August 31, 2009

Prelude to the open road

• By Fredrick
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Even at the time I thought it was a little suspicious how early dusk came about that night, but now it's painfully clear to me that the sudden darkness was simply the re-emergence of that spiteful dark cloud that seems to haunt my every automobile endeavor.  It should have been obvious from the difficulty I was having simply releasing the battery contacts that this wasn't going to be the seamless transition I was hoping for; yet rather an ominous foreshadowing of the struggle to come. Still, I cut the check and took the key; if anything it puts me at least one step closer to goal of unfettered travel - a goal which, even now, seems perpetually out of reach.

The whole situation started when I spotted a lovely car in the parking lot with a 'for sale' sign in the window. It was a stunning car, an unblemished grey 2001 Hyundai Accent, and it was priced modestly for its condition. I snapped a picture of the sign in case the car was to travel off somewhere, and sat on the information for a few weeks. I didn't have the money to buy the car upfront, and most people these days aren't trusting enough to make payments. As time dragged on the car sat right where it was, serving as a constant reminder of what could be. Eventually I decided to give it a shot and gave the number a call.

The guy on the other end of the line was a swell character; very enthusiastic to get rid of his car which only served as dead weight to a fellow who now lived in Connecticut and was situated only a block away from his office. I didn't even need to convince him to take payments, he seemed happy enough just to have someone that was interested. This was several months ago, but the wheels were set in motion. For many weeks I sat around waiting for the next step to happen, and every call I made to him to check up on the status felt like a step backwards in progress. We waited on the title for several weeks, and then I waited several more for him to free up the time to come to New Paltz. All the while we were experiencing the wettest summer of my life; one that saw rain almost every day during the month of June and heavy showers straight through August. This whole time the car was sitting stationary in the parking lot.

Two days ago I finally met the man who held the title to the lovely Accent I looked out on every morning from my bedroom window. He showed up late with a new battery. Everything from the battery contacts to the bracket that held the battery in place was rusted tightly shut, which is to be expected when a car sits dormant for so long. I tried wrenching the tiny bolts lose with a pair of jewelry pliers to no avail; luckily the more hardships we encountered, the more tools he found in the trunk. Though I managed to get the contacts off, the bracket wasn't going to budge and we were, then, working in total darkness. He had a date to get to and I was supposed to go to dinner with Miranda, so he left me with a car, and I sent him off with a check for my entire savings. Over dinner I told Mira that it would be fine and she said that for all the things I remain so pessimistic about, I retain a hopeless optimism about matters of transportation.

The next morning I woke up early, eager to drive that car in circles around the parking lot. The advice I got from my mechanic was to carefully break the bracket, and the most careful thing I could muster was to bend it forward allowing me the space to take it out. At last! I popped the new battery in and slid the contacts on. While the negative cinched up, I realized that the positive bolt never moved in the first place. Somehow it loosened up enough to take it off the old battery, but getting it to close tightly around the new one was impossible. What was once a bolt and a nut was now a tangled knot of rust - it wasn't going to move. It was, however, touching enough for me to start the car.

There were a thousand potential problems running through my mind when I put that key in the ignition. I expected a struggle, I expected to turn it over several times, I expected to pump the gas, to grit my teeth, even to bang my head against the steering wheel and ask myself why I'm so naïve. But it didn't happen. It started, first try, and it sounded spectacular. It wasn't silent by any means, which serves me well considering the only time I drove a truly silent car I wound up going 90 mph through a speed-trap. It was smooth, though, and it was quiet enough; but could it move? Despite the loose battery contact I couldn't resist the urge to move. So I did. I pulled out of the space, and the resulting sound was as if some monster was ripping through the Earth's crust. I was told that would be normal, but even that knowledge didn't make me feel safe when I applied the break and heard a sound like someone chewing a mouthful of rocks. I could feel everything.

Not wanting to wake the neighborhood up with my cacophonous car, I put it away and went inside to take care of bureaucratic nonsense. Insurance and DMV forms were still waiting for me, and with each came an exorbitant price tag. My insurance came to four times the amount I was previously paying; for example, insurance on my 1985 Volkswagen Rabbit was $42 a month. This car is costing me $200. In addition I also had to pay sales tax on the $1,800 I paid for the car. With all the hidden costs, I wasn't just investing my savings, I was investing everything. I wasn't sitting pretty before, but this investment has me submerged in poverty. I was okay with that, though, because, like college, it's something you invest in today with hopes of a better tomorrow.

With all my forms filled out and everything else in order, I packed my bag and boarded a bus to Kingston. Of course, it wouldn't be easy enough to go straight there - I had to take a bus to SUNY Ulster, transfer, and the go to Kingston Plaza before I could walk to the DMV. I took a number and sat there for half an hour, and when I finally got to the window the lady attempted to turn me away, saying I needed a bill of sale. Through firm insistence I assured her it wasn't needed and she conceded and gave me my plates. I was filled with joy, truly ecstatic. I could have skipped out of the office whistling zippity do-da. I was in such good spirit that I didn't let the hour I spent waiting for the bus back to New Paltz get me down, despite the fact that the crazy lady to my left was telling everyone she was Marilyn Monroe, and the super morbidly obese man to my right had a belly so saggy that it hung well below the bottom of his shirt. I must have second-hand smoked at least a pack of cheap cigarettes, and the strip mall expanse wasn't very inspiring to look at. I was just thrilled when the bus for New Paltz showed up.

I ran straight from the bus stop to my apartment, giddy at the thought of putting those plates on and rolling around these foreign hills, and consequentially rolling towards the familiar hills of western New York in the next few days. I was told that taking the car downhill and riding the brakes slightly would free the brake rotors of the neglectful corrosion. I pasted my registration on the window, screwed the plates on the bumpers and with a dreadful screech pulled out of the parking lot and right onto South Chestnut. I went up and down and rode the brakes gingerly, but the clockwork clunking didn't cease, in fact it got worse. The shrill scraping was joined by a reminiscent sound of metal-on-metal dragging - something had come loose. I wanted to stop and turn around, but when I applied pressure to the brake I was surprised to find that nothing happened. I pressed harder, harder, straight to the ground. There was a slow to my rolling, but a pull to the left. At the crest of the hill was a parking lot which I was able to slow down enough to stop in.

Time for advice again, I relayed my current dilemma to the only person I know that I can trust, and he had me run around and evaluate things. It wasn't a problem with the master cylinder, which seemed like a good thing at first, until I peaked under the car and saw a river of brake fluid flowing from the passenger side wheel. Fantastic, there's no where I'd rather be than the top of a steep hill with no brakes. I composed enough bravery to roll myself down the hill and hopefully into my parking lot, but when I tried to start her up, nothing happened. I had forgotten completely about the lose battery contact, and had come off when I slammed the hood closed after the cylinder inspection. So I began an unamusing game of fix this fix that until I managed to get the car running, at which point I carefully rolled out onto the road.

As you can imagine, since I'm writing this now, I made it home alive. There were no casualties, automobile or otherwise. The only thing that sustained any damage was my hopes. There was no longer any room to look at the situation in any way other than reality; there were problems, and unfortunately these problems couldn't be postponed until I made it to Corning, I wasn't even safe driving a few miles.

So what's a guy to do after he sinks everything into a little glimpse of hope, only to find himself in the same situation he was in before, sans the savings? That's what I'm attempting to decipher now. While I want, so badly, just to analyze the problem and fix it myself, I also realize that I have no mechanical skills and no tools; I don't even have a jack to lift the car up with. I guess I'm just going to have to take this day by day.