HERE TO THERE
It’s time for a new car. My lease is up and I’m looking at the continuous showroom that patrols every road. Obviously the Cadillac Escalade Pickup has everything anyone could want for $72k. The prestige of a Cadillac, the size and utility of the SUV, including the convenience of a pickup truck.
Unwilling to pay that much for a depreciating investment, I resort to the envy of shiny new BMWs, economical shiny new Hondas, aspirational shiny new Infinities, juicy muscular shiny new Subarus, ridiculously cheap shiny new VWs, and the shiny new non-conforming Mazda 9.
While driving and dreaming of my next container, I wondered how much of a new car decision is based on the way we want to be seen while driving the car. Do we invite the stereotype that comes with driving a truck, or do we choose to welcome the usual mid-life crisis/genital size comments that come with driving a fast low sports car?
Then I realized that a vehicle is just the vessel folks wrestle with, until someone makes it their own. Prior to that it’s orphaned and inanimate. When one takes ownership, gives it a name, presets the stations on the radio, fills the glove box with personal what-ifs, registers it, and fills it with gas for the first time… we become the soul that possesses it.
Watching for new potential cars to possess, I wandered and weaved and found myself at the corner of “Pull Your Own Part” and “Cash for Your Crash”. Colorful fenders hung on rusty wrecked racks like bright automotive dentures waiting to be selected by mechanics seeing themselves as plastic surgeons, installing fresh faces on mouthless mounts.
Desperate to immerse myself in towers of trash, and collide with every make and model, I called the fender place to ask permission to come and shoot my Canon in their yard. First rejected and denied, then the owner told me about this other place that would let me walk and shoot as much as I’d like.
It seems that down the street from Fenders R Us, was a place sort of like Disneyland for Dents. You walk in the dirty greasy entrance, pay your $3 and exit into a universe of Car-casses like no one has ever seen before. Aisles and rows of cars and trucks from every manufacturer whoever had an assembly line.
I couldn’t figure out if I was privileged to see what happens to cars after they pass away, or if I should turn around and run from what was obviously Detroit’s secret death camp. I proceeded in like an accidental tourist, past a motor pulling mortician pushing a wheel barrel down a narrow avenue of autos.
Shoppers for stoppers, tires, dipsticks and doors, examined the perverse piles still trying to impress, with their mighty hoods raised high, twinkling an occasional glint from the last remaining chrome on a dangling side mirror.
Elders from our car-guy sub-culture toured trucks with apprentice mechanics hunting for horns, leaning on Lincolns, and fumbling with Fords. The stench of motor oil hung in the air like the bad breath of tow truck exhaust. I could almost hear the screeching brakes heard before the crashes that brought them all here.
The chassis circus almost seemed like it was performing gravity defying feats as the mangled metal mysteriously floated above the ground resting on rims and mired on Michelin.
Wheel wells winked at me with bright rusty disc brake beauty. Headlights stared straight ahead anxious for the night. Bucket after bucket of unbolted beast, shed wires, vinyl, rubber and steel.
The whole scene looked like the endless trashy piled spread of dirty unfolded clothing that might cover the floor of some junkies bedroom.
The sun started to cook the yard and the thrill of my fantasy walk through Ouch-schvitz started to wear off. I was too hot to shoot another sedate sedan, to tired to portray another pick-up, too pooped to pose another coupe.
It was time to return to my world of shiny and new and forget about this hell of shells, this termination garage where honking honeys go after they lose their souls. The last thing I saw before I departed, was a lonely bucket seat who had lost its drive.
This chairman looked like a homeless recliner, who recalled all the asses it carried for so many years, as it bitterly watched me leave. I walked out through the tiny greasy room where I paid my 3 dollars hours ago, and put this place in my rear-view.
I now look at new cars a little differently and appreciate their peak. I see how their pride shines as they roll forward to own the road. I now notice how they command the envy of humans who want them for a new shell.
I now see that I am the soul who enters my next protector, my mighty vessel to journey in, which gets me from here to there.
Barry Stein's Blog 
What an interesting post, Barry. Your writing style is crack-up hilarious and your candid images are spot on! Thanks for putting a smile on my face today.
Thanks Laurie…always like getting your pretty face to smile.