Body’s a little rough, but she runs good.

In May 1984 I bought a 1980 Pontiac Grand Prix. I made a ton of memories in that car. The first day I had it, I drove it to my Senior Prom. Alas, that love was fleeting, in June 1985, I bought a 1981 Jeep CJ7. I couldn’t afford both car payments, so one of them had to go. The girls seemed to like Jeeps better than Grand Prixes, so the Pontiac had to go. This is the true story of my first serious attempt at selling my Grand Prix…………………Gather ’round children…….

My mom’s boyfriend at the time, fancied himself a salesman. I don’t mean just any salesman, this dude fancied himself the “Swingin’ Richard” of salesmen. As far as I knew, at the time he was. I’d been with him when he took one of my mom’s cars to Wichita, and sold it for way more than it was worth, to a couple of guys of Middle Eastern descent, who were just starting a used car lot. I asked him if he thought we could take my car over there and sell it the same way, he said “SURE! I’ll come over tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll take her over there and get you top dollar!”  So, I set to work cleaning her out, because I knew I wouldn’t have time the next day, since it was a workday. Bill got to my house about five o’clock, the next day, and away we went, to get me “TOP DOLLAR” from the same Middle-Eastern gentlemen who bought mom’s car. As we were pulling out of El Dorado, headed for Wichita, we were about to pass a carwash. Bill looked over at me and asked, “should we pull in here and wash it real quick?” “no,” I said, “I just washed it last night, it’s as clean as it gets. I’m really not sure why he was driving, maybe so I could do some last-minute clean-up, on the interior. About twenty minutes later, we get to Wichita, and take the Broadway exit. Just off the Broadway exit, we came to another carwash, “you sure we shouldn’t whip in here and give it a quick wash?” he asked me again. “Dude! it’s still clean, let’s just go get her sold.” I replied, starting to get a little annoyed.  Heading South, down North Broadway, past Twenty-First Street, past Seventeenth Street, past Twelfth Street. We are coming up to the stop light at Third and Broadway, I can see the car dealership in the next block and I’ll be a suck-egg mule, if there isn’t another carwash at this intersection.  I saw the carwash, and turned to look at him, just as he saw it too. He took in a breath, like he was going to say something, when I cut him off. I know I’ll regret these words till the day I die, but I said, “Hey Bill, why don’t we just whip in here and give her a quick rinse, what do ya think?” I assumed he’d be able to hear the sarcasm in my voice, but apparently not. “Boy, I really think we should, don’t you?” he said, turning off of the street, into the carwash. “I’ll get out and wash it, you stay in here and clean out the glove box, this’ll just take a quick second.” ‘ What the heck, I guess it can’t be too clean.’ I thought, as I started putting the contents of the glove box, into a cardboard box I’d brought along. Now folks, before we go any farther, I need to describe Bill to you, so you can get the full effect of what you’re about to read. Old Bill, “Wild Bill” is what he went by, in his pro-wrestling days. Bill was about six-three, weighed about three bills. He was a big, barrel-chested man, with a BIG OLE BELLY, all this, riding atop the skinniest pair of legs you’ve ever seen. I mean, if he’d come up to you, wearing a pair of short pants, you’d have looked twice, to see if he was riding a chicken. He had the smallest hands and feet, for a big man, you’ve ever seen, and apparently took “noassatall pills”, because he had to wear suspenders to keep his drawers up. Oh yeah, he was bald too, and pigeon-toed. You able to picture him? Ok, so he’s  outside, washing the car, the car’s still running, I’ve got the radio blaring while I’m unloading the glove box. I hear the water hitting the windows and the hood, then I hear a kind of a “clunking” sound, and the water isn’t hitting the car anymore. I turn down the radio so I can hear what’s going on outside, and I see Bill out front, dancing around like he’s trying to kill snakes. I reach over, and turn on the wipers so I can see what he’s doing, and almost immediately, I wish I hadn’t. It turns out, this is an old-school car wash, and it doesn’t have a pressure release trigger. Which, for you uneducated folks, means that as soon as you put your money in, you better be holding on, because it’s on full-blast. Now, this only becomes a safety issue, if you lose your grip on the wand, and a person with little hands is more apt to do that. So, Bill has dropped the wand, and it’s flailing about like an angry cobra, he’s chasing it around like Rocky Balboa, chasing the chicken in the alley. He finally gives up trying to catch the wand, and decides to just step on the hose to stop it.  At which point, the wand kicks back and cracks him in the shin about four times. He jumps off of it with that foot, and comes down on it with the other foot, a little farther back up the hose. Then, the wand, given more hose to play with, so it can reach higher, snaps right back up and hits Bill right in his “bag o’ tricks”, maybe even twice. Now, Bill’s bent over, holding his yam-bag in one hand (he hasn’t learned anything!), he grabs the hose with his other hand! So, after the wand cracks him in his forehead about four times, he mounts up on his chicken, and bugs out. By this time, I’m convinced that this place is possessed, and the sound that wand made, when it crashed down on the hood of my car, confirmed it.  Well I can’t have this, I’ve got a date with some Middle-Eastern gentlemen down the street, and I can’t have this carwash, possessed or not, ruining their newest used car. So, I open the passenger door and step out, just as the wand comes zooming within an inch of my head, at twice the speed of death. So, I get back  in the car and close the door (I might’ve even locked it) and watch this devil wand crash down on my car, three or four more times………………..CRASH! (chrome piece around my windshield gone!)…………………CRASH! (passenger side mirror gone!)…………………..CRASH! (big dent in the top!). Just when it seemed like it would never stop, the attendant came over and shut off the water, outside the bay. Once he saw that it was safe to come out, Bill hopped in the driver’s seat and away we went, we had a date with the Middle-Eastern men down the street. I probably don’t have to tell you, those Middle-Eastern men didn’t offer me near what I’d hoped they were going to, for that sweet sled. That’s when “Wild Bill, the swingin’ Richard” of salesmen showed up, to do his thing! The only thing worse than the beating Bill took in that carwash, was the verbal beating those Middle-Eastern gentlemen gave him, for trying to cheat them on my car, and I think they recognized him from when he cheated them on my mom’s car. We stopped and got a six-pack for the ride home, got a good laugh, every time an on-coming car passed us, and blew a piece of my car off on the highway. I’m not sure what kind of salesman Bill is any other time, but that night, he couldn’t have sold “hookers on a troop train.”

 

 

 

Epilogue

I went ahead and sold the jeep, when it didn’t appear anyone wanted a well-used Grand Prix. I drove that car for about two more years, until my cousin finished her off one night, with the aid of alcohol. I drove her to the junkyard, took my $250, and started car shopping.