I've always owned old cars, for several reasons. They're built better, they're easier to work on, they're cheaper to buy (or, they used to be, before the money grab of the great pandemic) and lastly, it's against my personal religion to waste or throw things away, "Are you gonna eat that?". Also, I'm not someone who sees the car as an object to coddle or treat like a family member. I see them strictly as utilitarian. This old Ford in the photos belongs to a musician friend in Normaltown, in Athens. I've been working on my 22 year-old truck a lot lately, not certain how long I can keep breathing life into it, but this ain't no walkin' town. It ain't a petite village in France. So, I keep working.
Jump ~ Alison Luterman
Because my car is twenty years old
and the gizmo that goes ding ding ding
when you leave the lights on
has been busted for at least a decade,
I’m always contending with a comatose battery,
always approaching strangers to ask for a jump
in Trader Joe’s parking lot
or on a deserted street in the growing dark,
where a man in a python-green Porsche
affixes the red and black alligator clamps confidently
yet incorrectly, killing the thing altogether,
resulting in a 10 p.m. call to Triple A,
an hours-long wait at a 7-Eleven,
and a midnight ride sitting in the cab
of a tow truck whose driver had just been dumped
by his wife of eleven years
and desperately needed to talk about it.
These are the adventures you may have
if you tend to leave your lights on, as I do,
at dusk when the light is tricky, the hour
between dog and wolf the French call it,
when the distracted mind is too full of shadows
to remember what the body did just moments ago.
By now I’m an old pro at setting up cables,
fitting black to minus, red to plus,
but I’ll never get over the small miracle
of how fast it all works, the spark arcing
quicker than thought
as soon as a benefactor turns their ignition switch;
my own car springing to life again
like Sleeping Beauty after just the right kiss,
the way a smile will ricochet from a stranger’s face
to my own, or one kind word retrieve
a flailing soul from the abyss.
This next poem, still one of my all-time favorites. I was turned onto it sometime in the mid to late 90s when Richard Ford read it at a book signing at the Capitola Book Cafe, in Capitola, California. So nice to hear it read with his Mississippi accent.
THE CAR ~ Raymond Carver
The car with a cracked windshield.
The car that threw a rod.
The car without brakes.
The car with a faulty U-joint.
The car with a hole in its radiator.
The car I picked peaches for.
The car with a cracked block.
The car with no reverse gear.
The car I traded for a bicycle.
The car with steering problems.
The car with generator trouble.
The car with no back seat.
The car with the torn front seat.
The car that burned oil.
The car with the rotten hoses.
The car that left the restaurant without paying.
The car with bald tires.
The car with no heater or defroster.
The car with its front end out of alignment.
The car the child threw up in.
The car I threw up in.
The car with the broken water pump.
The car whose timing gear was shot.
The car with the blown head-gasket.
The car I left on the side of the road.
The car that leaked carbon monoxide.
The car with the sticky carburetor.
The car that hit the dog and kept going.
The car with the hole in its muffler.
The car my daughter wrecked.
The car with the twice-rebuilt engine.
The car with the corroded battery cables.
The car bought with a bad check.
Car of my sleepless nights.
The car with a stuck thermostat.
The car whose engine caught fire.
The car with no headlights.
The car with a broken fan belt.
The car with wipers that wouldn’t work.
The car I gave away.
The car with transmission trouble.
The car I washed my hands of.
The car I struck with a hammer.
The car with payments that couldn’t be met.
The repossessed car.
The car whose clutch-pin broke.
The car waiting on the back lot.
Car of my dreams.
My car.
