“All Their Pretty Lights”
by
Chris Cheveyo
You get your first taste from a cup that ain’t nobody drank from before or if they have, it has been since modern antiquity. Empty lanes on the BQE. All of my favorite stories from Brooklyn revolve around the rails in some way.
My contribution is to say that I don’t really fuck with that. I turn wrenches for a living.
The decision is practical not ideological. Imagine hiring a mechanic who shows up for work everyday on foot. Like being served a cocktail from a bartender who doesn’t drink. Noble to be sure but there is always a career in the clergy. I arrived at the heels of the pandemic. The whole of the city had been turned into a museum.
You could look but could not touch. To some this would not be the most advantageous time to make a cross country move but my immigrations have always come at the break of some worldwide catastrophe. Well, if we are being fair, these have mostly been national tragedies but America has a deft way of making its problems everyone’s problem the world over. Hurt her feelings and you will feel the business end of our jack booted thugs. My van was outfitted with a bed and curtains over the windows for my journey here. I don’t know when the BQE was built or really any history at all about it but one of the first things I did was drive my little green van its length in the empty space between night and day. Not a single car on the road. This being a more traditional practice from anyone from old San Antone, my hometown.
I chain smoked out my rolled down driver side window and took in the whole of Brooklyn and some. Though admittedly, I still hardly ever know where I am. Every new city is a series of locked doors and secret passageways or at least the more interesting ones are. I move around a lot. I like to think I have some idea about this. Often the garden gates left open are done so by ex-pats of some such towns. They hope as newcomers to invite the city in. They are always of little interest to me. Although I have never been able to commit to any one town, I hardly want to associate myself with those like minded. I am here to be here. To be absorbed. To be of use.
When I first met the crew it was at the service of the wrench. A friend from out West had me tune up his old Toyota pickup. A perfect little truck for the city. He recommended a young couple who needed work on a 4th gen Mustang. Decidedly not a perfect car for the city. She wants to redline and that’s not possible in the 8 mph average speed roads in town. This made worse by its failed power steering system. Imagine a 90 lb woman trying to apply the force equal to her weight in order to parallel park in Chinatown. I exaggerate but if you’ve ever tried this with a line of cars behind you, you know I am doing it little service still.
The work was hard but it broke the prosaic lethargy of lockdown. When they returned to pick up their car fit with new repairs and probably new problems (it is a Ford after all. You mostly have to trick them into working). We got to talking and realized that maybe there was rhythm to our conversation. A natural flow you find with certain people that can cause belief in the fates, the divine, the communal rituals. The sky went a bright gray overcast to the burnt orange and chemical induced crimson before retreating to the royal dark purple of the early night. It was then that I became aware of the lack of feeling in my hands and legs. It got cold fast or we have been out here for quite sometime I said. We parted ways and my heart felt a recognizable warmth. I think I just made a friend or two.
It was difficult for me to remember the last time I had made any acquaintance outside of a bar in the last 10-15 years. Days later I received a call from someone they knew. A referral. I thought to myself how extraordinary it would be to accidentally start a business while waiting out the pandemic. He introduced himself and explained his issue. Work on a truck I had never even heard of. Sounds interesting. I took the job as more a means to keep wandering my way into the city. Besides, my curiosity was piqued. He swung it by my place in Bed-Stuy at the top of the triangle where Atlantic and Broadway meet. We made small talk and I clocked him as a superconductor. Like the triangle, the person where all roads meet.
The next day I took the new project, a Dodge Raider, out for a drive. I decided to make a day of it. I drove down Eastern Parkway to that engineering blight of a turnabout near the Brooklyn Museum and decided then to head into the city. After all, it was a nice day. Why not?
His issue was simple at least as an explanation. For no apparent reason at no recognizable interval, The Raider would just shut off. No vibration, no choking or irregular RPMs. Just a silent eclipse of power. I sought to repeat this problem but I typically like to simulate normal driving. I.E. Drive normal. There is always the possibility and this has happened to me many times, of stalling in the middle of traffic. An inconvenience to all those around you and in any other town, I would beg forgiveness. In Brooklyn, I have no sympathy. I am just another driver sitting in a drivable lane with his hazards on for no obvious emergency laden reason. So I take my chances and make for the Manhattan Bridge not because I meant to but because I missed the turn for the Brooklyn Bridge. This is the way you have to live here. Be intentional but also adaptable. Driving in the shadows of the buildings is free jazz. As Chick Correa said, “Never play a note you don’t hear.” Intentional. Improvisational. Make steady use of your horn. If this town had a song it would be the abstract harmony of different car horns at any given time, day or night. The true song of our people.
I cross the bridge in all its endless constructional glory. Cones, lights, high vis vested workers directing you this way and that as the city comes into fragmented view by the cables holding the monolith together. I think about every creature feature I have ever seen where this and every other bridge gets ripped to shreds like toys and wonder if that has any traumatic effects on its lifetime inhabitants. Or does the real world every day this and that do the trick? When I arrive in Chinatown, I dodge bicycles and scooters from every direction.
There are probably volumes of rules and regulations on driving here but none of them really matter. All that matters is right in front of you or to the side-like running a red light and nearly sawing the little half-truck into yet another half. The Raider is small. Everything is running smoothly. Just as he said. After tying imaginary knots around the Lower East Side, I pull the vehicle out front of one of those massive public housing buildings overlooking the FDR and East River. Housing you know as a West Coast transplant has left developers salivating at the chance to level the lot of them for decidedly unaffordable housing for the soft sweater computer jockeys of the new millennium.
I imagine great big glassy eye sores and Chipotles suffocating the culture out of a place as I have seen happen before. The beauty and tragedy of being 40 is bearing witness to the acceleration of both mystical enclaves of culture and sub-culture wiped out for the non-participatory masses who desire nothing but the coldness of steel, faux wood, and endless gray paint as a marker for safety. The truck hums along, idling just fine. I hope that if it is temperature based, the lack of moving air would bring the issue to light. It does not. The Raider never has so much as a hiccup. I decided to return to Brooklyn. Maybe stop in at one of those outdoor patio bars I saw popping up around my neighborhood.
I make a series of confusing turns before being led up a ramp back onto the Manhattan Bridge. I’m sure there is a faster way to Bed-Stay but I don’t care. I am sightseeing in some tortured way. I accelerate to climb the incline of the bridge when suddenly the RPMs drop to zero. No response. I hit the brakes before the truck can roll back while moving the shifter to Neutral. When I activate the key, the truck turns over and starts without any issue. It was as if the engine temporarily slipped into a void and was now back with us. Just as he said, I say to myself. I return the truck back to street parking on my block without any issue at all. The intoxicating smell of fried doubles wafting in through the open window. I’m definitely making that trip for dinner.
In the ensuing days I repeat similar drives around Brooklyn and Manhattan having never re-encountered the issue again. A peculiar puzzle indeed. I wonder about the weather. The pitched incline of the bridge. Any variables at all. Nothing really adds up. I call the Super Conductor and have him pick it up. When he does one particularly cold morning, we trade jokes on the mystery. He’s in good spirits, which is his way and is interested in the fleeting diagnosis as I am. No charge helps with this I think. The truck idling in the background as traffic makes its way around like a gentle stream around a stone. When he leaves, he is only gone for a few minutes before my phone is buzzing. It’s him. He tells me it stalled out in an intersection and won’t restart. Finally an intermittent issue is now static. In the act of. The easiest to figure.
Best to know these things than throw parts at something till the client is dead broke, pissed off and the issue still sticking out like a dick in a swimsuit competition. I jump in my car to find him when suddenly the Raider restarts. We are both laughing. The little shit just won’t quit. Even with all the cards stacked against it. I tell him to bring it around and pop the hood. We are gonna find this break today for good and all. With the truck running, I know exactly where to look. I give the ignition control module a light tap and The Raider buckles before shutting off. Unable to restart. Got you. I order the part from somewhere deep in China and let him know I’ll install it and drive it to him later.
Because shipping at the time was undependable at best, non-existent at worst, it took over a week to arrive. When it did, one bolt and a pigtail was all it took and the truck started right up. It idled high to warm up before settling into its specified hum. Nothing quite like the feeling of completion. To see something struggle to live. Afflicted with an unknown disease, find healing and functionality. The Raider has no mouth to confirm its repair but I imagine this is how doctors feel on a good day. When I call to let him know the good news, he is elated. I can hear him smiling over the phone. His baby is back. He tells me of a get-together he and his friends are having to watch the sunset at an abandoned air strip somewhere on the way to JFK. He says I should bring The Raider there so everyone can see it running smoothly again. He is excited to drive it back home. He offers me a convertible Geo Metro to take as an exchange. Future job maybe.
I try to conceal my own excitement but this is a new town to me. New people. I want to start and live with a more intentional integrity with it all. On the day of, I wake up with a paralyzing sadness familiar to anyone who has lived in the Pacific Northwest. I told you I get around.
Maybe there is a reason, maybe there isn’t. I let the cold, gray light in my small window darken and dusk settle. I think about the distance from all I know and the overwhelming sense of abandonment I have engaged in by leaving and restarting at this age. In its depths and no way for them to know, he rescues me. Are you coming? Its simplicity garners a simple answer to him and myself. Of course I am. I peel myself out of bed and start my way to the air strip.
I think to call myself stupid and silly along the way but my interest in what could be holds it back like a dam. The rivers of insecurity and fear raging behind it. I attempt to follow the directions to the pin he dropped in the dark and end up on the wrong side of what appears to be an estuary. Horse riding lessons this way. A strange sign to find in a city as big as this. I get back out on the BQE and narrowly avoid a couple of street racers in Fast and The Furious machines bouncing along the uneven freeway. Common those days. Then I make the appropriate exit and head back into the darkness with my failing vision. There doesn’t seem to be any roads that lead to the pin except the airstrip which is blocked off by the barricades haphazardly placed. I decided to drive through them. I split two and can see lights in the distance.
Headlights illuminated and what appear to be Christmas lights strewn about the cars in sparkly brilliance. It’s them. I can see his tall figure and long arms waving me down with a big smile affixed to his face. Yes, yes, he exclaims and starts clapping. Those with him cheer along. When I climb out of the car, he embraces me as an old friend and introduces me to everyone. The neighboring convertible Metro is playing electronic music unknown to me but it’s all so beautiful. Because the city rests itself tight around the senses, the magic of any open space, legal or not is profound. Some are setting off fireworks further down the air strip. The couple with the Mustang are doing donuts to the other side of us. He hands me a beer and welcomes me to the crew. Friends. A job. A new home. Nothing to it.
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