Rubbish Day: part 1
from the storming and suffering thoughts of:
Thadd Presley
Jerald watched the quick little Honda in his rear view mirror as it weaved dangerously through traffic. Twice the boy behind the wheel cut in front of the cars he passed too quickly, nearly hitting the drivers not paying close enough attention. Every time the Honda bolted ahead, another car came close to a collision. Each time they successfully forced their way in front of another vehicle, or forced someone onto the shoulder, the driver and his long-haired passenger laughed.
Jerald decided they’d taken their dangerous game too far when they cut in front of an unsuspecting old woman causing her to push her brakes too hard. The car behind her swerved onto the shoulder in a bold effort not to hit her. It was all too close for comfort.
As the two men sped away from the moderate traffic jam they created,Jerald stayed ahead of them watching and waiting for them to make their move. They were a few car length behind, the moment they set their sights on him. But, Jerold wasn’t a Sunday driver. He was ready for them. He loved his car and he knew how to drive it.
Cars had always been one of his passions. He’d spent more than a few weekends of his life on the dirt track at the Warzburg Speedway. He and his daughter shared love for numbers and math, but cars were what made his world go around.
He happened to like the particular car he was driving on this day more than any other. It wasn’t his only car and it wasn’t his most expensive car, but it was the one that he dreamed of owning for the longest. This was the car that began it all.
He was fourteen when he saw the 1955 Porsche Boxster 550 in a magazine his father kept in the bathroom. The page was bent in half to mark the place and a circle was drawn around the name at the top of the page. From that moment, the Porsche meant more to him than any other car he’d ever owned or wanted. He dreamed of buying it and giving it to his father, but the coal mines were adverse to dreams. A cave-in and a small underground explosion closed Jerald’s dream forever.
He still bought the car when he found one.
Of the other cars Jerold saved and worked for, the Porsche took the longest to find. It was a life-long dream and a heartbreak come together all at once.
Jerold’s car collection stood at eighteen. Most of them were bought and restored just for him by a local mechanic and friend, but the Porsche was different. It’s condition was not spectacular when he found. It was found on Craigslist and it needed more than a little TLC.
From the photos, there was no doubt that it needed a paint job. But, it was the original 1955 paint, the same color as the one in the magazine, and that was the way it was going to stay. It was exactly the way, he always dreamed it would look.
The brakes, belts, and tires were the only things changed on the car;give or take a filter and a fuse here and there, it was the same car it had always been. Not a cherry by any means, but he loved it.
Copyright Thadd Presley — All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.