THE CAR

The Book

Excerpt

Trivia

EXCERPT

Chapter 9

The Prestige

“I've never seen anything like it,” the old man said, running his hand along the rough surface of the roof of the car. The paint had oxidized long ago, turning the car’s once red coloring into a confused reddish-brown. It was far from a pleasant texture, but the old man continued to stroke it like a newborn child. On the inside, the dashboard was faded from long exposure to the sun, the black-leather interior was cracked and discolored, and the driver's seat showed the unmistakable indentation of the human ass, also from long exposure. The passenger seat was closer to its original form, from disuse, and the sundry things that were Mark's entire estate filled the back of the car.

“Nothing like it? You aren't giving your idol very much credit.”

“You said it yourself, a lot of the details are missing. This is the real thing right here, I've been living a false life but now I've seen the truth. The Car.” The last sentence was said more to himself than to Mark, with a deep religious awe in his voice. The old man moved to the front of the car, where he gave what Mark considered to be undue attention to the tires, stooping down to trace their outer contour with his finger, making one circle, then another, as if the shape was unfamiliar to him.

“I'm going to need a place to park it for the night. Do you have a suitable place for it?” Mark asked, trying to push forward practical matters instead of just watching the old man's slow reverence.

“Park it?” The verb was recognizable, but unfamiliar to the old man. “A place to put it, you mean? The shed's not really big enough, and it's full to brimming with a lot of useless things anyway. There used to be a barn out back, might have been big enough, but the trees took it over some twenty years ago and it's not really a building anymore. I'd put it in our living room and consider it an honor, but I'm afraid the front door isn't big enough, unless maybe we can tilt it on its side.” The old man spoke slowly, and seemed to be on the verge of giving him more impractical options to choose from before Mark stopped him.

Mark said, “You must think it's a lot lighter than it really is. Even if we had a lot of strong, young men helping us, I still wouldn't want to tip it on any of its sides. I was thinking outside. Where it is right now would be just fine, really. I just didn't know if it would be in your way, here in the middle of your front yard.”

“The Car, in my way? The ground has become holy underneath it, my yard is now the Road. I just don't think the Car belongs outside, is what I'm trying to say. Not the Car.” The old man seemed intent to say the holy title as often as he could find occasion.

“She's been outside for most of her life. She's built to take the elements, they suit her,” Mark said, trying to be patient.

The old man hesitated a few seconds, before giving more concerns. “I would say it's just fine where it is, if you think it's fine, but it can't really be safe here. There's the weather, which you say don't mind, but then there's people. All of them will come to see it, everyone in town. They’re probably on their way now. And someone might get it in their head to steal the thing. Normally I would trust everyone here, and I know them all well enough to know how that trust is placed, but having the Car around is going to be a real test on everyone's morals.”

Mark decided that it was time to perform the trick, the same trick that he performed in almost every town that he brought the car into. The novelty had been lost long ago on him, along with so much of the car's other novelties, but with the forbearance of a saint he proceeded as he always did.

“Watch this,” Mark said. He pulled out a handful of things from his pockets, strange little trinkets that he had collected from across the world. There were porcelain thimbles, once painted but flaking, wooden dice with strange etchings on all their faces, several coins made of iron and brass, and a metal rod. Mark arranged the items, placing some coins on the hood, putting two of the thimbles on the pointer and middle finger of his left hand, and dropping the dice discreetly on the ground. The metal rod, he kept. It was about two inches long, with grooves cut out of it at even intervals along three quarters of its length. The other quarter bulbed out in one dimension, but remained flat in the other. The old man watched very intently.

With his left hand, Mark made complicated motions with the thimbles, trading them from one finger to the other with great manual dexterity. With his left foot, he overturned one of the dice, lightly. With his right hand, he inserted the metal rod into what looked like a solid metal button, near the handle of the car’s door. And even though the button had the appearance of being solid, it yielded to the metal rod, allowing most the rod’s length before stopping at the metal bulb. Mark hummed the whole time, a secret incantation, and turned the rod first in a counter-clockwise direction, only a few degrees, then back clockwise to the starting position. He removed the rod and stopped humming.

“Now try to open it,” Mark said.

“Like you did before? Just by lifting this part up?” The old man was cautious, not wishing to ruin the ritual through ignorance.

“There's no other way,” Mark said reassuringly.

The old man tentatively lifted the handle, but nothing happened. He looked to Mark for guidance. “It won't open for me. Should I lift harder? I used to be stronger, I really did, but my strength's been waning in my age.”

“Not harder,” Mark said. “That would serve to do nothing but break it. You're doing it correctly. The demonstration isn't over yet. If you could please remove your hand from the handle.”

The old man complied, clearing out to give Mark his space. Mark performed the same actions, but in reverse. Even the notes he hummed seemed to start with the last and return to the first. When he was done, he visually instructed the old man to try again.

That time the door opened easily with the lifting of the handle, and the old man's expression was euphoric. “It's miraculous. You really are the Driver.”

“I've told you already that I'm not,” Mark said. “Your daughter spoke truly. I'm just a person.”

“A person capable of performing miracles.”

“It's less a miracle than you would think,” Mark said, not wishing to argue so much against his cultivated esoteric aura, but at the same time frustrated with the man's obstinate superstition. “It's just a proper performance, a mechanical ritual.”

“Will you instruct me in these mysteries, then? Could you explain to me how they work?”

“I can't explain it to you, no. I wish I could,” Mark said, sincerely. “But to understand how it works, I would have to take it apart, dissect it. Like all complex things. But there would be no guarantee that I'd be able to put it back together, so I wouldn't dare. I've glimpsed the mechanism, but that is the extent of my knowledge. It remains a black box. What I can give you are words. This is a key, and that is a lock. Together they form a sort of safety that relies in no way on human integrity. If it did rely on integrity, the car would have been stolen from me long ago, in a far distant town.”

The old man contemplated his words silently. He then said, while looking at the car, “They could just break the windows, couldn't they? The thieves, I mean. Or is the material indestructible? If they could break the windows, they could climb through, couldn't they?”

It alarmed Mark how quickly the old man went from a religious reverence to a practical solution. The old man was apparently more cunning than he had anticipated, more cunning than most superstitious people Mark encountered, even though his look was entirely rustic—he wore denim overalls, complete with stains and holes, and had rotting teeth that were more easily smelled than seen.

Trying to rein him back in, Mark said, “The windows can be broken, I won't lie to you. They're just glass, the same kind of glass that I saw in some of your house's windows. But if you broke them, that would just get you into the car, no further. I need you to believe me when I say that another ritual is required to start the car's operation, and so unless these potential thieves just want to keep the car around to look at, or to put up on the dais in front of your church, you'll have to have the key.

“I tell you all of this because I'm going to hide the key, somewhere in your town. Until tomorrow, when I leave. And I'm going to tell every potential threat that I see to the car's safety that their effort to steal it would be futile, unless they found it. Then perhaps the impossibility of finding such a small object in such a large world would dissuade them, for long enough. If you could tell everyone you see the same thing, if you could explain what you saw here and tell them I've hidden the key, then I would be very much appreciative.”

“I'll do that, I'll do it for you, young man.” The old man paused, with the contemplative look that Mark had learned to fear through the course of their conversation. “But what if they torture it out of you, the location of the key? That seems like it would be easy enough. Tie you all up, cut off your fingers until you tell them, something like that.”

“For the love of the Driver,” Mark said, appalled. “And you had me believing that this was a decent town! It seems like it might be in my best interest to move on to the next town, or the one after that, and try to put as much distance in between myself and here as I can. There's still plenty of daylight left.”

“No, no, no,” the old man said. “This is a decent town, I promise you that. I've lived here my whole life, and wouldn't want to live anywhere else. And these are decent folks. I was merely saying that it was possible, that's all I was saying.”

Mark had to believe him. He didn't want to drive any farther that night. He was hungry, fatigued, and the way through the forest had gotten slower and slower every day, as the trees became more and more dense. He said, “If the people you talk to bring up anything about cutting off my fingers, tell them the thimbles don't work so well without them, and they'll have a hard time performing the ritual without me demonstrating it myself, with my own appendages. And please, don't bring it up yourself.”



Chapter 8

The Town

Mark entered the small but densely populated town of Wachusa, following the late-afternoon sun as it traveled east. He was preceded by the loud rattling of the car, a sound that he knew to be symptomatic of the car's gradual decline in health, but he didn't have the expertise to fix. Fortunately, no one else knew that the car used to have a healthier sound—they all assumed that it was normal, since they lacked his perspective on the matter. The sound drew out several curious children, who found him wending his way slowly through the sparse but persistent trees, still about half a mile out from the town. They led him on, his vanguard, excited and shouting. By the time he reached the first row of houses a large congregation of people had already assembled, and he received one of the grander welcomes he'd ever had in his travels. He really wished he knew how to make the car quieter.

Almost by accident, he stopped near the town's Car idol, a large, reddish-brown wooden relic, on top of a stone dais. He parked in front of it, pulled the emergency brake, turned off the car, and waited as the people of the town followed for the short distance that he had traveled past them. They seemed friendly enough, from their lack of weapons and willingness to form a large group, so Mark opened the door and stepped out.

The first person that greeted him was Willem, a young and extremely thin man. His tight skin and short sleeves revealed tough, sinewy arms, which bespoke a life working in fields, plowing and shoveling. His face was sharp, his hair blond, and he wore an inverted cross around his neck. He shook Mark's hand as names were exchanged. After the introduction, the first thing Willem said was, “There are myths about myths that the Car really exists in the world. We've been criticized as a town for even listening to mere stories to that effect—yet here you are. To think that a myth of a myth could be true seems too absurd for belief, don't you think? But I'm sure you hear that all of the time, so I digress.”

Mark immediately distrusted the man, since he seemed too confident and too literate. “Do you represent the town?” he asked, ignoring the man’s comments because he didn’t wish to address anything of mythology until he knew better how it would be received.

“We're not that kind of town, no. This isn't wood, is it?” He gave the metal surface of the car a quick rap with his hand that made Mark wince. “Not any kind of wood I've seen,” he answered for himself. Then he was peering through the windows. “Interesting seats. Anyway, I know that's how some towns do it, with 'Mayors' or 'Governors' or 'Presidents', but we're all equal around here, and that's the way it's always been. So in a way I do represent the town, as one of its many equals, but I doubt that that was your meaning, am I right?”

By then the people had crowded in tightly, and some children were even daring to quietly steal away from their parents to touch the car, before the parents were broken from their reverie long enough to retrieve their children and reprimand them thoroughly. Half of Mark's attention was on them, half on Willem. “That's a nice way of running things,” was Mark's simple response. If Willem wasn't the town's leader, he would be easier to ignore the existence of, which boded well for Mark. His eyes began scanning the crowd, taking in all of the faces.

Willem noticed Mark's distraction, but tried to push the conversation forward on his own. “Do you intend to stay long? If so, you're more than welcome to stay at my place. It would be an honor. I've got the largest barn in town, and we could easily fit the Car there. It'd be next to the horses, but they're docile things and they won't be a bother. And you'll have dinner, of course. My wife cooks the best roast beef you'll ever taste, I promise you no less. A traveler like yourself must be full of interesting stories about the world, and I would be a fool not to capitalize. I've got a strong curiosity about the world, you know.”

Mark had made his selection. “I appreciate the offer, I really do, but that man over there, in the overalls, he looks a lot like my father. And if I've learned anything from traveling, it's that the way things look is often exactly the way they are.”

“That man is... your father?” Willem asked, perplexed. “That can't be...”

“That's not what I meant. Pardon the confusion. Another thing I've learned, traveling and all of that, is that what is said and what is meant are always two very distinct things. I just meant that he reminds me of my father, that's all.” He left Willem unresponsive by the car, and went out to meet the man he had in mind. He was an older man, and looked to be completely uncomprehending of what was going on around him, which was Mark's usual choice of benefactor.

Mark had to interpose himself between the car and the old man's eyes, to draw his attention, which unintentionally startled him. “Excuse me,” the old man said. “The Driver, the Driver stands before us.”

“He isn't the Driver,” a young girl to his side said. “He's just a man.”

“She's right,” Mark admitted. “Just a man.” He preferred to hear that, he preferred not to be a god. Being a god didn't make him feel any safer than being a human when sleeping at night—he had tried it, and he knew. He felt more confident about the town's levelheadedness, hearing a straightforward denial of his divinity from a little girl. “Would you like to come sit in the car, good sir?” The old man didn't answer, but seemed pliant enough, so Mark led him to the passenger seat of the car, inserted him, and then went around to the driver's side, intending to take his place at the wheel and drive away from the crowd.

Before he got in, though, he remembered the town idol, and took a few steps in its direction, to inspect it. It had weird protrusions everywhere, obscenely shaped tires, but was otherwise the correct shape, as simple and crude as it was. He felt good about the open-mindedness of the town, from his short interaction with it, so as a joke, but also to give the town an impression of his superior wisdom, he said so that everyone could hear, “Close. Even the color, strangely enough. But you left out a few details—like everything on the inside.” Then he got in the car.

Once he was situated, he said to the old man, “I was planning on spending the night here, and would need a place to stay. Would it be terribly imposing if I asked the favor of you?”

The old man said, without any hesitation, “Yes.”

“Oh, well then,” Mark said, abashed. He didn't want to make the old man get back out of the car, but he would if he had to.

“I mean no.”

“That’s better. Where do you live then?”

The man directed Mark through the narrow, winding streets of the town. Old trees with long, drooping branches brushed the top and sides of the car as it passed, ancient oaks that were in the process of dying. More than once he had to tell the old man to give him a different route, because the car wouldn't fit between the space of two houses.

Mark had always wondered, and that particular occasion reminded him, if the spacing between houses was somehow a function of how harmonious a town was. People that were reclusive and argumentative would build their houses farther apart, and nicer people wouldn't mind being able to shake their neighbor’s hand through a window. But being as close to the houses as he was, he noticed that they were very, very old, most of them missing the glass from their windows, and with the exception of a few shoddy patch jobs were in pretty bad repair, so that he knew instinctively that it wasn't these people that built their houses so harmoniously close together, that none of them could build a house at all, but their grandparents, or great-grandparents. And then he had to wonder if geniality was hereditary, or if harmony could be conditioned by forcing people to live closely.

The entire ride, the old man said nothing. When he gave a direction, it was merely with the point of a finger, or a wave of the hand. On more than one occasion, Mark intentionally took a wrong direction, or drove in a circle, to see if the directions that were given were consistent, or just absent-minded twitches of a man out of his senses.

The old man's mouth remained slightly ajar, breathing heavily. He didn't complain about Mark's deviations, didn't say anything at all. Mark had expected it would be the case, when he picked him. He had found it to be the case that there were two types of people, when confronted with the car—there was the dumb-founded and the avaricious, that fundamental dichotomy only broadening to a fuller spectrum of behavior through extended exposure to the car. The old man had been dumb-founded, which was Mark's usual choice.

Even with all the deviations, whether arbitrary or necessary, progress was made and the spaces opened up, so that they found themselves at the edge of a field, already cleared for the coming winter. The fields formed a portion of the edge of the apparently circular town, trees from the ever-looming forest visible at their far end. The further they went, the closer the trees encroached, until the car was squeezed directly between trees and houses, bouncing on exposed roots. That was where they eventually stopped, since the old man lived on the very edge of the town, in a dilapidated house with the forest to its back. Mark parked the car in front of the house, preferring to stay away from the forest for the time being.

Slowly, thought was creeping back into the old man's head, and by the time they stopped he had enough presence of mind to say, “I'm going to tell my wife that we're here, so she knows. And where is my daughter?”

“How would I know that?” Mark asked, trying to be patient.

“She was with me back at the church, with all of the people...”

“That was your daughter?” He recalled the young girl, the one that had said he wasn't a god. “If I would have known that, we could have taken her with.”

“It's no problem, no problem. She knows her way back. The town is small.”

While the old man went in the house, Mark surveyed the dark, wooded depths that were pressing at the back of the house. It was like so many other forests he had seen, just so many trees.