Our old car had a name. We called her GemmaStar. GemmStar was a Drama Queen. She liked attention, especially when she felt the need for a melt-down. Intersections were her favorite for acting out. Her final performance, was, over the top, hot damn, shazamm!
Every year, the last week of October, our community celebrates Halloween in a BIG way. Decorations, drawing contests, writing contests, pumpkin carving contests, scary store hour at the public library, costume contests, dances and parties for all ages. However, the most anticipated event is the Halloween Parade. Every store front of the main downtown district, on both sides of the street, provides a costume clad employee and a giant candy filled caldron at their door. Participants (including pets with pet parents), start at one end of the street, Trick-Or-Treat door to door, cross over then do the same on the other side making a colorful, crazy, energy filled, loop. Costumes are judged by a dozen randomly placed city officials along the sidewalk. Of course, wherever there are kids in costume, or pets in costume, there are grandparents. Lots and lots of grandparents with lots and lots of cameras. Big crowds. Big fun.
Something I could never understand about this parade – not being native to the area, was the fact that during this parade, traffic is still allowed to access the street. I’ve always felt the city should just block the street off like all other parades. Vehicle drivers and passengers are so distracted by the costumes, no one dares move above a snails pace. Traffic flow, pedestrian and vehicular, are carefully monitored by police officers at the major intersections.
My car, my Gemma Star The Drama Queen, had needed so many repairs and parts replaced in previous months I was beginning to suspect she had a crush on our mechanic. Since we had been having water pump issues, my mechanic speculated the water pump would be next to blow. On his advice I carried three gallons of water in my trunk at all times.
So, here it is, Friday afternoon, Halloween Parade day. I’d just picked my 15 year old daughter up from school plus one of her friends. My normal route is right up Main Street. The part of my brain that’s supposed to keep me out of trouble was having a sick day but I never got the memo. Following routine, I headed up Main. We were swallowed up in bumper to bumper traffic with no, literally, NO WAY OUT. Not a space to pull in to, not drive way or even entrance to a drive way. I remembered what my mechanic said about the potential water pump blow. Crap. I began to pray silently and most sincerely in my heart.
Momentarily my prayer was interrupted by a “gurgle, gurgle, sluuup, sluuup”. The sincerity of my prayer reached Saint level. “Gurgle, sluuuup, gurgle,” apparently God takes sick days too because He wasn’t answering. I glanced at my daughter. She was crossing herself faster than she can text – we’re not Catholic, but in times like these why not cover all bases ? All the while looking at me, eyes large with knowing, fear and dread. I peeked at her friend in my rear view mirror. She was sitting straight up, eyes and ears wide open. “Glump, glump, gurgle, jerk, jerk, jerk”. From the back seat, the friend spoke, “Was that your car making those noises?” I was trying to think of something clever and distracting to say when, “Glump, glump, sloooop! Guurgle, guurgle, jerk, jerkk!” Next thing out of her mouth was “if you don’t mind, I’ll just get out here and walk the rest of the way home.” And she did. She was out the door in a flash and bolting for distance before the door finished swinging shut. “Glunk, glunk, jerk, jerk, wobble, shiver.” I looked at my daughter again. She was sinking lower and lower in her seat hoping that for the first time in her life she was invisible. You see, there was the very likely possibility she would be recognized by some of these parading people.
The needle of the thermometer started a steady rise to the red zone. I to pull over – NOW! There was nothing. “Dear God, not here! Not nooow,” my prayer no longer silent. Gemma crawled forward a few feet. “Slluuup, slluuuuup, rattle, shudder, shudder” needle still rising. We moved a few more feet. “Not here, not now, not here, not now’’ prayer had turned mantra. “Uh, Mom?” my invisible child spoke, “the cars not going to blow up is it?” I had an aching memory of another time in another car when its needle hit the red zone, there was an explosion before everything slowed to a smoldering, smoking, hissing, stop.
“Blup, blup , blup, gurgle, gurgle,” needle still rising. Damn, damn, damn. I was holding my breath and white knuckling the steering wheel, looking for any spot or driveway we could pull into. The needle was now in the red zone. Smoke was beginning to curl from under the hood. I did the only thing I could do. We were just coming up on an intersection. I pulled over into the no stopping or parking zone at the corner, the lane for right hand turns, braked to a stop and quickly killed the engine. The cop 10 feet in front of me, blew hard on his whistle at me and motioned for me to get the heck out of the way, apparently his vision was incapable of detecting the smoke pouring from under a hood. I popped the hood and got out of the car. He blew his whistle again shaking his head as he did so, and raised his hands in the universal WTF(?) gesture. I turned my back on him and carefully lifted the hood. Giving up on whistles and hand gestures he yelled at me, “You can’t stop there!” Cars wanting to make that right hand turn, were backing up and honking. I wonder if there’s a world somewhere where honking at the annoying smoking car will make it disappear - I’ll have to keep that in mind. Even if there had been people willing to push the car out of the way there was nowhere to put it for at least a mile in any direction.
Finally, the police officer began directing traffic around us. The car was too hot to add water to, it was hissing and smoking, sputtering and gurgling loudly. Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed my phone and called my mechanic, his shop was less than two miles away. Water was steaming its way from under the car to the ditch. This is bad enough right? Wait. One more logistical piece of information. This just happened to be the intersection in front of the most popular ice cream place in town – especially on parade days!!! If you weren’t Trick or Treating with the other 600 people on the street, you were in the ice cream shop, or standing in line on the sidewalk waiting to get in.
My daughter, knowing it would only be a matter of minutes before she was recognized, therefore sealing her utter doom for the rest of her high school career, bailed on me too. “Outta here, see you at home – I’ll be under my bed,” and she was gone. I longed to go with her. Why not? I could pretend like I was a parade spectator and vanish into the crowd and feel sorry for the poor bastard, whoever he was, that left his smoking car beside the curb. A hard icy stare from the police officer told me that, although he was slow on the draw when it came to seeing smoke, he knew exactly what I was thinking and I’d darn well better not try it! I was so embarrassed. I wanted to cry. Defeated for the moment, I left the hood up for the car to cool and got back inside – passenger side this time. I sank as low in the seat as my legs would permit, trying to disappear.
“Look at that car Mommy,” a small voice rose over the sound of the crowd outside the window. I peeked over the windows edge, and there, just a few from me, was a three foot bumble bee holding on to his mother’s hand and pointing at my car with his free one.
I looked around me, cowboys, French Maids in short skirts, gypsies, aliens, mummies, pirates, witches, Power Rangers, princesses, Transformers, butterflies, bumble bees, parents and grand parents – faces in windows, faces everywhere! And they were all looking at me! That’s it - I was firing God!!
I waited 15 minutes then called my mechanic again. Still no answer. I could hear the shuffling feet and whispers as the crowds milled past. A jelly fish costume floated past my window – wow, a jelly-fish, that was pretty cool. Then Thing I and Thing 2 from The Cat In The Hat marched by the window. Two twin Dorothy’s from the Wizard of Oz giggled past my steaming car.
I called my son, don’t know what I expected him to do, he lives in Utah. I wanted someone who cared about me to know I was suffering. Another small Bumble Bee crossing the street, holding her mother’s hand pointed, “Look at that broken car Mommy!” “Yes, isn’t it sad” Mommy affirmed. I called my mechanic again, and again no answer. I became more aware of the costumes. Little green hulks, a jar of mustard, Strawberry Shortcake, witches, pirates, little bitty pumpkins, candy corns, hockey players, more than one Darth Vader all slowly marching past my car. Scooby Doo and his sidekicks, Woody and Jesse from Toy Story, a puppy, several black cats. Since the hood was up and people are curious by nature many of them slowed to peek at the exposed engine. A crayon and a banana walked by. A white teenage kid dressed up like Aunt Jamima walked by, I wasn’t invisible to him, he waved. A couple of Dracula’s, lots of little Iron Mans, OBWan Kenobe, bats, a variety of Disney characters – Buzz Lightyear, a lobster. Back on my cell to my mechanic – still no answer. Then it hit me, he was with his doing a similar Halloween Parade! I wasn’t going to hear from him. A group of mermaids wiggled past, then a dragonfly, more witches, another Bumble Bee, this one in her father’s arms – she pointed at me too!! What was it with the Bumble Bees and pointing?!
I was contemplating the possible penalties for squashing baby bumble bees during a Halloween parade when I noticed 3 teenage boys, no older than 13 or 14 making their way across the street, right toward me. They were wearing matching white with blue baseball uniforms, and to my horror were being drawn to the open hood like a magnet. By the time they reached the front bumper all I could see in the space beneath the hood was their hips. I felt the car jostle softly as they leaned against it, looking over into the exposed engine. They had no idea I was in the car. With the windows down, I could hear everything they said to each other.
“Whao, Duuuuuuuude! Look at this car!”
“What do ya think happened?” A voice very matter of factly said, “Blew a head gasket . . . . . . . . . . DUUUUHHHHHHH.”
“No way Dude! If they’d blown a head gasket there’d be more smoke. There aint no smoke you Dimwit.” A second of thinking. “Do you think they ran out of gas?”
“With the hood up?!!! Yooooou Idiot!” And I heard the Idiot get smacked. Another silence while their brains processed more data. “Dude, my dad knows stuff about cars,” pause, “I bet, I could fix this.”
UH OH – red alert! It wasn’t that I wouldn’t have been grateful for some help, but a thirteen year old kid whose Dad ‘knew stuff about cars’ wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.
“Duuude, you better not touch it.” Brief pause then, “Maybe they let the oil run out.”
“F’ing LOOSER.”
“Yeah, F’ing LOOSER.”
At that moment, the ‘Teams Coach’, (somebodys mother in matching jersey with clip board and whistle), stepped out of the ice cream shop. From her viewpoint on the side she could see me sitting in the car. She also heard what the last couple of sentences. She looked at me with an apologetic half smile, then to the boys she said, “Um, boys, I believe the ‘Looser’, (index fingers of each hand punctuating the air), “the Looser is sitting in the car.”
“Whuut?!”
“Oh Crap!”
“No way Dude!!!”
“You MORRRRON”, all at once and all together. Then they quickly scrambled for the curb.
Hmm, YES, WAY – Little Duuude’s.
The huddled close in a tight little group, staring into the car, with their ‘oh shit’ faces on. As they gathered their nerve to walk away, I got the ‘point and click of the tongue’ gesture as they passed. That’s right, Dudes, keep right on moving. The mother leaned toward the car, “So Sorry!” she said.
An hour passed. The crowd was beginning to thin. Gemma having stopped gurgling and hissing, sat silent, dejected and exhausted. Since the steam had subsided as well, I decided to check for damages. I felt it, cool enough to add water at this point. I motioned for the cop, he walked over. I told him I was going to add some water and try to get it started. I told him, if it started I would likely only have a very few minutes until she blew again. He said not to worry, that he’d make sure I got through the intersection quickly and safely. So I did just that – added all the water Gemma could hold, clonked the hood down, got behind the wheel and started her up. She groaned to life. The officer held back traffic and Gemma and I gurgle jerked the last mile and a half home. I went straight to my daughter’s room. Once inside I could let the tears I’d been holding back for two hours fall. I then joined her under her bed. What a day. Gemma made two more short trips. The first was to see Mike our mechanic. The next was back home. She was done. Transmission shot, cracks in the manifold, blown water heater, yep, she was done. And even though she was a Drama Queen, I loved her.
