Transmissions for Musicians

They say that happiness isn’t something that comes to you. You have to seek it out and achieve it from within, amidst whatever circumstances you’re in. It’s an active choice I try to make whenever possible, and usually succeed. Until the cosmos turn weird.

This is a tale about my van. It’s also about my cousin Alan. And it’s about being happy. It takes place during a time when the universe itself turned ugly and malevolent, and happiness was a vague recollection buried somewhere underneath an insurmountable heap of broken radiators, leaking hoses, transmission fluid, slipping gears, cigarette smoke, expired warranties, axle grease, missed gigs, existential languish, bad TV, broken glass, broken tools, lost tools, junkyards, and mostly, waiting for something, anything, that would give me a shred of hope that one day I might be able to get back to my small little life of playing music and snowboarding. Instead, I found myself tangled inextricably in a clusterfornication that could have been designed by Rube Goldberg. It was comprised of my van, my cousins, and the transmission shop that had sold me a rebuilt transmission less than a year before. Maybe I should have seen it coming. I’m not that naïve. But every step that I took that brought me there seemed like the logical solution to the original problem. Instead, it snowballed into a macabre struggle of epic proportions, and turned me into a shell of my former self.

I can look back over the course of my existence since I was eighteen or so, and measure it by a series of shitty vehicles. You’d think I’d be used to vehicular frustration by now. But it never gets any easier, when the vehicle you depend on to get you to your work, and every other place you want to be, breaks down, and options for relief are scant.

On a philosophical level, it saddens me that my happiness should depend on the condition of an inanimate object. I’m not one of those sad-sacks who get their sense of identity from their vehicles. Ever run into one of these guys? You know the ones. You see them pathologically washing and waxing every weekend. Usually it’s a sports car. Or a jacked-up pickup truck. A primary color. The sheen matches that of their mirrored sunglasses. This is so they can see themselves in the reflection. From both angles. They freak out if you lean on it or touch it wrong. As if it were part of their anatomy. And we all know which part. That’s all their car is. A sad substitute for the phallically challenged. It’s just a theory, but it explains a lot. Watch them when they polish it. You’ll see. Freud was right about a few things. As for me, I like my penis just fine, and have no use for large turbo-charged, fuel-injected substitutes. But I’m a product of, and a partaker in, a society which has built itself on the reliance on machines and technology, and when they break down, it sucks.

I feel like I should start at the beginning. But I don’t know where or when that is anymore. Time and space have little relevance, and everything that’s gone wrong seems somehow connected to every decision I’ve ever made all the way back to infinity. I can’t help thinking about the laws of karma. Universal to virtually every world-view, belief system, and ideology (except possibly Nihilism). All actions and decisions are morally related. As a man soweth, so shall he reap. The sins of the forefathers shall be visited on their sons. And karmic laws don’t necessarily function within the confines of linear time. Everything is connected, and I’m in the middle of it all, trying to comprehend the forces seemingly beyond my control, wondering what I did to deserve all this, and making every human effort not to throttle the next self-righteous, condescending schmuck who tells me, “everything happens for a reason.”

I’ll arbitrarily start with my van. An ’89 Chevy G30 1-ton. Acquired by me in the spring of 1997. Perfectly suited to the life that I've chosen for myself, which consists of traveling, working seasonally, and living out of it for a significant part of the year. It’s been a good van. Yeah, I know. An inanimate object has no will, and can neither be good nor bad. The machine or object can only be a tool for a person’s moral intent. I’m under no delusions about my own moral proclivities being either inherently good or bad. My van has been a tool for both. It’s consumed many gallons of the earth’s finite resources of fossil fuel, deposited toxic, carcinogenic pollutants into the atmosphere, and leaked toxic fluids into the ground on numerous occasions. It’s also taken me and friends to places that have brought me great joy, carried myself and my sound equipment to many venues where I have shared my music and brought joy, pathos, and connection to others, and driven me and my kayak, bike, or snowboard to many distant locations where I’ve experienced nature’s forces in a way that very few other human beings ever have.

And it brought me out to Colorado for the winter. Just like it had the year before. Aside from the engine itself going bad, a faulty transmission is one of the worst things that can go wrong with a vehicle. When mine originally went bad 11 months previously, I was pretty bummed. But I dealt with it. This life that I live is largely dependent on my having a working vehicle. And machines malfunction. It’s a fundamental law of nature. Newton’s Second Law of Thermodynamics. All systems, when left unto themselves, will tend towards a state of entropy and chaos. So I started exploring options. I knew it was my transmission. I lost reverse, and only had first gear going forward. Classic symptoms. I was working a lot of music gigs, I had some money, so I told myself that it could be worse.

Now there’s a phrase I would later regret ever having allowed manifest itself in my conscious mind. In a universe of good and bad, things can always get worse. Once you reach a certain degree, “It could be worse” becomes a meaningless expression. And you want to kick whoever says it right in the solar plexus.

But I get ahead of myself. My transmission went bad last winter. I called up a few garages around Summit County for estimates. Summit County is largely an upper-middle class ski resort community. It lies in the Rocky Mountains about 60 miles west of Denver. Its elevation is around 9200 feet. An ungodly amount of wealth, power, and privilege rolls into that community during the ski season. And this fact is reflected in most of the local businesses. Especially in auto repair shops. The lowest estimate I got was around $2000. My typical response was, “you’ve got to be kidding,” although I wasn’t actually surprised. I know how tourist communities work. A lot easier to get high-quality drugs than to get a fair price for vehicle repair. I knew enough about Chevy vans to know that I could do a lot better. And I’m not one of the privileged elite who can afford to throw that kind of cash to a repair shop. By necessity, I had to explore other options.

Doing it myself was out. First, I didn’t have a workspace, and it was below freezing outside with a foot of snow. I had to somehow get it somewhere outside of Summit County. I called up my cousin Alan down in Colorado Springs for some advice. He knew a lot about vehicles, and he had once rebuilt transmissions professionally. So he would at least know a good place to take it. He did me one better, and told me to get it to his house, and he would find me a rebuilt tranny for under retail cost, and we would put it in in his barn. This was a better option by far than anything else I could come up with. And I couldn’t leave my van for 40 days and 40 nights in a tranny shop somewhere before they got around to replacing it and charging me 16 hours of labor for 3 hours worth of work, not to mention augmenting the price of the tranny itself to 50% over retail. So I set out for my cousins’ place.

So, my cousins. Claudia and Alan. I love them dearly. Alan is a unique piece of work. He’s one of those guys that, if you picture him standing before the throne of the Almighty, you can’t decide if God is beaming or wincing. He wouldn’t be kneeling, because he’s got a bum knee. He’d probably convince God to call his doctor to verify it. He’s an exercise in contradictions. He’s kind and he’s crude. He’s friendly and he’s cantankerous. He’s helpful and he’s infuriating. He’s a giver, and he’s an opportunist. He’s knowledgeable, and he’s also a world-class shit-talker. He’s the embodiment of the Yin and the Yang. A red-necked philosopher. A medicated John the Baptist. A long-haired Prophet of the Absurd. A repentant sinner and a renegade saint . Almost completely driven by his Id, and therefore pure in spirit. He’s my cousin by marriage. His wife, Claudia, is my cousin by blood. They’ve lived in Colorado for 27 years, and in Colorado Springs for at least 9. She’s a schoolteacher. He’s formerly a carpenter, builder, mechanic, woodworker, fisherman, scalawag, wanderer, hippie, rogue, and Jack of All Trades. These days, he’s on worker’s disability as a part-time, semi-voluntary invalid, working on projects around the house as an amateur entrepreneur when he needs to, or when his pain will allow. He suffers from a long list of ailments, some painful, others “mysterious,” that get him prescriptions for some really good drugs. Above all, he’s a guy with a plethora of redeeming inner qualities that more than make up for the outward infuriating, bloody-minded chain-smoking wretchedness that would otherwise make you want to kill him. And if you can stay sane enough to sift through the constant stream of bullshit that he likes to hurl at you, you can glean some valuable truths from the man. He’s a neutral archangel, still checking the odds before taking sides in the battle between heaven and hell, disguised as a long-haired good old boy, sent by hell to poison my soul with good intentions and cigarette smoke, and by heaven to test my patience and bypass capitalist greed.

I made it about a third of the way to the Springs from Summit County. I was in first gear, going about 30 mph the whole way, until the transmission finally died completely, with approximately 75 miles of mostly mountain roads to go. It was about 11:00 at night. I was prepared to camp in my van, and be towed the rest of the way in the morning. At about 10:00 am, Alan and his brother, David (a younger, haler version of Alan) showed up with David’s pickup truck, and a tow strap. We hooked up, and were on our way. David towed, Alan drove my van. I rode shotgun with Alan, and mostly cringed during 3 of the longest hours of my life. At the crest of most of the long downhills, we would unhook, and coast. To gain the maximum coasting distance, Alan would use the brakes as sparingly as possible, even when it meant taking curves dangerously fast, and passing other vehicles. On several occasions, he would say, “Kenny, you might want to close your eyes for these next few miles,” and proceed to take the downhill, mountainous curves significantly faster than I ever would have been comfortable with, even if my transmission had been in perfect working order. As it was, all I could do was try to be brave. Don’t show fear. It only encourages him. Accept my fate with a Buddhist-like calm, while rethinking the merits of my position on a non-interventionist God. It’s not that I think he’s a bad driver. Alan, I mean. Not God. He’s a former race-car driver, and is skilled at high-speed, high-pressure precision control. But he is also on at least three different high-potency prescription pain medications that I know of, along with other random muscle relaxants, sleeping pills, and downers. I don’t completely trust him. But I have no choice. I’m in his hands.

And his smoke. After an hour in the van with him, lighting up a full-strength 100 every five minutes or so, my eyes are burning, and my hair and clothes smell like an ashtray. He doesn’t roll down his window very far, because the cold bothers him. My lungs hurt and my throat burns, but I abide. He’s helping me out, and who am I to ask him to change his habits? Besides, he talked the Colorado state trooper who pulled us over out of giving me a ticket. That’s worth a little second-hand smoke.

Being in his house is like being in a larger and roomier version of the car, but without the option of rolling down the windows. You can see the smoke in the air, if you look at the lights at the right angle. After about an hour, I need to take a shower, and do my laundry. But after arriving at the house, three hours, six years off my life-span, a thousand rounds of bickering, shit-slinging, and creative insults between Alan and David that made me wish they had their own radio show, and one cop later, Alan has made some calls and found me a rebuilt Turbo-Hydraulic 400 Heavy-duty transmission for $450.

Step one. Take out the old one. We got the van into the barn. And here, the word “barn” might be a misleading description of this structure. It’s more like a shanty, constructed from whatever scrap wood was lying around. It has an uneven dirt floor, set on a slight slope, a garage-sized wooden set of doors hanging on their hinges, and is cluttered with cobwebs, dust, a seemingly random array of woodworking tools, a workbench with an even more convoluted cluttering of stray wrenches, sockets, extensions, pliers, vises, screwdrivers, hammers, rusty and mismatched nuts, bolts, washers, shims and nails, haphazardly erected wooden shelves with coffee cans, primer cans, paint cans, axle-grease cans, empty cans that Alan couldn’t bear to throw away because he could use them for something, loose saw-blades, drill bits, grinder stones, scraps of sandpaper, and dirty rags. The place is illuminated by a single, dusty, bare incandescent bulb, dangling from the roof beams by a crooked piece of Romex wire, in a light socket that was probably, at one time, bolted to (or, at the very least, meant to be bolted to) the ceiling. Plug-in sockets occupy similar predicaments on two of the walls. They are uncovered, with other bits of unconnected wire capped off, and sticking out into space. The Romex is strewn along beams across the walls and ceiling, loosely and diagonally, with rusty wire staples, and is connected, not to a fuse box, but an all-weather extension cord that runs 50 yards into the window of the younger son, Michael’s bedroom and plugs into the wall. The entire place is covered with a layer of sawdust, grime, grease, oil, birdshit, batshit, ratshit, dirt, dust and other unidentifiable interstellar motes and particulates. Nothing is in any particular order, but Alan knows where everything is. Or at least he knew where he’d left most of the stuff out here the last time he’d used it. This was to be our workspace.

The van fit through the doors, barely, leaving about two inches between the van and the doorframe. Which meant that to enter, you had to crawl under the right bumper through the dirt, underneath a steady stream of snow-melt from the tin roof. We slid two scraps of plywood under the van to use as a work surface. Then got to work. Loosen the U-joint clips and disconnect the driveshaft. Unbolt the rear mounting bracket. Remove the compression fittings for the antifreeze lines. Disconnect the shift lever. Pull out the speedometer cable. Pull out the dipstick. And now the hard part. Disconnect the flywheel from the torque converter. There’s a special tool that grips the flywheel and makes it easy to turn, in order to line the bolts up within the small space in which you might fit a wrench. Alan didn’t have one. David and I improvised with two crescent wrenches. Worked well once you got the angle right. And, finally, loosen and almost remove the housing bolts. The unit is now ready to be lowered from the engine block. This is fairly easy to do, although not as easy as it might otherwise be had the GM engineering genius during the Bush administration designed the exhaust manifold to go anywhere but directly under the transmission. Anyway, all you need is a hydraulic jack. Alan didn’t have one. David said he could bench-press that motherfucker out of there. OK, if you say so. He got under it, Alan got beside him, and I pulled the bolts and lowered it down from above. After about 2 minutes of wrestling and cussing, it was out of its maze, and down it came. David’s cigarette never left his mouth.

All three of us were covered with transmission fluid and sawdust, and bore a close resemblance to the garage floor. We cleaned up and began phase two. Trade the old one in for a new one. And this is where Steve’s Transmission Shop enters the picture. Steve’s brother was working the shop, and he had a brand new rebuilt TH400 with torque converter that Steve had just rebuilt to fit into a GM RV. The converter was not the dealer-specified model for that tranny, but was in perfect working condition, and would function just as well.

He warrantied it for a year, or 12,000 miles. Whichever came first. We put the new one back in the same way we took the old one out, with an equal amount of wrestling, cussing, scraped knuckles, mud, grease, sawdust, and shit from the underside of the van falling into our eyes. After tightening all the bolts, reconnecting the hoses and fittings, and making a few adjustments, it was in. I poured in the new fluid (it took about eight quarts), then it was time to try it out. It ran like a champ, shifted smooth, and all the gears worked.

Too cool! We had successfully replaced my transmission. I had learned how to do it myself. I had won another victory in my personal quest for knowledge and mechanical skills. And I had told the capitalist, greedhead auto-mechanic swine to go take a flying fuck. I rule!

* * *

They say that pride cometh before the fall. The laws of karma dictate that every action you undertake somehow, in some way, comes back to you, even if it is in a seemingly unrelated form. The indifferent and omnipotent physical laws of probability and random chance dictate that for every good thing that happens in the universe, a bad one will happen to match it. 50/50. Within that law, there is a sub-axiom which states that any combination of events, no matter how improbable, will come to pass in a universe of infinite possibility. Given time, a thousand monkeys will type a screenplay of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Random amino acids will come together to form recombinant DNA. Lightning will strike twice in the same place. And two transmissions will go bad in the same van within a year. It was all true. Karma. Random probability. And Kafka-esque Divine Intervention. But a Grand Unification Theory of Metaphysics didn’t bring me any closer to having a van, and hence, a life, again.

I used to have a life. It was a good one. I remembered much of it well. My van was part of it. The new transmission was working great. All through the previous spring and summer, it got me to many different adventures, to many different gigs, and, once or twice, laid. Da love machine. Doesn’t happen very often. But that’s probably for the best. And I’m not sure how much the van actually had to do with that. I’d like to think that the girl’s fabulously good taste in guys played at least a small part.

It was running great, it hosted some crippling parties, and helped me and many friends see a good part of America. Life was good. The universal laws of probability were working smoothly. I drove my van. I lived my life. Things went wrong with the van. I fixed them. Sometimes it happened at a convenient time, other times not. Did most of the work myself. Occasionally got advice and help from the bus mechanics in the garage of the rafting company where I work. Repaid them with a six-pack of beer and kindness, which is more than they would have asked for. Brothers helping brothers. Good things balanced with bad. I was driving, working, living, burning fossil fuels, learning, producing carcinogens, evolving, emitting toxic pollutants, eating, growing, contributing to greenhouse gases, bringing joy to my fellow human beings through music, taking joy from other human beings who have little to begin with by existing in, flourishing from, and contributing to a system that hoards, squanders, and consumes the overwhelming majority of resources for itself, and creating art. The yin and the yang. All was well with the universe. Maybe not well. A little diseased. But balanced.

* * *

Sometime in the late fall, the balance shifted. I can almost pinpoint the exact moment. It was the first really cold morning of the fall. Sometime in October. I started up my van, and noticed a high-pitched whining noise emanating from the transmission. It only lasted a few seconds and then went away, but it was enough to give me an uneasy feeling in my gut. Somewhere near my pancreas. I think it was my spleen. Then, shifting it into reverse, it took just an extra second before the gear kicked in. Uh-oh.

These symptoms continued throughout the fall and early winter. Around December, they became progressively worse, the colder it got. The high-pitched whine got louder, and took longer to go away. And it shifted more slowly and erratically, until the tranny was completely warmed up from the residual heat from the engine block. Then it worked fine. This was the baffling part. Normally when a transmission goes bad, it works when it’s cold, then starts slipping when it gets hot. Mine was doing the opposite. It sounded like the torque converter. Alan agreed, and another mechanic we knew concurred.

I was still in the East at this point, and figured that if I could get it back out to Colorado, then Steve’s warranty should cover it. And as long as I warmed it up sufficiently first, it ran fine. I left for Colorado on the 26th of December, and arrived in Summit County two and a half days later. Aside from a scary moment skidding in a snowstorm in Indiana, and an unwarranted shakedown by cops with a drug dog in eastern Kansas, the road trip went off without a hitch. Then came my first trip down to Colorado Springs.

I went down there with my special friend I was hanging out with at the time, and our plan was to be there for a day or two. Alan and I would head down to the tranny shop in the morning, talk to Steve, and let him know what was up with the transmission he had sold us. I didn’t have the original paperwork, but I knew Steve would. I also knew that Steve would remember Alan. Unless you’re heavily medicated, you don’t meet Alan and not remember him for a long time to come. The receipt (or my lack thereof) was the part that made me the most uneasy. But as it turns out, it would be the least of my problems.

* * *

One of my favorite things in life is irony. I’m a huge fan. When circumstances collide and quicken into a resulting situation that is the opposite of what logic and reason would expect, it has a certain poetic beauty that makes me believe in God. If I read a news story in which a bull escapes its pen in a slaughterhouse, runs amok and tramples and disembowels a guy walking down the street, the guy was on his way to church, and he happens to be a rodeo cowboy, I can only stand in amused awe. Sometimes the universe really does seem to have an underlying Order. Even when these cosmic, Kafka-esque forces are seemingly directed at me personally, I still have to inwardly smile at what a sadistic bastard He is. For example, when we were finally to find the transmission shop, and it’s out of business, and replaced with another company.

* * *

We drove into town that first morning. We took two vehicles--my van and Alan’s car. We didn’t call first, because Alan didn’t have the phone number, and couldn’t remember exactly what the shop was called. Turned out not to matter anyway. Alan and I stood there in the parking lot of what was now a contracting company, blinking in a dumbfounded stupor of unbelief. We probably would have stayed that way for a long time; me, because my brain was having trouble processing the utter stupidity and cosmic injustice of it all, and Alan, most likely, because of the Demerol or Percoset.

It was my special friend who had the foresight and resourcefulness to call the contracting company on her cell phone, and find out what had happened to Steve’s transmission shop. Turns out Steve was indeed out of business. However, he was working at another auto shop, and was still honoring his warranties. So all was not lost. She wrote down the number and address of A & P Auto. We called, and talked to the owner/manager of the shop. Bob was his name. Bob told us that Steve was absent that day, but he could probably check it out tomorrow. So it was back to Alan and Claudia’s house for another night.

Alan called and talked to Bob in the morning. Explained the situation. Bob was vague and elusive. Said that Steve couldn’t talk, but that if it was the wrong torque converter, his warranty probably wouldn’t cover it anyway. So it looked like I was screwed. I would just have to eat the $50 for a new one (the cheapest deal we could find), and the $100 it would cost to pay Alan’s buddy Scooter under the table to put it in in his garage, after hours. But at least I would have a working transmission once again, and that huge load would be off of my mind. That’s worth $150.

Scooter couldn’t do it until the following night, so we were stuck in the Springs for another night and day. When we finally got it to the garage that next night, I was becoming cranky, reeking of second-hand cigarette smoke, and just wanted to be done with the whole thing and get back to my life. So I was awash in relief when we finally got it up onto the lift, pulled the tranny with the hydraulic jack, and popped on the new torque converter. Life would finally be good again.

We lowered it back down to the ground, and after thanking him (with a case of beer) for helping me out, we got back in, and prepared to get back on the road. I put the key in the ignition and turned it, all the while silently contemplating the future, once again rife with possibility, opportunity, and adventure; once again within reach, with the help of my van, which started up with mechanical smoothness and high-powered precision. And then proceeded immediately to make the high-pitched whine louder than before.

* * *

Would this ever be over? Apparently not. Scooter offered helpful words of comfort and encouragement. “I wouldn’t count on that tranny working very much longer.” Splendid. I had nothing better to spend money on, seeing as how I had no life anymore. He told me he could probably find me a good deal on a rebuild, if it came to that. I told him thanks, but I wanted to exhaust every possible effort in getting that capitalist swine Bob to honor the warranty. That tranny’s less than a year old. How could this be happening? Served me right for getting my hopes up.

I had to be back up in the mountains the next day to play gigs that weekend. I let the van warm up sufficiently, and drove it the 150 miles back up to Summit County. I played a lot of blues in my shows that weekend. The music of the downtrodden. I figure I qualify. I tried to drive home from the gig with my engine cold, and the tranny was slipping so bad, it was all I could do to make it through a stop sign.

I had to get this problem solved once and for all. I was becoming psychotic. Sitting on the side of the road waiting for the tranny to warm up enough to kick into gear, I would watch the well-fed, beautiful people drive by in their shiny cars and SUVs. And I’d have evil thoughts. Look at them. Smug bastards. That yuppie prick probably bought that Explorer brand new with cash. Probably a month’s salary at whatever evil corporation he works for. Never had to worry in his life about how he was going to pay for a repair. Stupid fuck probably voted for George Bush, too. Doesn’t deserve a fine automobile like that. All these assholes in the world driving around in their vehicles that worked. Appalling.

I was coming to terms with the fact that, one way or another, I was going to have to part company with my van while it was being fixed. But I couldn’t afford to miss gigs. Alan offered a solution. If I could get my van back down there, we could go to A&P Auto, talk to Steve personally, and not Bob, and get him to honor his warranty. In the meantime, I could borrow his pickup truck to use for work, until my van was repaired. Sounded reasonable to me. He said that we had to do a few things to the truck to get it on the road. I said, like what? He said we had to put a new piece of glass in the back window. He had the replacement glass there, and we could get it in in less than an hour. OK. He also said we had to put a radiator in, but Scooter had a radiator for him, and all we had to do was pick it up. That would also take less than an hour. OK, again. I can put in a radiator. Done it before. Sounded like a good deal. I would take in my van, and have a working pickup truck to use in the meantime. It could be worse. Ha ha.

I got my van back down to Colorado Springs Tuesday evening on a wing and a prayer. The next morning, Alan and I took it down to the shop. We finally got to meet Bob in person. He looked about what I thought he’d look like. About 300 pounds. Snout upturned. Stray food crumbs on his little chin. Foraging for beetle grubs in a pile of paperwork on his desk. He told us to leave him the keys, and he’d take a look at it this week sometime. So with much intrepidation, I handed him the keys, and Alan and I headed back to the house to start getting his truck ready.

Alan couldn’t do any more work that day. His pain was acting up, and when he has to take one of his “special” pain pills, he can only nap until it goes away. So we couldn’t start the truck until tomorrow. That still left me two days to get back up to the County for my gigs.

That next morning, I got my first good look at the “truck” Alan was letting me borrow. It was parked (although some might call it “abandoned”) out behind the barn. It was a 1974 Ford F150. The hood was propped open with a length of 2x4, and the engine block was covered with snow. The battery was MIA. The tires were bald. The back window had been shattered, and broken glass littered the front seat, and the pile of assorted debris that had accumulated in garbage bags in the cab. So I began a mental checklist of all the things that needed to happen to get me on the road. 1. Put in glass. 2. Get radiator. 3. Bolt it in. 4. Connect hoses. 5. Connect battery. 6. Go to Summit County. 7. Resume life.

We started with the glass. It did, in fact, turn out to be pretty easy, just like Alan said. The hardest part was cleaning up the old glass from the seats and floor. It took a little longer than Alan said it would, but this came as no surprise. By the time we finished, Alan was done in for the day, and needed pain pills and rest. But that was OK, because we still had all day tomorrow to put in the radiator, and get to my gig that night.

In the morning, we went to get the radiator. Scooter had it in his garage. It looked OK. We took it back to the truck, and tried to put it in. It was the wrong one. The flanges that attach it to the frame were on the wrong side. We called Scooter and explained the problem. He said he thought he might have another one in a truck in the junkyard out behind the garage. So off we went to Scooter’s again. It took a little “shopping”, but he ended up finding one with the correct flanges. We took it home. The flanges fit, but we had to drill an extra hole in the frame in order to bolt it in. It was early afternoon at this point, and I was still optimistic. What the hell was I thinking?

That morning I also called Bob at the shop. After three days and no word, I was becoming impatient. He said he had it in the shop now, and he was working on it. He told me to call back around 5, and he would let me know what was wrong with it. He also gave me another piece of disturbing information. He had looked up the original paperwork, and told me that my warranty was expired. I asked him how in the hell that could possibly be, since it was less than a year old. He said that it had more than 12,000 miles on it. I asked how much more. Less than a thousand. I told him, yes, but it’s been exhibiting those symptoms since October, and those extra miles came from the act of bringing it back out here from West Virginia where I live. Too bad. I told him I didn’t think that was fair. I’m not trying to pull off a scam. I only want Steve to back up his original warranty. I could get a statement from a mechanic back home who could vouch for my story, and who had advised me to wait until I get it out here, so I could take it to the original shop where it was warrantied. Bob was obtuse. His attitude was, too bad, that was my problem. Call back around 5, and I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it. And that was that.

Meanwhile, back to the truck. The next set of problems came when we tried to attach the hoses to the “new” radiator. The problem was that the truck did not have its original engine. In there now was a souped-up 8 cylinder. Ordinarily, this would be a good thing. However, the water pump outflow led to the opposite side from the intake in the radiator. Therefore someone had “African-American engineered” (Scooter’s words--he’s black. Don’t call me a racist) a bizarre contraption of three different pieces of hose, clamped together onto pieces of plastic pipe, that reached from the outflow to the intake. This would not work. I could have told Alan this even before we poured coolant into the radiator, which immediately started dripping out of two of the connections.

The clock was ticking, and my checklist was growing longer, not shorter, the further we went along. I could realistically leave Colorado Springs as late as 6 O’clock and still make my gig. I took off the whole contraption of hoses. I pulled the pieces apart, put them back on, and used a double-clamping system that I hoped would quell the leak. Our next step was to put in the battery and get it started and running. Alan said that the engine had less than 40,000 miles on it. It was true. But those miles had been put on a long time prior to its current state of hibernation, and I had my doubts about how long it would take to get this thing started. We connected a fresh battery. I went into the cab to start it. Asked Alan for the keys. He said they should be on the dash. They weren’t. You can probably deduce where this is going.

Alan swears that he really did have the keys, somewhere. And I’m positive he really did believe that. But that wasn’t helping me get to work. It was going on 3 O’clock. We had to take out the entire ignition switch and replace it with new keys. Hot-wiring was out of the question. So I figured, as long as I had to go to the auto parts store, I might as well get a new radiator hose, too. There was still a slow drip even after I had double-clamped it. That would turn into a steady stream as soon as the coolant heated up. I got the parts, and headed into town. I could still fix this. The forces of the universe could not possibly be so cruel as to allow my transmission to be fucked, left in the hands of an uncaring capitalist swine, and, on top of that, me to miss a gig, and therefore the means to pay for it. Could they?

O how wrong I was. Late afternoon Colorado Springs traffic, Isaac Newton, Bob, Franz Kafka, and the Ford Motor Company were all in on a diabolical conspiracy to prevent me from getting back to my life. It just wasn’t going to happen. Some might say it wasn’t meant to happen. But that implies that a transcendent Someone was deliberately manipulating events on earth in order that my vehicular frustration be compounded with every step I take. As beautifully and mischievously ironic as that might be, it was a thought a little too spooky to contemplate.

They don’t make radiator hoses that are shaped like the one I brought in. I had to make due with two pieces that were shaped roughly like the original piece. But at least I would have two new pieces of hose, and one connective joint instead of two. And I found the ignition switch. I made it back to the house a little before 5 O’clock, eventually making it through the traffic, screaming at all the insensitive bastards who had the audacity to be driving at the same time as me. What’s wrong with people?

Speaking of which, it was time to call Bob. His words hit me like a freight train square in the balls.

“You got some problems.”

“Did you find out what was wrong with it?”

“Oh yeah. You got a coupla teeth missing from two of your gears. And one of your clutches is bad. And your housing is cracked.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Nope.”

“I never noticed a crack in my housing.”

“Yeah, it’s there. Surprised your fluid isn’t leaking all over the place.”

“It’s not.”

“Well, you’re gonna need the whole thing rebuilt.”

At this point, based on the way everything else was going, I was prepared for this information.

“OK, how much?”

“$750.”

“YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!”

“Nope.”

“I PAID $450 FOR THE THING THE FIRST TIME AROUND!!!”

“Too bad. You want us to fix it or not?”

“Are you open tomorrow?”

“No.”

“I’m coming down there on Monday, and I want to talk to Steve.”

Bob never had let us talk to Steve directly. Every time we had called, or gone down there, Steve was either “out,” or busy, or running an errand.

I was beginning to doubt the existence of “Steve.” In much the same way I doubt the existence of a just, benevolent, omnipotent, and interventionist Deity at times like this. I could deduce both of their existences from secondary evidence, but I would question whether or not either one of them was willing, or even interested enough, to help my situation in any way. The evidence was pointing to the fact that, the existence of God or Steve notwithstanding, I was on my own.

Back to the truck. I put on the new hoses and hoped for the best. I put in the new ignition switch, and turned the key. The good news was that the battery worked. The bad news was that the starter motor wasn’t connecting with the flywheel. It merely made a loud humming sound. Alan tried, and on about the 10th try or so, the starter connected. It turned over, but didn’t start. There was no gas in the tank. Alan got his gascan and a piece of hose. He took his cigarette out of his mouth long enough to suck on the end of the hose to start a siphon, spit out the gasoline that had sprayed into his mouth, then put his cigarette back in and began to pour the gas into the tank. I made him give me his cigarette, then stood back a prudent distance.

We took off the air filter, and opened the choke on the carburetor. Alan had some starter fluid, which I sprayed into the intake. He turned it over again. This time there was a hint of ignition. Tried it again. Another hint. This was taking a while, because the starter was still only connecting with the flywheel about one in every ten tries. Alan then poured a bunch of gasoline directly into the carb intake. Not all of it made it into the carb. He turned it over again. This time, it backfired, and now the entire top of the engine block was on fire. Shit! The flames were bright yellow, and provided a beautiful, ambient light by which we could see what we were doing, which was nice, because it was getting dark. But an engine on fire is not the best source of light, especially if it’s the engine you’re trying to fix. So Alan and I beat out the flames. When my heart rate settled back down, we tried again. After a few more attempts, the engine started, and ran. A little rough at first, but then settled down. I backed it out from behind the barn, and drove it around the yard to the driveway in front of the house. The engine did indeed run smooth, and it had some balls. Which is still about the nicest thing I can say about that truck.

When I got out of the truck, I found that the new hoses were hemorrhaging fluid onto the ground. It was about 10 degrees outside, and the heater didn’t work. After about 3 minutes, I had lost all the coolant. Turns out that the fluid, once heated, had melted the plastic pipe fitting that the hoses were clamped onto.

It was after 6. I hung my head, defeated. My fingers were numb, and my toes, clad only in thin socks and Converse Chuck Taylors, were almost frostbitten. I headed back into the house to warm up. And to accept my fate. I knew when I was beaten. I made the call to the bar manager at the venue I was supposed to play in a few hours. Told him my situation. He said don’t sweat it. He was very understanding. One of the nicest bar managers I’ve ever worked for.

Vehicular frustration was really and truly getting me down. It was worse than sexual frustration. If you’re sexually frustrated, you can masturbate, then get on with your life. Vehicular frustration just goes on and on.

* * *

I smoked a big fat joint that Alan had rolled for me. Why not? I had nowhere to go now, and no means to get there. Got stoned to the bejesus, and contemplated my situation. I had planned on being here for a day. Here I was, 4 days later, with no van, no gig, no truck, and no word on my transmission. I had no change of clothes, and I hadn’t even brought an extra book. I sat there in a roomful of acrid cigarette smoke, successfully tuning out the horrid shit that was emanating from the TV, and silently and genuinely gave thanks for my cousins, their hospitality, the roof over my head, the food they made for me, and the bed I could sleep in.

I like marijuana.

* * *

It was the dawn of a new day. Time to revise my plan. I couldn’t stay here at my cousin’s place forever. It’s not that I don’t feel welcome there. I just wanted to go home. I needed to go home, if for no other reason, than just to change my clothes. My van was still down for the count. And it was looking like it would be that way for some time to come. But I at least had a vehicle that could get me home, with just a little more work. All I’d need to do is get a piece of muffler pipe from Scooter’s junkyard roughly the diameter of the radiator hose, cut it to size, and put the clamps back on. A metal pipe won’t bend and melt under the pressure of hot radiator fluid.

I found a piece of a muffler pipe, and brought it back to the house to saw. Alan had assured me that he had a hacksaw. It was right out there in the barn. This proved to be problematic. He actually had two hacksaws. One had no handle. The other had no wing nut with which one might attach a blade. Oh yeah. The blades. Here was the next obstacle. He had assured me that they were out here. I sifted through the debris on the bench top, surrounding shelves, windowsills, and floor. Nothing. Went back into the house. Alan has several shelves and drawers that closely resemble the spatial organization of the barn. We eventually found some hacksaw blades in one of these. Took it back out to the barn. Tried to attach it to the more intact of the two hacksaws. But couldn’t find a spare wing nut that would fit it. It would attach to the other one, but the handle was broken, and hanging in pieces. Got it! Duct tape! The binding force of the universe. It has a light side and a dark side. We wrapped the handle around the frame (light side in), and I got to work on the pipe.

I eventually cut the pipe (having to reattach the handle several times), filed the edges down (had to hunt around in the debris for a file), and took it out to the truck. Drained the coolant, then detached the hoses. Inserted the new metal pipe fitting, then attached and tightened the clamps. Now for the moment of truth. Poured the coolant back in. No drips. Things were looking up. I closed the hood and got ready for the road. The test would be for me to drive it down the road to the gas station, fill the tank, and bring it back. Then I would be on the road. I would be free. I could go home.

This was a mistake. In my weakened state, I had carelessly allowed myself a moment of optimism. Like the domino theory of Soviet Communism, optimism gave way to hope, hope gave way to self-respect, and self-respect, as we all know, only leads to pride. And the Lord layeth low the prideful.

The tires were completely bald, and I got stuck in the snow in the driveway. When I eventually got it out onto the road, I took it up to about 40, and it began to shimmy. The shimmy only became more violent when I took it up to 50. It was completely out of alignment. Somewhere there was an exhaust leak that filled the cab with noxious fumes. The dashboard lights were out. I got it to the gas station. Drove up to the pumps. Took my foot off the gas. It stalled. Put gas in. Smelled radiator fluid. Got back in. Turned the key. Took 10 tries to turn it over. Drove it back to the house. The turn signals didn’t work. I was light-headed from exhaust. Got out and looked under the truck. It was gushing radiator fluid. My new connection with the pipe was working perfectly. So where was it coming from? I tried to open the hood. The hood release catch was broken. Had to use a combination of vise grip and channel-lock pliers to get it open. Propped it up with the 2x4. The radiator had a huge hole in it. This truck wasn’t going anywhere for a long long time.

The laws of probability state that any combination of circumstances, no matter how improbable or unlikely, will eventually come to pass in an infinite universe of time and space. A thousand monkeys will type a screenplay of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Random amino acids will combine to form recombinant DNA. Lightning will strike twice in the same place. And two transmissions will go bad within a year on the same vehicle. But all this shit...this could only be the work of the Lord. Or one of His sadistic flunkies.

I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t even stay outside the house for any significant length of time, because I didn’t have warm clothes. I packed away my tools, went back inside, into the omnipresent cloud of cigarette smoke, sat on the couch, pulled my knees up to my chest, and remained in a fetal position for most of the weekend. Claudia suggested that I might cheer up if she tickled me. She meant well. But in my current state, if Mother Teresa had come up and tried to tickle me, I would have jammed my fist down her throat, ripped out her lungs, fed them to the vultures, and pissed on her carcass. I’m glad Claudia didn’t try. She really is a sweet lady. And she didn’t deserve a cranky wretch like me in her house.

* * *

The final chapter (or at least the most recent--I wonder if it ever actually ends) in this saga took place that Monday. Alan and I drove down to A&P around 11am that morning. Found Bob. He was wiping a dried piece of beetle grub off of his lower chin. Asked him if Steve was here. No. When would he be back? He’s at lunch. OK, we’ll wait. After a little while, our presence seemed to make Bob uncomfortable. Good.

After about an hour, Steve finally showed up. In the flesh. Incarnate. He turned out to be a very nice man. He took me aside, and told me that, from the symptoms I had been describing all along, it sounded like all it needed was a filter. He told me to wait there. He went around back, and drove my van out front. He got out and told me that the filter was probably clogged, and wasn’t allowing sufficient fluid up into the torque converter. I asked him why Bob had rattled off that list of major transmission problems. He confided that Bob had never even had it in the shop, and had made all that shit up. But a new filter should fix the problem. He also said that, if it didn’t, he would fix it for a much fairer price than what Bob had quoted me.

I was torn. I either wanted to hug Steve, or go in and grab Bob by his curly tail and jam my foot up his ass. But in the end, it wasn’t worth ruining a good pair of Chuck Taylors, and Steve didn’t seem the hugging type. So I shook Steve’s hand, thanked him, and left. We stopped by the auto parts store, and got a filter and pan gasket. It cost $9. My van made it back to the house, and I got to work.

Pull the pan, drain the fluid, peel off the old gasket, unbolt the old filter, bolt on the new one, clean the pan, put on gasket sealer, put on the gasket, bolt the pan back on, and, finally, put in the new fluid. And now, the moment of truth.

One of my favorite things in life is irony. I’m a huge fan. And how ironic would it be, after what seemed like months of vehicular frustration, for me to fix the problem with two crescent wrenches and a $9 part? After all this, it could not possibly have been that easy. But it was. I started up the engine. Smooth as butter. The transmission was humming like a high-dollar fellatrix. (Hanging out with Alan for all these weeks, and these are the metaphors I’m reduced to.) I was having a hard time believing that it was fixed. I drove down the road. It shifted clean and smooth. No hesitation. All the gears worked. It was fixed. I was free. I could go home.

* * *

It took me weeks to accept the fact that my transmission was working, and wasn’t on the precipice of complete and catastrophic failure. It took a long time for the sinking feeling of pessimism down in my gut (somewhere near my spleen) to abate. I remembered what had happened the last time I had allowed myself a glimmer of hope. But it’s continued to work flawlessly to this day. So I continue to drive, and to live my life. I continue to burn carcinogens, and to create beauty. I continue to deplete fossil fuels, and to try to improve my life, and the lives of those around me. And I accept as fact that, according to Newton’s Second Law of Thermodynamics, my van will break down again. When it does, I’ll deal with it in the only way that I can, with whatever means are at my disposal. What else can I do?

* * *

When I finally met Steve, I wasn’t disappointed. He was the embodiment of everything that Bob wasn’t. He exuded a sense of love and justice. He was kind. He was fair. He cared. He helped me to help myself. And he really did exist. I hope that if I ever meet God, face to face, it’ll be the same way.

* * *

 epilogue

This essay started off as, among other things, a tribute of thanks to Alan. Sadly, it’s now also an obituary. Alan died this week. His heart stopped in his sleep. He left behind a wife and two kids whom he loved more than life itself, along with a cosmic assortment of friends, acquaintances, and fellow space travelers who will not forget him anytime soon. Logic would tell me that living as he did, chain-smoking and pill-popping, it can’t be without its consequences. It turns out logic was right. You’d think that everyone should have seen this coming sooner or later. But to meet him, and to know him, you didn’t think of him as dying. His personality had the stubborn permanence of an exclamation point spray-painted on a brick wall. You might have thought of him assaulting the Boatman of the River Styx with stories of fly fishing or debauchery until the Boatman couldn’t take it anymore and paddled away to the far shore without him, shaking his head. But you didn’t think of him as dying. He’s the only guy I knew who could make telemarketers hang up on him. Now that Alan did sail to the far shore, I wish he were still here to talk my ear off.

Some might call this a caustic and inflammatory tribute. Maybe so, but look who we’re talking about. I like to think of it as brutally honest. Because that’s what Alan was. And he’d raise hell at the prospect of anything less. Despite being a world-class artisan of bullshit, he was a fundamentally honest human being, because that’s all he knew how to be. He was pure and he was real. As an archangel, I don’t think he ever had any doubt as to which side he was really on. And deep down, neither did I.

“Every moment we live lasts forever.”

-Kurt Vonnegut