Christopher Boucher - How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive

Note, too, your Volkswagen’s limits — that sometimes he or she can’t discern between real life and stories , what is on one side of the windshield and what is on the other. This confusion is especially common when his oil has thickened with living to the point that it can’t pass through the pre-Memory filter. This filter can be changed, but it’s hartford to get to. It’s best, then, to keep on top of the sufferoil situation and avoid putting yourself in this predicament.

As you pour the oil into the pan, you’ll see and hear the suffering — it will play for you in warped liquid images and call out in twisted, muffled sounds. My advice, then, is to avoid looking at it whenever possible. If not, you might be reminded of something terrible and senseless, or see yourself or someone that you love in situations that will hurt to relive. During the first year that I had my Volkswagen, for example, I made the mistake of studying an image in the oil and I realized that it was me , on the operating table at twelve, the doctors’ hands on me, the life of the Volkswagen at stake. Another time I saw Old Forever, shuffling into the bathroom late one morning, his mind a thicket.

Step 3. Once you pour the oil into the pan, bring it to the Northampton Waste Center where they’ll bury it in lined canisters. Don’t leave the oil around the house. I know a smooth who poured old sufferoil in a five-gallon bucket and left it in his garage, and his own experiences leaked out of the bucket and seeped into the pavement, the sewage system, the yard and finally into the foundation of his house. Years later he was still finding burgundies shivering in his kitchen cabinets, scurrying when he turned on the lights.

The oil, when you pour it, will start to scream. It knows about time and is frightened. And it should be — its life as we know it is over. No one knows what happens, or will happen, with the oil that we’ve buried. But the best thing you can do here is change the oil quick, avoid contact with it and get rid of it immediately.

NEVER put old oil back into the car, even in an emergency. You’ll wind up with rescreens and morphs, situations you know stocked with odd hybrid characters. There is no faster way to sadden or confuse your Volkswagen beyond repair.

Step 4. Pull down the center plate and take out the sufferscreenand filter. Replace it with a new one. Don’t go Hadley with this — good sufferfilters, while simple, are crucial to the forward motion of your car. If your filter doesn’t have newfound sounds and sunrise expressions, don’t even install it.

Step 5. Replace the bolts and make sure that you’ve got a good seal. Is there any space for suffering? If so, loosen the bolts, reset the gasket and tighten the bolts again.

Step 6. Open the sufferoil and pour it in. Don’t touch it or contaminate it in any way. And again, make sure that it is good oil. Good sufferoil will be fine, almost cocky, when you pour it. You want it to be saying things like, “No sweat ,” or, “Fuck it — this is no problem. ” If it’s hedging (talking about a loved one, asking questions like, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”) don’t use it.

Step 7. Start the car and run it. Your VW should immediately look and act more confident. Good, clean sufferoil is absolutely essential to the happiness of your Volkswagen.

COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER

But what could I do? I just couldn’t traipse all over western Massachusetts, searching every streetsong, sidewalk, and parking space for the shadow of a pasture or the flash of a farm — I didn’t have the car for it! By then the VW could barely make it to Hatfield without breaking down — how could I have told that story?

So I made a decision.

First, I traded some time for a saw — a metal, bendy musical one. Then, one afternoon a few days after our visit to the hospital, I dropped the VW off at the Chest of Drawers’ apartment. The VW begged to know where I was going, but I wouldn’t tell him. I had to take this trip alone.

I walked down 47, towards South Hadley, and followed an offtrail up Summit Mountain. I climbed to the top and sat myself down on a rock. There I could see the sun armpitting back into the Pioneer Valley.

I knew what I had to do. I clenched my teeth, plunged my hand into my chest and took out my heart. It was small in my hand, and it beat furiously in the cold mountain air. I put it down on the rock and I left it there. Then I looked for a place to hide. I walked down a slight hill and over to a military monument which stood about a hundred feet away. I crouched behind the monument and waited.

Time passed. The moon crept up into the sky. I could see it staring at me and my heart, now softly beating on the rock.

In the middle of the night a picnic table tottled over to the heart. He looked around, sniffed the ground, and macked over to me. “Yo,” he said to me.

“Hi,” I said, trying to sound innocent.

The table nodded towards the rock. “Someone dropped their heart back there,” he said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Is that your heart over there?”

“Oh,” I said. I pretended to check my pockets for it, and then my chest. “Sheesh. It must have fallen out of my chest by mistake or something.”

“You should grab it,” he said. “There are trees that eat hearts up here.”

“I’ll go get it right now,” I said.

But I didn’t, of course. I stayed crouched behind the monument, my saw in my hand, waiting.

Sure enough, a tree crawled towards the heart around five or six that morning. The tree was thin and small and his face was grey.

I leaned forward. Was that him ? He was so much smaller than I’d expected. I looked around for an Atkin’s but I didn’t see one.

The tree, meanwhile, silked tentatively towards the rock. He stopped about ten feet from it, sniffed the air and looked around. Then he stepped forward.

As he reached for the heart I ran towards him, screaming and swinging my singing saw. The tree put his limbs up. I pounced, throwing all of my weight at him. He fell and I dug my shoulders into his chest and put my saw to his wooden throat.

It was then that I felt the tree’s birchy skin and read his ancient face.

“Please, please!” he begged. He had a British accent.

This couldn’t be the same tree.

“Were you going to steal that heart?” I hissed. “Hah?”

“It was just lying there on the rock!” he stammered. “I’m just so hungry is all.”

I dug the saw into his throat. “You’re murderers — all of you,” I said.

“What? All of who?”

“One of your brothers stole my father , took his heart.”

“Who? I don’t know what you’re—”

“He’s driving a farm . An Atkin’s. Do you know him?” I pressed the saw into his white skin.

The old tree howled. “Is he a birch?”

“What?”

“A birch!”

“How the fuck would I know that?”

“Where does he live?”

“He drives a farm. An Atkin’s Farm.”

“I — no. No I don’t.”

I cut him. “You’re full of sap,” I said.

“Really — I don’t,” the tree said. “I promise — I would tell you.”

I picked up my tiny heart with my free hand and held it for the tree to see.

“I honestly didn’t know that was your heart,” the tree stammered. “I would never have taken it if I had known.”

I didn’t care — I dug the saw deeper into his skin. The tree screamed as I cut him in two, and his sap ran over the stone and onto the dirt path.