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“Well, I’m going to take a nap,” my mother said, as she put my dad’s baked potato in a bowl and headed upstairs to take one of her three naps per day. Apparently the two telephone calls had taken their toll.
“What are you doing with my baked potato?” my father asked, standing there aghast.
“You can’t eat a baked potato while driving,” she responded, and turned the corner.
We headed outside to the minivan and got in. “Put your seat belt on,” I told him.
“Can’t. Won’t fit.”
My father refuses to wear a seat belt, and I can’t think of anyone whose driving skills require it more. I reached over as he raised his hands in the air and I strapped him in. I looked in the backseat and saw a box of my books that my father had purchased at Barnes & Noble.
“You know it’s illegal to resell books you buy at Barnes and Noble, right?”
“That Charley is something, isn’t she? What a girl! What a girl!” he said as he ran a stop sign. “Sloane really loves that little girl. She really loves her.”
“I should hope so. She’s her daughter.”
“And you’re my daughter, and I’m very proud of you. You got a lot of chutzpah. You know where you get that from? Your daddy.”
If you don’t respond to my father, he will continue as if you’re waving your hand to say “Keep going!” It is very important to interrupt him before gets on a roll.
“Where are we going?” I asked him.
“Newark. We gotta pick up the Mustang. It’s parked at the DMV, and then we’ll show it to the Oriental and move it to a lot in West Orange. I got a schvartzah at the DMV, big woman.”
“Huh?”
“She helps me flip titles, helps with registration, nice lady, black as night, though, and she’s got a tuchas the size of midsize sedan.”
“What does she get out of the deal?”
“What does she get out of the deal?” he asked. “I bought her a watch from Costco, that’s what. You know, Orientals are cheap. They don’t want to spend a lot of money. Car’s listed for $2,235 in the paper and that’s what I intend on getting. Mileage is a little high, but it’s got A/C and tires. Even had the floor mats washed.”
“How many miles does it have?” I asked him.
“120,000,” he said as he changed lanes without signaling.
“Does this car have airbags?” I asked, looking around for mine.
“The reason I listed it for $2,235 is tricky,” he went on. “If you put an odd number for the price, that will catch the eye more than say, $2,200 even, or $2,240. An odd number will stand out much more than an even number.”
“Well, what happens when they actually see the car?” I asked.
“Well, they either take it or leave it. They get one shot!” he said, pointing his finger in the air. “Some people want to think about it,” he said, making air quotes. “That means they’re not interested and they’re liars. Not serious about buying a car, just trying to waste my time. If the person’s go
We finally arrived at the Department of Motor Vehicles in downtown Newark, where my father headed toward the back corner of the parking lot to collect his gold 1990 Ford Mustang with tinted windows.
“Is that a bullet hole?” I asked, noticing what looked like gunfire on the passenger-side door of the Mustang.
Melvin stopped the car and sat there looking at his seat belt like he had no idea how to unbuckle it until I leaned over and pressed the button to release it. “Gotta warm up the car. Give me a couple of minutes and then follow me,” he said as he hopped down from the minivan. Following my father in a separate vehicle is not dissimilar to playing Pole Position. He will go through yellow lights, leaving you to either run a red light or lose him completely, only for him to call you from his cell phone minutes later asking you where you got your license.
I followed him to a Wendy’s parking lot, where he parked the Mustang and got out. Motivated by pure boredom, I decided to go to the drive-through and get some chicken nuggets. After ordering, I pulled around to the window to pay and found my father standing there telling the woman behind the window that he wanted a cheeseburger. The lady was trying to explain to him in broken English that he needed to be in a car to order food, when I interrupted and told him to take a hike. “You’re not having a cheeseburger, that’s the last thing you need.”
My father looked at me, looked at the woman through the window, turned, and walked back to the Mustang. Soon after, the Asian who had called about the car pulled up in a black Honda Accord with his son and parked next to the Mustang. They got out of their car and spoke for a couple of minutes with my father before getting into the Mustang to take it for a test ride. This I had to deduce on my own, because it would never occur to my father to come over and tell me he would be back in a couple of minutes.
Just as they were pulling out of the parking lot, the car stalled. My father got out after a couple of seconds and popped the hood. I was watching this circus from inside the minivan while chewing on a chicken nugget, wondering what my father thought he was going to find under the hood. He’s not a mechanic. Unless the problem was something as obvious as the battery not being attached, he wouldn’t be able to fix a car if his life depended on it. He leaned in under the hood for a couple of seconds and then walked around to the driver side, where the Asian father was seated, and gestured with his thumb for the man to get out. Surprisingly, my father hopped in and was somehow able to start the car. He got back out, shut the hood, and walked back around to the passenger side.
I sat alone in the Wendy’s parking lot for about forty minutes until I was joined by a homeless woman with full eye makeup wearing a cape. The driver-side window was only open a crack and I was too lazy to turn the engine back on to lower it. “Here.” I took one of my chicken nuggets and squeezed it through the open part of the window. My calculations were off, and instead of the nugget fitting perfectly through the quarter-inch opening, it ended up losing its breaded coating on its way out. She took the chicken nugget, looked at it, and then slammed it on the ground. I understood that the nugget had lost some of its appeal in the transfer, but was a little alarmed at her reaction. I was, after all, sharing. We stared at each other for a full minute before I reluctantly took a dollar out of the consul and shoved it through the window.
“Good luck with everything,” I yelled as she walked away without saying “thank you.”
I retrieved my eye shades from my purse, reclined my seat, and fell into a light slumber until I heard the car door open and saw my father grabbing one of my books out of the Barnes & Noble box. “Make it out to Quan,” he barked, and handed me a Sharpie.
He took the book and walked back over to the Asian man and his son. They looked over with big smiles and waved. Then the man took some money out of his pocket, handed it to my dad, and got into the Mustang while his son got into the Honda and drove away.
“How much did he pay for the car?” I asked as I pulled out of the parking lot.
“You must be a good-luck charm, love,” he said, patting my leg and then taking out a wad of cash. “Nice guy for an Oriental-had to negotiate a little bit, but he ended up buying the car after all. And he bought a book!”
“How much did he pay for the car?” I asked as I moved my leg away from his hand.
“Asking price was $2,235. I gave it to him for $2,225. But I made $5 on the book. Charged him twenty bucks for that. I paid fifteen bucks for it at Barnes and Noble,” he said, as if I didn’t know how much my own book cost.