rain was already several hours ahead of us.

Put the old mattress outside to be picked up, with a big piece of paper pinned to it with the name of the charity to keep someone from thinking they could just walk off with it, and we were on our way. Stopped and got some breakfast, topped off the gas tank, and headed off toward the Eastern Time Zone.

Good drive, and missed all the eastbound race traffic, which I thought was awfully slick of me and my sense of timing. Made the exit toward Carrollton, stopped and called the seller of the object of my obsession to let him know we were close, and settled in for the last leg. This part of Georgia is very pretty--lots of rolling hills and thick woods, and Carrollton itself is a pretty little town. Blew through there and on to Newnan, and after coming all that way, managed to miss the very last turn. Oops. Turned back and into the leafy subdivision, and at the very end of the cul-de-sac…there is was! [cue chorus of angels]

We pulled on down in the driveway and I got out.

Hmm.

Now, I realize I had built this up pretty good in my mind (and to all of you good readers) and looking at the pictures and talking to the owner, I thought I had an adequate sense of what was wrong and right with the car. Car guys tend to think in terms of “footers.” If you say you bought a “20 footer,” it means it looks good from 20 feet away--but no closer. Well, I had this one figured for a 10 footer, which is pretty good for what I was intending. I knew there would be a little rust, and some rips, and some odd stray bits that were just barely tacked in place.

But. Hmm.

I got out of the van and the first thing I saw (from about 30 feet away) was a dark angry red strip right above the chrome trunk lid trim strip. Not a spot. A line. The owner came out and we exchanged pleasantries, but that cancer was on my mind. There’s always some rust, but there’s rust, and then there’s the sign of fatal lack of attention to upkeep. Body--straight, no waves. Doors--no sags, gaps even, close solid. Chrome--all there, but weak. Interior--not nearly so clean as in the picture. Driver’s seat--giant gouge all the way through the padding on the left bolster. Looked like whoever had it before had carried a grinder in his pocket.

And then, the kicker.

You bibliophiles know how it is to go into the library and sit there in a pile of old books. That wonderful smell of age and experience. And then, that smell of a box of books out of someone’s basement at a yard sale.

House hunters? The smell in an old house of years of love and cookies and endless hours cleaning and laughter and sadness and generations of homeyness. And then, that smell of neglect and despair and trashiness left by someone who only occupied a house, and never made it a home.

Well, cars are similar to that. There’s the old car smell of trips to the mountains, and that time the window got left down at the beach, and the trip with your first real date and you can smell the popcorn and her perfume, and the time that you helped your friend move and his stereo scuffed the back of the seat. And then there’s the smell of disuse and disinterest and disgust and almost a hatred left by successive owners who seem to have felt they’d been cursed in life to have been stuck with such a stupid piece of iron.

And that’s what this one had. The smell of sad abandonment. Once, it had been new and now it was just an old car. It had long ago ceased to be anything anyone cared about, and the fact that it survived this long was a testament to the car, not the previous owners.

This guy who was selling it had only had it about a year and a half. I have a feeling it had been his moron project back then--full of promise that he could fix it and make it nice again and cared for the way it should be. But, it just didn’t pan out for him. Best to take what you can get and don’t look back.

He hadn’t been the least bit underdescriptive of it at all--and I had asked question upon question about the condition of the car before making the trek. But there are some things you can only sense when you meet a car. I asked him to start it, and it cranked right up with a nice oily clatter. The mechanicals were working, but again only because it was built like a tank to begin with. But the rot had set in--hoses were crumbling, heater valve leaking, bits and pieces not just unhooked, but long gone.

I looked and listened and walked around it and looked, and felt that knot of sensibility growing in my gut.

This isn’t it.

Too much, too far gone.

He went and got some of the parts that went with the car and popped the trunk. The rain gutter around the opening was filled with pods of stuff from the trees, and again, the ever present grainy red stains that said someone quit caring about fifteen years previously. I walked back toward the open driver’s door and saw another bit of ruddy cancer--right where the door swing-limiting strap attached to the jamb. A neat red rectangular line marked where the sheetmetal had begun to separate--23 years of the door being swung open hard against the limit until it began to fatigue and give way, and then give way even faster when the water began to get to it. The door seals had long ago given up any softness they might have had, and were now like licorice, hard and dry.

“You want to take it around the block?”

I had a cashier’s check for $2,250 in my pocket. I had come all this way with my whole brood to see this thing. And you couldn’t pay me to take it. I tried. I wanted to like it. But it had gone unloved and uncared for just too long.

I looked at him and sort of shook my head no. “I, uh, well, I tell you--I think there might be more to do to it than I want to do. Just too big of a project, you know? More than I need to get involved with.” He knew. “I hate to have taken up all your time and all, but I think I’m just going to have to pass on it.”

Which was okay by him--from what I can tell, there’s a fellow down in Clearwater, Florida who’s more inflamed than me, and I get the sense that he was willing to pay the full price for it, and not really be too concerned about rust and smell and such.

We shook hands again, and I turned toward the van. Reba was looking at me with a puzzled look, and I just gave a short shake of my head.

Got in and closed the door--“Well, kids, say ‘bye to the car!”

“We’re not getting it!?”

“‘Fraid not. Let’s get home, now.”

And so, back up through Newnan and Carrollton, an odd feeling of disappointment and relief. I filled Reba in on the drawbacks, and told her I just couldn’t do it. I don’t think she quite understands the whole deal with something so silly as smell--after all, one smelly old car is pretty much like another, right?

Well, no.

It’s kind of like the clock we have in our kitchen--made around 1850, it’s a walnut-cased British fusee movement clock. Wind it every seven days, and it keeps time almost as well as my watch does. 155 years, and still doing the exact same thing it was meant to do. But you can tell that it was handed down through the generations always wrapped in a soft quilt, and carried on a soft lap, put in a place of honor in someone’s home, and dusted and cleaned and kept. It has scratches, and some of the paint has worn off, and it obviously isn’t a quartz clock when it comes to accuracy, but it keeps ticking calmly away, and seems to be content with a few scratches and nicks. It’s just bits of metal and wood, but it’s more than that, too.

A stop for lunch, and a drive back home, somewhat dampened by another line of rain that dogged us, and then a ten mile backup caused by a wreck near Munford. Home, found that the mattress was still dry, hung around outside and waited for the charity truck guys to come by while Cat rode her new scooter. The guys finally came by, and then I remembered a detail I needed to take care of. Went inside and called the insurance man and left him a message that the car deal I’d told him about on Friday was off.

Am I sad? Kinda. But I think I would have been much sadder if I had gone ahead and been pigheaded and bought the thing. There’ll be another one come along to play with, one that has been loved. And that’ll be the one I get.

[Originally published on Possumblog on April 30, 2005.]