Once upon a car

This is a story about a car.

No, it is not the story of my first car, the beat-up Karmen Ghia my Dad sold me for $1 when it failed New York State inspection.

No, it is not the story of Val, the 1970-era Valiant Tom’s grandfather off-loaded on him, the anti-chick magnet that Tom was driving when we first met a decade later.

No, it is not the story of Brownie, Greenie or BRO, the succession of used mini-vans we owned to cart around the kids for years.

This is the story of the Volt. A car owned by six people. All in one family. A car with a story to tell.

Tom bought the car, and he loved it. I didn’t. I hated the tinny blinker noise of the directionals and how when you slammed the car door, it didn’t make a solid, satisfying thunk. I did, however, love the heated seats. And the thrill—a new one then in 2017—of using no gas on short trips. That was before everything, the year 2017, before the true horror of Trump took hold, before the pandemic, before Tom got sick, before life changed for us all.

Tom drove that car, happily, until he stopped driving.

The night that Lizzie inherited the car, which was the night Tom died, she insisted on driving home to the beach, and she hit a deer just a mile or so from our house. All of us had hit deer on that road. I may have held the record at three. After the car was repaired, having suffered quite a bit more damage than the deer, Lizzie drove it for eight months until she too stopped driving. Until she too stopped.

The car came back home swathed in police caution tape. It was then owned, in quick succession, by my two sons, then one son, then one son and partner, then one son solo, and finally, a week or so ago, by the good folks at the local BMW dealership.

Why am I telling this story? Partly as a farewell to the car that saw more than its share of action. I think the Volt earned a little essay. But also, I am telling this tale because I love the way inanimate objects hold the narratives of our lives.