THREE CARS FOR THREE CHEERLEADERS - 1980
I applied for a freshman year Federally Insured Student Loan, or FISL, two weeks before freshman year was over, and with all of my tuition, books, meals and dormitory expenses paid for months earlier from money my dad inherited from Aunt Blanche.
I applied for a sophomore year FISL the next day with all my sophomore year expenses already allotted for from Aunt Blanche’s largess too.
Soon, I had $5,000 in FISL money; so I did what any responsible 18-year-old in my situation would do…
I bought a used Buick – a 1978 Regal Limited with a waterfall grill, whitewalls, and crushed-velour pillow seats.
My decision may have been morally questionable, but being car-less at college was being date-less at college… and because the FISL was for college, and college meant living in dorms full of young women waiting to be asked out on dates, and having a car would make asking them out so much easier, I figured I was doing the right thing buying the used Buick.
I spent that entire summer break visiting the Sears Automotive Center, polishing and pampering the car, hanging a little evergreen air-freshener tree from the rearview mirror, and putting Armor-All over every thing resembling leather, all in preparation for sophomore year.
Just before school began again, my family and I planned a week down the shore in Wildwood Crest. But, the morning we were to leave I slept through my dad’s dozen and a half attempts to wake me up. Finally, through the stupor of my sleep, I heard him say “Fine, drive yourself.” When I woke up four hours later I found directions to the motel, a ham sandwich and an apple left for me on the dining room table.
I packed some clothes in a Glad garbage bag and hit the road, cranking the radio, blasting Holme’s “Garden State Parkway Boogie.” “When the weather gets great in the Garden State, everyone heads for the shore… Doing the Boogie, the Garden State Parkway Boogie, yeah.”
As I reached the Raritan River Bridges, I cracked the window to smell the ocean. Then, I saw a glint on the pavement. Remembering the lesson in driving class that it’s better to run over something small than swerve into something big, I rode over it.
BOOM – it banged against the undercarriage, at my foot. BOOM – it banged again, under the trunk. ROAR – the car screamed like a jet plane. My muffler was punctured.
Now, most people would have stopped for help, but I was 18, so I kept driving, with every other passerby yelling out, “You need a muffler.” “Thanks,” I mouthed, waving back. But I was making good time, and though the roar seemed to get louder and louder, the Regal sailed down the Parkway like on glass… very fast glass. I looked at the speedometer and saw that I was doing 100. I yanked my foot off of the gas but the car accelerated to 110.
Braking didn’t help, so I downshifted to first. But the safety on the transmission wouldn’t change gears because of my speed. So I stomped on the parking brake. This slowed the wheels enough that the safety on the transmission disengaged and the car downshifted at about 50 miles an hour, launching me into the windshield and retarding the wheels enough that the parking brake locked them up, which put the car in a full 360 spin, on the Garden State Parkway, the second heaviest artery in the most densely populated state in the Union.
Miraculously still alive and unhurt, I figured out that I could drive the car by keeping it in second and using the brake pedal to adjust my speed. I got off and found the first garage, where a mechanic put my sweet, cuddly, pretty, little Buick Regal on the lift and said that I’d bent my linkage. He did a little bit of work so that I could sort of drive again, but told me that the leak in the muffler would poison me with carbon monoxide pretty soon, so I probably shouldn’t drive the car that much.
It was like a gut punch. My Regal… my girl tool, wounded by a piece of who knows what? I drove back to the Garden State Parkway on ramp unsure if I would get on heading home or get on heading down the shore. Somehow, even though I was 18, common sense took over and I headed home.
I drove home praying that I’d be able to afford the repairs and wondering how I would ever get a girlfriend, let alone a cheerleader without the Regal. I nursed her to Midland Gulf, which was closed. I put a note on the windshield for Ed the mechanic, saying that I’d be back with the keys when they opened on Monday morning. I started on the shortcut back to my house, cutting through people’s yards like I used to when I was a kid, when all of a sudden, a middle-aged man jumped out of his house and shouted at me. I turned around and ran back to the sidewalk, taking the long way home, dreading telling my dad what had happened and hearing him tell me off for destroying the car.
It was Saturday night and I had nothing to do. I called Rappaport, my best friend who’d been working hard on making me the kind of guy who would get a girlfriend, taking me shopping for velour sweaters, getting me to listen to Led Zeppelin, and taking me to parties where kids knew how to dance like John Travolta in SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. “Come over,” he said, “I’ll call around and see who’s having a party.”
I told him the bad news, and that I’d be coming in my brother’s 1971 Ford Torino… a car that used to be mine… a car that Rappaport and I had both agreed was cool for hanging in… it did zero to sixty in eight-point-two seconds… but which would never attract a cheerleader, being huge, olive green, and sort of rusty.
On the way to Rappaport, doing 70 in a 25 MPH zone, I slammed on the brakes when the light at Farview changed from yellow to red without warning. For the second time in a day, I needed a protractor to measure my forward progress, as I did a 90 degree turn with all four wheels locked. The motor stuttered, sort of like the death rattle that I’d seen my grandmother’s silver tabby Brandy make just before she lay down and stopped breathing. And like Brandy, the Torino wouldn’t start again no matter how many times I tried.
I got out, pushed the crippled behemoth to the curb and walked home. Half an hour later, I met the Triple A driver at Midland Gulf. He had my brother’s Torino in tow and with the dexterity of a hall-of-fame wrecker driver; slipped the Torino into the narrow space between my Regal and a concrete wall. I left a note on my brother’s car for Ed the mechanic, explaining that I would come back with the keys to it on Monday morning. As an aside, Ed later told me that I jumped the timing chain in the Torino, which was impossible, because in order to generate the lateral force necessary to do that, I had to have been going 120 miles an hour when I hit a brick wall.
Once again, I started to cut through yards to get home, but when I saw the man who shouted at me, I made a quick U-turn to the sidewalk, while dreading telling my dad what had happened and hearing him tell me off for destroying two cars.
When I got home, I got the keys to my dad’s 1973 Plymouth Valiant and started it up. If you don’t know the Valiant, it was a box on four wheels. The headlights and grill looked like a perpetually smiling face – like a Christian Science usher at Sunday Morning services. My dad’s Valiant was nearing 200,000 miles and had old pillows stuffed into the springs in the holes in the front seat. If the Regal was a girl tool, and the Torino was a hanging out ride, the Valiant was an “I’m a nerd with no hope of ever talking to a cheerleader as long as I live piece of crap.” But it was all I had.
As I drove to Rappaport, I threw my dad’s old papers, boots, umbrellas and coffee cups from the front seat to the back seat. When I looked forward again black smoke was gushing from under the hood. For the life of me, I hadn’t done anything wrong, but there was no denying that smoke was billowing from the power steering. Other people on the street yelled out, “Your car’s on fire.” Well it wasn’t really on fire. It was just smoldering.
I was too embarrassed to call Triple A again, so I drove the smoking Valiant to Midland Gulf myself. I wedged it in front of the Regal and Torino, opened the hood and poured water over the power steering motor. I put a note on the windshield to Ed that I would be back on Monday morning with the keys to the Valiant.
I walked home on the sidewalk, which took twice as long as cutting through people’s yards. I dreaded telling my dad what had happened and hearing him tell me off for destroying three cars. God had gotten me back for using my FISL to buy the Regal.
“Chuckeee…” Rappaport said when I got on the phone with him, “I’ve got even worse news. There are no parties anywhere tonight.” I tried not to let him hear the tears in my voice, but I couldn’t help it. In three hours I’d destroyed three cars. I was in huge trouble when my parents got home. I didn’t have the money to fix any of the cars. My FISL was all gone. I was a loser. A loser, who was never going to get a girlfriend, let alone a cheerleader. Then Rappaport had an idea. We’d have a party at my house, with girls, lots of girls.
Two hours later, there were five guys at my house. They were drinking beer and singing along with Billy Joel’s album 52ND STREET. Finally, a knock came on the door. It was three… more guys. Then the doorbell rang again; it was two… more guys. We all stared at each other. The door swung open again. It was a guy who had a girl’s name sort of. I had 11 guys in my house and no car.
We danced like lunatics, jumping up and down to the music, “You had to be a big shot, did’ya...” When the door opened again, it was Big Red with more beer. The 12 of us bounced across my living room like we were on pogo sticks; gold chains and feathered haircuts flying everywhere, pounding to the beat of Billy Joel. I may have been a loser, but I wasn’t alone.
Then the doorbell rang – I walked over to it unenthusiastically and swung the door open. Suddenly my skin cooled, my capillaries slammed shut and my breath got lost in my lungs. I stood at the threshold of one of those moments in life when life is forever changed – when the road itself turns, rather than my having to turn myself. Standing on my stoop were three… varsity cheerleaders from Paramus High School, including the cheerleading captain.
They were beautiful. They smiled as if they had been trained in the art of smiling cutely. They had perfect teeth and perfect complexions. They burst through the door and kissed the cheeks of the boys they knew, while bobbing their heads to the sound of Billy Joel.
Rappaport gave me a high five and said, “Chuckee… it’s God’s present for his messing up your cars… God’s giving you three cheerleaders for the three cars.”
I ran to my room and got a camera. I took a picture of the three cheerleaders sitting at my parents’ dining room table. All of life is temporary sure, but moments like this were just a flicker… the single flash of a lightening bug, and I knew I had to record it to remind myself that it had actually happened. Then Rappaport grabbed me and sat me down with him and the three girls. He told them all about the three cars and how I’d had the worst day of my life. One of the girls asked what they could do to make me feel better. Rappaport answered, “Chuckee needs a girlfriend.”
BOOM, I felt my heart pound against my chest. BOOM, I felt my heart pound against my skull. My stomach did a 90 degree turn. My scalp began to smolder.
“Chuckee could get a girlfriend in a second if he just tried,” one of the cheerleaders said. I took another picture of her. This was a moment I had to remember forever. And it was then that I realized that God or not, the Regal had worked. The Regal, through whatever indirect means it chose to do it, had put three cheerleaders at the same dining room table on which I used to sit pretending to fly an airplane. The Regal had taken a bullet for me. Damn, I was going to do whatever I had to save that car.
As the night went on, more kids arrived and other kids left, but the three cheerleaders stayed put at my dining room table, asking me questions about college and, when I made them laugh, brushing their fingers against the top of my hand. I felt each touch in my spine.
And when the party finally came to an end, the three cheerleaders stayed and helped Rappaport and me clean the house so I wouldn’t get in trouble with my parents. One washed glasses in the sink. One vacuumed. One picked up trash and beer bottles. I wish, wish, wish I had had the nerve to photograph that – I etched it into my memory instead.
On Monday morning I woke up at 3:30 in the afternoon. I walked over to Midland Gulf, where Ed had moved the Torino into the garage, moved the Valiant into the Regal’s spot and moved the Regal into the Torino’s spot, all without keys. All three had their hoods up and he had to order parts for them, which was going to cost a bundle. “I hope your dad doesn’t get mad,” he said.
I nodded, self-assuredly, the sort of nod that a guy who hangs out with cheerleaders has, the kind of nod that says, “whatever… that’s life… everything will work out.” Because the truth of the matter was that is who I was. I gave the Regal a pat on the fender and then headed back home for breakfast, cutting through people’s yards like I used to when I was a kid, and didn’t get yelled at once. People don’t yell at guys who hang out with cheerleaders.
I applied for a sophomore year FISL the next day with all my sophomore year expenses already allotted for from Aunt Blanche’s largess too.
Soon, I had $5,000 in FISL money; so I did what any responsible 18-year-old in my situation would do…
I bought a used Buick – a 1978 Regal Limited with a waterfall grill, whitewalls, and crushed-velour pillow seats.
My decision may have been morally questionable, but being car-less at college was being date-less at college… and because the FISL was for college, and college meant living in dorms full of young women waiting to be asked out on dates, and having a car would make asking them out so much easier, I figured I was doing the right thing buying the used Buick.
I spent that entire summer break visiting the Sears Automotive Center, polishing and pampering the car, hanging a little evergreen air-freshener tree from the rearview mirror, and putting Armor-All over every thing resembling leather, all in preparation for sophomore year.
Just before school began again, my family and I planned a week down the shore in Wildwood Crest. But, the morning we were to leave I slept through my dad’s dozen and a half attempts to wake me up. Finally, through the stupor of my sleep, I heard him say “Fine, drive yourself.” When I woke up four hours later I found directions to the motel, a ham sandwich and an apple left for me on the dining room table.
I packed some clothes in a Glad garbage bag and hit the road, cranking the radio, blasting Holme’s “Garden State Parkway Boogie.” “When the weather gets great in the Garden State, everyone heads for the shore… Doing the Boogie, the Garden State Parkway Boogie, yeah.”
As I reached the Raritan River Bridges, I cracked the window to smell the ocean. Then, I saw a glint on the pavement. Remembering the lesson in driving class that it’s better to run over something small than swerve into something big, I rode over it.
BOOM – it banged against the undercarriage, at my foot. BOOM – it banged again, under the trunk. ROAR – the car screamed like a jet plane. My muffler was punctured.
Now, most people would have stopped for help, but I was 18, so I kept driving, with every other passerby yelling out, “You need a muffler.” “Thanks,” I mouthed, waving back. But I was making good time, and though the roar seemed to get louder and louder, the Regal sailed down the Parkway like on glass… very fast glass. I looked at the speedometer and saw that I was doing 100. I yanked my foot off of the gas but the car accelerated to 110.
Braking didn’t help, so I downshifted to first. But the safety on the transmission wouldn’t change gears because of my speed. So I stomped on the parking brake. This slowed the wheels enough that the safety on the transmission disengaged and the car downshifted at about 50 miles an hour, launching me into the windshield and retarding the wheels enough that the parking brake locked them up, which put the car in a full 360 spin, on the Garden State Parkway, the second heaviest artery in the most densely populated state in the Union.
Miraculously still alive and unhurt, I figured out that I could drive the car by keeping it in second and using the brake pedal to adjust my speed. I got off and found the first garage, where a mechanic put my sweet, cuddly, pretty, little Buick Regal on the lift and said that I’d bent my linkage. He did a little bit of work so that I could sort of drive again, but told me that the leak in the muffler would poison me with carbon monoxide pretty soon, so I probably shouldn’t drive the car that much.
It was like a gut punch. My Regal… my girl tool, wounded by a piece of who knows what? I drove back to the Garden State Parkway on ramp unsure if I would get on heading home or get on heading down the shore. Somehow, even though I was 18, common sense took over and I headed home.
I drove home praying that I’d be able to afford the repairs and wondering how I would ever get a girlfriend, let alone a cheerleader without the Regal. I nursed her to Midland Gulf, which was closed. I put a note on the windshield for Ed the mechanic, saying that I’d be back with the keys when they opened on Monday morning. I started on the shortcut back to my house, cutting through people’s yards like I used to when I was a kid, when all of a sudden, a middle-aged man jumped out of his house and shouted at me. I turned around and ran back to the sidewalk, taking the long way home, dreading telling my dad what had happened and hearing him tell me off for destroying the car.
It was Saturday night and I had nothing to do. I called Rappaport, my best friend who’d been working hard on making me the kind of guy who would get a girlfriend, taking me shopping for velour sweaters, getting me to listen to Led Zeppelin, and taking me to parties where kids knew how to dance like John Travolta in SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. “Come over,” he said, “I’ll call around and see who’s having a party.”
I told him the bad news, and that I’d be coming in my brother’s 1971 Ford Torino… a car that used to be mine… a car that Rappaport and I had both agreed was cool for hanging in… it did zero to sixty in eight-point-two seconds… but which would never attract a cheerleader, being huge, olive green, and sort of rusty.
On the way to Rappaport, doing 70 in a 25 MPH zone, I slammed on the brakes when the light at Farview changed from yellow to red without warning. For the second time in a day, I needed a protractor to measure my forward progress, as I did a 90 degree turn with all four wheels locked. The motor stuttered, sort of like the death rattle that I’d seen my grandmother’s silver tabby Brandy make just before she lay down and stopped breathing. And like Brandy, the Torino wouldn’t start again no matter how many times I tried.
I got out, pushed the crippled behemoth to the curb and walked home. Half an hour later, I met the Triple A driver at Midland Gulf. He had my brother’s Torino in tow and with the dexterity of a hall-of-fame wrecker driver; slipped the Torino into the narrow space between my Regal and a concrete wall. I left a note on my brother’s car for Ed the mechanic, explaining that I would come back with the keys to it on Monday morning. As an aside, Ed later told me that I jumped the timing chain in the Torino, which was impossible, because in order to generate the lateral force necessary to do that, I had to have been going 120 miles an hour when I hit a brick wall.
Once again, I started to cut through yards to get home, but when I saw the man who shouted at me, I made a quick U-turn to the sidewalk, while dreading telling my dad what had happened and hearing him tell me off for destroying two cars.
When I got home, I got the keys to my dad’s 1973 Plymouth Valiant and started it up. If you don’t know the Valiant, it was a box on four wheels. The headlights and grill looked like a perpetually smiling face – like a Christian Science usher at Sunday Morning services. My dad’s Valiant was nearing 200,000 miles and had old pillows stuffed into the springs in the holes in the front seat. If the Regal was a girl tool, and the Torino was a hanging out ride, the Valiant was an “I’m a nerd with no hope of ever talking to a cheerleader as long as I live piece of crap.” But it was all I had.
As I drove to Rappaport, I threw my dad’s old papers, boots, umbrellas and coffee cups from the front seat to the back seat. When I looked forward again black smoke was gushing from under the hood. For the life of me, I hadn’t done anything wrong, but there was no denying that smoke was billowing from the power steering. Other people on the street yelled out, “Your car’s on fire.” Well it wasn’t really on fire. It was just smoldering.
I was too embarrassed to call Triple A again, so I drove the smoking Valiant to Midland Gulf myself. I wedged it in front of the Regal and Torino, opened the hood and poured water over the power steering motor. I put a note on the windshield to Ed that I would be back on Monday morning with the keys to the Valiant.
I walked home on the sidewalk, which took twice as long as cutting through people’s yards. I dreaded telling my dad what had happened and hearing him tell me off for destroying three cars. God had gotten me back for using my FISL to buy the Regal.
“Chuckeee…” Rappaport said when I got on the phone with him, “I’ve got even worse news. There are no parties anywhere tonight.” I tried not to let him hear the tears in my voice, but I couldn’t help it. In three hours I’d destroyed three cars. I was in huge trouble when my parents got home. I didn’t have the money to fix any of the cars. My FISL was all gone. I was a loser. A loser, who was never going to get a girlfriend, let alone a cheerleader. Then Rappaport had an idea. We’d have a party at my house, with girls, lots of girls.
Two hours later, there were five guys at my house. They were drinking beer and singing along with Billy Joel’s album 52ND STREET. Finally, a knock came on the door. It was three… more guys. Then the doorbell rang again; it was two… more guys. We all stared at each other. The door swung open again. It was a guy who had a girl’s name sort of. I had 11 guys in my house and no car.
We danced like lunatics, jumping up and down to the music, “You had to be a big shot, did’ya...” When the door opened again, it was Big Red with more beer. The 12 of us bounced across my living room like we were on pogo sticks; gold chains and feathered haircuts flying everywhere, pounding to the beat of Billy Joel. I may have been a loser, but I wasn’t alone.
Then the doorbell rang – I walked over to it unenthusiastically and swung the door open. Suddenly my skin cooled, my capillaries slammed shut and my breath got lost in my lungs. I stood at the threshold of one of those moments in life when life is forever changed – when the road itself turns, rather than my having to turn myself. Standing on my stoop were three… varsity cheerleaders from Paramus High School, including the cheerleading captain.
They were beautiful. They smiled as if they had been trained in the art of smiling cutely. They had perfect teeth and perfect complexions. They burst through the door and kissed the cheeks of the boys they knew, while bobbing their heads to the sound of Billy Joel.
Rappaport gave me a high five and said, “Chuckee… it’s God’s present for his messing up your cars… God’s giving you three cheerleaders for the three cars.”
I ran to my room and got a camera. I took a picture of the three cheerleaders sitting at my parents’ dining room table. All of life is temporary sure, but moments like this were just a flicker… the single flash of a lightening bug, and I knew I had to record it to remind myself that it had actually happened. Then Rappaport grabbed me and sat me down with him and the three girls. He told them all about the three cars and how I’d had the worst day of my life. One of the girls asked what they could do to make me feel better. Rappaport answered, “Chuckee needs a girlfriend.”
BOOM, I felt my heart pound against my chest. BOOM, I felt my heart pound against my skull. My stomach did a 90 degree turn. My scalp began to smolder.
“Chuckee could get a girlfriend in a second if he just tried,” one of the cheerleaders said. I took another picture of her. This was a moment I had to remember forever. And it was then that I realized that God or not, the Regal had worked. The Regal, through whatever indirect means it chose to do it, had put three cheerleaders at the same dining room table on which I used to sit pretending to fly an airplane. The Regal had taken a bullet for me. Damn, I was going to do whatever I had to save that car.
As the night went on, more kids arrived and other kids left, but the three cheerleaders stayed put at my dining room table, asking me questions about college and, when I made them laugh, brushing their fingers against the top of my hand. I felt each touch in my spine.
And when the party finally came to an end, the three cheerleaders stayed and helped Rappaport and me clean the house so I wouldn’t get in trouble with my parents. One washed glasses in the sink. One vacuumed. One picked up trash and beer bottles. I wish, wish, wish I had had the nerve to photograph that – I etched it into my memory instead.
On Monday morning I woke up at 3:30 in the afternoon. I walked over to Midland Gulf, where Ed had moved the Torino into the garage, moved the Valiant into the Regal’s spot and moved the Regal into the Torino’s spot, all without keys. All three had their hoods up and he had to order parts for them, which was going to cost a bundle. “I hope your dad doesn’t get mad,” he said.
I nodded, self-assuredly, the sort of nod that a guy who hangs out with cheerleaders has, the kind of nod that says, “whatever… that’s life… everything will work out.” Because the truth of the matter was that is who I was. I gave the Regal a pat on the fender and then headed back home for breakfast, cutting through people’s yards like I used to when I was a kid, and didn’t get yelled at once. People don’t yell at guys who hang out with cheerleaders.
2 comments:
That's a good ass story.
Valiant's were indestructable.
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