It was about 15 miles South of Bakersfield that the Ford began running on three cylinders. The car had, in the last two years, become the bane of my existence. Enough so that the Ginetta G15 that Brian and I were going to see, was almost certainly a step up in reliability. With plans already in the works to scrap the car, we decided to press on, all the way to Fresno and back. The journey hadn’t exactly been planned, it had just sort of happened. We should have taken a different car, but left in a rush, in a Focus that often fails to make it across town. It was going to be a long, hot trip, and the CD player had failed years before. Somehow, none of it really mattered.
Brian has been a friend for decades, but the last few years, since I moved from the O.C., have seen fewer and fewer times to get together. And so, it was a chance for old friends to talk, and that’s what we did. We talked about life since high school, and the Army. We talked about marriages past and present, about the looming borderland of turning forty. About high school reunions, why we don’t really want to go to them, lost friends, lost cars, and the way that life just never seems to go to plan. All that time, the landscape changed around us.
The Eastern San Joaquin Valley is a long, flat pan. Hwy. 99 moves through it in a series of straight lines, bordered by Oleanders and gigantic Eucalyptus trees. To the East of the Hwy, row crops run into the distance, flashing by in that distinctive Doppler Effect visual, that seems to curve their straight lines. On the horizon, the San Emigdio Mountains, recede into Tehachapis, then the sharper peaks of the Sierra Nevada. The route is dotted with the kind of wide spots in the road that haven’t changed much since they were founded, except to grow a Starbucks or a Quizno’s. Many of them have strange names like Ducor, and Colinga, having seen them shortened on USGS maps, from proper names like Dutch Corners, and Coaling Station A. Through all of it, the Focus carried us with a labored sense of dignity. It’s always been a trusty beast; albeit one that was never put together properly.
We got to Fresno all right. After a couple turnarounds, we got to the house we’d been seeking. The Ginetta, all 875cc and 1200lbs of it, was in great shape. I was even able to fit in it. We talked with the owner, and started looking into what was needed for the car to be driven on the road. The owner had listed a bunch of stuff that he thought the car needed; enough to make a show queen too nice to drive. As seen, it was the kind of car I love, usable, and original.
We started for home. The engine thrummed toward Los Angeles, on three all the way. The conversation went on as the sun gradually plunged toward the horizon. It was an adventure, and a re-acquaintance. We realized that it had been a year since we’d seen each other, and lamented the road trips we hadn’t taken last summer. It all took place in a room, moving from place to place, through places we would never see, but from the seat of a car.
My mother once said to me, “I think I did something wrong, raising you. You’re never comfortable without wheels moving under you.” I disagree on the former, but the latter is definitely true. There are many reasons cars appeal to me; probably as many as there are cars. But one of my favorite things about them is the way they provide time in our lives. They’re often seen as time wasters. Who out there likes sitting in traffic? But on trips like this, cars take on a distinct feel of space moving through space. They bring us places, so much more quickly than we would be able to get there without them. Soichiro Honda famously believed that the time your car saved you in travel, could be counted at the end of one’s life as extra years. But in another way, cars give us time, to think, to talk, and to be away from the world. Some of my best thinking and ideas come behind the wheel. Cars have more than a few draw backs. But I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather sit quietly with a friend, sip a cup of coffee, and chat.
Oh, someone put a deposit on the Ginetta the day before I called back. Better luck next time…
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