Splatter: a Story About Friends

When I was 16 years old, I bought my first car. This was after the destruction of the first car I drove in high school, my mom's red 1986 Hyundai Excel. I planned for the Hyundai to be my car forever and always, that is, until I got creamed by a woman in front of Hawks stadium.

The car I bought for a cool $800 dollars later that year was similar to the Hyundai--a red, 1987 Chevy Sprint. It had a 3-cylinder engine, got 50 miles to the gallon, and was once picked up by four boys and moved a few feet, all while I sat in it. It survived being plowed into by Justin's big 1970's Dodge pickup, when Justin was driving like a maniac in the school parking lot. We both went home, lied, and said someone had hit-and-run our cars at school. We confessed years later. The Sprint had a serious vapor-lock issue during the summer, and it looked as though I was drunk-driving from about June through the end of August because on any given summer day, suddenly, the car would die, hitting a spot of air in the engine, then sputter along, and then suddenly take off like a bat out of hell.

I got pulled over once on the way home from Moscow where I was visiting a friend at college. The Sprint did not make it up hills well, so every time I found a hill to go down, I floored it, all the way through the subsequent valley, and up the next hill. The cop outside of Moscow caught me on the way down the hill. After he gave me the ticket, and followed me up the next hill, I think he understood my raging speed (which was probably about 80mph tops--that car shook so much, I am surprised we didn't lose the wheels), and regretted ever pulling me over. I like to believe that he considered pulling me back over to take back the ticket, but he was afraid he would have to push me with his crash bar the rest of the way up the hill because I wouldn't make it otherwise.

When I turned eighteen, I bought a new car. I reluctantly parked the Sprint in front of our house and removed the license plates. I wanted to keep it and maybe give it to my nephew when he was of driving age (he was five at the time). My mom wouldn't hear of it: she made me sell my poor car.

I sold it to a friend's brother-in-law and the brother-in-law's business partner. They owned a construction business and drove big diesel trucks; so, they thought the Sprint would be a good vehicle for driving between construction sites. I wanted to sell it for $500.00: my mom thought that was way too much. I sold the Sprint for $300.00. I owned it for a little over two years; when I sold it, my heart broke, and my heart breaks to tell you this story now. I asked my friend for months after the sale how my car was doing, and I have discovered as the years have passed that this is something I do: I get attached to inanimate objects, mainly my old beater cars, until they are personified in my mind. My dad, before he died, had a penchant for old junker cars, and people rarely understand my passion. Some say it's genetic, I think it is a genetic disorder. The friend always said things like "it's great," "it's running well!" It turns out, he was lying.

Shortly after I sold the car, the business partner of the brother-in-law shot himself in the Sprint. The brother-in-law and sister of my friend called the junkyard, only to hear that it was best for them not to come pick the Sprint up, as it was covered in blood and skull fragments. Now, let that sink in. What I'm saying is, my friend was gone, destroyed. For a long time after I found out, I tried to find the car--not because I wanted it back, but just because I felt like I needed to wish it goodbye and praise it for its years of hard work and early retirement at the hands of someone--I don't want to say selfish--but someone not worthy of owning the car that had become my friend that did me right for so many years.

I tell this story now because I have found another love ( a few have come and gone since then, and I even bumped into one of them on a dead-end street last month), my Saab. I bought the Saab in 2007, and I love it. Recently, it had to have major work, and I considered finding a new car because the work was more than the car is worth. But as I found myself crying at work over it one day, my co-worker said, "If you are crying over it, you might as well fix it." He was right. So, I did.

Now, though, it's getting to the point where little things are going wrong sporadically, and recently, I had to replace the instrument cluster after it had been ailing for about a year (the whole dash had come to complete stop), which I thought involved replacing some wiring behind the dash. It turns out it is the whole instrument panel and everything that goes along with it. I didn't discover this until the morning after I had picked up my car. The shop had it for a couple days because they were looking for a used part because inexpensive new instrument clusters are hard to come by.

When I turned it on the first morning I had it back in my possession, I noticed the warning lights were designed differently, and that is when I discovered some hard water spots on the plastic cover of the panel. On closer inspection, I saw a splatter, a smattering if you will, of rust colored spots. As I scraped one of the spots with my fingernail, and held it closer to my eyes, that's when I discovered it--blood. Little flecks of dried blood. From an accident? Maybe. From a suicide? Possible. I haven't called the shop to tell them, and I don't know that I will. I cleaned the blood off, and while I was disturbed at first, I know I have a piece of someone's friend (the car, not a human--though maybe that, too), and I am going to treat it right.