How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive (9 page)

The VW’s face joined. “Are they hurting each other?”

I took a breath. “There’s risk involved, because of what they can’t see,” I told him. “Plus the risk of trust. But no—they’re not hurting each other.”

The bank whispered something in the pinball machine’s ear and the pinball machine giggled.

“What are they saying to each other?” the VW said.

“They’re expressing their faith, VW—sharing it,” the Chest of Drawers said.

I couldn’t help but stare—I was mesmerized by their faith-in-progress. My stomach began hitchhiking its way through my body, looking for beans.

Then I stood up. “Let’s leave them be,” I said.

“Where does the faith come from?” said the VW.

Or was it a pinball machine and a French horn fearing?

I guess it doesn’t really matter.

“And what’s the
point
of it?” the VW said.

I didn’t know what to say to that, either. I tried to form an answer.

Just then I heard a rustle, soft at first and then louder. I looked to my left and I saw a leaf floating off the ground.

I stood up.

Another leaf floated upwards, then another.

“Oh no,” I said loudly.

The bank/French horn and the pinball machine heard me, stopped their faith and froze. They studied us for a moment. Then they grabbed their clothes and bags and ran deep into the trees.

But I was no longer concerned with them—I was focused on the leaves. I pointed to one. “Don’t you see it?” I said to the Chest of Drawers.

He just stared at me. “What—the wind?” he said.

“Look!” I said. Leaves were floating upwards all around us now.

Distracted by other things—the VW, the faith in the trees—I had forgotten to keep the mountain straight in my mind. I had let it go, and now it was changing, reversing itself, growing young: The leaves, as they
floated back up towards the branches they’d fallen from, were turning from brown back to green.

“Grab a leaf!” I said. I ran towards the closest one and tackled it.

“_____!” the Chest of Drawers yelled.

This
was western Massachusetts—unpredictable; a changing, moving bitch; a switcher of faces that always seemed to press against me. How could I have made any sort of progress here when mountains were mountains one moment and something else the next; when people were here one day and then
gone
? It—Northampton, Hampshire County—wanted me to fail, to lose, to get lost in the changing no’s and news and neveragains.

Not without a fight, you shiftshaping
cunt!

The leaf grunted and wriggled in my arms. “Get the fuck off of me,” she said.

I pulled down on it. “We can’t let it change its mind!” I yelled back to the Chest of Drawers and the VW. It
was
September. The leaves
had
suffered and were now lying dead on the trails.

But it was already too late—the mountain had already started to change, in my mind and the minds of others. I’d thought that if I could contain at least one piece of it I might affect the whole. But it didn’t work—the leaf was just too strong. I pressed all my weight on her but still she rose. Her veins pulsed and I could feel the muscles beneath her skin. “You want to tussle—is that it?” she said.

The Chest of Drawers and the VW, meanwhile, were screaming at me—the VW yelling “Dad!” and the Chest of Drawers telling me to give in, to let go. But I could hardly hear them. I held onto the leaf as she twisted and turned. Finally, she balled up her fist and springfielded me in the face.

Her punch was an ocean. I blinked and opened my eyes just in time to see another leaf-fist smash me. I let go of her and fell to the ground on my back, and the leaf fell on top of me, straddling my chest and swinging her fists and crushing my face and my stomach. I saw helping hands above me—the Chest of Drawers and the VW, trying to grab the leaf and pull her off—but she was a fury. She shook them off and bore
into me with fists like aircraft carriers. She punched right through the page!

My face never did run the same after that day. That leaf broke bones that never healed correctly. To this day, I still can’t properly smile—whenever I do it’s a police lineup.

The Volkswagen stores its notes, phrases and all things music in something called the
Words and Pictures Coil
, which is located in an eight-inch steel cylinder right next to the memory coil. In fact, you can find the Words and Pictures Coil by tracing the morning cables from the memory coil (the two exchange information constantly). There will be several cables to choose from; the shortest will lead to the Words and Pictures Coil.

For some reason, though, Volkswagen only installs 30 centimeters (about 4.5 wraps) of coil to the Words and Pictures Coil at the factory, which isn’t nearly enough for the car to retain all the language it needs to (I’ve written to Volkswagen repeatedly to ask them why they can’t trade one or two of the eight wraps for counterverbs or more complex rhythms, but each time I do they reply with a form letter and a bunch of Volkswagen catalogues.). You may therefore find that you need to open up the coil from time to time to remove clogged or unstuck notes, or to clear out notes you aren’t using so that others can be stored. Please note: Occasional clogs aren’t a sign that anything is wrong—they’re a fact of any Volkswagen.

To unclog a coil, first disconnect the morning cables that attach at either side. Then undo the clasps that hold the top cover down. The cover should come right off. Underneath it you should see the first layer of copper coil. You should see some notes in there, as well as memories, dreams and off-roads.

Take your missing and flush the top of the coil. Be selective—remember
that the missing is powerful, and that anything you remove from the coil is gone for good (I’ve known gerunds who’ve tried to fix their errors by opening up their missing, reassessing the memories or notes and placing them back in the coil, but that’s a very messy job. And their Volkswagens were completely confused.). Hopefully, this is enough. If not, you need to detach the coil from its housing (using a triplet-wrench with an extension to get to the bolt that holds it in place) and clean the coil more thoroughly.

Again, though, you’re only looking for clogged or unstuck notes—a layered melody, an obvious dischord. Everything else stays right where it is.

Your Volkswagen should be tuned for stories at the factory, but many owners find that their cars need retuning after a few years of roadtime. I’ve received letters from owners whose cars are producing off-notes or -words, and I’ve heard from others whose cars are flat in pitch or tuned to the wrong key. This will stilt the notes’ ability to project or travel, of course, and the VW will be less likely to want to play.

There are two factors at work here. First, remember that every note/word takes time, and that you or your VW are always searching for the least costly option. The sentence is a machine, and what we’re essentially talking about is swapping factory parts for after-markets. If chosen right, though, the cheap words should still vibrate at a frequency that is similar enough to the original or intended word for you to hear the suffering, joy or surprise.

Choosing such words correctly, though, is almost an art in itself. It may be that your Volkswagen runs just fine, but that you or he/she are making poor word-to-time ratio decisions. Check your words—are they turning at the right speed?

If the ratio appears correct, you may have a mechanical problem. If so, the best way to find it is to run a diagnostic on the parts employed and consider which one is the culprit. Your Volkswagen can sound out of
key, first, if its sensors aren’t working properly, or if the morning cables that compliment them aren’t clear and sunny.

If both the sensors and the cables seem sound, check the pedals. Do they push to the floor easily (but not
too
easily)? Study the top of the pedal as you push it. Is it attached correctly to the cable? If so, the cable should be taut when the pedal is pushed in.

Or it may be that the car’s just fine. Are you sure that it isn’t
you
who’s out of tune?

While you can’t contain the notes, you do have
some
control. The sounds your Volkswagen emits, that is, are directly connected to a) the syntactical choices you and your VW make (the letters you choose to tie to your experiences and the word choice, sentence structure and phrasing you employ), b) the positioning of those pedals in the car that are connected to the reeds. I say more about the foot pedals later on, but for now you should realize that it’s your responsibility to determine which reeds each pedal turns (as each Volkswagen is different), to label them accordingly, and to begin familiarizing yourself with the ways in which pedal control can create notes, chords and “riffs.”

I can’t emphasize this one enough. If you want your Volkswagen to make interesting, thoughtful music—music with muscle that can transport, change the weather or beat someone up—you have to make them practice. My VW used to practice a half an hour a day. We’d practice 3/4 counts, 4/4 counts, 6/8 counts, cut language timing, senteggios and so on. The VW might find these exercises tedious, but they’re exactly what you need to begin creating lively, original sentences.

I’d also suggest that your VW practice scales, a new one each week. I started my VW on the
pit
scale (pit-pot-put-pat-pet), but another good one is the
calendar
scale (calendar, centerpiece, cylinder, collateral, cutthroat),
or the
student
scale (student, standart, stelling, stillpaul,
stol
). Any one will work to start with, as long as it helps the VW begin to hear words as a series of sounds, helps them understand that each word has inherent musical qualities, and helps
you
get a sense for the reeds and the pedals.

With daily practice and a little maintenance, your VW will be comfortable in any musical situation that he may find himself in.

One afternoon about two months after the VW was born, he knocked on my office door while I was working on the power. When I called for him to come in he pushed open the door, leaned into the doorway and said, “Can I have this?”

“What is it?” I said. I didn’t look up—I was focused on fusing a page.

“I think it’s for taking notes on,” he said, approaching my desk.

I finished the page I was on and then looked up. The VW was holding a clipboard.

I put down my tools. “Let me see that,” I said.

He handed it to me.

“Where did you find this?” I said.

“In a drawer in the basement,” the VW said. “I didn’t know if it was yours or Mom’s. I asked her and she told me to ask you.”

My mind soft-drinked. “This was your grandfather’s,” I said.

The clipboard had soft corners, and my Dad had tied a stubby wooden pencil to it with a dirty white shoelace. The VW and I flipped through the scraps of paper and I read the wild script:
Call Electrician
and
Check Out 2 Fam on Masonic
and
Bry’s Lasagna
.

“Is ‘Bry’ Uncle Bry?”

“Sure is,” I said.

“He’s with Colorado, right?”

“He wasn’t with him at the time,” I said. “He was living by himself in Suffield. My Dad would pick up a piece of lasagna for him every Sunday, after our Clipboard Meetings.”

“What’s a Clipboard Meeting?”

I told him how my Dad and I used to meet every Sunday at Atkin’s to gripe and tell stories.

“Gripe?” said the VW.

“It’s like a complaint.”

“I don’t know if I have any complaints,” he observed.

I smiled. “You will.”

“So that’s it—you’d just sit and complain?”

“Not just complain—we’d chat. About school, or our real estate projects. He’d tell me about the Two Sides of Your Grandmother. I remember telling him about your Mom when I first met her.

“And we’d sit at the same seat every Sunday—in the corner, by the window,” I said. “Every week I’d arrive late, and he’d already be there waiting for me.”

The VW didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he said, “That sounds cool.”

“It was. It was really cool.”

“Can
we
have one of those?”

“What?”

“A Clipboard Meeting,” the VW said.

I shook my head no.

“Why not?”

A whip cracked inside my mind. “That farm isn’t there anymore,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just not,” I said.

“Where did it go?”

“Let’s save that story for when you’re older,” I said.

“Well, who cares if the farm isn’t there? Can’t we still have a Clipboard Meeting?”

“How would we do that?” I said.

“We’ll have it in the car. We’ll bring clipboards and cups of chai.”

I shook my head again.

“Dad,” the VW said, “don’t you want to continue the tradition?”

•  •  •

That Sunday, the VW and I woke up early and stumbled down the back steps. The VW looked back towards the doorway. “Is Mom coming?” he whispered.

I shook my head. “She’s sleeping in this morning,” I whispered back.

“She
always
sleeps in!” the VW hissed.

It was true—in the weeks before the Lady from the Land of the Beans left us she’d stay in bed until one or two in the afternoon, completely unresponsive, the covers over her face. Even before she was gone, she was gone.

As we stepped into the parking lot the sun was brushing his teeth in the dark. The VW said he’d drive us, but I told him no—he wasn’t old enough yet. “Let’s take the VeggieCar,”
^*
I said.

The VW groaned. “I
hate
the VeggieCar,” he said.

“I know you do,” I said. “Just a few more weeks, though.”

We got in and I pulled the rootbelt over the VW’s shoulder. As I did he scrunched up his face. “What?” I said.

“It stinks in here,” he said. He rolled down the window-film.