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Signs of Life

Nancy Horner

Duct Tape, Gum and Extra Oil

Our philosophy when it comes to automobiles is "Drive 'Em Till They Drop." Literally. Thanks to that philosophy, our driveway has a tendency to resemble a used car lot. At the moment, three cars and a van in various states of repair sit two by two.

Before the 17-year-old Nissan became completely immobile and I acquired a Honda, I had to snatch the Nissan back from teenaged Daniel when my van began to object to the concept of going into reverse gear and the Mazda started spouting blue exhaust.

"Let me know how the Nissan drives," David told me as he walked out the door. I watched him climb into the car I refer to as "my beloved Mazda"—the most comfortable and quiet car I've ever owned.

'Let him know how the Nissan drives', I thought. Well, first things first. I had to remind myself that there's this little thingy called a clutch in the Nissan. I slid onto the faded vinyl, cringing at the torn headrest as William entered the passenger side. I'm not even going to mention how many years had passed since I bought fabric to cover up the tufts of foam that peeked out of the headrest. The stick-shift concept was simple enough to readapt to and I quickly fell into the old two-foot habit as I drove William to school.

The engine idled like a feisty kindergartner with blocks and there was a constant squeaking noise that was nearly as comforting as fingernails on a chalkboard. Okay, the brakes needed work; the latter was one sound I recognized. After a time, we turned a right-hand corner and the car made a horrendous grinding noise.

"Ack!" I said. "That can't be good." Will merely snored at me in reply. He provided the only music in the car because the cassette deck had chomped one tape too many and died, long before.

I dropped Will off at school and returned home. When I closed the car door, I gave it a little too solid a shove and the window fell about two inches. Oops, I'd forgotten that the window was no longer firmly attached. To open the driver-side window, you now had to push out on the glass with a finger while turning the crank. Raising the window was even worse. If it was lowered too far, the window had to literally be lifted and moved back into place before it could be cranked upward. Closing the door firmly had become ill advised.

At home for lunch, David asked me about the Nissan. "I'd rather drive my beloved Mazda," I told him.

"You can't—at least, until I figure out why it's burning oil and doesn’t want to go over 60 on the highway."

He asked me, again, about the Nissan. I told him about the various noises it made. He nodded, told me what the grinding and knocking noises meant and confirmed that the brakes needed to be changed.

"Really," I said. "This is how I think of it. Driving the Nissan is kind of like driving a cardboard box in the rain. Bits and pieces are falling off all around you, but the engine works great."

David laughed. "That's pretty much the truth. Most everything on it could probably be fixed with a little duct tape, gum and extra oil."

Four months later, Daniel drove the Nissan into the driveway after heading home from school at the car's new maximum speed of 5 miles per hour. The car promptly died in the driveway and has been gathering wasp nests ever since.

"I think I can fix the Nissan," David said a few days ago. "Mind if I pull it into the garage until I can work on it?"

"No, I don't mind," I answered.

'I guess,' I thought to myself, 'this means I need to check our supply of duct tape.'