Lifemobile Read online

  I put aside the software manual I was writing for a longtime client. Ordinarily, I had a strict rule against surfing the net during work time, but now I typed in “Corvair.” Google took .58 seconds to retrieve “about 9,460,000 search results” on the Internet. The top-ranked links included the Corvair Society of America (“CORSA, 4,800 members and 125 local chapters worldwide”); Clark’s Corvair Parts (“world’s largest Corvair parts supplier, over 15,000 Corvair parts in stock!”); a Wikipedia entry (14 chapters!); several forums and sites dedicated to buying, selling, maintaining, celebrating, defending, lambasting, and lampooning Corvairs; a site describing the use of Corvair engines to power airplanes (huh? I had always thought Corvair engines leaked oil and were unreliable); a “Sexy ’65 Corvair TV Commercial” (as hot Swedish blonde runs toward camera, a gravel-voiced announcer intones, “You are about to meet a true international beauty, with a shape that blends elegance with excitement. Corvair for 1965!” Camera leaves hot Swedish blonde and pans to the Corvair); and a Time magazine article, “The 50 Worst Cars of All Time” (after recapping Nader’s charges, the author concluded, “Even so, my family had a Corvair, white with red interior, and we loved it.”).

  Across the Internet, I watched Corvairs ford rushing rivers; slog through jungle mud; churn through waist-deep snow; and sway confidently through the cones of an auto slalom. I listened to a song by a band named Microbunny called “Evergrowing Rust on a 1967 Corvair.” I watched a video of Tonight Show host Jay Leno, one of America’s foremost Car Guys, merrily cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway in his meticulously restored ’66 Corvair turbo as he extolled the rear-engine, air-cooled “American Porsche.” It turned out he owned a bunch of Corvairs. In another Tonight Show video, as Leno touted the car to Sylvester Stallone, the bewildered star of Rocky stared at him wide-eyed, not knowing whether to laugh or call a doctor.

  So which was the Corvair? A Deathmobile? An American Porsche? Both? Neither? How could one car still stir up such conflicting passions decades after it disappeared from the highways?

  But, in fact, it turned out that lots of Corvairs were still on America’s highways. With price tags ranging from a high of tens of thousands of dollars to a low of “free to the first person who gets this [expletive deleted] thing out of my sight,” anybody could buy a Corvair. So if these cars were so widely available, and so frequently driven, how could they be so unsafe? Were these Corvair owners outlaws? Suicidal? It didn’t make sense.

  “Hi, Dad.” In all the hours that Benjy had been at school, I’d been so fixated on Corvairs that I hadn’t once left the computer, not even to answer the Call of Nature.

  “Hey, dude, how was it?” I answered wearily, blinking my strained eyes.

  “Good,” he replied, scrutinizing me closely.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Your eyes are red,” Benjy informed me. “Mom said I have to take a break from the computer every twenty minutes. You should set a timer like I do.”

  “You’re right. I got mesmerized by something.”

  “You should take breaks. You tell me not to get mesmerized.”

  “I know. I should take my own advice.”

  “You forgot to bring the mail in.” He handed it to me. “The letter from Wheeler didn’t come.”

  “Not for several more weeks, they said. They’ve got several finalists to interview.”

  “Okay.”

  Benjy and I had first toured Wheeler’s classic ivy-covered brick campus back in the fall as the leaves were changing. The school boasted excellent communications programs that attracted Benjy; after he graduated, he wanted to advocate for people with “differences,” as he called them. The tightly clustered campus in a small town would help him avoid getting lost. He could have his own dorm room, which meant his hand-flapping, pacing, and reciting would not bother a roommate. There were counselors trained to help students like him with meals, laundry, medications, and social activities. It all seemed perfect for him. In the months that followed our visit, he interviewed repeatedly with the Asperger’s program staff. Meeting so many people who actually “got” Benjy, with all his gifts and quirks and challenges, and who would dedicate themselves to helping him succeed—it’s no wonder we’d both fallen in love with the place.

  “You’re a great candidate, but anything can happen, so don’t get your hopes up too high. Community college is also a great option, and you can live at home.” With his grades and credentials, I thought he was a lock to get in to Wheeler. He had already been told he was a finalist. Still, don’t count your chickens...

  “You’re repeating yourself, Dad,” he said, annoyed. “You always tell me not to repeat myself, but you’re repeating yourself. You say that every time we talk about Wheeler. I want to go there. I’m nineteen years old. I don’t want to live with you the rest of my life.”

  He marched upstairs to his room to do his homework.

  Asperger’s Syndrome, according to most experts, is transmitted through the genes, usually down the male line. This hypothesis rang painfully true to me; all I had to do was look in the mirror. Neither Annie nor I had heard of Asperger’s before Benjy was diagnosed with it. Yet even before we learned about it, whenever I might criticize Benjy’s obsessions and lack of social niceties, Annie would murmur to me, “You’re not exactly Honor Roll at Charm School yourself, you know.” She was right; I took a back seat to no one, not even Benjy, on lack of social graces. And my Corvair compulsion left no doubt where Benjy’s obsessive behavior originated. After fetching a cup of coffee and a plain donut, I returned to my computer. Google claimed there were still over nine million Corvair search results I hadn’t yet investigated. I was just getting started.

  “Did the letter from Wheeler come today?” Benjy asked at the very same time the next day. He was standing in my office door, just home from school. I hadn’t heard him come in.

  “Benjy, when it comes, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Okay.” He looked me over carefully.

  “Are my eyes red again?” I asked. He nodded. I’d blown another whole day staring at the computer monitor in my deep dive into the mysteries of the Corvair. “Pull up a chair,” I invited. “I’ve been researching Grandpa’s old car. Did he ever talk to you about his Corvair?”

  “He mostly talked about Dartmouth College,” Benjy said, stretching out his long legs as he slouched in the chair. “He wanted me to go there, but I’m not. Even though I told him I would. I didn’t know I had Asperger’s then.”

  “Benjy, if Grandpa were here, he’d be incredibly proud of everything you’ve accomplished, okay? Dartmouth was his college, he really loved it, and he wanted me to go there, too. But I didn’t; I chose the school that was best for me, and so will you. Really, don’t worry about that Dartmouth stuff. He was very old when he told you that and not thinking clearly. And he didn’t know you had Asperger’s either.”

  Benjy shrugged. I couldn’t tell whether I’d persuaded him. “He was a good reciter,” Benjy, who was such a World Class Reciter, recalled. “He knew lots of good books and poems.” When Benjy was three years old, he recited from memory to my father every word of the movie, The Adventures of Milo and Otis—all 85 minutes of Dudley Moore’s narration about the lovable adventures of “the curious cat and pug nose pup.” Delighted, my father in turn recited Kipling’s entire epic poem, Gunga Din, especially savoring the final lines: “Tho’ I’ve belted you and flayed you. By the livin’ Gawd that made you. You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!”

  “I think maybe Grandpa had Asperger’s,” Benjy said.

  “Maybe,” I said. “He’s part of your male line, just like me.”

  “Did you ride the short bus to school?”

  “No, I never did.”

  “Did you get bullied on the long bus?”

  “Sometimes. Some people thought I was different, I’m sure.”

  “You weren’t ‘normal,’ but you weren’t too different.”

  “That sounds ab
out right,” I said, grinning.

  “I’m glad I’m not normal,” Benjy declared. “Normal is boring. I like being different.”

  “I like you being different, too,” I said. In truth, there had been times when I had wished Benjy had been less different, that he would shoot baskets with me, or help me fix things around the house, or listen intently as I taught him how to drive a car—all the quality-time things I’d done with my father. Annie was usually able to get me through those mourning spells, and I hadn’t felt one in years. But now I felt one tapping me on the shoulder. Maybe, I thought, there was quality-time thing we could share an interest in right here on my computer monitor?

  “So this old car Grandpa had when I was growing up was called a Corvair,” I explained, hoping to pique his interest. “It was a very different car, built way back in the Sixties. And now I’m curious about it. I’m actually fantasizing about getting one, maybe.”

  “We have a car, Dad,” Benjy pointed out. “A Toyota Camry.”

  True. In a weirdly ironic twist, I owned an ultra-competent, ultra-boring Toyota Camry, the very car with such serious safety issues that many commentators were now comparing it to the unsafe-at-any-speed Corvair. In fact, my Camry’s recall notice had just arrived in the mail.

  “Grandpa loved his Corvairs. We had really good times in it. Maybe, if I got one, you and I could have good times in it together?”

  “It’s an old car, Dad,” Benjy pointed out. “Really old.”

  “You’re right,” I admitted. “But I’ve been thinking I’d like a hobby. I’d work on the car for fun. Maybe we could work on it together?”

  “I don’t know anything about cars, Dad. Neither do you.”

  “But I do know something about cars,” I protested, “I worked at a service station after school when I was your age.” Which was true as far as it went, but I didn’t do much more than pump gas and check oil in the days before all the stations went self-serve. I basically knew enough about cars to know I didn’t know much. But everything I’d read said the Corvair was an easy car to work on and parts were plentiful. There were even Corvair clubs across the country full of real experts who helped their fellow Corvair owners out if they hit a snag. “If you leave home, I’ll have a lot of time on my hands. A hobby would keep me off the streets.”

  “You don’t live on the streets,” Benjy said. “We have a house.”

  “It’s a figure of speech,” I explained. “I’d have something fun to do while I’m alone.”

  Even with the explanation, Benjy eyed me curiously. Usually, he was the one who had the obsession that I then tried to defuse with common sense. Now the tables were turned. “You should keep up the gardens like Mom did,” he finally said. “Everything’s dying.”

  Two years after Annie’s sudden passing, Benjy rarely spoke of her or betrayed any emotion over her death, so I wanted to encourage the discussion. “That’s a good idea. Maybe we could keep up her garden together?” I suggested, even though I disliked gardening. “We could eat fresh vegetables again.”

  “No, thank you,” Benjy said firmly. “Neither of us even likes fresh vegetables. Besides, Mom didn’t make me work in the garden because I don’t like to put my hands in dirt. It feels weird. And once I saw a lizard. I hate lizards.”

  “But now, as a memory of her, maybe we ought to? That would make Mom happy, wouldn’t it?”

  “That doesn’t make sense, Dad,” Benjy said, his only emotion being annoyance. “Mom is dead. She can’t be happy if she’s dead. And why would she be happy to see me do something she didn’t make me do when she was alive because she knew I didn’t like it?”

  He was right. It didn’t make sense. It looked like we wouldn’t be gardening together. Or talking any more today about Annie.

  “So I guess for a hobby if we’re not going to grow fresh vegetables, we’re stuck with a Corvair,” I said.

  “That doesn’t make sense either, Dad,” Benjy said. “It’s just an old car.”

  “I know. That’s the point. It’s old. It would be fun. Old is fun.”

  “Old is not fun. It’s just old,” Benjy insisted.

  “I’m just curious about Corvairs, okay?” I said, trying not to sound as annoyed as he did.

  “It’s just an old car, Dad,” he repeated several more times. Then he went up to his room, satisfied that his common sense had won the day over my nonsensical obsession. And he was right.

  But tomorrow was a different story.

  CHAPTER 3

  “But it’s just an old car, Dad!” Benjy scolded, his disapproval loud and clear despite the usual flat tone of his voice. It was three days later, he had just come home from school, the envelope from Wheeler hadn’t arrived, and I’d just informed him that an hour earlier I’d bought a Corvair in an eBay auction. “You always tell me to control myself and not act impulsively,” Benjy protested. “Why didn’t you control yourself and not act impulsively?”

  “It wasn’t totally impulsive,” I muttered meekly, shifting uncomfortably in my chair. “I did a lot of intensive research.”

  “It was as impulsive as anything I do,” he fumed. “You acted obsessively and compulsively.”

  “All right, all right, I’m guilty,” I admitted, crumbling under Benjy’s withering cross-examination. “It was too perfect to pass up and I’m not perfect. In my defense, I will say that I put in a ridiculously low bid, so I think I got a good deal. Here, let me show you.” I motioned to Benjy to sit beside me at my computer.

  “I don’t need to see it,” he resisted. “It’s just an old car.”

  “Come on, it’s interesting.”

  “I doubt it,” he grumbled, finally sitting down.

  On my computer monitor, I pulled up a Craigslist ad for a 1965 Corvair convertible with an automatic transmission. “Listen to this,” I said, reading: “‘If rust is your thing, this is your car. The floors have more holes than Swiss cheese. Motor sounds angry and leaks oil. Tetanus shot recommended. First $500 takes it.’”

  Benjy drew a blank, so I explained. “He’s joking about how awful the car is that he’s trying to sell. Swiss cheese is full of holes. It’s a joke.” Benjy still didn’t laugh. His humor worked a different, more literal way. Sarcasm, insincerity, puns, and word play were not his thing.

  “I don’t think that sounds like a good deal,” he said.

  “You’re absolutely right. Which is why that’s not the car I bought. I’m just explaining why I thought the one I did buy was a good deal.” I pulled up the eBay auction page for my newly acquired 1965 Corvair convertible. “See? It’s the very same model, it runs great, has only a tiny bit of rust so no tetanus shots are required. The seller claims it doesn’t leak oil—even though every Corvair leaks or burns oil—and the motor sounds friendly. It wasn’t all that much more expensive. Plus!” I raised my voice for the boffo finale. “It’s the very same year and model Corvair that Grandpa had, that we rode around in when I was a boy. Except Grandpa had a four door and I wanted a convertible. He’ll forgive me, I’m sure. Isn’t that neat? That we now own this car?”

  But Benjy didn’t share my excitement. “You always yell at me to not be obsessive.”

  “I don’t yell at you. That’s an exaggeration. Look, I spent nearly ninety minutes talking to the seller. He’s the President of the Florida Corvair Club. He rebuilt the engine, transmission, brakes, all the mechanical systems in the car. He installed modern front seats with head rests and shoulder harnesses, because cars in the Sixties didn’t have those safety features. He swore the car was in great shape. So I made a ridiculously low bid and won. Let’s celebrate. We’ll have a blast.”

  Benjy didn’t feel a celebratory blast coming on. “What if I want to get a car?” he asked. “You’ll take up both spaces in the garage.”

  “Benjy, you decided not to get a driver’s license,” I pointed out. “If you don’t have a license, you can’t have a car.”

  “They won’t let me drive because of my Asperger’s,” he com
plained, as he often did when the subject of his driving a car came up. “They discriminate against people who they consider disabled! We’re not disabled, we’re just different.”

  “Benjy,” I corrected, “I don’t think you’re being fair. The DMV requires that you get a medical evaluation from the doctor and pass a special driving exam because of your Asperger’s. That’s very different from saying they won’t let you drive. We’ve talked about this many times.” In fact, we’d talked about it many, many, many, many times.

  “You didn’t have to get a special medical evaluation to drive.”

  “No.”

  “So it’s discrimination. I think it violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. Which is the Law of the Land since 1990, thanks to the efforts of Justin Dart and other people with differences.” Stricken by polio as a youth, Dart was denied an opportunity to become a school-teacher because he was confined to a wheelchair; he then dedicated his life to fighting for equal rights and access for persons with disabilities. He was one of Benjy’s heroes.

  “They have to think of the safety of everyone on the road. It seems fair to me.” I wasn’t wild about any teenage boys driving on the road, let alone my only son who often had trouble staying focused on the task at hand.

  Fortunately, he changed the subject. Unfortunately, he changed it back to the absurdity of my Corvair purchase. “This car is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,” he announced. “Fort Lauderdale, Florida is on the southeast coast of Florida, farther away than Disney World. Disney World is 826 miles from our house.” Benjy liked to pore over maps, and we had driven to Disney World many years earlier; that particular mileage factoid had stuck in his mind.

  “It’s about a thousand miles,” I admitted. “The seller said I could drive the car home, no problem. So, with your spring break coming up, I thought we’d fly down there and take a few days to drive it home. Maybe even stop at Disney World again. Whaddya say?”

  Benjy put the kibosh on that idea. “I can’t leave home. The letter from Wheeler might come.”