Chris Lynch - Kill Switch

“Right!” the security guard yells, from about twenty yards away. “You two are in serious-”

“Come on,” Da says to me brusquely.

“Come on, what?” I say.

The engine starts up, a simple, muffled brummm .

“Jeez-,” I say, and jump right over the door into the passenger seat as the Old Boy takes off down the lawn, slaloming between T-Birds and Model Ts and JFK Continentals with the suicide doors.

“Da?” I call, just a bit nervously. “Da, how did you start this thing?”

“I told you, Young Man, it is my car. Two wires, two fingers, and varoom . Couldn’t be worrying about keys all the time in those days. I had places to go.”

“Holy-,” I shout as more mad plaids start appearing and it becomes as much an exercise in not killing people as it is a joy ride.

“Okay, I believe you. Can we stop now? You did your thing, now they will probably be okay if you just give up.”

The surprisingly solid old man thwacks me in the chest with his free fist. “That is a reminder, Daniel. Never give up. Understand?”

“I understand, okay? Now, just… give up.”

Thwack.

“Okay, okay.”

The plaid brigade have now given up. The dozen or so car buffs milling about seem not to have caught on yet that Da is not an official part of the show. He is pretty classic, after all. He beeps the horn, which is a semicircular chrome bar in the middle of the wheel. Without exception, every customer waves when he does it. He waves back, the straight-up-in-the-air wave that is a must in a convertible. I start doing it too. Feels great.

There are sirens out there somewhere.

“Da?” I ask, and figure that is question enough.

He does not answer, but steers the car toward the innocent picnicking family ahead. They all jump to their feet, stand there staring as we approach.

Da jams on the breaks and manages a sloppy fishtail skid, ruining some nice lawn.

“Coming for the ride?” Da says, like an utterly antisocial, old James Bond.

Lucy comes running.

Da puts out his hand like a stop sign. “Sorry, sweetie,” he says. “This is no place for the ladies right now.”

The car is a time machine, after all. It’s set us back several decades already.

Dad is standing there with his mouth hanging wide-open. A cherry tomato rolls out.

“Coming, boy?” Da asks.

My dad, a boy? Well, I suppose. I suppose. He had to be somebody’s boy, at least once-upon-a. But boyish, I can’t see. And adventure, I can’t see-

He drops his sandwich, runs flat-out in his black picnic shoes, and dives like a stuntman into the backseat.

Da is laughing… yes, here I think “like a madman” is entirely appropriate. His son, my father, is floundering around the backseat, his lower half still outside the car because, really, he didn’t achieve much speed or airtime in his brave dash. I laugh too, as I turn to see Dad pop up when we officially leave the grounds of the mansion. His hair is blowing forward with the swirling wind, and he looks wildly into my laughter.

“He is stealing a car!” Dad says, making me laugh harder with the sound of it.

“I know,” I say.

The sirens appear to be getting louder. Dad looks back over his shoulder at the sound, then at me again. “He’s stealing a really slow car!”

“I am not stealing anything,” Da says, coolly reaching forward and clicking on the radio. Nothing happens.

“It doesn’t work,” I say. “Too bad, it probably plays all old songs and commercials and nuclear bomb warnings and stuff.”

Da just grins wisely. The rain has stopped again.

“What do you mean, you are not stealing? About twenty people just watched you stealing. I am watching you stealing. Why am I even here? I must be… antisocial or something.”

“Nuts, boy,” Da says. “Say it.”

“Nuts. Totally, insanely nuts.”

“Not at all. You’re a good boy and I am glad you came.”

Then, like a sudden downpour, Da’s mood changes, he stops being silly, starts being… something else.

“I owed you this, son. I’ve owed you this ride for a long time.”

He doesn’t drive much these days, so under the best of circumstances he’d be a little rusty. Under the circumstances we have, it’s pretty hairy stuff. He seems to be fighting the wheel as much as steering it. It’s a big thing, like a bicycle wheel, and appears to take a large turn in order to make a small one. So he’s all over the wheel, and the car is all over the road.

“Pop,” Dad says, “are you sure about this? I mean, I am glad you think you owed me a ride in a nice vintage car and all but-”

Another mood shift. A soft anger comes over Da. “ This car,” he snaps. “This car. My car. I owed you a ride in this.”

“How is this your car?”

The radio comes on, out of nowhere. It took its sweet time, and it’s as if it had this song stuck in its throat since the sixties. Frank Sinatra sings at us that “it was a very good year,” and Da’s beaming mad, happy expression hints that he agrees.

“How did it do that?” I ask.

“Because it’s got tubes in it,” Da says, “like an old television set. Takes time for the tubes to heat up.” He strokes the dashboard like it’s a good, loyal old dog. “You just take all the time in the world, pal,” he says.

His foot is all the way to the floor, and old pal is quite obviously going to take its time.

“Pop,” Dad says, “how is this your car? That’s kind of wild talk.”

“Because it is mine. Because I bought it and took care of it and loved it. Until they took it away from me.”

“Who-?”

Da takes a sharpish turn, and we all slide sideways with the Rambler’s squishy suspension.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

Da answers, sort of.

“Oh, jeez, Pop. Really?”

I look ahead just in time to see the handsome stone-and-steel archway of the cemetery pass overhead.

“We need to make a quick visit,” Da says. “She needs to see us men all together, on a day out together. And she needs to see the car. She loved this car and will be very pleased we took it back.”

That “we took it” thing has me suddenly getting visions of jail. I look back to Dad, who has sat way back in his seat now and looks a bit shrunken.

I guess we’re going visiting. And, from the sound of the sirens, I think we’ll be a large visiting party. Hope you are ready for company, Gram.

She looks ready. We drive the car so far up the winding roads of the place, I am sure we are on hallowed, unallowed ground. We pile out of the car and walk over the twenty yards to the grave, silent as monks, solemn as altar boys.

It is the simplest of simple stones. White granite. Dates of birth and death. And

ELLA CAMERON

BELOVED

She was a simple woman in her tastes.

We all stand around her, staring for a minute or so, before Da steps aside like a game show host with a big cheesy smile and a sweeping arm gesture, introducing the car.

“I got it back, Beloved. How’s that? How’s that?”

“Um,” Dad says softly, “the girls, they’ll probably be mad with worry about us…”

The cops have entered the gates, cut the sirens, and slowly cruise their way up toward us.

“Pop?” Dad asks. “Pop? Are you aware…?”

“Of course I’m aware,” Da says. He’s still talking to Ella, though. “I am aware, and I am sorry. I said I would get it back, when the time came. I only wish you could have waited. If only you could have waited.” He turns to us. “She was a very impatient woman. She was a very feisty, impatient woman.”

The cops are standing about eight feet off now, patient and polite, like they are officiating at a funeral rather than hauling in a team of car thieves.