It didn't really need to be towed. With 132,812.7 miles on the odometer, my car was still in reasonable driving order. But the inspection and registration were due by July 31st, and I knew there were several hundred dollars in routine repairs ahead. I decided well before the expiration date that our relationship had expired.
I bought the car used- not my taste or my choice, ultimately- at the beginning of another relationship. . My then-girlfriend(now friend) and I needed a vehicle for a business that we were starting, and which we never really finished. And so the car became mine, and for ten years it served me well- taking me where I wanted and needed to go, with very little trouble. Like some of my early, less mature relationships, I was happy with it when things were going well, and blamed it when things were not- timing belts, new brakes and unexpected flat tires. But only in the last year were big repairs needed, calling for the equivalent of a long break up call in the middle of the night.
Like an old relationship, I failed to notice the wear and tear- some flaking paint below the front passenger window, dog nose prints accumulating on the back window, the windshield wiper blade there dull. I just knew that the steering wheel in my hands felt comfortable and familiar. And the smell was mine.
My car was not a cherished friend, a prized possession, or an expression of myself. Not using it over the last month, though, has given me a greater appreciation for the private space that it afforded. It is striking how exposed I feel, both walking and on the bus. If I miss anything at all in the empty space where it was parked in front of our house just this morning, I miss that solid promise of cover.
It is the only car I have owned myself and paid off on my own. There is something in that, as well. I had trouble locating the title. I never thought about someday needing to dispose of the car- freeing myself from it. It seemed as though it would be my car for life.
When it was at last found in a box of much less important papers, the title went to Motor Square Garden, to be turned over to Goodwill Industries and notarized. The building is owned by AAA, but I learned that over the years, it has taken it's turn as city market, boxing venue, and car dealership. Now it is all about service.
With numbers in our hands, we the helpless sat under the steel and glass skylight, looking up, mouths open, as an army of seemingly hundreds of employees punctually took care of us. Drivers licenses were renewed, trips were planned to places like Ashtabula County- home of America's longest covered bridge- and boats were registered- all at a discount for AAA members. The air of industry that drove the building up from its foundation lives on at Motor Square Garden, maybe like nowhere else left on earth.
When a third person, an experienced woman with a bright yellow scarf around her neck, like a flight attendant's, asked me for my papers, and took them behind her counter, and clickety- clacked her keyboard with one eye on the clock, I knew I was surrendering my car, and my lifestyle, into the right hands. Here is where it started, in 1900, when all cars were new. And here is where it would end, in 2009, when my car was old. And a new car-free life would start. And so it has.
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