LIFE SONGS: AUSTIN HEALEY

My dad came to pick me up in a baby blue Austin Healey sports car.

As I watched my mom part the curtains and look out at the street, I remembered how quiet it was when he first left us. Seven months ago. Before the Austin Healey.

It had been a perfect creek day – hot enough for a sloshy walk in the slipperycool and hot enough to dry wet sneakers on the walk back home. But I didn’t go that day. Mom said to stay home and help her around the house. It was so quiet. I remember hearing the eucalyptus nuts falling on Krista’s mom’s station wagon across the street.

My dad had already packed. He was in the backyard, sitting on the steps of the shed and smoking one cigarette after another and crushing them out in the lid from a Peter Pan Peanut Butter jar. My mom was washing dishes that she’d already washed before and staring out the kitchen window at something in the sky above my Dad’s left shoulder. I was playing dinosaurs.

Nobody was mad. Nobody was making a big deal about it. Nobody said a word.

Granddad broke the silence. From far away street-side I heard the sound of empty paint cans and rebar and half empty slip buckets clanging off the sides of the bed of his white ’56 Chevy truck. I ran to the front gate to view the roiling cloud of concrete dust, misting the air like pesticide from a crop duster, that scraped its way to the curb in front of my house. The dust settled and a sunburned face, barely visible beneath a torn-to-hell and faded John Deere cap did a turn-right-turtle-poke from the rolled down cab window.

The turtle that was my beloved grandfather leaned over the wheel, squinted into the sun, forced a smile, cranked the door handle and pushed himself out with a loud “oooooof-ahh.”

He trudged slowly to the door, pants and t-shirt sloughing dust as his work boots hit the pavement with each step. Then he just stood there, waiting behind the screen. When mom opened it, I shot out from the side of the house and grabbed him around the legs with both arms freeing up more concrete debris and teetering the old man on the precipice of the front stoop. He steadied himself, chuckled and ruffed my hair, then disengaged and backed down to the bottom of the stairs. Suddenly my dad was there, emerging from the gloom shadows of the living room. He cleared his throat, gently pushed past my mom with his suitcase and an armful of sweaters, walked right past my Grandad and me and got into the pickup, the sprung door making a cracking sound as he closed it. Grandad kind of grunted, said he’d see me soon, and then turned to follow.

He walked around to the other side of the cab, got in, and as he oofed up into the torn vinyl seat, my dad looked once at my mom then turned…and stared straight ahead out over the bay and beyond. Grandad, his head down, ground up the motor, then lifted his head and the pickup lurched, spit and rattled and smoked down to the end of San Diego Street, turned in a half circle and came back down. Granddad kinda waved at me as the truck passed by. My dad just kept staring straight ahead…not really staring at anything, it seemed.

My mother turned and walked into the house, catching the screen door so it wouldn’t slam, went into the bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her.

We hadn’t talked about my Dad very much since then. But here he was. On another perfect creek day. My mom sighed and turned and looked at me and smiled and said “Your dad’s here.” Then she walked into her room and closed the door. I knew she was sad. But at the age of almost 6, I was happy to see my dad, happy to have a dad, and excited about riding in a baby blue Austin Healey convertible top roadster sports car.

I was years away from remembering my father as promises never kept, embarrassments never apologized for and drinks never turned down.

I ran to the car and climbed over the passenger door into the seat covered with a ragged old bedspread that smelled of machine oil. Everything smelled of oil and dirt and rubber and rust. I smiled at my dad and he smiled back at me and we zoomed off into the blue of the western sky like Sky King…for about 20 minutes. The car only actually zoomed a little. Most of the time it chugged and chuffed and jerked and made gunshot sounds that made people on the street turn and look and frown. I didn’t even know what some of the words that came out of my dad’s mouth meant…but some of those people on the street did.

I didn’t care. I was with my dad.

He took me up into the Kensington Hills and we looked at The Bay and San Francisco, and Alcatraz and the Golden Gate. He let me climb to the top of Indian Rock, while he was fixing the car. I waved. I don’t think he saw me.

The hood came down and Dad wiped his hands on the bedspread seat cover and our Austin Healey Rocketship was resurrected. I said ‘Where to now, Commander?” and my dad’s forehead kinda slid up and back and then he told me he had a “meeting” to go to and he zoomed me back home. Ten minutes later we screeched into the driveway and he lifted me up and onto the pavement. I think he watched me trot up the stairs to the front porch. I got to the door and turned to wave goodbye. He was already gone. I walked across the street to see if Paulie or Krista wanted to go to the creek.

That was the day I pushed Paulie in. He was just sitting there on the bank watching a water skeeter and I pushed him in. I know it was wrong.

It was wrong and I was wrong and I made him cry…just because he was wearing this crummy T-shirt. Baby blue.