The Gremlin in the VW

My Mazda RX-8 purred to life as I turned the key. Down the hill we sped toward work as I turned on the windshield wipers to clear the glass of dew. It was down-right-chilly for Honolulu, 68 degrees according to the digits on the dashboard. "Brrrr," I thought as I instinctively slid my hand under my thigh to keep it warm.

A memory flashed by. My hand under my thigh as I tried to keep warm. It meant something. I shivered way back then. The windshield frosted up in the 15 degree temperatures. I tried to clear it with my hand but the frost came back onto the windshield.

Something in front ... a Gremlin. No, not the mischievous creature but the car! Stopped! Right in front of me!

Wait, I'm ahead of myself.

The night before, my parents, my brother and sis-in-law, and I sat in the living room of my parents house. I was being given an awesome responsibility. Kenny and Joanne were letting me drive their 1963 Volkswagen convertible to the mechanics to get the heat/defroster fixed. I could take the car to school and then drop it off after school and thumb home.

"Are you sure you don't mind thumbing home?" asked Joanne.

I thumbed everywhere. 1976 was a different time. Everybody thumbed somewhere. Thumbing home wouldn't be a problem at all.

"Ok," Joanne said, "the insurance and registration is between the seats. I mean if you should get in an accident, it's right there. I wouldn't mind you getting in an accident as I want to get rid of the thing but just won't die!!"

"You want to get rid of the thing?" I asked.

"Yeah, it is old and the heat doesn't work and the windows frost up. We can afford a new car but we agreed we'd drive this into the ground. Just be careful!"

I woke up the next morning ecstatic that I could drive myself to school. I made sure that I didn't breath on the windshield and it didn't fog up. I got to school and parked in the extended parking lot. I slipped and slid my way across the icy parking lot and realized that I was late for my first class, Chemistry.

What the hell, I didn't like Chemistry and my second period class was a "study hall." What to do? I turned around and slipped and slid my way back across the icy parking lot, hopped back into the VW beetle and headed toward home with every intention of getting home and sleeping an additional hour. After all, driving yourself to school lets you do that!

It was a biting cold day and I slipped my hand under my thigh to keep it warm. The windshield frosted up. I cleared it with my hand and it frosted up again and there it was. The ugly orange colored Gremlin. Stopped. In front of me. Trying to take a left turn. Into a school. Oh shit. I slammed on the brakes. We slid. The cute little convertible VW bug collided with the rear of the Gremlin lifting the Gremlin up onto the front of the VW.

We pulled over to the side of the road. Elementary aged kids were across the street gathering to go into school. A woman got out of the Gremlin and I grabbed the registration and insurance, right there between the seats like Joanne had said. She carefully and gingerly made her way to the sidewalk. I ran up to her.

She was 8 months pregnant. Yes. It is true. I ran into the back of a pregnant woman driving a Gremlin.

She said she was fine.

The police arrived as we were exchanging information. A cop surveyed the situation and began yelling at me. I tried to stay calm but his words were echoing all around my head ...

my fault

pregnant

too fast

school area

I didn't know what to do but then I recognized her name. She had been a teacher at my elementary school when I was there so many years before. Mrs. Canalis! Suddenly she was yelling at the cop!

no one's fault

we were fine before he arrived

he didn't know what he was doing

shut up before HE put her into labor

maybe it would be better if he left

we had the situation under control

I teared up not because of the cop but because she cared for me and didn't even remember me!

Her car drove fine and I stopped traffic so she could pull into a school parking spot across the street. I held her elbow as she waddled (she'd probably kill me if she read THAT) into the school. Then she went to her classroom.

I stood at the door to the principal's office. It had a small sign that stated exactly that. Principal's Office. Needing to use the phone, I knocked as Mrs. Canalis had suggested.

In front of me stood Miss Nylon. An older woman who reminded me of my 90 year old great grandmother, Nana. She was so old that she was the elementary school principal for my brother!

My brother ... yeah, him. I needed to call him and let him know that I wrecked his car. I wasn't afraid of Miss Canalis. I wasn't afraid of the cop. I wasn't afraid of Miss Nylon. I was scared to death of disappointing my big brother!

"Do you need to call someone?" Miss Nylon asked sweetly.

"Uh, yeah. My brother Kenny Cleary."

"Oh, I remember him! I had him in class one time. How is he?"

I thought that I wasn't sure how he was going to be after I told him that I wrecked his car!

"He's fine, I think," I replied while dialing the phone. Back then, I actually had a memory and could remember numbers. His popped into my head and without delay, the phone was ringing. I waited and waited for him to pick up the phone.

Finally, he did.

Kenny. It's John. I'm sorry. I have some bad news. I wrecked your car. Yes, I'm safe. No, I'm not hurt. No, no one else is hurt. Yes, the window fogged up, frosted up, and then I hit a Gremlin. Yes, the car, a Gremlin. No, not the creature that wrecks things. Why are you laughing?

He laughed for several minutes and said, "Well Johnny, you now own a red VW convertible!"

"I do?"

"Yes, you do. I don't want it. That is if you want it, you can have it!"

"Doesn't Joanne want it?"

"Joanne can't wait to get rid of it!"

and that is how I got my first car ....

Fishing The Well

The weight presses in on all sides. It comes first from the north. Soon there is equal force from the east, west, and south. She can feel the pressure but since it is all around, in ways it is offsetting. With each breath she lets out, the next is even more shallow as if a giant anaconda has her in its grip, squeezing, and slowly sucking the life out of her.

She needs air so she gulps but nothing comes in.

Down she slips and slowly slides, ever downward to a pit of unknown origin and hopeless retreat into an object of undefined uncertainty. A familiar place and despite darkness and the pressure, there is also some comfort. She has been there before. Doubt casts a pervasive shadow like showers of cold rain soaking through her clothing to her skin and to her bone. Fear is there lurking but not the surprising fear of horror and fright but instead the sulking, tepid and persistent fear that is ever present, able to hide in the shadow of the smallest pebble.

She twists slightly but not of her own control. Perhaps some creature, far away, has swished its tail causing a flow of movement that, after miles and miles of distance crossed, has brushed against her arm causing her floating body to slip to the side. The movement and motion reveals the pit that she slipped into. A deep well for which there is no bucket and there is no rope. A well, filled with thick fluid, like molasses that facilitates a pull to the bottom that is seemingly endless.

The pressure is complete and exhausting and she has quit fighting. That is a problem. She is allowing the fall to happen. She doesn’t enjoy it but she accepts it assuming that fate has laid this path for her, the path of joyless being and the fate of forgetting her love of life and accepting the mediocrity of living moment by moment of perceived failure.

There is a glimmer. It flickers there close by, seen but unseen, she knows that it is there but she is afraid to grasp it. Perhaps it will take her to a sludge that completely swallows her up suffocating her will and her breath but in retrospect, she is already in that place, deep in a well of sorrow and despair.

If she were to grab that light, where would it take her?

Uncertainty pulls her deeper down into darker levels of the well. The pressure grows like a vine around her lungs choking off the possibility of charity, of love, of hope. Eyelids heavy, breath almost exhausted, she senses the light’s flicker once again. It calls to her. A familiar voice, it beckons through the thick and foul sludge of doubt, fear, and anxiety like the ting of a crystal glass in an early morning forest.

A hand touches the light as it bobs up and down, tantalizing to the touch. It is her hand. It is her touch. She has reached out without thought or calculation. Risk was there but what was there to lose? It does not matter as she had nothing left to give. She had given it all up.

A kernel of hope hanging in the darkness of the ooze that enveloped and suffocated her every breath and her hand alighted enough to grip the lit feather attached to the hook. Its sharp prick gripped her finger and embedded into her skin giving her a painful reminder. “I am here,” it said.

The feather hid the hook and the hook was attached to a filament of thread that slowly pulled her up from the depths of the well. Skyward, she rose of a power not her own, pulled with care and ease but pulled with determination and great might; a constant tug against the morass of hate, morbidity and failure.

Emerging, the first breath fills her lungs like the joy of a spring day after a long, gray winter alone. She erupted into a world of bright greens, blues, and oranges that sprinkled the atmosphere in all directions. Sparks of light flitted about her head while the sound of babies giggling filled her ears placing a gentle but cautious smile on her face.

Landing, crouched on her knees, the hook left her finger and before her stood a small man of Asian descent. His wide brimmed hat shielded him from the brilliant sun that shone behind him. His warm smile and a gentle nod greeted her. A fishing pole rested in his palm.

“I am here for you,” he said with a nod.

“Thank you. Why did you save me?”

“Because you needed saving.”

“Are you an angel? Are you God? Who are you?”

“I am that song that comes on the radio that reminds you of your first dance. I am the smell of apples and cinnamon that reminds you of your mother who used to cook those splendid pies. I am the view of a young man with grease on his hands from tinkering with his automobile engine that reminds you of your father. I am the sight of that rocking chair that reminds you of the warmth of your grandmother’s knee and I am the sound of that chuckle that both your grandfathers used to make when you tried to tell them a joke. I am the coo of a baby that reminds you that you were once a child and you still possess the openness and careless love of a child. I am the essence of hope that you can have joy in your life once again. You just need to take that essence and do something with it. I am those moments past, present, and future that lift your spirit from the depths of depression.”

Unsure what to say, she just smiled.

“I am your brother, your sister, your mother, your father, a friend, an enemy, a husband, a wife or any number of people who interact with you daily that you could give hope to. You just need to give a smile without expectation of a smile in return. You just need to say ‘hello’ without any expectation of a ‘hello’ in return. You just need to give a gift of joy without expectation of receiving anything back. Put others first and you will find joy in every deed you do.”

“Why did you save me from the well?”

“I did not save you from the well; you saved yourself. I only showed you the way.”

The fisherman smiled and began to fade.

“WAIT!” she called out with desperation, “What if I find myself in the well again?”

“You will find yourself in the well again and I will be there to lure you out again. You can count on me to come from inside of you. Whenever you need me, hope, and I’ll be there.”

The sun shown over the waves blinding her to his presence and then he was gone. Or, was he suddenly everywhere? She didn’t know.