Auto Repair
shermanalexie.substack.com
When you grow up poor, everything in your life feels like a dull knife falling. You don't mean to reach for the blade but you end up bleeding anyway. I remember sitting in shitty cars as my mother or father turned the key and all we heard was the click, click, click of a broken ignition or piston or some sick and mysterious part. Then would come the cursing and pounding of the steering wheel, followed by the slump of shoulder and shame. Decades later, my car is dependable. I too often take it for granted. But, today. I'll celebrate those moments when the whirr, whirr, whirr of a working engine sounds like a church choir singing to a gorgeous fire.
😂
Trevor Noah writes of a similar sentiment in his bio “Born a Crime.” He traces the most terrible things that ever happened to him back to crappy cars. Man, this poem resonates with me and the panic I associate with the cars of my childhood. It strips you and never really goes away. There’s more than one way to be stranded. Thank you. And thanks to my Toyota with 171K on it that never gives me trouble now. Y’all stand the test of time. Keep going places.