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8:59 p.m. - November 01, 2001 My father�s car is his precious baby. He got it when I was seven, but it has felt nary a drop of rain or a flake of snow on its perfect chrome finish since we got the other car in �95. He keeps it in our garage with a sheet draped over it and fans keeping the area ventilated. When my mother moved out in 1999, taking the car that I drove with her, my father promptly bought a knock-about car that I could take, so that I�d never have to use his. However, knock-about cars tend to break quite frequently, and on this sunny Monday in October, my car was in the shop getting something put back in that had fallen out onto the road and cracked. So my father was driving his BMW down Central St., carefully avoiding leaf piles, potholes, and any other hazardous condition that might cause harm to his precious automobile, and he was just going to drop off a letter before we met my grandma and uncle for dinner in Northbrook. Passing Prairie Ave., we were just about to pull over to the mailbox when we noticed that there was a car with its flashers on parked in the drop-off space. My father, who had been whistling along to Mahler�s 5th Symphony, revving the engine, and just generally acting very much like a pretentious snob in a Beemer, screeched to a halt in the middle of the road and started ranting and raving. He�s done that a lot lately. �What is he fucking DOING?� he yelled, waving his arms and blasting the horn a couple times. �Why do people fucking DO this? It�s so inconsiderate! Wait �til they want to drop off THEIR mail, and my big ASS in in their WAY!� He had a very serious problem, and that problem was as follows; this happens to him quite often. And when it happens, he simply takes his car, pulls up behind the offending car, and runs into its bumper repeatedly until the owner comes out of wherever they are, tries to pretend their car isn�t getting slammed into by a nutcase in a red Geo Tracker, and eventually slinks into it and drives away. However, he wasn�t his typical self that day; a nutcase in a red Geo Tracker. He was a nutcase in a green BMW, and he simply could not bring himself to subject his precious baby to such torture, even in the name of freeing Evanston from the offending mailbox blockage. Shouting and swearing, he threw the car into reverse and parked in a spot on a side street. By then, he was in full righteous mode, believing whatever he did was absolutely the right thing for the good of the people, if he killed this car it would be for the good of the people, and he�d be damned if he didn�t do something to stop these horrible injustices. He stomped out and slammed the door. I stayed in. Some things work better if you stay away. He tramped over to the offending car, now clearly a lunatic with a shiny, balding head raving in the middle of downtown Evanston. He threw open the doors of the car violently, looked inside. �HELLOOOO??� he yodeled into the empty expanse, as if the car was an ancient cave and bats would suddenly come flying at him. �ANYBODY IN THERE?� When he received no answer, it angered him even more. Maybe he was hoping the driver was hiding in the truck, anxiously awaiting my father�s wrath. No such luck for him, or for her either, in fact, considering that the next thing he did was yank the keys out of the ignition and put them in his pocket. The motor died. The flashers stopped flashing. The doors yawned open into the street like big silver mouths. Calmed, my father came back to his own car. He started the motor of his own baby without a word. �Dad, you have the keys,� I said. It was more a statement than a question. �They can�t move it without the keys; they�ll be blocking everyone, not just you.� �Fucking duh,� he said, turning up the stereo louder to drown out the prattle of the people who had gathered to watch him drive away. Some of them looked like they were applauding his efforts; others looked absolutely horrified. He jingled the keys at them as he drove away. The orchestra played on, drifting out of the sunroof as we passed Hartrey, then McDaniel. He still had the keys. �Dad,� I said, �what are you going to do with those?� He looked at me, flashed a ghost of a grin, and then, totally deadpan and with barely a flick of his wrists, tossed the keys out the window into a big pile of leaves. A few stray leaves fluttered up as they hit, then settled back down. You could hardly see the hole where they�d fallen. He kept driving, a smile playing around the edges of his mouth. �Wow, I feel better,� he said softly. When we got to Northbrook, the restaurant wasn�t open yet. He�s the type of guy who likes to show up before it opens to ensure that he won�t have to wait in line. Usually he hangs about around the door until the owners show up, but that day he marched straight up to the pay phone hanging outside, called 411, and asked for the number of the Evanston Tow Company. �Dad,� I said, warningly. �I�m going to tell Grandma.� �Don�t tell Grandma,� he said, laughing a little, �she�ll have a heart attack and it�ll be your fault.. Hi, I think someone abandoned a car outside of the Central Street post office...�
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