Car Read online

  But finally, his daddy couldn’t stand it. Easy Mack was losing his balance over what was happening. A man stabbed his brother-in-law over the hood of a forty-seven Ford coupe. A woman lost her sanity when her husband opened the door of a forty Studebaker and said: “See!” So Easy Mack had told Herman that there was no alternative but to take the billboard down and close up the ten acres, close up YOUR HISTORY ON PARADE.

  “But why?” his son had asked.

  “There is no joy. No love,” said Easy Mack.

  Mister remembered it and was suddenly angry again. Insisting on love and joy had lost them Herman. Herman was gone, and they’d not get him back again. Whether he lived or died, he was gone.

  There was an abrupt squeal of metal on metal, followed by the dry rush of feet over the glassy yard below.

  “Thank God,” said Easy Mack. “She got out.”

  “She’s all right now,” Junell said.

  They heard the taxi fire up and roar away from the gate.

  “Some people will do anything,” said Easy Mack. “Come in here to set in a wrecked Cadillac. Goddam people are crazy. It’s a puzzle to me.”

  Mister clenched his fists. “I wouldn’t say a word if I was you,” sad Mister. “I just wouldn’t say one word if I’d raised a son who was advertising in public that he was going to eat a car.”

  I will eat a car. I will eat a car from bumper to bumper, Herman was saying over the radio. On the television. In the Florida Times-Union newspaper.

  Junell and the old man had jerked their heads to stare at Mister as though he had said some unimaginable obscenity. They had not spken of it directly before this. They’d said things like, “Herman’s a fool if he thinks he can do that.” Or, “It’s a unnatural thing and cannot be done” But they had avoided the actual words eat a car.

  “You might as well say it, daddy,” said Mister bitterly. “You might as well say it right out. You have raised a boy who is going to eat a car.”

  Soft and flat, as though it were some ritual thing memorized and only half understood, Easy Mack said: “I have raised a son who is going to eat a car.”

  Junell’s face was red, and a pendulous drop of sweat swung at the end of her nose. “Happy now, you shithead?” she spat at Mister.

  “No,” Mister said, “I’m not.”

  Two

  Easy Mack stopped on his way to the Sherman Hotel to consider the fence. Lady Bird Johnson had put it there. It was part of her beautification plan for America. At least that was what Easy had been told. Lady Bird wanted a fence around all the junkyards in the country. Well, she didn’t really want a fence around the junkyards, but she did think there ought to be a fence between the junkyards and the public roads. It was more seemly, she thought.

  That was what Easy was told when the man had come by to enforce the city ordinance. So Easy put up the fence, a high wooden fence painted yellow, four hundred yards of it, between his place of business and the limited-access superhighway the state had jammed through five years ago. Lady Bird could have the fence if she wanted it. She was the President’s wife and he was only the owner of forty-three acres of junked cars. But that didn’t mean Easy thought the fence was a good idea.

  He thought it was a lousy idea and a lousy fence. It offended him. Easy loved cars. He had always loved them. Always in all ways. He had started working on Fords almost as early as Ford started working on them. With the gentleness of a lover he had stuck his hands into their dark greasy mysteries, and in time he had become the best shade-tree mechanic in Lebeau County, Georgia. Then later he had owned a little garage and sold used cars on the side. After that he got a job as shop foreman for a new-car dealership in Waycross, Georgia. Finally, he had seen his chance, bought forty-three acres of land on the bank of the Saint John’s River in 1939 just before the beginning of World War II, and opened Auto-Town. It was a junkyard. But he called it Auto-Town. It gave a little class. It honored. He was determined always to honor the thing he loved. You didn’t get to own forty-three acres of anything without love. That’s what he believed and that’s what he had always tried to teach his children, all of whom were in the business with him.

  “Your bread floats back off the water,” he had told them, “because of love.”

  What had floated back off the water was a son who said he was going to eat a car. On a high platform in front of the Sherman Hotel in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. Herman was sitting on that platform right now—Easy glanced at his watch—yes, right now on Forsyth Street, two blocks west of Main, up on a platform lighted with a white arch of fluorescent light, Herman was sitting up there with a brand-new Ford Maverick. A Ford Maverick that Herman intended to eat.

  Easy had never actually seen it. But he had read about it in the newspapers. He’d heard Mister describe it down to the last horrifying detail. Now it was time to go see it for himself. It was time to talk to Herman. Mister had been in to see his twin brother Herman several times already, and even Junell, who was probably the hardest working member of the family at Auto-Town, had visited Herman at the Hotel Sherman.

  Right after the widow had escaped from the Cadillac about an hour ago, a call had come in on the police radio that had sent Junell roaring off in Big Mama. The call was an emergency asking for ambulance and police support from neighboring Saint John’s County, because twenty miles north of Saint Augustine there had been one head-on, followed by seventeen bumper-to-bumpers. The police radio asked for as many metal-cutting torches and crowbars as possible. The news of nineteen crushed and mangled cars had sent Junell flying out of Auto-Town in a great shower of crushed glass and gravel. She hadn’t even stopped to close and lock the iron-grilled gate.

  Easy left his International-Harvester pickup truck idling while he made sure the lock was secure on the gate. Then he climbed back into the cab and sat waiting for a chance to enter the road. It was black-surfaced macadam that ran about two hundred yards along the high yellow board fence before it finally entered the limited-access highway which arched over Auto-Town toward Jacksonville across the river. The road was a solid river of light that roared and blinked from bright to dim, dim to bright, flashed and swerved.

  Easy sat relaxed and waiting in the cab of his International-Harvester, his hands loosely firm on the steering wheel. He trusted the truck. He knew what it could do. He had literally built it with his own hands for reasons of love. He had incorporated into the vehicle parts of cars not because they were the highest performance parts that could be found but because they were parts that held special memories and associations for him.

  The truck was a 1937 and it had grown as he had grown. It had fenders on it from a 1940 Ford sedan, and a 1965 Lincoln Continental engine dropped into it by expanding the chassis to support it, and a Continental transmission, and load-leveler shocks, and a crash bar made of rolled and tempered steel, and countless other small modifications: a tachometer suspended from the headliner, pushbutton doors, chrome airhorns mounted on the roof, Glaspak mufflers, tinted windshields, tape deck, air-conditioning, power steering, zebra-striped Naugahyde upholstering, and more. The truck throbbed and rocked where he gunned it at the side of the road.

  Then Easy saw not a break in the river of headlights pouring by but the smallest hitch—a blink and a swerve, a little rapid in the flow of light—and he hit the highway and wound it out to nearly fifty in first gear, dropped to second and felt the racing slicks on the back of the truck grab, and he was on his way to Jacksonville.

  It was only about five miles to the Sherman Hotel from Auto-Town, but it was more than twice that—better than ten miles—if he went on the limited-access highway, which was the only possible way to go on a Friday night because the traffic made the short way the long way. So he drove the long way, locked into the streaming headlights, over the Saint John’s River into Southside and then over the Main Street bridge into downtown Jacksonville. Because it was the start of the weekend, a lot of young people were out in Cougars and Furys and Sting Rays and other low, sleek, powerful cars. And Easy Mack drove defensively because he was convinced they were dangerous.

  The young people refused to lock into traffic and stay put. Instead, they jockeyed for position, their oversized engines whining and snarling, challenging for the right to break out and leave the pack. But cars were bumper to bumper for twenty miles in any direction. There was no way to leave the pack. Which made the night dangerous. But Easy Mack sat contained and ready in his International-Harvester, glancing now and again into the enormous chromed side mirrors, on the lookout for young men and madmen.

  When he got to the Sherman Hotel, he couldn’t find a place to park. He circled the block several times, each time trying not to look at Herman but looking anyway. Herman was on a high, specially built platform in front of the Sherman Hotel behind a sheet of clear bulletproof plastic. There had been more than one threat on his life. They said they’d kill him—shoot him dead—if he ate that car. But it hadn’t stopped Herman. There he was, sitting up there beside a fire-engined Maverick (“A Ford six with a straight stick shift and no options” was the way it had been advertised in the Florida Times-Union newspaper).

  Finally he swung into a Park ‘N Lock building that covered the entire block next to the Sherman Hotel. It was completely automated and nobody was in attendance. A little machine spat a yellow time card at him when he swung onto the elevated ramp. He snatched the card on the way by and roared toward the second floor because a blinking light said the first floor was full. But so was the second floor, and Easy ended up parking on the twelfth floor and taking the elevator down.

  The sidewalk in front of the Sherman Hotel was jammed with people looking up at Herman. A section of the walk was roped off and four special guards kept people back behind the rope barriers. Easy Mack did no
t know how to go about seeing his son. Herman was up above the marquee and there was no apparent way to get to him. Easy didn’t want to talk to Mr. Edge, who owned the Sherman Hotel. He was anxious to avoid that. He went through the double glass doors into the instantly cold, red-carpeted lobby where the bell captain stood talking to a very young, very pretty girl in a blue miniskirt. She had red beads about her neck. Easy walked over to where they were. The girl smiled. The bell captain mnile a little bow and looked as though he wanted to click his heels.

  “May I be of service, sir?” said the bell captain.

  “Well, yeah,” said Easy. Then he stopped. How to say it? He cursed the world that had given him a son sitting with a car on the top of the marquee of a hotel. “Could you help me see my son?” asked Easy. “I want to talk to him.”

  The girl, still smiling, told the bell captain good-bye and walked away toward the bank of elevators at the back of the lobby. The bell captain begged Easy’s pardon, and Easy repeated it all again.

  “And who is your son, sir?”

  Somehow Easy thought the bell captain would know immediately that he was the father of Herman Mack. At the same time that he knew it was impossible, he thought everybody must be able to look at him and tell he had raised a son who was going to eat a car. It weighed heavily on his conscience.

  “His name is Herman Mack,” he said. Easy pointed toward the ceiling of the lobby. “And he’s up…”

  “But of course,” said the bell captain. “Right this way, sir.”

  But the bell captain did not take him to see his son. Instead, he took him precisely where he did not want to go. He took him to see Mr. Edge, which—because he had never been in the hotel before—he did not understand until the bell captain opened a door and said: “It’s him, Mr. Edge. Easy Mack,” and left Easy standing in the door to a small plain office where a short man sat behind a desk, the top of which was completely bare except for a black telephone.

  The short man stood up and smiled pleasantly, “Ah, Mr. Mack, so good of you to come,” as though he had known all along that he was coming and had been sitting there waiting for the door to open.

  But Easy knew that to be a lie no matter what Mr. Edge pretended. Mr. Edge had been out to Auto-Town twice to get them to come in to the Sherman Hotel for a family portrait. He wanted them to all stand behind Herman in front of the Ford Maverick and have their picture taken for the advertisements. Easy had thanked him very much, but said he didn’t think so. He actually liked Mr. Edge. It was disturbing, but it was true. Mr. Edge was a hard man not to like. He was quiet and courteous and told Easy Mack that he knew how Easy felt, but that he, Homer Edge, was just trying to run a business—the hotel and entertainment business—and that the public expected a certain something, a little of the old pizazz, from a man in the hotel and entertainment business. Mr. Edge was dressed as usual in a plain black suit with a plain black tie over a white shirt. He had on black wing-tipped shoes with short black socks that showed four inches of very white, hairless shin when he sat down. He reminded Easy of an undertaker, and he wanted to get away from him as soon as he could and with as little talk as possible. It embarrassed him to talk with a stranger about his son Herman sitting on top of the marquee with a Ford Maverick.

  “I’m not here for the family portrait,” said Easy.

  “Oh,” said Mr. Edge. His smile got smaller and he sat down again at his desk. “How is Mister and Junell?”

  “They all right,” Easy said. “Junell’s out on a run.”

  “I heard about that wreck,” said Mr. Edge. “Out by Green Cove Springs. It’s been on the news every thirty minutes. Sounds like a bad one.

  “Well, they ain’t no good ones,” Easy said.

  “That’s the truth,” said Mr. Edge. Mr. Edge had offered a chair with the motion of his hand, but Easy had remained standing. Easy liked him. It was remarkable how he liked him and how the two of them always got talking just as though the awful knowledge of Herman was not between them, just as though it wasn’t Mr. Edge’s power and organization that built the platform over the marquee and got the Ford agency to donate the Maverick for promotional consideration, just as though Mr. Edge was not going to pay Herman, a harmless dreamer, three hundred dollars a week to eat a car.

  “I was just going to have a drink,” Mr. Edge said. He brought a bottle out of a drawer in his desk. “Would you join me in a whiskey?”

  There were few things he could think of that he’d have liked more just then, but it was clearly impossible. “No, I don’t think so,” Easy said.

  A pained look came on Mr. Edge’s face. “Easy, I wish you’d try to understand.”

  It annoyed Easy that Mr. Edge had used his first name. He knew well enough that Mr. Edge’s first name was Homer, but he would never have thought to use it. He just chalked it up as another symptom of the general sickness of Mr. Edge’s business.

  “I saw him when I came up out front,” said Easy, making a vague motion toward the ceiling with his hand.

  “Yes, it’s part of the preparation to let’m see him for a while.”

  “It didn’t seem any way to get up there to see him.”

  “Oh, there’s a way.” Mr. Edge laughed. “You don’t think we put him up there every night with a hook and ladder, do you?”

  Easy did not laugh. “No sir, I don’t.”

  The two men watched each other over the empty desk.

  “You get onto the platform from the second floor,” said Mr. Edge. “We’ll move him into the ballroom when it comes time.”

  “Into the ballroom?”

  “Well, I’m not going to have him…” Mr. Edge paused, “…well, per-form out there free for the public.”

  Easy Mack was pleased to see that Mr. Edge apparently had trouble saying eat a car, too. He tried to remember if he’d ever heard him say it. He thought, and he couldn’t remember.

  “I’ve got to make my money back,” said Mr. Edge. “You can see that.”

  “Listen,” said Easy Mack, reaching behind him and snatching the door open. “I’m parked on the twelfth floor of the building next door and I can’t stay long.” That was as close as he could get to saying why he had come.

  “And you wanted to see him?”

  “Yes. See him.”

  Mr. Edge picked up the phone and asked for Number One, then put it down and said, “My bell captain will show you the way. Make yourself at home, stay as long as you like.” Easy was already going through the door when Mr. Edge said: “Oh, and one other thing.”

  Easy stopped. “Yes?”

  “Have the bell captain stamp your parking ticket.” Mr. Edge smiled as though he were in pain and shrugged. “It’s the least I can do. We have an arrangement with the Park ’N Lock.”

  Three

  They had converted a window into a door on the second floor of the hotel. The bell captain led Easy down the freezing red-carpeted corridor to the door which obviously had been a window until very recently. Through the glass top of the door, Easy could see his son.

  Herman was sitting on a stool. He was sitting very still. The top of the stool was red. The same shade of red as the Maverick, which was standing with its wheels blocked on a ramp beside the stool where Herman sat. The fluorescent light made little suns in the bulletproof plastic in front of Herman.

  Beyond the plastic whole families stood together on the other side of the street looking up at Herman. Many of them seemed to be eating one thing or another: cotton candy on brown-cardboard cones, peanuts out of paper sacks, and at least one family sat on the curbstone eating out of a box of Colonel Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken. Easy could see Colonel Sanders’ white hair and white beard even at this distance. From time to time several children waved. Herman did not wave back Easy wondered how they got the car onto the marquee.

  “There he is,” said the bell captain with satisfaction.

  Easy went through the door and closed it behind him. The noise of traffic and shouts and stamping feet roared below. He went over and leaned against the fender of the Maverick. Herman looked at him and smiled shyly in a way that broke Easy’s heart. Such a gentle boy. He was always such a gentle boy.