Christopher Boucher - How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive

“They’re in love ,” One Side of My Mother said.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “The state of Colorado?”

The Memory of My Father, who was sitting by the window, nodded. Through the glass I could see a pack of deer on the lawn, whispering among themselves. Colorado ? one deer mouthed, and another nodded.

The four of us ate pizza together, and then I drove back home through the fog, thinking about it. I was distracted by the VW, though, who was acting up and asking to go to the strip club. “I’m in the mood ,” he whined.

“I’m in the middle of dealing with something serious right now — a very big change in my brother’s life,” I told the VW. “We’re just going to have to go another time, alright?”

The fog was something. Speeding through it was like being on the tip of a knife that was slicing through the body of a ghost.

“Please, Dad,” the VW said. “Please? Please!”

“There are other stories here about the Castaway, VW. Tonight the story is, my brother’s been stolen by Colorado,” I told him.

“Colorado? No way I’m going out there,” the VW said. “I’d get halfway, break down again, and you’d start to yell at me rabbinical.”

I tapped the dashboard. “You didn’t use that word right,” I said.

“Which word?”

“Rabbinical. It’s a religious term.”

“I’m listening, like you said to,” the VW whined.

“But the word has to come from your engineheart,” I said. “You can’t use it just because it saves minutes.”

“Will you stop picking on me?” the VW said. “You know what I meant.”

“You’re not helping things, OK?” I said.

When we got back to Northampton I was angry. I picked up the phone and called Colorado.

“What,” it said into the phone.

“I heard what you’re doing,” I said. “And I don’t like one bit of it.”

“I don’t think I give a fuck,” Colorado said.

I said, “Do you love him?”

I could hear his smile. “He’s a very nice young man.”

“Why are you doing this? Are you in cahoots?”

“Cahoots?”

“It’s a word , alright?”

Colorado sighed. “You’re wasting my time.”

“You touch a hair on his head,” I told him, “I’ll burn you down inch by inch.”

“It’s a big world, partner.”

“You take care of him,” I yelled into the phone. “You watch him. You make sure he sleeps well at night and stays happy at his job and is safe with the women and doesn’t get sick.”

“Are we done?” Colorado said.

I had no other threats to make. I just held the phone to my ear and listened to Colorado’s breath coming through the receiver, filled with smoke and mountains.

“Please,” I said into the phone.

BAYWATCH

The Lady from the Land of the Beans became pregnant and gave birth to the Volkswagen as a result of a grief-stricken condom. Or, it happened because of what the Heart Attack Tree did to my father.

Or, the birth itself never happened; we discovered she was pregnant and the next day we went to have the child aborted.

We were driving to the clinic in the Volkswagen Promise, though, and the Promise broke down on us before we could get there.

The Lady from the Land of the Beans’s belly was huge — there was a car inside her, for sarah’s sake. She waited in the Promise of the Passenger Seat while I went around to the engine compartment and tried to figure out what was wrong. I opened the rear lid and saw, between mysterious cables and parts, a little scuffed-up set and two actors in velvety costumes performing before a film crew and a fleet of cameras.

When I opened the hatch the scene stopped and everyone looked up at me. One man, wearing a set of headphones, yelled “cut!” while others covered their eyes from the new light, made angry faces at me or motioned for me to lower the panel. I did; I closed the lid, spooled briskly back into the car and asked the Lady from the Land of the Beans to hand me the Promise factory manual.

“Why?” she said.

“They’re filming a movie in there,” I told her.

“They are? What kind of movie?” she asked.

“Just, give me the manual, will you?”

“I don’t think it comes with a manual,” she said.

“That can’t be right,” I said. I went around to the front and opened the hood, under which was an Olympic-sized swimming pool — the air was seeped with chlorine and I could hear the rhythmic slapping of tiny arms against the water. My glasses began to fog up. “No book in here, either,” I announced.

“_____, wait a second,” said the Lady from the Land of the Beans.

“That’s ridiculous that there’s no instruction manual,” I said. Then I had an idea — something was made. I closed the hood and got back in the car. “Oh my god,” I said. “I think I have an amazing idea — an idea for a new—”

“Wait, wait,” the Lady from the Land of the Beans said, and she leaned in and took my hands in hers. “What’s happening here?”

“So there’s no manual, right?” I said. “So my idea is—”

“_____,” she said. Her hands were roots and wires. “You’re not listening to me.”

“You’re not listening to me ,” I told her.

“I think this moment means something,” she said. “I think we’re supposed to have this baby.”

I was so stunned I couldn’t say anything. Then I said, “What?”

“Just, I want you to look past yourself for a moment.”

“OK,” I said.

“And think about what’s happening inside me, and also what we’re inside.”

“What are we inside?” I asked.

“We could have the whole world here,” she said. “A child. A whole new set of stories.”

“We talked about this, we did,” I said. “Who was the one that said we couldn’t handle this — that we’d be horrible parents?”

“I was,” the Lady from the Land of the Beans said.

“We’re not even together ,” I pressed.

“I’m not saying I didn’t say that. I did—”

“You did,” I said.

“But I can’t think about the past, or what will happen next. All I can think about is what’s right for this moment. I mean, there is love here.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Isn’t there?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “If there really is, then what’s the worst that could happen?”

How could I respond? My answer is several hundred pages long, and takes hours to read.

The Lady from the Land of the Beans took my face in her hands. Her eyes were department meetings. “Honey,” she said.

She’d never called me that before. “What,” I said.

“I think we should turn the car around.”

“You want to go back to Northampton?”

She nodded.

“You mean—”

“Yes, yes,” she said. “I want to go home.”

I turned around and we drove home, and two days later she gave birth to the car, right there in the Memory of the Cooley-Dickinson Hospital. The car came out full-sized, crying and blinking its eyes, and I knew right away that this was it — that this was the right story.

By then, though, things had changed again —we’d felt good about our decision at first, then had trouble getting along again and discussed the possibility of selling the car, and buying another VeggieCar, perhaps. But that changed for me the first time I held my son, looked at his shiny parts, felt him forming in my arms — making quick decisions about who he was going to be and what he would want.

“I’m going to be a social worker, a postal worker, a television cameraman,” the brand new 1971 Volkswagen Beetle said to me. He read my face and listened to my chest — my heart — and said, “And I won’t worry like you worry.”