Mr. Shade Tree

I was thinking today, why else would a woman buy a used car except to take it to mechanic now and then. I mean, everybody needs a tune up… now and then, right? Okay, so here’s my story:

I learned to drive at like 14 or so, been driving for years and have been through my share of used cars. My mom’s Bonniville—big, really big. I mean, nothing like your first time… behind the wheel … in something so BIG. I used to practice on in my friend’s Austin American… yeah, ME. 5.7 since ‘birth’ big boned, lanky teenager trying to maneuver in a little Austin American. My friend used to have to shift while I put the pedal to the metal… it was a sight for anyone’s eyes… two teenage girls… one black with a 7 inch afro and one Mexican with a really big smile, driving one really tiny car at the same time. Yeah we were a hoot… still are when we get together… we just aren’t that flexible… even working as a team!

Finally the big day came, and I took Bonnie to the DMV. She was pootin' and chuggin' and stallin’, but hey, my instructor had only one arm… it was a bad day all around. But! Miracles of miracles, I got my license. By ONE point that one armed bas… baaa… bandit, yeah that’s what I’ll call him… gave me my driver’s license. Whew. I was freewheeling now.

Needless to say, I wanted something I could control a bit better than that biggo Monster of a car so I saved up my pennies… and heaven knows a buck.29 an hour on my job, it took A LOT of pennies… to save up 500 bucks to buy my first car… Rollina. She was a 74 or so, Voltswagon station wagon... oh my gosh and I loved her so. Her breaks didn’t hold … thus the name Rollina (often had to chase her down to make her stop rolling backwards out of parking lots and into the street). Wish my lust for mechanics had started back then … maybe I would still have that car… but no, I didn’t find my first mechanic until AFTER I seethed the motor due to her having not one DROP of oil in her engine… oooooh, I didn't know they took more than gas to go.


Okay so the trick was then … buy a NEW car then you won’t have that problem… so I did, I bought Mustang Sally… II. Actually I named him Tony. He was red and sexy… sexy and smooth, yeah. Candy Apple Red Sexy and Smooth… he was so red smooth and sexy that he lulled me to sleep one night on the Pacheo Pass and I ended up wrapped around the hillside while listening to Patty Labelle Lady Marmalade on 8-track. 


Yeah!... and then before he and me could even recover, he was snatched by my first thug-love and used in a crime. After extensive body work on the driver side from that hillside - Patty Labelle incident and the bullet holes, and not to mention that police impound, Tony was gone. *sigh. He never even got a chance to see a mechanic.

There were no cars for Michelle for a while after that… just a buncha "can I get a ride", "can I borrow your ride", "oh I need ta ride… the bus"… for a long while after.


THEN… there was the new car…really new. I mean, off the lot new… and well… POOF that car was gone in less than 6 months thanks to some tricky micky slicky mess… that left me BITTER as a lemon peel about cars.

WOW but then by now… I had 3 kids. Yeah, somewhere in between this and that… I had made a bunch a babies and well that bus riding got old and stank real quick… so I got a DUSTER for 300 bucks… yeah biggo tank of a car… drove it until the clutch fell off.. and then shooooot I got a MAVERICK for 200 (180 if you count the fact that my baby daddy put in 20 on it)… Shame to say it, but it was a party car. I mean I had friends and all that and was living the ghetto life!

I was slanging AVON outta the trunk and sanging songs - once and a while me and my kids would sleep in it if I got stranded too far from home. I was “Driving on the freeway oh nooo in RED MAV ER RICK” (sang to the tune of Natalie Cole’s Pink Cadillac). Me and my kids… I even kept a suitcase in the trunk with our clothes. No body could tell me nothin’… I had my kids with me and we went everywhere!

Shooo that car made it from Sacramento to Oakland twice a week if I had the money… especially between the first and the fifteenth… shooooot. THEN... BLAM... CLANG CLANG… something broke. It was loud too… and well… we got stranded on the freeway… Oh NO in a red Mav er Rick.

We had to get towed… And that’s when it happened… my first SHADE TREE MECHANIC experience. Oh my gosh… it’s like... where do they find those guys… prison! The muscles are like... outstanding. And they’re always greasy and like… dirty and like… (gulping for air) excited to be working for CASH on your car… (shivering). I mean they will fix ANYTHING for 25 bucks. 


A tune up. Oil Change. Water Pump. Shoot BUSTED Manifold… I mean you name it… 25 bucks will get it fixed for you. And I mean at 180 bucks for the car… I needed EVERYTHING fixed … at least once.

It seemed after that, the cars came in a blur… 200 dollars here… 500 dollars there…impalas with bad alternators, Buicks with some kinda thermal sumthin’ sumthan’ outta whacky in the engine that caused it to die at stop lights… ugh…that just was like… well let’s just say it was a lemon…They all were lemons… it was almost like I was addicted to buckets… because I knew… Mr. ShadeTree would be there… all I needed was 25 bucks!

Then it happened, I bought a car from my Brother… I paid 1600 dollars for it. Ohhh it was a Datsun and it ran gooooood. I remember even having the engine cleaned on that bad boy… I wanted to keep it perfect, I mean, it was from my brother and I wanted him to KNOW I was taking good care of his baby. SO when I found the transmission slipping and starter screeching… and the brakes… GONE… (yeah I’m kinda hard on a car) I took it… (gasp) to the SHOP. 


I will never forget that. I remember that day Mr. Shade Tree strolled by, stroking the busted taillight and looking all under ‘Baby’s’ hood… with so much WANT in his eyes… asking me… with that biggo purdy smile and gold tooth … oh and tattoo and all that greaaaaase… “what’s wrong wit it?”

And I had to tell him… “I’m taking it to the shop tomorrow to find out.”

Uuuuughhh it tore him up… it tore me up… it was a bad scene. But I couldn’t trust my Brother’s hand me down to just anybody! I mean… I couldn’t right? Soo… we went to the shop.

When I pulled in I was nervous. I remember thinking… what’s gonna happen. I mean, how much is this gonna cost? I mean, I only had like 250 bucks and I’d heard about these guys… they weren’t like the boys from home…

What was gonna happen (said in a scared whisper).

“well, I can’t legally let you leave. You have no break drum… so that’s some bucks right there. Annnnd… well your starter is just about gone…that’s another bit a change right there. You need a tune up…so, we can do that while we’re under there and well…”

“I don’t have that kinda money! I…only have 250 bucks!” I blurted.

“Sold…” he said excitedly.

And that’s when I learned you NEVER tell a mechanic how much money you have or that’s how much it will cost you.

…and dude wasn’t even that cute.

After that I was shell shocked to say the least but not Baby she was sprung… she was sprung on the professional mechanic. I know this because 3 months later she fell out. Okay well I did accidentally set the engine on fire… I don’t know how.. paaaalease I know you aren’t asking me that… anyway… but after that she was just trying to have all kinds of issues. I kept taking her back and back and back—tune up, enema, douches, pedicures, and manicures… glasses… ugh… 


I mean even got her some new shoes and mess… until finally my husband at the time… just like… sold her. SOLD HER… I came home and she was like GONE and he didn’t even give me the MONEY! He just sold her like she was HIS… I was like… noooo… and worse than that, he replaced her with a STICK SHIFT CAR… yeah... no name… just some ugly beat up two toned… stick shift car that I could barely drive! Dang thing had bad feet and was always needing shoes … every time I got in... it was on flat. I was like...what the haaaail…

That car was so significant to downfall of that relationship. He bought a BRAND NEW car and I got that stick shift car… matter of fact… during that 7 years of hell he bought 2 brand new cars… and sold the stick shift car from under me…leaving me with ... nada!

I had to BORROW his car when I needed to go somewhere…

Talk about a full circle... here I was again 5.7 and broad… squeezed into a little bit of a car… an ASPIRE… with a stick shift… and three almost grown children.

That was it! I divorced him and the car… to blazes with them both.

Breathe

The green Tracer…that was next.  I bought it mostly for my kids. They were learning to drive then and needed something. I never liked the car and it had issues from JUMP but needless to say… Mr. Shade Tree had never forgiven me and was hard to find these days… me and my kids drove that Tracer into the ground and it ended up nearly exploding on the Grapevine… we coasted down to the valley where my mother lives and I parked it. All hope was gone…

OOOOHWEEE it was almost like a movie. I was sitting at my uncles one night… looking at my busted car in his driveway hearing him complain about having to get rid of it… heck he even put a FOR SALE sign in the window… planning to sell it without even TELLING ME… OMG… what is up with that… so we were arguing a little bit about that when… I hear…

“What’s wrong it it?”

MY head about SNAPPED OFF …. Oh My GOSH… he was tall, muscular, and greeeeeeeaaaasy… (gulp).

“I don’t know.”

“Well… I can look at it 25 dollas…”

HOOOOOLY CROW…. It was MR. SHADE TREE… oh my gosh… “YES! YEEEEES!”

Oooh what a good job he did on me… I mean… My car… WHEW

Pant pant pant…

“Your FLIBLEDYGIB (or whatever he would say) is busted… it’s gonna cost ja…”

“Yeah… whatever… just FIX IT” I replied… knowing I now carried CASH…just in case he needed 25 dollar for something.

The green Tracer lived on for another three or four years… carried my grandchildren from the hospital… finally she was stolen, wreaked and abandoned on a back street in Sacramento … with the steering wheel missing (sigh).

The colt was short lived… gave it to my son… the ASTRO VAN… yeah biggo ASTRO VAN… bought from another ex for 500 bucks… got us safely from Sacramento to Oregon with my daughter and her newborns babies before the air conditioner blew up and we had to say good-bye.

Not counting the cars I bought for my children… buck, impala, intrepid, another van or two, some sports car for my son… all kinds of mess… I decided no more cars for me… I was done. There would never be another Mr. Shade Tree like the one that stayed in that small city where my mom lived. I mean that Mechanic had me bringing LEMONAIDE out to him in the HOT HOT sun… and those folks from that area know when I say hot I’m not JOKIN… it’s flippin HOT… oooh I did it just to watch him sweat…

Pant pant…

Merlot....
The year was 2009. I was working way out in the middle WHO KNOWS WHERE… and it was due to start snowing anytime. I was tired of catching colds and feeling old… I needed a car.

Man! That was a tough decision to make… and as I cruised through Craigslists, I remembered all the steering wheels that had turned under my caress. It made me wonder who / what would be next, what would be her name, and my biggest concern being, who would care for her once I got her home. I mean, I was older now and much wiser, I looked into AAA and Farmer’s Insurance and stuff like that but, I mean, who… who was gonna… be the one to FIX HER… TUNER HER UP… care for her NEEDS.

When I brought Merlot home… my burgundy Taurus… I was scared. She had under 100K on her but still, I knew soon she would need a mechanic.

Today was the day and I have to admit… she was ready. I hadn’t given her a bath but that’s okay the Jiffy Lube guys got all in there and took care of that…

Sure… these guys were no Mr. Shade Tree but they lubed her all up and rubbed her all down in record time…

They were smooth and muscular… and even kinda greasy in a white collar kinda way… and well I even bought her a filter or two extra just to make sure she was ‘okay’ when we got back on the road. It was on sale for 25 bucks.

It was just a little something to make me remember the day when that was ALL it cost to get back on the road.