Who Was Your First Love?

My first love was my first car.

Oh, I've had crushes before but never anything close to love -- but that car, that was love.

She wasn't much to look at, just a snot-green '64 Rambler Classic with one functioning door, but in those days I wasn't much of a catch either.

My friends were against us from the start. They said I deserved better and called her cruel names like "the one-door coupe" and whispered that she was "the kind of car you don't want to fill with gas for fear of losing your investment".

But what did they know?

The car I knew was loyal, dependable and willing to see me through lean times. She wanted no more than I could afford and was happy to go where I went and do what I wanted to do. For someone clueless to the two way nature of love, it was the perfect starter relationship.

That summer I worked second shift in a steel foundry and every night after knocking off, I would find her waiting in a pool of light at the far end of the parking lot. On those hot summer nights we spent hours cruising the sleeping city, awash in evening air, not say much, not having to. We just listened to late night radio and fell deeper into love.

I started college in September and could only afford a one room efficiency. She slept in the street but didn't complain.

Winter was harsh that year. It took it's toll on her. I almost lost her in January when her starter went out but she was tough and we made due. 

Every morning I woke her by slipping off her parking brake and gently turning her wheel to guide her down Cathedral hill.

I can still picture the vapors rising into a reddening sky over downtown as she woke to a slow crunching roll. I can recall the long snake of the Mississippi steaming white into a distant haze as she gathered speed, and I can still feel the catch of her clutch as she sprang to life.

At the U, we parked on a hill and got home the same way.

We got to know the NAPA guys well that winter and spring.

I could barely get a foot in the auto store before a counter guy would recognize the part dangling from my hand and sing out, "That's a MOPAR DX1238-B, we're out of stock but the Coon Rapids store has two, should I call 'em?", to which I would reluctantly reply, "uh sure".

Gradually such trips became more frequent.

At the same time, my academic career took off. I was the right guy at the right place at the right time for the hot new emerging field of Peri-Glacial Geomorphology (frozen mud) and my papers on thermokarst (holes cause by melting mud) took the discipline by storm.

During  my junior year, The Musk Ox Journal  featured my work and among Arctic Landform aficionado's, I achieved the status of a rock star.

As my self image soared, the things my friends said made more and more sense. I too began to believe that I could do better than a plain old Rambler -- so I stopped caring for her.

The result was tragic.

I know I shouldn't have but that summer I took her on a long trip to a conference in Saskatoon. Along the way, what had started out as a light misfire grew into a steady cough and she developed a nagging thirst, forcing us to stop constantly for water. Each time, I filled her radiator I could see the pulse of compressions strokes throbbing through her coolant.

She had cracked a cylinder.

I knew it was fatal and she did too and I am ashamed to confess that all I wanted that night was to get to the conference. But you know what? That's what she wanted too. She was dying, but all she could think of was me.

We drove on with her headlights flickering through the fog as her cough got worse. She would falter, losing power, sometimes even sputtering to a stop, but then would pick herself up and push on -- but gradually her strength could not sustain her will and we finally coasted onto the shoulder.

She trembled and gasped, struggling for life.

It struck me then that I had never experienced a death and that frightened me. I had seen death portrayed as sudden or peaceful but never as the panicked thrashing of a loved one.

I shut off her ignition to end it, but she wouldn't give up.

Selfishly wanting it to end, I threw her into gear but she was too strong. She staggered forward, lurching painfully along the shoulder.

It was more than I could bear. I took her out of gear and sat for a while, frightened and shamed. We were both caught in a struggle, she for life and me for her death.

I got angry and threw open the hood, ripping at wires and hoses. Still she fought on, dieseling on her oil.

I didn't know what to do. So I just walked away.

To this day I can still hear her crying out to me through the fog "Ka-chunk Ka-chunk" - for miles as I walked away and left her dying alone.

I have had many cars since, mostly gleaming expensive models that take all I can give to satisfy their insatiable needs, but I put up with them and know full well why I do it.

There is always a part of me that keeps trying to walk back through that fog, back to the one who taught me the greatest lesson of my life, the lesson that has served me as a man, a lover, a husband and a father.

The lesson that giving is its own reward.

© Greg Schiller, 2008

Author: Greg Schiller