Quick note: there two spoilers for the ending of Supernatural in this one. I think it would be an absolute crime to spoil anything about that final episode, so if you haven't seen it, don't read this.
I'll give you a little more space just in case your eyes wandered.
OK, so last month when I gave my final thoughts on Supernatural it occurred to me that some of you might not know why that scene where Old Man Sam clutches the steering wheel of the Impala got to me so much. It also occurred to me that those who know me very well might not know either because, silly me, I told no one about it. Not a single soul.
Until now.
When Gramps got rid of the old 1978 Chevy Impala that he used to drive when I was a kid, he replaced it with a 1985 Buick Skyhawk almost like the one pictured above. The one you see has four doors, and the one we had only had two. I loved this car from the moment I saw it because it looked so futuristic with the sleek front end sloping down, unlike that Impala with the square front. Wind resistance would be a trifling matter for that Skyhawk. Also, it had windows you could roll up and down with a switch instead of a hand crank, and I'd never seen that before.
Time passed. When I was in high school Gramps decided to get a Century. I forget the year. Or maybe it was during my time in junior high. Instead of getting rid of the Skyhawk he held onto it for himself. Grandma drove the Century. And as I got out of high school and started college, he all but gave the Skyhawk to me. It was his, sure, but I drove it all the time. It might as well have had my name on the title.
I had a lot of adventures in that car, but eventually it started falling apart until finally the brakes went out (while I was on one of those adventures, actually), and it was dead.
I didn't want to let it go. I had dreams of restoring it one day to its former glory, which makes me probably the only person who ever thought that way about a Skyhawk. I figured Sam Raimi could keep his old beater around and put it in a bunch of movies, so why can't I hold onto this car?
Gramps got a Cavalier that I started driving around instead, and when I got a job out in Schaumburg, I needed my own car to get out there, so I got the first car I ever paid for, a piece of shit used 2006 Ford Focus that caused me no end of troubles. All this time, as my life progressed, that Skyhawk sat in my garage, and the more time I spent away from it, the less likely it became that I would ever restore it.
I'm a terrible brother. While I got the Focus, one of my brothers wound up with the Cavalier. Because I parked the Focus in the garage, and the Skyhawk was on the other side of the garage, I made my brother park his Cavalier on the apron outside, and he had to move that car every morning when I had to leave for work. All because of my obsession with that Skyhawk.
Finally Gramps had to pull rank on me to get rid of that Skyhawk. I didn't want to let it go, but he said, "Dodge, it's my car. Not yours. We have to get rid of it."
Faced with that inconvenient truth, I had no choice. We called Victory Auto Wreckers. If you're from the Chicago area, you know their commercial well. I gotta say, that commercial didn't exaggerate much when it showed the Victory guy handing over $80 for that car. We got $200 for the Skyhawk, and that was about, what, twenty years after that commercial was filmed? Adjusted for inflation, that seems about right.
But I got one last night with my Skyhawk. I went into the trunk and thought about what stuff I'd like to save. I found a bunch of old newspapers. A lot of string for when Gramps had to pick me up from somewhere and put my bike in the trunk. A hammer, which I brought back in the house. A set of bases, home plate and a pitching rubber from when my cousin and I played baseball with friends, as well as one of the baseballs we routinely used.
I opened the driver's door and looked inside, marveling at what a time capsule the inside was. It looked regal in there and surprisingly dust free. I breathed in the air and felt like I was in high school again. I saw the sheath for the passenger seatbelt and remembered when I accidentally dropped Grandma's keys down into it, and we were never able to recover them. I wondered if they were still down there. For a brief moment I considered prying the plastic off so I could take a look.
And then I got in the driver's seat. I adjusted the rearview mirror. I felt my body fall into the familiar pattern of sitting in that seat, something I hadn't done at that point for probably more than a decade.
And I put my hands on that steering wheel and closed my eyes. I felt like I was back in college, driving my friends around, going on all kinds of adventures, some that ended in glory and a few that ended in anger and tears. I was no longer my present self but my old self. Before a lot of the horrible shit that happened to me happened. The only really shitty thing that had happened earlier in my life was being physically abused by my stepfather. But in that moment, there were no psych wards, no alcohol addiction, no broken hearts, no pancreatitis, no health problems, no diabetes, no real tragedy. I might have been smarter than the average teenager, but I was still just a dumb kid back then, and it might have been why it felt so freeing.
For just that one moment I was surrounded by ghosts from the past. Or maybe I was the ghost.
The next day the guy from Victory showed up and dragged the Skyhawk out of the garage, leaving rotten rubber from the tires smeared on the floor and apron. I watched as it got loaded up onto the tow truck, and I still watched as the tow truck drove away. I could swear the Skyhawk was giving me a sad smile. Look above at the headlights and the grille. Those lights could have been eyes, the Buick logo could have been a button nose and the narrow grille could have been that smile. "So long kid. We had some great times together. Maybe we'll see each other again some day."
I can't bear to think about that Skyhawk in a junkyard, rusting away under the hot O'Hare sun. Or crunched up into a metal oblong. But I do know this: if Supernatural is right about the afterlife, when I get there that Skyhawk will be waiting for me. Just like the Impala for Dean.
I miss that Skyhawk unlike any other car I've driven. The others? I could take 'em or leave 'em. In the case of the Focus, I could fucking well leave it. But I wish I still had that Skyhawk.
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