Shiners and Chevettes

It was our anniversary. Not really, though, since there was no our anymore. But it didn’t stop me from doing what I did every year. When we were together under the same roof, when we lived 764 miles apart, and after she dumped me.

I’d go to a bar, a new bar. One I’d never been to. I’d order a Shiner Bock, drink it slowly, and put a quarter in the jukebox to play a sad song. I never had a song picked out. Mainly because every bar has a different jukebox. Some had old school ones – played 45s still. Most had Internet ones, so you could pick whatever song you wanted to hear. But, to pick a new one cost a dollar, which violated my quarter rule.

This year, I was in a place called May’s Picket Fence. It was in Jacksonville, North Carolina. The shithole of a town I found myself working in at the moment. For some reason I’d never left eastern North Carolina. Not even after. It was why things happened the way they did. Or at least as soon as they did. I’ve come to the realization, or rationalization, that it would have happened anyway. No matter what I did.

This year I’m sitting on the brown wooden barstool, one of the fancier ones with padding on the back and the butt. I’m drinking my Shiner and listening to American Aquarium talk about antique hearts and such. I wonder if B.J. Barham has really ever been in love. He’s too young to have had so many broken hearts, right? But hell, I’m just doing what everyone does to me. They don’t understand me, I don’t understand him.

I turn to my left and see a gal looking at Craigslist on her laptop. She’s about 25, maybe 30. Lots of bad tattoos up and down her back and arms. One is a bible verse in all black lettering. It takes up her entire shoulder area. It makes me wince. I still go up to her.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey yourself, cutie,” she responds. Up close, she’s at least 40. Lots of years on those eyes. But they’re blue, and piercing. So, I take a seat beside her.

“Cutie, huh?” I reply. “It’s been a long, long time since someone thought I was cute.” I smiled at her. I figured she’d see my golden teeth before too long, might as well get it out of the way. The last girl I talked to didn’t see them until we went outside. “Are you on meth or something?” she asked. I said no, and that seemed to be enough. We had sex in her Brat. I had never had sex in a Brat before. Hell, I’d never been in a Brat before. Those car/truck/whatever they are, they’re strange little autos.

I told her I’d like to buy her Brat. She said no. I asked why.

“Because you suck at fucking,” she said.

“Well, thanks for being honest,” I replied, getting out of the Brat. It was purple on the inside and brown on the outside.

“Just kiddin’,” she said with a wink. “You want to go to the Waffle House?”

I weighed my options, going with this girl I’d just met, and fucked, and sitting in Waffle House for about an hour, or going home and watching an episode of Jason of Star Command. Sid Haig won out.

But before she pulled away, she asked me: “Why do you want to buy my baby?”

This startled me. First, I had no idea this girl had kids. Second, I wasn’t in the market to buy anyone.

“Uh?” I muttered. “Not trying to start a family,” I finally managed.

“No, stupid,” she said. “I’m glad you fuck better than you think. My car. Why’d you want to buy it?”

“Oh…I wanted to buy it tonight, drive to wherever it dies and start living there.”

“That’s weird,” she said, giving me the wary once over.

“Yeah, I’m a little strange,” I replied. “But, at least I’m good at one thing.”

“And what’s that?” she laughed.

“Writing.”

“I hope your pencil’s always full of lead,” she said, starting the car and pulling away. She had Michigan tags on her car. I figured I’d never see her again. Even in the Facebook age. It helped we didn’t exchange names.

“You have a cute smile, too,” the lady at the bar said to me.

“Cutie with some cute, I must buy you a beer my darling.”

She giggled and blushed. I loved making a stranger blush. It meant I was doing something right. For a change.

“What are you drinking?” I asked.

“Shiner and whiskey,” she said.

“We’re a match made in heaven.”

“Or hell.”

“Or hell,” I repeated, clinking our now full beers together. She smiled. She had yellow teeth too.

I stared at the television in front of the taps. It had a soccer match on. Chelsea vs. Liverpool. I had no interest. Neither did anyone else in the bar. So I looked back at my new barstool friend. She was looking at Chevettes for sale on the local Craigslist.

“Why a Chevette?” I asked.

“I think they’re cute.”

“I sense a pattern here,” I replied, taking a gulp of beer and then a shot.

“Yeah, I only like cute things.”

“Let’s make a deal then,” I said confidently. It was the liquor and the beer. “If we find one for less than $400, let’s buy it and start driving.”

“Where to?”

“Wherever it takes us. Or better yet, however far it takes us.”

“Then what?”

“Well, I’ll stay there. You can too. If you want to. If not, I’ll put $200 in an envelope, and that’ll be your fare home.”

“Deal,” she said, shaking my hand.

We spent the next three hours looking at Chevettes on the internet. After those three hours – and about a dozen beers – we found one. It was in Beulaville, not too far from us. It was tan. It had “only the original 44,000 miles on it.” Of course it was b.s., but the ad said it ran.

“Meet you tomorrow in Beulaville?” I queried.

“How about we get a cab. That way, we don’t have to leave a car in that God-forsaken town.”

“OK.”

That night, I packed up 17 t-shirts – all of them Lucero, the band not the skateboard guy, shirts. Some underwear, a few pairs of jeans and some shorts. Two pairs of Sambas and some socks. Threw in a toothbrush, toothpaste and an electric razor.  And lastly, my laptop and in its bag 17 notebooks to write in.

I showed up back at the bar, as we’d talked about the night before, at 3 p.m. sharp. We had to be in Beulaville at 5. At 4:30, I called a cab and went by myself.

At the IGA in Beulaville, I paid a guy name Rob $325 for a 1981 Chevette. It purred like a kitten when I started it, and ran like a dead horse when you drove it. I still took it.

Figured I’d make it a couple miles and just go home.

Instead, three years and 145,985 miles later, I’m still driving. Waiting for it to break down. Even the month of only listening to one song – David Bowie’s “Heroes” – didn’t kill it. Or me.

So now, I’m the internet Chevette guy.

Started a Kickstarter page after three months. Said “I need money to drive my Chevette until it dies. I won’t change the oil, I won’t get filters. When it dies, it dies. And that’s where I’ll live.”

The first two months, it raised about $400. Enough for burritos. I ended up working odd jobs to pay for gas. And showers. But not much else.

So, I kept driving. And each anniversary, I stopped somewhere and had a Shiner and played a sad song.

“Where does the love go when it dies?” a singer asked.

I’d say in the driver’s seat of a 1981 Chevette. Until it decides to do otherwise.