11,557. RUDIMENTS, pt. 601

RUDIMENTS, pt. 601

(crawling from the wreckage)

That whole Roy Orbison 

episode stayed with me a 

long time. I guess what 

grabbed me the most

was the whole idea of a

rich little kid having a

play car bought for him 

for the yard, at home. 

Maybe it was something

I'd not known of before,

a class thing or such  -  

we used to get a washing 

machine box and think 

we were in Heaven. If my
mother ever noticed a stray
piece of crap in the yard,
it was gone in a minute.

I wondered what became

of that whole little scene,

and how the kid made out.

Reflecting back upon this

episode as well, I had all

sort of after-the-fact qualms

about the risk I'd taken 

with the entire enterprise. 

If anything at all had gone

wrong in any way, cops, 

blow-out, break-down,

accident (I even imagined

my wife crashing into me

from behind, since I feared I'd

neglected to check for brake

lights), I could have been in

deep trouble, all for nothing

except some jerk, privileged

guy pushing me around.

The fact that it all worked

out was a sort of lesson-to-

be-absorbed good fortune.

And thusly I marked it.

-

I always had weird luck, or

bad-luck, with vehicles. It 

seemed that no sooner would

I get new plates, get something

up and going on the road, all

good, then some dumb-ass

misfortune would occur. One

time, first week out, at the

Metuchen Train Station, the

Jeep I had had some sort of

back-up warning beeper thing,

for obstacles, to tell you if you

were getting too close.. OK, fine. 

But at the Metuchen train station,

along a little row of parking 

meters, the meter I was backing 

into had been hit by someone

and tilted way over, to the left

and into the spot I was entering.

I was backing slowly, but the

stupid beeper thing registered 

it as OK, I guess, by reading the

post behind me, but NOT the

flagrant overhang of the bent

pole and meter, into which, of

course, I slowly rolled. Denting

the rear, already. That little and

still annoying dent is still there.

Just one of those things. The

same car, at the Police Station

Quick-Chek in Woodbridge:

I backed it into some really 

junked-up and dented piece 

of crap 15 year old car, lightly,

there  -  and left another dent

in the rear door. Nice size, but

nothing you'd really notice 

with all the other dents. BUT,

there are parking cameras all 

over the building, and the police

station is right there. So, yeah,

I stopped and went inside and

asked 'who owns' the...... Some

girl behind the counter came out.

She wasn't too flustered at all,

laughed it off, said she lived in

Carteret, the parking lot was too

small, and stuff like this always 

happened, most people take off,

but the cameras always get them,

and they get charged then as 

well with leaving the scene.

So, she was pleased I was wise,

and glad I'd stopped. I told her,

'Hey, no cops, OK. You want

400 bucks to forget you know 

me? She said sure, exchanged

phones and addresses, and I 

went home and came back 

(she took a check)  -  more 

glad to be done with it than 

anything, including the

price. Typical me.

- 

One time when I still lived in

Metuchen, I was returning from

Motor Vehicles with my new

plates and registration for the

MG that I drove. I was in my

wife's Valiant, with her and our

son. We come to a light, BAM!

I get rear-ended, harshly, by

some gigantic garbage-truck.

Not a town hauler, just a 

refuse company, from South 

Plainfield, 'Importico's Waste'  

-  nice Irish bunch. Ha. We 

exchange information, he 

says no cops; and I call 

the guy's father, at the

refuse company, the guy

who runs things. He comes

flying to our house, all fired

up and foul  -  to make certain

I'd called no one, no police.

His 'son-of-a-bitch' kid had

again caused a problem. 'He's

no good,  I just'a give him a

job to be driving, always in, 

a trouble, God Damn.' (His

license was suspended, he'd

had a major accident a while

back, and they had him still

driving). This guy, the father,

here was a really foul dude.

He looks my 'Duster' (Valiant)

over, and says,'Huh? Whaddya 

want? Look at this thing, it's 

a piece of crap. You no gonna'

fix, it's already all dented. You

take 300 dollars, here. You 

tella' no one.' I finally got

pissed enough to give it right

back : "No fucking way. I'll call

the cops right now and I don't

really care what you think. I 

want 1100 bucks and it's none 

of your God-damned business 

what I do with my car or the

money. I'll have your son in 

so deep, and I'll close down 

your horseshit company too."

I got 900 bucks for a few

good rear panel dents. The 

shithead just peeled off the

fifties like toilet paper. Big

man in Little China.

-

One last car note: the MG

I drove around was that old

MG mustard color you used

to see a lot of. With a racing

stripe too, of black, over the

center. I hated it, and it really

looked like crap anyway. So

I went to Rickel's (a hardware

discounter back then), and

bought two quarts of what

was called RustOleum 'Swing

Set Silver' paint, and I painted,

with a brush, a heavy coating

of silver over the entire car.

It looked cool enough for me.

The two car guys, from Pine 

Top, both named Kenny, 

over where I worked at St.

George Press, where they

too worked some, they

thought it was hilarious, 

the most funny, foolish 

and hideous thing they'd 

ever seen. They drove race

cars; I said 'At least I'm not

driving around in something

that's covered by STP and

Valvoline stickers, and, besides,

this silver paint has been speed

tested and proven to make a

car go faster. Want to race?'

Har har.

-

I was just never much good in

the 'Reality' department. It still

runs that way, but now the end 

of my drain pipe is so close I

no longer care where it goes or

if it backs up. To Hell with all

that. One final note  - I sold a

car once, to some jerks from

somewhere local, and I let

them, after being asked. take

it away, to drive home, with 

my license plates still on it, 

with the claim that they'd 

return them in a day or two.

It was a Saturday. Later that

night, like about 1am, there's

a knock on my door and two

cops are there. My car had

been found, ditched, down in

some Carteret swamp. And 

what did I know about that?

Why had it been abandoned?

Carteret cops wanted to know

some answers, as did Metuchen.

I had to 'fess up, show the

paperwork we'd made for the

transaction (fortunately the

one guy's name and address 

was on it). They scolded me

big time for letting the car go

like that, with the plates  -  

even if just for the ride home.

If that ride home ever even

happened. No further questions.

No violations; just a half-lecture

about not being a jerk again.

I never did find out where the

car had been found, how, why,

or anything about it. But at 

least I had the cash. 
Damndest stuff.