The Power of Three
William Matthew McCarter
The only thing I knew about repossessing cars was from the film, Repo Man, and it had an extraterrestrial that drove a Chevy in it. I had some trepidation about the job because I thought that it might be dangerous, but I was sure that I wouldn’t have to face aliens and if a little danger could keep the process server away, I could live with that.
“Hey, Tolstoy, you ready to go to work,” John said.
“About as ready as I’ll ever be.” I stood up, grabbed a paperback and a flannel and walked toward the door. “And what’s with the Tolstoy shit, anyway.”
“You bring that book with you everywhere you go,” John said, “It fits.”
“It’s a philosophy book. Tolstoy is literature,” I said.
“And the fact that you know that is why I call you Tolstoy,” John said, laughing.
He and I had been friends since Jesus was in diapers. I knew if I acted like it bothered me, then he would never stop calling me Tolstoy, so I let it slide.
“So, how do we do this repo thing, anyway” I asked. I was broker than broke and couldn’t find a job anywhere. John’s driver quit on him, so he threw me a lifeline and asked me if I wanted to take his place. I was too broke to say, “No.”
John opened the door to a Chrysler minivan and said, “Get in.”
“I never thought I’d see you driving a minivan,” I said. John was more of a Monte Carlo or Camaro, white trash sports car kind of guy. “I got it from the lot for repoing. I call it the Loser Cruiser,” John said, again laughing. “Sometimes it’s hard to get a car,” he continued, “People stash cars in their garage and shit. Everyone in the suburbs drives these things. It’s the most inconspicuous car out there and sometimes, you have to park down the street and wait for them to drive the car.”
“This job is simple,” John continued, “we are contractors for All Cities Recovery. They fax us repo orders and we convince people to give us their car. If we can’t, we come back later and take it. It’s like they are paying us to steal shit.”
“And what is my role in this situation, exactly?” I asked, knowing that when John said, “It’s simple,” that there had to be more to it than that.
“All you gotta do is drive the Loser Cruiser after I pick up the car. When we repo the car, we will take it to a commuter parking lot nearby. Then, we either drive them to the lot in St. Louis or we call a tow truck.”
“That sounds easy enough,” I said, thinking there had to be a catch.
“Our first stop is up in Jefferson County off Plattin Road,” John said.
Jefferson County was a bedroom community of St. Louis. It had been almost as rural as where were lived but white flight during the days of busing turned a lot of Jeff County into suburbs. I wondered which part of Jeff County we would be going to: the suburban part where each family had a ranch style home and a loser cruiser in the driveway or the country part of Jefferson County that had not been turned into one of America’s endless rings of suburbs, yet. When we reached Plattin Road, I could see we were still in the country part of Jefferson County.
“Get the paperwork out of this folder and look for the address,” John said.
There were no center lines or a shoulder on Plattin Road. A canopy of trees stood overhead and the driveways at the edge of the road were gravel. On the left side of the road, the driveways led to houses right off the road, but the driveways on the right led to God knows where. As luck would have it, we would be going to God knows where.
“We just drove past it on the right,” I said.
“Where, I didn’t see a house,” John replied.
“There wasn’t one. It was just a mailbox with a driveway.”
We turned around and then the driveway led us down a hill and around a bend into a holler in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains.
“We are after a Jeep. Look for it when we get closer,” John said. “What kind of Jeep?” I asked as we continued down the driveway.
“A real Jeep. Not one of those Cherokees or Waggoneers,” he said as the canopy of trees opened up into what must have been the front yard.
I noticed a series of “no trespassing” and “keep out” signs nailed to trees on the way to the house. “Look at that sign,” I said and pointed at a tree.
A piece of wood was nailed to the tree with the words, “They Got Out,” painted on it. An old rusty pistol was nailed underneath it. It looked ominous. Then, we were greeted by three salivating dogs baring their teeth.
“Fuck, they got dogs. I fuckin’ hate dogs,” John said, “Let’s wait and see if someone comes out,” he continued, “If we get the car, I am going to drive it and you are going to take the loser cruiser. And… if we ever get separated, meet me at the nearest commuter parking lot off the highway.
A frumpy little woman came out and yelled “what do you want?”
“Will your dogs bite me,” John asked?
“It depends on what you want,” the woman said, looking at us suspiciously.
“I’m with All Cities Recovery and I have a repo order for a Jeep.”
“Let me see that,” she said and snatched it out of his hand. She looked at it for a minute and then said, “Let me go get my glasses.”
She was gone far too long to be getting a pair of reading glasses. John and I just stood there waiting until I finally asked, “Do you think she’s going to come back?”
“I don’t know,” John said, “People do weird shit when you show up to take their shit. Just look around for that Jeep.”
A few moments later, the woman came out of her house with the papers, handed them back to John and said, “Well, you aint getting it. We just made a payment.”
“Well, according to the order,” John said, “you are five months behind. The fact that you just made a payment really doesn’t matter to the creditor. I can tell you how to get the car back if you want me to, but I am going to have to take it.”
“Well, he’ll be here in just a minute and you can talk to him,” the woman said and then walked back inside.
“That’s why she was gone so long,” John said, “she called her husband.”
“So, what do we do now?” I asked, still not seeing a Jeep anywhere.
“Wait for him to get here,” John said, “And, if we’re lucky, he’ll be in a Jeep.”
Moments later, the eerie sound of a diesel engine revving at five thousand RPM screamed from the top of the hill. As the sound grew closer and creepier, I turned around to look out the rear window.
“Oh, shit.” I was staring at the biggest construction crane that I had ever seen, and it was hauling ass down the hill toward us. The boom of the crane was extended so that it wouldn’t get caught in the trees and there was a wrecking ball swinging from the front of it. The crane was heading right for us. I froze.
The crane operator hit the air brakes and the crane slid down the gravel driveway. It was going way too fast to stop quickly. This was my first attempt at doing the job and it was already time for me to bend over and kiss my ass goodbye because I was going to get killed. I held my breath and braced for impact.
People think of weird things when they think they are going to die, and I’ve heard that people are supposed to see their lives flash before their eyes. For some reason, all I could think of was a scene from The World According to Garp. Since I had been out of work, I had been watching a lot of television. After the cable got shut off, all I could watch was VCR tapes. Garp was on one of those tapes. I was thinking about how Robin Williams, who played Garp in the film, had smashed into a car that was parked in his driveway because he didn’t realize the car had been there. I was going to die but at least I wouldn’t get my dick bitten off like that guy in Garp. And then… nothing happened.
The crane stopped a few feet before reaching the minivan. Immediately, I got out. The crane hadn’t crushed me but that didn’t mean that the wrecking ball wouldn’t fall on the car and do it. When I looked up, it was swinging back and forth like one of Poe’s pendulums. No wonder that fucking driver quit, I thought.
Next, I heard a whole bunch of “motherfuckers” followed by a “you aint getting it.” At first, I couldn’t see the driver, but John stepped out in front of the minivan (likely trying to escape Poe’s pendulum himself) and the man was a close talker or at least wanted to be one under these circumstances and was about an inch away from John’s face.
He was about 5’9” and had a mullet. He was wearing an old Marlboro T-shirt (the kind you get free if you buy a carton of cigarettes) and had a NASCAR hat with Dale Earnhardt’s number three on the front. It was then that I noticed that he accessorized his outfit with a quart bottle of Budweiser. I walked toward them to let him know that John was not alone and noticed he smelled like a brewery. I looked up at the wrecking ball and then down at the man and thought, “this brings drunk driving to a whole new level.”
John introduced himself and then handed him the repossession order. I was still in a state of shock and had a whole lot of questions bouncing around my head. I wondered how someone that drunk could operate a crane. I wondered if he ordinarily drove a crane to work or if this was a special occasion. But mostly, I wondered what I had gotten myself into and if I really needed the money that bad.
When the man said, “I don’t give a fuck. You aint gettin’it,” and handed the papers back to John, I also wondered what John’s next move was going to be.
John said, “I ain't trying to cause you no trouble. I am just doing what my boss tells me. He says I need to pick up the car so that’s why I’m here. I can do it now and, if you want, I can tell you how to get the car back or I can do it later with the sheriff.”
“I put a lot of money in that Jeep. I had it lifted, new wheels and tires put on it, and new seats. I aint givin it to you,” the man said.
“If you don’t give me the Jeep, my boss will just go to the courthouse and get this thing they call a writ of replevin and then they will not only get the car but will charge you attorney fees and court costs. Believe me, I don’t want to do this the hard way and I don’t think you do, either. You can get the Jeep back from All Cities once you make payment arrangements with them.”
I could see the resistance drain out of the man’s body. The Latin words, attorney fees, and everything along with the “I can tell you how to get your stuff back” thing took all the fight out of him. “Well, you can’t take it because the clutch is out,” he said.
“I’ll call a tow truck and have them pick it up,” John said, “where is it?”
“It’s in the barn,” the man said softly, nodding up the hill to a building just off the driveway. We followed him to the barn, and he opened the doors. Inside was the skeleton of a dirt track stock car with the phrase, “If you aint rubbin’, then you aint racin’” written across the trunk and the Jeep that we were looking for.
“OK,” John said, “here’s what we are going to do. You get all your personal property out of the Jeep and then push it out of the barn. The tow truck will do the rest. Here is the phone number for All Cities Recovery.”
The two men shook hands and John got back in the van, started it up, and turned around. As we neared the paved road, John exhaled, looked over at me and said, “That’s the biggest fucking crane I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah, I thought Crane Man back there was going to kill us.”
“Crane Man, I love it,” John said, “Wapner’s on at four.” We laughed as we neared the highway.
“What’s that whole spiel about getting your car back?” I asked, “Is that all bullshit so that you can get them to let you have it?”
“No,” John said, “They can get their car back. They just have to get current on their payments, make the next payment, and then pay the recovery fees. The boss man loves it when they get their car back.”
“Why wouldn’t he rather have the car?” I asked.
“First of all, the banks don’t want the car back. Taking it to an auction and all that shit sucks. They just want you to keep making the payments. Also, when people show up to get their cars, we insist they pay in cash. If they come and get their car, the boss gets all that money under the table.”
“Don’t you feel bad, taking people’s stuff?” I asked.
“Hell, no,” John said, “If you don’t want people taking your shit, pay for it.”
“What if they can’t,” I said, thinking about my own circumstances and how it could have been me if I hadn’t been too poor to get a car loan in the first place.
“Look, it’s our job. Either we eat or they eat, and I’d rather be the one eating. But people aren’t usually that bad off, anyway. Look at Crane Man. Do you know how much that crane cost? What about that barn? What about the race car body? He also put those seats, the lift kit, the tires and wheels on the Jeep. The only reason he wasn’t paying for it was because the clutch was out, and he couldn’t use it.”
“Either I eat, or they eat,” I said, “that reminds me of Jay Gould.”
“Who is that? Did we go to school with him,” John asked?
“No, he was a robber baron. He said he could hire one half of the working class to kill the other half,” I said.
“OK, Tolstoy,” John laughed as he turned into a gas station and parked the van. “I’ll be right back,” he said, “I gotta go use the payphone to call the tow truck.”
While I waited for John, I thought about having finished my first repo job. I wondered if I would wind up being like John. He was so calm and cool while repoing the car. Then I wondered what it meant to be that calm and cool. Was he hiding his emotions like a good poker player or was he just that used to people doing crazy shit like driving a crane home from work drunk?
John got back in the car and threw me a bottle of Coke. Thanks,” I said, “So where are we going next?”
“Richwoods,” John said, “but first, I want to stop by the cop shop.”
“What for?” I asked.
“Richwoods is a small town and the smaller the town, the bigger the badge. I never go see the cops out in the county or in a big city but these small towns… well, you just never know who is kin to who and what small town politics you are dealing with.”
“Is that really a problem?” I asked.
“I repoed the mayor’s car in Anna, Illinois and the Chief of Police helped me.”
“What?” I said, as I looked out the window at the countryside.
“Yeah,” John said, “I went to the cop shop to show them the repo order and the chief says, ‘That’s the mayor you are looking for.’ I figured that there was no way in hell I was going to get the car and then he said, ‘I hate that arrogant son of a bitch.’ He told me the mayor was in a meeting and took me to his car in the parking lot at City Hall.”
“That’s funny,” I said, “I wonder if he had to walk home.”
“I don’t know but the police chief was happy that I was able to help the mayor get back on his feet.”
“Help him get back on his feet. I like that,” I said.
John always had a way with words and could always make me laugh. He and I had helped one another through a lot of hard times, and we dealt with most of them through laughter. I’ll never forget the time that John was going through a breakup and showed up at my house drunk. He looked at me and said, “she said she knew I’d been out whoring since she left me and that she hoped I got AIDS. That’s when I knew she didn’t love me anymore. If she still loved me, she would have wished something on me that I could cure with a pill.”
“The next one should be a lot simpler,” John said, pulling me out of my thoughts. It is a Dodge Dynasty and it is just the other side of town, down a gravel road. Here is the paperwork. When we get closer, look for the address.”
“Is this even a real road?” I asked as John pulled the minivan off one gravel road only to go up another one.
“I think they just name these roads something so they can get electric out here,” John said, “This place looks creepier than the last one and they have a whole herd of fucking dogs.”
Three different dogs chased us up the drive and a few more waited by the house. “For a guy who is so scared of dogs, you are in the wrong line of work,” I said.
“Why, dogs don’t get behind on their car payments and force me to come pick up their shit,” John said.
A woman who was equally short and wide came out of the front door of the trailer. She was wearing red sweats and looked a lot like a fire plug. John rolled down the window and asked, “Do those dogs bite?”
“No,” she said. That gave us the green light to get out of the car.
Before John could ask about the car, an old primer red four-wheel drive Ford with a lift kit and huge tires pulled up behind the minivan and out stepped a guy who looked like the runner up for Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
He was wearing ragged jeans and a World Wrestling Federation shirt. His arms were covered with tattoos and his left ear was riveted with studded earrings. His wardrobe was topped off by a dirty Earnhardt ball cap with a big number three on it.
“Are you lookin’ for Art Letcher?” he said as he walked up to us.
“No,” John said, “we’re just looking for a car.” I heard a quiver in John’s voice. He was nervous and I wondered why. Granted, Art Letcher was an imposing figure, but he didn’t have a crane.
“I thought you were looking for Art Letcher,” he said. Then, he turned around, walked back to his truck, lifted the hood, tinkered with the engine and started the truck. He drove fifty yards, parked in his driveway, and sat in the truck and looked at us.
“We are looking for a Sue Thomas, the owner of a white Dodge Dynasty.”
“That’s my daughter. She won’t be home from work for another hour or so. You’ll need to talk to her.”
“Thanks,” John said, “We can come back later” and then said, “Let’s go.”
As we turned around and headed back the way we came, John said, “We are going to wait for them at the end of the road. That way, we don’t have to worry about the woman calling her daughter and telling her we are still there. She will probably call her anyway but if we are gone, maybe she will think that we are not coming back.”
“Good plan,” I said, “so what do we do while we wait?”
“I was going to listen to the radio, but I figure that you will read your book.” Then, John pulled a pistol out of the console and set it in the seat.
“What’s that for?” I asked, wondering what made him want to pull a gun out now when he didn’t think it was necessary with Crane man.
“Just in case,” John said, “The cop shop is a long way from here and that fuckin’ Art Letcher scares the shit out of me. There really aint no law out here and where there aint no law, the man with the gun get to make the rules.”
“Is that gun legal?” I asked.
“I guess I will find out if I ever have to shoot someone,” he said, “I just want it handy because of the “letcherous” neighbor that they’ve got.”
As John tuned in a country music station, I asked, “What if they don’t show up?”
“We’ll wait for an hour or so but there are plenty of other cars to get. If we don’t get it, we will just put that order on the bottom of the pile and work another lead. There are plenty of people that don’t pay their bills so there is plenty of work for us to do.”
“Couldn’t we be out looking for more cars instead of waiting?” I asked.
“Everyone is getting off work. I usually take a break about this time of day. Then, after 6pm, I start working again. People have a chance to get off work, get their errands done, and go home. We stand a better chance of getting the car after 6pm.”
“You really like this, don’t you?” I asked.
“What else am I going to do?” John said, “We thought we were going to get jobs at the shoe factory and by the time we were old enough, it was closed. Then, it was that wiring harness factory that closed just as soon as they voted the union in. We could work at the prison, but that’s just as dangerous as this and if you think you’re an asshole for taking someone’s shit, imagine what an asshole you’d be for taking their freedom.”
“I guess you are right,” I said, “I never thought of it that way.”
“Well, when it comes to jobs, you are fucked cause you’re half-baked,” he said.
“What do you mean half-baked?” I asked.
“You are smart, but it doesn’t do you any good because of where we live. You are too smart to be chucking logs at the sawmill or working at the prison. You basically self-educated yourself out of being happy doing shitty jobs. You’re too smart and yet not smart enough. You are half baked.”
“Is that why you wanted me to work with you. Cause I am half baked?” I asked.
“I figured once you got past the taking people’s shit part of the job, you’d like the challenge. And, I gotta be able to stand whoever works with me. The last guy was a real dumb fuck and I hated him. You piss me off sometimes, but I am used to your shit.”
We had been waiting for about thirty minutes when I heard a loud engine noise that resembled the crane from earlier that day. Suddenly, a truck appeared in front of the minivan. We were parked next to a hill so we could see the road better. I wasn’t sure, but it felt as if the truck had come from behind us.
“What was that?” John yelled, gripping the pistol. Just then, the truck ran over some saplings and stopped. It was Art Letcher’s primer red Ford.
“I think that mother fucker just tried to Evel Knievel our ass. I think he came off that hill too fast and jumped the van.” I had visions of monster trucks crushing school buses at Busch stadium and thought to myself, “this is the second time today that I have nearly been crushed inside a minivan.”
John gripped the pistol tighter as he opened the window. Art Letcher pulled beside us, laughing and said, “I’m just funnin’ with ya.” Then he drove off.
John looked at me and said, “That guy scares the fuckin shit out of me.”
“Aww, he’s just funnin’ with you,” I said, laughing at John.
“Yeah, and they were just funnin’ with Ned Beatty in Deliverance, too.”
As if it were on cue, banjo music began playing on the radio, only it wasn’t Dueling Banjos, it was Gentle on My Mind by Glen Campbell.
“And there’s our car,” I said.
“I’m going to follow her up the road and block her off. There is only one way there,” John said, “when I get out, you get behind the wheel.”
We pulled in front of the house and John got out of the van to talk to Sue. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but he must have been convincing because a few minutes later, Sue handed over the keys and started taking her stuff out of the car. Then, John got behind the wheel, turned around and motioned for me to follow him. I guessed that we were going to take this one to the lot in St. Louis because we had passed two commuter parking lots and he was still driving north.
The lot was in an awful part of town. The buildings were falling in on themselves and there wasn’t a soul around anywhere. In the middle of a vacant block, stood a large sheet metal building surrounded by an eight-foot chain link fence and barbed wire. There were all kinds of cars parked inside the fence. John stopped at the gate, punched in a code, and drove the car inside. Then he yelled “park the car and come inside.”
There was very little on the inside of the garage. It looked like an empty auto shop. John motioned for me to follow him, so I walked across the floor and then followed him. The floor was tiled and there was fluorescent lighting in the room. It looked like an employee breakroom, but I had yet to see an employee.
“There’s Coke in the fridge if you want one,” John said, as he looked through a series of papers in a cubby hole with his name on it.
“Cool,” he said, holding up some keys and shaking them at me. “My keys came.”
“What are those for?” I asked.
“They sent me some leads without keys. Now that I have the keys, I can just go get the cars. One guy hasn’t made a car payment in a year.”
After we finished our drinks, we got back in the loser cruiser and went back to work. We were working some leads in St. Louis City and John was getting frustrated because we could not find any cars.
“All these houses have a garage in the alley. I bet that’s where the cars are.”
“Well, we can’t break into their garage and take their stuff, can we?” I asked, knowing that the answer must be “No.”
“I wish I could. That would make shit a whole lot simpler. We are just going to have to come back up here and get these cars while they are at work” he said.
“Why are we going down Grand?” I asked.
“It’s dinner time,” John said, “and we are going to Del Taco.”
I looked at the clock on the dash and it was after ten at night. It was a strange time for dinner but, it was a strange job, so I shrugged it off and asked, “What is a Del Taco?”
“It’s this really cool fast food place over by St. Louis University,” John said, “It’s the only place I have ever seen that serves tacos and French fries together.”
John placed his order at the drive thru and was gracious enough to buy me a few tacos, too. He asked me if I wanted fries, but I said “no,” thinking to myself that tacos and fries was a strange combination. Then, we ate our food, listened to the radio, and drove back down the highway toward Jefferson County.
“I’ve got the keys to these cars,” John said, “so we won’t even have to talk to anybody. There will be no Art Letchers or Crane men to deal with the rest of the night.”
“They were some strange birds,” I said, “What’s the deal with Earnhardt. They both had the NASCAR hats.”
“Earnhardt is the ‘take no shit’ hero around here. They call him The Intimidator in NASCAR,” John said.
“That must be why Crane man had that sign on the back of his race car. It said, “If you aint rubbin’, then you aint racin’.”
“Yeah, and nearly running us over with a crane and dangling a wrecking ball over our head was his way of trading paint,” John said.
“It’s like a totem. The power of three,” I said.
“What’s a totem, Tolstoy?” John asked, puzzled.
“Earnhardt’s number three is a totem. People put on the number and then take on the characteristics of Earnhardt. They become the Intimidator.”
“Are you saying that people wear Earnhardt’s number and act like assholes for the same reason that fat middle-aged men put on sequined jump suits and think they are Elvis?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” I said.
John said, “Every Earnhardt person I can think of was an asshole.”
“Gram always used to say that bad things happened in threes, so I guess that the NASCAR number makes sense,” I said.
“Okay,” John said, “I have been trying to get this car for about a month. I knocked on the door a few times, but they didn’t answer. Then, I came by their house and saw the car, but it was in the garage. Then, they parked a four-wheel drive truck behind it in the drive and I couldn’t get it. I am going to drive by and see if I can get the car.”
I looked at the paperwork and then into the darkness outside. Suddenly, the Loser Cruiser's headlights hit the Oldsmobile that we were looking for. “Look, there’s the car,” I said, “and there is nothing parked behind it.”
“Yep, that’s it,” John said, driving past the car slowly, “I am going to pull over and we are going to trade places.”
As I was driving the Loser Cruiser back down the road, John said, “drop me off just before we get to the driveway. Once I get the car, follow me.”
I dropped him off on the other side of the driveway. Slowly, John stood beside the Olds, unlocked the door, and sat down in the driver’s seat. When he started the car, lights came on in the house. As John backed out of the driveway, I saw a shadow chasing him. When he stopped to put the car in drive, the shadow hit the windshield with a shoe.
John sped past me. I pulled behind him, but he was going too fast for me to follow closely. Suddenly, I saw headlights. And they were getting closer. I wondered why they were gaining on me so quickly and before I figured out that those headlights were after John, they passed me. Then, I lost them both. I got scared. I couldn’t chase them because I didn’t know where they were. I wondered what John would do if they caught him. Should I go to a payphone and call the police? Then I remember that John said if we ever got separated, I should go to the nearest commuter parking lot.
I had been at the commuter parking lot for about thirty minutes when I saw headlights. They looked like they might be Oldsmobile headlights, so I grew hopeful. John pulled into the parking lot and parked beside me. We both rolled down our windows and started laughing at each other.
“I lost you,” I said, “what happened?”
“I made it out to the highway, and the guy pulled up beside me and motioned for me to pull over. We both rolled down the window and then he says, “You stole my car. Pull over.” I looked at him and said, “I am repoing your car. Pay for your shit” and then stepped on the gas. When I couldn’t pull away, I slammed on the breaks and did a Duke boy slide into a crossing on the highway. I took off the other way and thought I lost him until I saw headlights. He must have been going ninety miles an hour and was gaining on me. The gas gauge was on E so as soon as I saw a cop at that Shell station by the county line, I pulled over and parked right next to him. Before the other guys caught up with me, I showed him the repo order.”
“Then what happened?” I asked.
“The guy said he thought I was stealing the car. He said he didn’t know it was getting repoed. I almost told the cop he hadn’t made a payment in a year and that I had already been by there to get the car, but just kept my mouth shut. I just wanted to get out of there. Get in,” he continued, “I am taking this car tonight. I don’t want to leave it here and it’s too late to drive back up to the shop. He still has a set of keys, so I don’t want him seeing it. I aint repoing this thing again.”
When I opened the door, the dome light came on. I started laughing and said, “Look behind you.” In the backseat, there was a baby’s car seat. It was a NASCAR seat with Earnhardt’s number all over it.
“Fucking Earnhardt,” John said, “All fucking day, we have been dealing with Earnhardt people and this fucker is such a fan that he had to buy his kid an Intimidator car seat? Is he trying to turn his toddler into a fucking asshole, too? The next time I see a fucking three, I am going to save myself a lot of time and trouble and just throat punch the mother fucker right off the bat. Fuck Earnhardt.”
As we were driving home, John said, “Look in that folder and see if there is another car on that list around here. I would like to get another car tonight if I can.”
“Yeah, it’s over in Iron Mountain off 32,” I said.
“What was that other three thing you were talking about,” John asked.
“Bad things happen in threes. You know funerals, accidents, that kind of shit. I guess since we have already experienced three brushes with death tonight, we won’t have any more problems,” I said.
“Yeah,” John said, “and three threes so no more Earnhardt problems, either.”
As dawn’s surly light trickled in over the horizon, we reached Iron Mountain. John pulled into the driveway where the car was supposed to be. I didn’t see a car anywhere, but when the headlights hit the screen door, I did see a number three stenciled there.
John looked at me and I looked back at him. In unison, the two of us said, “Fuck this.”
William Matthew McCarter
The only thing I knew about repossessing cars was from the film, Repo Man, and it had an extraterrestrial that drove a Chevy in it. I had some trepidation about the job because I thought that it might be dangerous, but I was sure that I wouldn’t have to face aliens and if a little danger could keep the process server away, I could live with that.
“Hey, Tolstoy, you ready to go to work,” John said.
“About as ready as I’ll ever be.” I stood up, grabbed a paperback and a flannel and walked toward the door. “And what’s with the Tolstoy shit, anyway.”
“You bring that book with you everywhere you go,” John said, “It fits.”
“It’s a philosophy book. Tolstoy is literature,” I said.
“And the fact that you know that is why I call you Tolstoy,” John said, laughing.
He and I had been friends since Jesus was in diapers. I knew if I acted like it bothered me, then he would never stop calling me Tolstoy, so I let it slide.
“So, how do we do this repo thing, anyway” I asked. I was broker than broke and couldn’t find a job anywhere. John’s driver quit on him, so he threw me a lifeline and asked me if I wanted to take his place. I was too broke to say, “No.”
John opened the door to a Chrysler minivan and said, “Get in.”
“I never thought I’d see you driving a minivan,” I said. John was more of a Monte Carlo or Camaro, white trash sports car kind of guy. “I got it from the lot for repoing. I call it the Loser Cruiser,” John said, again laughing. “Sometimes it’s hard to get a car,” he continued, “People stash cars in their garage and shit. Everyone in the suburbs drives these things. It’s the most inconspicuous car out there and sometimes, you have to park down the street and wait for them to drive the car.”
“This job is simple,” John continued, “we are contractors for All Cities Recovery. They fax us repo orders and we convince people to give us their car. If we can’t, we come back later and take it. It’s like they are paying us to steal shit.”
“And what is my role in this situation, exactly?” I asked, knowing that when John said, “It’s simple,” that there had to be more to it than that.
“All you gotta do is drive the Loser Cruiser after I pick up the car. When we repo the car, we will take it to a commuter parking lot nearby. Then, we either drive them to the lot in St. Louis or we call a tow truck.”
“That sounds easy enough,” I said, thinking there had to be a catch.
“Our first stop is up in Jefferson County off Plattin Road,” John said.
Jefferson County was a bedroom community of St. Louis. It had been almost as rural as where were lived but white flight during the days of busing turned a lot of Jeff County into suburbs. I wondered which part of Jeff County we would be going to: the suburban part where each family had a ranch style home and a loser cruiser in the driveway or the country part of Jefferson County that had not been turned into one of America’s endless rings of suburbs, yet. When we reached Plattin Road, I could see we were still in the country part of Jefferson County.
“Get the paperwork out of this folder and look for the address,” John said.
There were no center lines or a shoulder on Plattin Road. A canopy of trees stood overhead and the driveways at the edge of the road were gravel. On the left side of the road, the driveways led to houses right off the road, but the driveways on the right led to God knows where. As luck would have it, we would be going to God knows where.
“We just drove past it on the right,” I said.
“Where, I didn’t see a house,” John replied.
“There wasn’t one. It was just a mailbox with a driveway.”
We turned around and then the driveway led us down a hill and around a bend into a holler in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains.
“We are after a Jeep. Look for it when we get closer,” John said. “What kind of Jeep?” I asked as we continued down the driveway.
“A real Jeep. Not one of those Cherokees or Waggoneers,” he said as the canopy of trees opened up into what must have been the front yard.
I noticed a series of “no trespassing” and “keep out” signs nailed to trees on the way to the house. “Look at that sign,” I said and pointed at a tree.
A piece of wood was nailed to the tree with the words, “They Got Out,” painted on it. An old rusty pistol was nailed underneath it. It looked ominous. Then, we were greeted by three salivating dogs baring their teeth.
“Fuck, they got dogs. I fuckin’ hate dogs,” John said, “Let’s wait and see if someone comes out,” he continued, “If we get the car, I am going to drive it and you are going to take the loser cruiser. And… if we ever get separated, meet me at the nearest commuter parking lot off the highway.
A frumpy little woman came out and yelled “what do you want?”
“Will your dogs bite me,” John asked?
“It depends on what you want,” the woman said, looking at us suspiciously.
“I’m with All Cities Recovery and I have a repo order for a Jeep.”
“Let me see that,” she said and snatched it out of his hand. She looked at it for a minute and then said, “Let me go get my glasses.”
She was gone far too long to be getting a pair of reading glasses. John and I just stood there waiting until I finally asked, “Do you think she’s going to come back?”
“I don’t know,” John said, “People do weird shit when you show up to take their shit. Just look around for that Jeep.”
A few moments later, the woman came out of her house with the papers, handed them back to John and said, “Well, you aint getting it. We just made a payment.”
“Well, according to the order,” John said, “you are five months behind. The fact that you just made a payment really doesn’t matter to the creditor. I can tell you how to get the car back if you want me to, but I am going to have to take it.”
“Well, he’ll be here in just a minute and you can talk to him,” the woman said and then walked back inside.
“That’s why she was gone so long,” John said, “she called her husband.”
“So, what do we do now?” I asked, still not seeing a Jeep anywhere.
“Wait for him to get here,” John said, “And, if we’re lucky, he’ll be in a Jeep.”
Moments later, the eerie sound of a diesel engine revving at five thousand RPM screamed from the top of the hill. As the sound grew closer and creepier, I turned around to look out the rear window.
“Oh, shit.” I was staring at the biggest construction crane that I had ever seen, and it was hauling ass down the hill toward us. The boom of the crane was extended so that it wouldn’t get caught in the trees and there was a wrecking ball swinging from the front of it. The crane was heading right for us. I froze.
The crane operator hit the air brakes and the crane slid down the gravel driveway. It was going way too fast to stop quickly. This was my first attempt at doing the job and it was already time for me to bend over and kiss my ass goodbye because I was going to get killed. I held my breath and braced for impact.
People think of weird things when they think they are going to die, and I’ve heard that people are supposed to see their lives flash before their eyes. For some reason, all I could think of was a scene from The World According to Garp. Since I had been out of work, I had been watching a lot of television. After the cable got shut off, all I could watch was VCR tapes. Garp was on one of those tapes. I was thinking about how Robin Williams, who played Garp in the film, had smashed into a car that was parked in his driveway because he didn’t realize the car had been there. I was going to die but at least I wouldn’t get my dick bitten off like that guy in Garp. And then… nothing happened.
The crane stopped a few feet before reaching the minivan. Immediately, I got out. The crane hadn’t crushed me but that didn’t mean that the wrecking ball wouldn’t fall on the car and do it. When I looked up, it was swinging back and forth like one of Poe’s pendulums. No wonder that fucking driver quit, I thought.
Next, I heard a whole bunch of “motherfuckers” followed by a “you aint getting it.” At first, I couldn’t see the driver, but John stepped out in front of the minivan (likely trying to escape Poe’s pendulum himself) and the man was a close talker or at least wanted to be one under these circumstances and was about an inch away from John’s face.
He was about 5’9” and had a mullet. He was wearing an old Marlboro T-shirt (the kind you get free if you buy a carton of cigarettes) and had a NASCAR hat with Dale Earnhardt’s number three on the front. It was then that I noticed that he accessorized his outfit with a quart bottle of Budweiser. I walked toward them to let him know that John was not alone and noticed he smelled like a brewery. I looked up at the wrecking ball and then down at the man and thought, “this brings drunk driving to a whole new level.”
John introduced himself and then handed him the repossession order. I was still in a state of shock and had a whole lot of questions bouncing around my head. I wondered how someone that drunk could operate a crane. I wondered if he ordinarily drove a crane to work or if this was a special occasion. But mostly, I wondered what I had gotten myself into and if I really needed the money that bad.
When the man said, “I don’t give a fuck. You aint gettin’it,” and handed the papers back to John, I also wondered what John’s next move was going to be.
John said, “I ain't trying to cause you no trouble. I am just doing what my boss tells me. He says I need to pick up the car so that’s why I’m here. I can do it now and, if you want, I can tell you how to get the car back or I can do it later with the sheriff.”
“I put a lot of money in that Jeep. I had it lifted, new wheels and tires put on it, and new seats. I aint givin it to you,” the man said.
“If you don’t give me the Jeep, my boss will just go to the courthouse and get this thing they call a writ of replevin and then they will not only get the car but will charge you attorney fees and court costs. Believe me, I don’t want to do this the hard way and I don’t think you do, either. You can get the Jeep back from All Cities once you make payment arrangements with them.”
I could see the resistance drain out of the man’s body. The Latin words, attorney fees, and everything along with the “I can tell you how to get your stuff back” thing took all the fight out of him. “Well, you can’t take it because the clutch is out,” he said.
“I’ll call a tow truck and have them pick it up,” John said, “where is it?”
“It’s in the barn,” the man said softly, nodding up the hill to a building just off the driveway. We followed him to the barn, and he opened the doors. Inside was the skeleton of a dirt track stock car with the phrase, “If you aint rubbin’, then you aint racin’” written across the trunk and the Jeep that we were looking for.
“OK,” John said, “here’s what we are going to do. You get all your personal property out of the Jeep and then push it out of the barn. The tow truck will do the rest. Here is the phone number for All Cities Recovery.”
The two men shook hands and John got back in the van, started it up, and turned around. As we neared the paved road, John exhaled, looked over at me and said, “That’s the biggest fucking crane I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah, I thought Crane Man back there was going to kill us.”
“Crane Man, I love it,” John said, “Wapner’s on at four.” We laughed as we neared the highway.
“What’s that whole spiel about getting your car back?” I asked, “Is that all bullshit so that you can get them to let you have it?”
“No,” John said, “They can get their car back. They just have to get current on their payments, make the next payment, and then pay the recovery fees. The boss man loves it when they get their car back.”
“Why wouldn’t he rather have the car?” I asked.
“First of all, the banks don’t want the car back. Taking it to an auction and all that shit sucks. They just want you to keep making the payments. Also, when people show up to get their cars, we insist they pay in cash. If they come and get their car, the boss gets all that money under the table.”
“Don’t you feel bad, taking people’s stuff?” I asked.
“Hell, no,” John said, “If you don’t want people taking your shit, pay for it.”
“What if they can’t,” I said, thinking about my own circumstances and how it could have been me if I hadn’t been too poor to get a car loan in the first place.
“Look, it’s our job. Either we eat or they eat, and I’d rather be the one eating. But people aren’t usually that bad off, anyway. Look at Crane Man. Do you know how much that crane cost? What about that barn? What about the race car body? He also put those seats, the lift kit, the tires and wheels on the Jeep. The only reason he wasn’t paying for it was because the clutch was out, and he couldn’t use it.”
“Either I eat, or they eat,” I said, “that reminds me of Jay Gould.”
“Who is that? Did we go to school with him,” John asked?
“No, he was a robber baron. He said he could hire one half of the working class to kill the other half,” I said.
“OK, Tolstoy,” John laughed as he turned into a gas station and parked the van. “I’ll be right back,” he said, “I gotta go use the payphone to call the tow truck.”
While I waited for John, I thought about having finished my first repo job. I wondered if I would wind up being like John. He was so calm and cool while repoing the car. Then I wondered what it meant to be that calm and cool. Was he hiding his emotions like a good poker player or was he just that used to people doing crazy shit like driving a crane home from work drunk?
John got back in the car and threw me a bottle of Coke. Thanks,” I said, “So where are we going next?”
“Richwoods,” John said, “but first, I want to stop by the cop shop.”
“What for?” I asked.
“Richwoods is a small town and the smaller the town, the bigger the badge. I never go see the cops out in the county or in a big city but these small towns… well, you just never know who is kin to who and what small town politics you are dealing with.”
“Is that really a problem?” I asked.
“I repoed the mayor’s car in Anna, Illinois and the Chief of Police helped me.”
“What?” I said, as I looked out the window at the countryside.
“Yeah,” John said, “I went to the cop shop to show them the repo order and the chief says, ‘That’s the mayor you are looking for.’ I figured that there was no way in hell I was going to get the car and then he said, ‘I hate that arrogant son of a bitch.’ He told me the mayor was in a meeting and took me to his car in the parking lot at City Hall.”
“That’s funny,” I said, “I wonder if he had to walk home.”
“I don’t know but the police chief was happy that I was able to help the mayor get back on his feet.”
“Help him get back on his feet. I like that,” I said.
John always had a way with words and could always make me laugh. He and I had helped one another through a lot of hard times, and we dealt with most of them through laughter. I’ll never forget the time that John was going through a breakup and showed up at my house drunk. He looked at me and said, “she said she knew I’d been out whoring since she left me and that she hoped I got AIDS. That’s when I knew she didn’t love me anymore. If she still loved me, she would have wished something on me that I could cure with a pill.”
“The next one should be a lot simpler,” John said, pulling me out of my thoughts. It is a Dodge Dynasty and it is just the other side of town, down a gravel road. Here is the paperwork. When we get closer, look for the address.”
“Is this even a real road?” I asked as John pulled the minivan off one gravel road only to go up another one.
“I think they just name these roads something so they can get electric out here,” John said, “This place looks creepier than the last one and they have a whole herd of fucking dogs.”
Three different dogs chased us up the drive and a few more waited by the house. “For a guy who is so scared of dogs, you are in the wrong line of work,” I said.
“Why, dogs don’t get behind on their car payments and force me to come pick up their shit,” John said.
A woman who was equally short and wide came out of the front door of the trailer. She was wearing red sweats and looked a lot like a fire plug. John rolled down the window and asked, “Do those dogs bite?”
“No,” she said. That gave us the green light to get out of the car.
Before John could ask about the car, an old primer red four-wheel drive Ford with a lift kit and huge tires pulled up behind the minivan and out stepped a guy who looked like the runner up for Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
He was wearing ragged jeans and a World Wrestling Federation shirt. His arms were covered with tattoos and his left ear was riveted with studded earrings. His wardrobe was topped off by a dirty Earnhardt ball cap with a big number three on it.
“Are you lookin’ for Art Letcher?” he said as he walked up to us.
“No,” John said, “we’re just looking for a car.” I heard a quiver in John’s voice. He was nervous and I wondered why. Granted, Art Letcher was an imposing figure, but he didn’t have a crane.
“I thought you were looking for Art Letcher,” he said. Then, he turned around, walked back to his truck, lifted the hood, tinkered with the engine and started the truck. He drove fifty yards, parked in his driveway, and sat in the truck and looked at us.
“We are looking for a Sue Thomas, the owner of a white Dodge Dynasty.”
“That’s my daughter. She won’t be home from work for another hour or so. You’ll need to talk to her.”
“Thanks,” John said, “We can come back later” and then said, “Let’s go.”
As we turned around and headed back the way we came, John said, “We are going to wait for them at the end of the road. That way, we don’t have to worry about the woman calling her daughter and telling her we are still there. She will probably call her anyway but if we are gone, maybe she will think that we are not coming back.”
“Good plan,” I said, “so what do we do while we wait?”
“I was going to listen to the radio, but I figure that you will read your book.” Then, John pulled a pistol out of the console and set it in the seat.
“What’s that for?” I asked, wondering what made him want to pull a gun out now when he didn’t think it was necessary with Crane man.
“Just in case,” John said, “The cop shop is a long way from here and that fuckin’ Art Letcher scares the shit out of me. There really aint no law out here and where there aint no law, the man with the gun get to make the rules.”
“Is that gun legal?” I asked.
“I guess I will find out if I ever have to shoot someone,” he said, “I just want it handy because of the “letcherous” neighbor that they’ve got.”
As John tuned in a country music station, I asked, “What if they don’t show up?”
“We’ll wait for an hour or so but there are plenty of other cars to get. If we don’t get it, we will just put that order on the bottom of the pile and work another lead. There are plenty of people that don’t pay their bills so there is plenty of work for us to do.”
“Couldn’t we be out looking for more cars instead of waiting?” I asked.
“Everyone is getting off work. I usually take a break about this time of day. Then, after 6pm, I start working again. People have a chance to get off work, get their errands done, and go home. We stand a better chance of getting the car after 6pm.”
“You really like this, don’t you?” I asked.
“What else am I going to do?” John said, “We thought we were going to get jobs at the shoe factory and by the time we were old enough, it was closed. Then, it was that wiring harness factory that closed just as soon as they voted the union in. We could work at the prison, but that’s just as dangerous as this and if you think you’re an asshole for taking someone’s shit, imagine what an asshole you’d be for taking their freedom.”
“I guess you are right,” I said, “I never thought of it that way.”
“Well, when it comes to jobs, you are fucked cause you’re half-baked,” he said.
“What do you mean half-baked?” I asked.
“You are smart, but it doesn’t do you any good because of where we live. You are too smart to be chucking logs at the sawmill or working at the prison. You basically self-educated yourself out of being happy doing shitty jobs. You’re too smart and yet not smart enough. You are half baked.”
“Is that why you wanted me to work with you. Cause I am half baked?” I asked.
“I figured once you got past the taking people’s shit part of the job, you’d like the challenge. And, I gotta be able to stand whoever works with me. The last guy was a real dumb fuck and I hated him. You piss me off sometimes, but I am used to your shit.”
We had been waiting for about thirty minutes when I heard a loud engine noise that resembled the crane from earlier that day. Suddenly, a truck appeared in front of the minivan. We were parked next to a hill so we could see the road better. I wasn’t sure, but it felt as if the truck had come from behind us.
“What was that?” John yelled, gripping the pistol. Just then, the truck ran over some saplings and stopped. It was Art Letcher’s primer red Ford.
“I think that mother fucker just tried to Evel Knievel our ass. I think he came off that hill too fast and jumped the van.” I had visions of monster trucks crushing school buses at Busch stadium and thought to myself, “this is the second time today that I have nearly been crushed inside a minivan.”
John gripped the pistol tighter as he opened the window. Art Letcher pulled beside us, laughing and said, “I’m just funnin’ with ya.” Then he drove off.
John looked at me and said, “That guy scares the fuckin shit out of me.”
“Aww, he’s just funnin’ with you,” I said, laughing at John.
“Yeah, and they were just funnin’ with Ned Beatty in Deliverance, too.”
As if it were on cue, banjo music began playing on the radio, only it wasn’t Dueling Banjos, it was Gentle on My Mind by Glen Campbell.
“And there’s our car,” I said.
“I’m going to follow her up the road and block her off. There is only one way there,” John said, “when I get out, you get behind the wheel.”
We pulled in front of the house and John got out of the van to talk to Sue. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but he must have been convincing because a few minutes later, Sue handed over the keys and started taking her stuff out of the car. Then, John got behind the wheel, turned around and motioned for me to follow him. I guessed that we were going to take this one to the lot in St. Louis because we had passed two commuter parking lots and he was still driving north.
The lot was in an awful part of town. The buildings were falling in on themselves and there wasn’t a soul around anywhere. In the middle of a vacant block, stood a large sheet metal building surrounded by an eight-foot chain link fence and barbed wire. There were all kinds of cars parked inside the fence. John stopped at the gate, punched in a code, and drove the car inside. Then he yelled “park the car and come inside.”
There was very little on the inside of the garage. It looked like an empty auto shop. John motioned for me to follow him, so I walked across the floor and then followed him. The floor was tiled and there was fluorescent lighting in the room. It looked like an employee breakroom, but I had yet to see an employee.
“There’s Coke in the fridge if you want one,” John said, as he looked through a series of papers in a cubby hole with his name on it.
“Cool,” he said, holding up some keys and shaking them at me. “My keys came.”
“What are those for?” I asked.
“They sent me some leads without keys. Now that I have the keys, I can just go get the cars. One guy hasn’t made a car payment in a year.”
After we finished our drinks, we got back in the loser cruiser and went back to work. We were working some leads in St. Louis City and John was getting frustrated because we could not find any cars.
“All these houses have a garage in the alley. I bet that’s where the cars are.”
“Well, we can’t break into their garage and take their stuff, can we?” I asked, knowing that the answer must be “No.”
“I wish I could. That would make shit a whole lot simpler. We are just going to have to come back up here and get these cars while they are at work” he said.
“Why are we going down Grand?” I asked.
“It’s dinner time,” John said, “and we are going to Del Taco.”
I looked at the clock on the dash and it was after ten at night. It was a strange time for dinner but, it was a strange job, so I shrugged it off and asked, “What is a Del Taco?”
“It’s this really cool fast food place over by St. Louis University,” John said, “It’s the only place I have ever seen that serves tacos and French fries together.”
John placed his order at the drive thru and was gracious enough to buy me a few tacos, too. He asked me if I wanted fries, but I said “no,” thinking to myself that tacos and fries was a strange combination. Then, we ate our food, listened to the radio, and drove back down the highway toward Jefferson County.
“I’ve got the keys to these cars,” John said, “so we won’t even have to talk to anybody. There will be no Art Letchers or Crane men to deal with the rest of the night.”
“They were some strange birds,” I said, “What’s the deal with Earnhardt. They both had the NASCAR hats.”
“Earnhardt is the ‘take no shit’ hero around here. They call him The Intimidator in NASCAR,” John said.
“That must be why Crane man had that sign on the back of his race car. It said, “If you aint rubbin’, then you aint racin’.”
“Yeah, and nearly running us over with a crane and dangling a wrecking ball over our head was his way of trading paint,” John said.
“It’s like a totem. The power of three,” I said.
“What’s a totem, Tolstoy?” John asked, puzzled.
“Earnhardt’s number three is a totem. People put on the number and then take on the characteristics of Earnhardt. They become the Intimidator.”
“Are you saying that people wear Earnhardt’s number and act like assholes for the same reason that fat middle-aged men put on sequined jump suits and think they are Elvis?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” I said.
John said, “Every Earnhardt person I can think of was an asshole.”
“Gram always used to say that bad things happened in threes, so I guess that the NASCAR number makes sense,” I said.
“Okay,” John said, “I have been trying to get this car for about a month. I knocked on the door a few times, but they didn’t answer. Then, I came by their house and saw the car, but it was in the garage. Then, they parked a four-wheel drive truck behind it in the drive and I couldn’t get it. I am going to drive by and see if I can get the car.”
I looked at the paperwork and then into the darkness outside. Suddenly, the Loser Cruiser's headlights hit the Oldsmobile that we were looking for. “Look, there’s the car,” I said, “and there is nothing parked behind it.”
“Yep, that’s it,” John said, driving past the car slowly, “I am going to pull over and we are going to trade places.”
As I was driving the Loser Cruiser back down the road, John said, “drop me off just before we get to the driveway. Once I get the car, follow me.”
I dropped him off on the other side of the driveway. Slowly, John stood beside the Olds, unlocked the door, and sat down in the driver’s seat. When he started the car, lights came on in the house. As John backed out of the driveway, I saw a shadow chasing him. When he stopped to put the car in drive, the shadow hit the windshield with a shoe.
John sped past me. I pulled behind him, but he was going too fast for me to follow closely. Suddenly, I saw headlights. And they were getting closer. I wondered why they were gaining on me so quickly and before I figured out that those headlights were after John, they passed me. Then, I lost them both. I got scared. I couldn’t chase them because I didn’t know where they were. I wondered what John would do if they caught him. Should I go to a payphone and call the police? Then I remember that John said if we ever got separated, I should go to the nearest commuter parking lot.
I had been at the commuter parking lot for about thirty minutes when I saw headlights. They looked like they might be Oldsmobile headlights, so I grew hopeful. John pulled into the parking lot and parked beside me. We both rolled down our windows and started laughing at each other.
“I lost you,” I said, “what happened?”
“I made it out to the highway, and the guy pulled up beside me and motioned for me to pull over. We both rolled down the window and then he says, “You stole my car. Pull over.” I looked at him and said, “I am repoing your car. Pay for your shit” and then stepped on the gas. When I couldn’t pull away, I slammed on the breaks and did a Duke boy slide into a crossing on the highway. I took off the other way and thought I lost him until I saw headlights. He must have been going ninety miles an hour and was gaining on me. The gas gauge was on E so as soon as I saw a cop at that Shell station by the county line, I pulled over and parked right next to him. Before the other guys caught up with me, I showed him the repo order.”
“Then what happened?” I asked.
“The guy said he thought I was stealing the car. He said he didn’t know it was getting repoed. I almost told the cop he hadn’t made a payment in a year and that I had already been by there to get the car, but just kept my mouth shut. I just wanted to get out of there. Get in,” he continued, “I am taking this car tonight. I don’t want to leave it here and it’s too late to drive back up to the shop. He still has a set of keys, so I don’t want him seeing it. I aint repoing this thing again.”
When I opened the door, the dome light came on. I started laughing and said, “Look behind you.” In the backseat, there was a baby’s car seat. It was a NASCAR seat with Earnhardt’s number all over it.
“Fucking Earnhardt,” John said, “All fucking day, we have been dealing with Earnhardt people and this fucker is such a fan that he had to buy his kid an Intimidator car seat? Is he trying to turn his toddler into a fucking asshole, too? The next time I see a fucking three, I am going to save myself a lot of time and trouble and just throat punch the mother fucker right off the bat. Fuck Earnhardt.”
As we were driving home, John said, “Look in that folder and see if there is another car on that list around here. I would like to get another car tonight if I can.”
“Yeah, it’s over in Iron Mountain off 32,” I said.
“What was that other three thing you were talking about,” John asked.
“Bad things happen in threes. You know funerals, accidents, that kind of shit. I guess since we have already experienced three brushes with death tonight, we won’t have any more problems,” I said.
“Yeah,” John said, “and three threes so no more Earnhardt problems, either.”
As dawn’s surly light trickled in over the horizon, we reached Iron Mountain. John pulled into the driveway where the car was supposed to be. I didn’t see a car anywhere, but when the headlights hit the screen door, I did see a number three stenciled there.
John looked at me and I looked back at him. In unison, the two of us said, “Fuck this.”
