Some stranger’s lovely little stolen classic.
I realize what I am doing, and turn to see the two cops, and Dad, and Zeke, but mostly the two cops.
“You don’t really have to…,” I begin. “You can see what we have here, right? Is it really necessary, since he didn’t even realize the car didn’t belong to him?”
Dad tries to help. “We got in the car with him to try and talk him down. To see that he didn’t maim anybody, but the purpose was to get the car back to the owners just as soon as we could.”
“I am the owner,” Da says, low and serious as he and I move toward the car again. We stop at the driver’s door. “If you want to arrest the car thief, arrest whoever stole it from me.” He turns again. “Arrest him,” he says, pointing to his old colleague and friend Zeke. “He’s one of them. He’s one of them, took my car away from me. This was only just right. Just getting back what was mine.”
This is a very uncomfortable place right now, and a very uncomfortable group. Zeke leans up and whispers a few words in the lead cop’s ear. The cops both nod, very understandingly, but what could they possibly understand? I have been right here all along, and I don’t understand. Da is living through it, and he doesn’t understand. I guess the police simply understand that the old man doesn’t understand, and that’s why they can be so understanding.
“We are going to have to go back to the mansion,” says the lead cop, “and see what Mr. Rose wants to do about this. If he wants to press charges, certainly he would be within his rights to do so.”
“Rights?” Da spits. “It’s my car, not Rose’s.”
Zeke comes walking toward us, and Da bristles.
“Why are you even here?” Da asks.
“Because I am your friend,” Zeke says.
“How did you know we were here?” I ask him. Da is getting so red and puffed in the face, I fear he’s going to blow like a bloody tick all over Zeke.
“I was at the auto show when I saw the show was becoming my old pal here.”
Zeke unwisely does a little chuck move at Da’s shoulder. Da slaps the hand away.
“You seem to be lots of places we are,” I say.
I see a slash, brief, of tension cross his eyes. “We came to this show together practically every year. We love it. We have always had a lot in common, your granddad and I. Peas in a pod, weren’t we, Darius?”
Suddenly, Darius demures.
“Why don’t we all go back to the mansion,” says the second cop, a larger, younger, more sneery-looking law enforcer. “Something will work out, I’m sure. Why don’t you let me have the keys, sir.”
“Keys? Junior, I lost the keys sometime around 1967.”
Junior smirks, walks over, and leans into the front seat. He looks around the steering column. He pops up, shrugs toward the other officer. “Don’t appear to be any keys,” he says.
Da walks over, pushes the big cop in a way I never would dare to, and leans in. He runs his hand around a bit under the wheel, wiggles his fingers.
Bruummm.
Da beams. “Just have to be nice to her.”
“We are going to all have to go back to the mansion,” says the boss cop.
“Right,” says the burly one. “I’ll drive this.”
He tries to sit in the Rambler, and Da gives him a two-forearm blast; if he had a hockey stick he’d be in the penalty box. The cop laughs at him in a way that’s both unamused and seriously unamusing.
“Listen,” Zeke says, warmly and all too helpfully, “come ride with me, Darius. It’ll be like old times.”
“No,” Da snaps.
“That or the squad car,” the big cop says with satisfaction.
“No,” Da insists, sure for all the world that he’s got choices here.
“Come on, Pop,” Dad says, defeat already in his voice. “You don’t want to be stuck in a police car. How embarrassing would that be? This will all be sorted out soon if you just-”
“No,” Da says.
“What will the girls say?” Dad says, getting visibly distressed over the thought.
“Come on.” Zeke shows impatience.
“I’m going in my car,” Da insists.
I look at my father, the man here who I am thinking should be taking charge, taking care, of the old man, of the situation, of me and everything.
And I am thinking, how did he ever get so weak? I am sorry for thinking it, and I love the man, I do. But how did the man who had Da for a father become this man?
“Officer,” I say, stepping right up to the boss man. “Listen, let us take the car back. Please? You see, right? You see what he’s dealing with, his condition. We’ll follow you, or you can follow us… He’s a good man. He’s on the wrong side of the slope now, but he shouldn’t have to have it any worse. Please? My Dad will drive the car. Please?”
He stares at me. He hears a lot of stories, of course, a lot of them crap, of course, so this look would be the law-enforcement, I-am-processing look.
Then I do something I would not expect me ever to do. I reach out and squeeze his forearm. With two hands, like I am kneading bread dough. I am a little stunned with what I am doing and a little disgusted too. “He was my granddad,” I say.
Cop looks away, looks at Da, looks straight up in the air. “Aw, cripes,” he says. Then he pokes me right in the stomach with his finger. “If you guys don’t drive straight and very carefully right back to the mansion, I will throw the old guy in jail and pistol-whip his grandson.”
That worked out better than I expected.
The big cop passes my way as the other one walks away. I think he’s going to just slip by but I feel my biceps squeezed like I am getting my blood pressure taken by a boa constrictor.
“My mother has dementia,” he says, close, understanding, quietly furious.
I do not know what to say. I do not know what he wants to convey to me or squeeze out of me. I do not get the sense that he quite knows either. But if he does not let go in the next few seconds, I am going to lose this arm.
“I understand,” I say, as close to understanding as I can come.
He lets go, just before I produce tears.
The two policemen climb back into the cruiser, and I tell Dad the deal.
“I’m driving this?” Dad says.
“Like hell you are,” his dad says.
“Dammit, Darius,” Zeke says, “just come with me.”
“Listen, Da,” I say, “there is no way they are going to let you drive, certainly not before we have sorted the whole thing out back at the mansion. So your choices are: cop cruiser or Zeke or ride in the old-”
“My old…”
“Your old Rambler. As a passenger.”
Zeke lets out a small, almost screechy growl down low in his throat, like an animal in a trap. “Darius,” he says, and it’s pure menace. He gives me a chill.
“This is a family trip, sorry,” I say to Zeke as Dad and I link arms with Da. You cannot force my grandfather into anything. But I think we just about managed to charm him.
We climb in and set off, a ways behind the cops, a short distance ahead of Zeke. Dad is driving, and smiling broadly as he comes to grips with the old car.
“I feel like… a kid, I guess,” Dad says. “Like I am back driving my first car.”
“You never drove this machine, fool.”
It is a strange combination of stiff and bouncy, but the car has a cool of its own. A frumpy cool, unlike what a convertible usually shows you.
“Neither did you, old-timer,” Dad says, actually playing with his father. Strange, stranger, strangest, what is happening here, but bone me if I am going to get anywhere near stopping it. They have had a hard time, these two, for as long as I can remember, and certainly since before that. They both love me, and it shows. They both love each other, and it, dammit, never ever does.