A true story about cars

At the age of nineteen my father gleefully insisted on buying me a used car. The fact that I had never asked for a car was a source of great amazement to him, and he’d often wonder about it out loud to my mother’s ears, this was his style, and ask her “What kind of teenager doesn’t want a car? You tell me.” At family dinners he’d look at me and say “You’re so modest. You don’t ask for anything.” But he never meant it as a compliment. He was truly puzzled. Then he decided to make it a chore instead of a gift; getting a car would be a life lesson for me.

It happened that my father’s most profound effects on my life came from these grand gestures, but I’d never realize it at the time. He’d bought me my first stereo system at twelve (“Every boy needs his own stereo system!”), my first and only acoustic guitar at seventeen (“You didn’t ask for it, but I know you want it!”), and my first car; an old and beat up silver Golf that stalled, choked and jumped forwards like a sick man.

I was truly grateful. I was a year into my army service, and trading in the helplessness of sweating in my uniform while waiting on buses for the small but precious measure of control in driving myself home from the base did wonders for my soul. My father helped me pay for the hunk of junk I drove around, but after that I was on my own. It was more than anyone could ask for, yet I remember how miserable and petulant I was on an early morning in July, when I had to give up a free morning from my army base in order to take my car in to the mechanic’s for a tune up.

I remember a silver haired man in his forties wearing brown jeans and a baby blue t-shirt stepping out of a shadow and walking towards my car, his hands filthy and caked in a thick layer of oil, a cell phone pressed between his ear and shoulder as he talked with his chin to his chest and gestured emphatically for me to drive forwards. “What’re you afraid of? Drive!” He stopped me an inch from his body. I was very tired. All I could think of was the injustice of my even being awake.

“So, what have we got here?” he smiled. With his face up he revealed an ugly streak of dirt that stretched from his cheek to his ear. “Ah, you’re the doctor’s kid, right? I recognized you, yeah. How are you?” He extended his arm for a handshake but quickly pulled it back, seeing how dirty it was. “Yeah, well, no problem.” He rubbed his hands together and opened the hood.

I began walking circles around him and the car as he worked. He pulled out the air filter and mumbled worried notes. He smiled again. “Are you sure it’s only a tune up?”
“Yeah.” I said. He was annoying me. “Why? Is there a problem?”
“No, no problem!” He raised black hands in defense. “But believe me, after I’m done it’ll be like a new life for this car.”
“Great.”
Everything around us was ugly. There was no pleasing direction for me to look at and this angered me. I wanted to sleep. This was my day off. The man pulled himself up and disappeared into the garage. He reappeared, rubbed his hands and quickly ducked back in. When he returned he was pushing an old and dingy bicycle.

“Listen,” he said. “I have to go for a minute and get you this filter; I don’t have it here, alright? So I’m leaving the place to you, you can sit in there if you want, it’s nice and cool. Or you can start working on this Peugeot if you want, huh?” He grinned at his own joke. “Alright then?”
“Yeah, alright.”
“Good. And if anyone calls asking for Haim or Ben Zion, you tell them ten minutes, ok?”
I nodded, he hopped on the bike and left. I sighed and spit on the sunny side of the asphalt, curious to see how long it would take the sun to dry it. I kept up my ridiculous patrols around the car, marching a slow army march, rolling my feet heel to toes. I stepped into the garage.

A bulky wooden table was matted with old newspapers, faded pink and turquoise. Behind it was a large chair covered in brown upholstery, which I found was surprisingly comfortable. I sank into it and stared at the bleak south Tel Aviv street. I could see all the passers by, vulnerable in the sun, but they could not stare back into my pitch black darkness. I spotted an antiquated rotary phone, a cream colored model from the seventies that was the size of a kettle, with its handset resting on two black buttons. I picked it up and decided to call my army buddy, Ariel. The numbers I dialed clicked back at me, and he answered instantly.

“Hi.” He said. He sounded uptight. Ariel had always made me laugh.
“Hey.” I said. “What’s up? You know who it is?”
“I know who it is.” He said.” Did you hear what happened?”
“No,” I said. I was discovering that I could lean back in the old chair, making it even more comfortable. I could easily have fallen asleep in that chair. “What happened?”
“Yair is dead.”
I sat up. “What are you talking about?”
“Yesterday, in a car crash.” Ariel said.
“Wait a minute, what Yair, our Yair?”
“Yes.”
“Yair was killed?”
“Their car flipped over near Jerusalem. He wasn’t even the driver.”
“And he’s dead?” I asked. I had to say the word myself, I had to say it again, out loud, because I was seeing a million faces and hearing a million stories and mumbles, cries and shouts and cars at the same time and something just didn’t fit, something was wrong, someone had allowed my distorted imagination to take over and it couldn’t be right, I –
“Yes.” Ariel said. “Listen, I have to –”
“Wait, wait, hold on!” I panicked. “Is there a funeral?”
“Yes. It’s now.”
“Now?!?” I grabbed my head. A funeral was too real.
“Yes, we’re leaving soon. Do you want to come?”
“I… I can’t make it, I, my car…”
“I have to go.” Ariel apologized in a strained voice. “I’ll talk to you, ok?”
I didn’t want him to hang up. My mind was racing. “Does Yoni know?” I asked, and could hear Ariel pause, confused.
“No.” He said at last. “No, I didn’t… You call him.”
“Yeah.” I said.
“Bye.”
He hung up.

He hung up and I hung up. That conversation had lasted less than a minute. There was no one around. There were no eyes on me, no one to test my expression or become alarmed by it, no to ask me why all the blood had drained from my face, why I was suddenly blank like an idiot. There was only me, alone in a garage. Oil spots glistened and my spit dried in the sun and it was the quietest garage in the world, there was no honking to be heard, no shouting, no radios playing the news.

What am I doing? I asked myself silently a few times and then once out loud, but my skinny voice was only making things worse, so I shut up and shut off. I simply stood there. Instead of seeing Yair, which is what I had believed I should be doing, I had the clearest vision of the page in my red phone book on which his name had been confidently marked down, since I knew that one day he would save me.

The man returned, peddling joyfully and whistling. He propped his bike against a wall and emptied the contents of a nylon bag before him. He picked the parts he needed and got to work on my car.
“Listen, you’ll take care of this car after this, right?” He said.
I couldn’t answer. He didn't seem to mind.
“My daughter, this one...” He shook his head as he worked. “She goes out with her girlfriends, last week, yeah? Comes back four in the morning, doesn’t see the parking meter, smashes the whole car. I feel bad for the car, you understand? I feel bad for it.” He talked and talked some more while he worked.

And I tried to remember Yair, because I understood I would never see him again, but nothing came. I could barely hear his voice. I could only conjure up one glossy image, a photograph, the memory of a picture we’d taken in the army when we were youngsters, barely two months into our service and still bearing the white patches on our uniforms marking us part of a military training course. In the picture he stood smiling in a freezing gust of wind in front of one of the ugly structures of the base. His blue and red scarf was wrapped around his neck and its tail waved behind him like a flag. The scarf was far from regulation color but the commanders all loved him and let it slide. He held half a cigarette to his smile with a wavering hand. His lips were swollen and red from the cold and dry air. We’d all laughed at him because he looked as if he was wearing lipstick, and he’d laughed with us and kissed me and wiped the ghost stain of lipstick off of my cheek, but there was no picture of that. In the background I could see myself talking to Yoni, unaware of the camera. My face was hidden under an oversized floppy green army hat, and Yoni was waving his hands in my face with a frown, explaining something to me.

I thought, I should call Yoni. I should tell him, I knew. I was about to turn to the man, to quietly ask for permission to use his phone. He would certainly agree once he heard the grave reason, I knew, but I never said a word. I no longer knew why I thought I needed the phone. I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d talked about with Ariel, or why he’d sounded so stressed, or why the conversation had been so brief and abrupt. The man drained the oil and replaced the filter. He put in new oil and replaced other parts. I gave him my credit card and signed my name without even a glance at the sum. He went back in. I stared at the car, but I can’t say what I saw.

The man came back, put his hands on his waist and said “That’s it. You’re done here.”