Chapter 23. There Were People Who Lived in an Age of Romance
Chapter 23. There Were People Who Lived in an Age of Romance
Working on the Corvette restoration was, for the most part, enjoyable.
The work was noticeably easier than when I worked alone, and at lunchtime there was also the fun of tracking down taco food trucks.
But more than anything, what I liked best was the time I would sometimes spend with Donnelly after the workday ended.
There was a small yard in front of the shop, and we would set out folding chairs there and sit side by side in the order of Donnelly, me, and Dusty, looking up at the night sky.
“...”
“Say, would you like to hear an interesting story?”
Whenever the silence stretched on just long enough, Donnelly always opened with the exact same line.
“I’ve heard enough stories about how beautiful your wife was. At this point, I’m in danger of falling in love with her myself. Right, Dusty?”
“Woof!”
Thinking he was about to start yet another story about his late wife in her younger days, I waved both hands dismissively. I had already heard those stories dozens of times.
Taking that gesture as his cue, Dusty barked once pointlessly into the air as well.
“This one really is a different story. Listen. One time, I was coming back after lunch, and I saw a car pulled over on the shoulder of the road.”
For once, it really was a story I had never heard before.
I kept my mouth shut and wet my throat with the Arizona Green Tea in my hand, and Dusty perked up his little pointed ears too.
“It was a real shiny Cadillac convertible. You know, back then Cadillac was the very best America had to offer. Whatever the problem was, smoke was just pouring out of the engine bay.”
“Your wife wasn’t in that car too, was she...?”
“Oh, come now, I said she wasn’t. You’ll be surprised when you hear this. The one in that car was the greatest rock-and-roll singer of the day. And sitting beside him was a blonde woman in a flashy gold dress.”
Wait a second. If it was the greatest rock-and-roll singer from when Donnelly was young, then...
“Uh...? Don’t tell me—the one who did that leg-shaking dance?”
“Oh, so you know a little old music too? That’s right. I quickly pulled over behind him and asked if he needed help. To be honest, I barely even needed to ask. His car had broken down in the middle of the scorching desert, after all.”
Donnelly’s eyes glittered like the stars in the night sky.
Whenever he told old stories, it seemed as though some hidden well of energy sprang up inside him.
“I was just a rookie mechanic back then, but the moment I saw steam rising from the engine, I knew what it was.”
“Engine overheating.”
Cars back then had miserable cooling performance compared to modern vehicles, so if someone drove too hard through a desert like this without thinking, this kind of thing happened all the time.
“That’s right. Around here, it was the most obvious thing in the world. So I waited beside it for the engine to cool down a bit, topped off the radiator with a bottle of water, and that was it!”
“Huh? That was all?”
“That was all.”
Donnelly shrugged.
“Except...”
“Except?”
“Whether it was because his pride wouldn’t let him send me off just like that, or because he was grateful for getting out of an awkward situation in front of the lady, I don’t know—but he wanted to reward me.”
“Oh! Don’t tell me you got his autograph?”
“Heh heh heh, that’s right. But the paper he signed was something very special.”
Donnelly grinned mischievously, his wrinkled face scrunching up.
“It was a check. For two thousand dollars, no less. And when he handed it over, he said just one thing to me. ‘Looks like you saved my date today.’”
“Wow...”
The moment I heard Donnelly say it, the singer’s broad toothy smile and smooth voice seemed to play automatically inside my head.
“At the time, I wasn’t even making two hundred dollars a month doing mechanic work. So two thousand dollars was a truly enormous amount of money. And do you know what I did with it? I ran straight out and bought this Corvette! Hah hah hah!”
Donnelly burst into hearty laughter.
“H-ha... my god.”
I was too shocked to even think of laughing along.
“Of course, even two thousand dollars wasn’t enough to buy one in proper condition, so I ended up getting one without an engine or transmission.”
I had figured the Corvette must have quite a story behind it, but I never expected something like this.
“Still, there was one lucky thing—it was a coupe, not a convertible. My wife hated convertibles because they messed up her hair.”
...Of course.
Every one of Donnelly’s stories ended with his wife.
But whenever that happened, even from the side, I could feel his longing and love for her.
How could someone carry one person in his heart for so many years?
That night, on the drive back to the warehouse, the scenes from Donnelly’s story lingered unusually vividly across the truck’s windshield.
The desert, cacti, rock and roll, a Cadillac convertible, a two-thousand-dollar check... and the Corvette.
The more I thought about it, the stranger and more fascinating it all seemed.
It really was an age overflowing with romance.
Resting my arm against the truck window, I turned up the volume on the radio.
Through the grit and the gravel, I’ve finally outrun the day.
(Through rough sand and gravel, I’ve finally outrun the day.)
Like dust settles when the night comes down, my heart will find its way where it’s always been.
(Just as dust settles when night falls, my heart too will find its way back to where it has always belonged.)
By sheer coincidence, a rock-and-roll song perfectly suited to the mood was playing on the late-night music station.
I loosened my grip on the steering wheel and eased off the gas, letting the truck slow down. Tonight, I did not particularly want to hurry.
The next morning.
Instead of heading to Donnelly Auto & Machine at the crack of dawn, I was standing blankly in front of the closet, freshly shaved and showered.
To be honest, calling it a closet was a huge exaggeration. It was really just a plastic bin with a few wrinkled clothes stuffed into it.
Work clothes... obviously not. And this T-shirt won’t do either, right?
What I had just taken out was a black short-sleeved T-shirt with “Navy SEAL” written over the left chest.
Today was the day I had promised to attend the Arizona Police Heritage Meet.
If I were being honest, I would rather have worked on the restoration than attend the event, but Donnelly was just about due for a day of rest anyway.
The problem was that I had nothing suitable to wear to the event. No—more accurately, I had no idea what counted as suitable in the first place.
In the end, I had no choice but to pick a faded navy-blue Oxford shirt and the pair of jeans with the fewest oil stains on them.
The shirt was one Rachel had bought me for my birthday a few years ago, and I could not even remember when I had bought the jeans.
The one comforting thing was that this event was a family-oriented outdoor gathering, so as long as he wore a leash properly, I could bring the puppy with me.
“Dusty! Today I’m counting on you.”
A puppy was basically a social cheat code. Americans, in particular, tended to have a lot of dog people.
The event was being held at a park on the outskirts of Phoenix, the largest city in Arizona and the state capital.
Because it was the weekend and traffic was bad, it took a little over three hours from the warehouse.
“That’s a first-generation Bronco. And there’s a Cadillac Fleetwood too.”
But the moment I entered the event parking lot, all the fatigue from driving vanished like a tumbleweed rolling off on the desert wind.
“So they were right when they said that in the classic-car restoration business, you need to win over older retirees.”
In one corner of the parking lot, there was even a yellow Corvette C3 restored to an almost collector-grade standard.
Compared to the C2 Donnelly and I were working so hard to restore, it was worth considerably less, but it was still an attractive car in its own right.
“Whew, I’m suddenly nervous.”
Originally, I had only planned to make a brief appearance and leave, but after seeing cars that cool, my heart started pounding.
“Woof!”
Dusty pulled hard on his leash at the smell of grilled meat drifting over from somewhere.
“Calm down. We’re heading that way too.”
In the distance, I caught sight of a banner that read, Honoring the Past. Serving the Future.
Americans really do love things like that.
They were sincere when it came to honoring their identity and preserving communal values.
As a second-generation immigrant who had spent a long time struggling with questions of identity, that was something I had always found enviable.
Though by now, that too was all in the past.
“Here for the Police Heritage event? Just keep going this way.”
A volunteer in a fluorescent vest kindly pointed the way.
After walking for several minutes along the little arrow-shaped signs stuck into the ground, a wide open plaza suddenly spread out before my eyes.
“It’s bigger than I expected.”
There were five or six large tents set up around the plaza, and beneath them people had gathered in little clusters, chatting away out of the sun.
The tent on the far left had colorful pennant banners fluttering above it, and judging by the steady white smoke rising from the large grill below, it seemed to be the food zone.
But among all of that, what caught my eye most of all was, of course, the parade vehicles.
Police cars from all kinds of makers—Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge—were gleaming in the sunlight and showing off their presence. And among them was the Crown Victoria P71 I had restored.
“Whine...”
“Okay, okay. We can look at the cars later. Let’s fill our stomachs first.”
With Dusty all but losing his mind at the smell of meat drifting over from the food zone, I hurried off with him leading the way.
Even the Grand Canyon should wait until after a meal, as they say.
No wonder Dusty got excited.
On the grills in the food zone, plump sausages cooked to the point that their skins were splitting open and thick beef patties were giving off an absolutely devastating smell.
There was chili too, macaroni salad, and all kinds of drinks, the spread better than I had expected.
And naturally, all of it was free.
There was only a small donation box set on a little table next to the grill with the words Donations appreciated written on it.
I took a twenty-dollar bill out of my pocket and folded it into the box.
At events like this, no one pressured you to donate or made you feel awkward if you did not.
Still, seeing the volunteer man sweating buckets in front of the blazing grill, I just could not bring myself to eat for free.
“Oh, much appreciated! What can I get you?”
The man called out in a booming voice when he saw me.
“Two hot dogs and one hamburger, please.”
It was not that I was trying to get my money’s worth, but I really was hungry, so I ordered generously.
Then I pulled out the food I had prepared in advance for Dusty.
It was canned wet food, perfect for feeding him outdoors.
Crunch, crunch, crunch—
While Dusty buried his nose in the food and ate frantically, I too chewed through my hot dogs at tremendous speed.
The texture and flavor of sausages grilled fresh over open flame could not even be compared to the lukewarm ones from truck stops.
I was sitting at a folding table and taking the last bite when someone suddenly called my name from behind.
“Jason?”
It was Karen. It looked like she had come together with her father, the retired police officer.
“Andrew told me Jason might be coming too, but I didn’t think you’d actually show up. Hi to you too, Dusty.”
“...”
Dusty had already polished off his food, and even at Karen’s cheerful greeting, he looked thoroughly unimpressed.
This would be a problem if today’s designated social liaison was already acting like this...
“What’s with you, huh? Why are you like that with Karen?”
“Haha, it’s okay. Occupational side effect, I guess. Anyway, I’m glad both of you look healthy.”
“Yes, thanks to you.”
I had only just finished exchanging a brief greeting with Karen when—
“Oh, Jason! When did you get here?”
Familiar Korean came from somewhere in the distance.
“Oh, Karen’s here too? Hi, Karen!”
“Hi, Andrew.”
It was Andrew Lee—the man who had bought the P71 through Karen’s introduction, and the same person who had invited me to this event.
Of course, he was not alone.
“Andrew. Is this the fellow you said you’d introduce me to?”
“Yes, this is Jason. Jason, this is Mr. Thompson.”
“No need for ‘Mr. Thompson.’ Just call me Gary.”
Gary was a middle-aged white man with a protruding belly, and perhaps because of the heat, his shirt was soaked through with sweat.
“Hello, Gary.”
“Right, good to meet you, Jason. I’ve heard a lot about you. So you do car restoration work, do you?”
Ah, so that was the kind of introduction this was.
I shook Gary’s sweaty hand lightly, then quickly turned toward Andrew.
But Andrew, as if his part was finished, had already drifted off into conversation with Karen and some others in the distance.
“Yes, I run a small operation out in the southern outskirts.”
“The south side, huh. Bit of a drive then. So what are you restoring these days?”
Gary kept tossing out questions while repeatedly wiping the sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief.
Worried he might collapse from the daytime heat, I naturally offered him a chair as I answered.
“I’m restoring a Corvette C2 right now. It’ll still take some time before it’s finished, though.”
“What! A C2? Is that true? Don’t tell me it’s a ’63!”
Gary had started to lower his large body into the flimsy plastic chair I had offered him, but he shot right back to his feet.
“It is a ’63. The split-window version.”
“Oh, no! My god! Don’t tell me Andrew introduced us on purpose knowing this would happen!”
Gary was so excited that his face, which had been pale before, flushed bright red, and his whole body started bouncing.
“Gary, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but calm down a little. Here, drink this...”
Afraid something might really happen to him, I quickly handed him a cold drink.
Gulp, gulp, gulp—
“Whew...”
He drained the entire large paper cup of iced tea in one go, then shouted at me,
“You absolutely must sell me that Corvette C2!”