Nuts & Bolts , heart and soul

Accelerator rammed to the floor.

!5 year old pistons bathed in synthetic oil churning out power at impossibly high rpms.

6500- 160 kmph

7000- 170

7500- 175

Left foot flashes across the clutch, left hand zips the gear stick into fifth.

Engine sputters and roars in the span of a mosquito bite.

The brake lamps ahead of me are quickly getting closer.

The distance between triumph and defeat being eaten up by a legacy of proud battles spread across a decade.

She’s so close now, that I have to swerve her into the right most lane. Front bumper aligned with rear. The enemy is putting up a commendable fight. Its younger, faster, quicker, prettier. And its fighting hard. Its got pride too, its got guts. But it doesn’t have history. Its doesn’t have battle scars, Its skin is pristine and brilliant. While hers is battered and rusted. Irremovable dents scattered all over what was once immaculate. Each wound a reminder of a hard fought battle against insurmountable odds. Of a victory snatched from the jaws of impossibility. Of being committed to one cause and one cause alone: Victory.

Front bumper now, inching past front door.

I can see the disbelief in my enemy’s eyes. He can’t understand it. Who would anyway, who can even ever imagine that a war fought between a sword and a cannon cud ever possibly go the sword’s way. But so it is.

My own disbelief masked by the adrenaline coursing through my veins, by visions of so many races behind this very wheel so many years ago.

She’s been condemned to a docile existence without me. For 6 long hard years, she’s been a gladiator posing as a stable mate. A beast of burden. An appliance. For so long it has served my father so well, all gear shifts in civilized time, the carpeting on the floor never tasting the rubber clad skin of the accelerator. Mundane and boring, The kind of existence that makes a lion starve itself to death. A charitable existence, attributed to her age, to wear and tear. A 15 year old car just doesn’t get much done besides get you from point A to point B. It’s not meant to be driven past 120.

But what do they know?

Her spirit is only happy set afloat the winds with reckless abandon to the laws of physics that bind us to the ground. She only feels the way she is supposed to feel when she’s hurtling down the road without care for how battered and torn its manifold is from year after year of corrosive rain. Its always been enraged at being confined to the road when she really wanted to fly.

And so she is once again, trying to fly. See that maybe, the force of will and desire can over ride that natural order of things and let her take flight.

Or die trying.

Well past her glory days, like an old athlete trying to outrun age.

Alien sounds already starting to protest against my own foolish bravado. Shocks and springs creaking and swaying with minimal downforce at their disposal. The engine whining a little under the pressure of constantly generating greater speed at rpms that even new engines are not supposed to be subjected to.

But I know her, she’s fine. Just fine. The fine that a moth is when hurtling head first into a flame.

She’s happy even, I can almost see her smile as she begins to edge closer and closer to getting ahead.

Its slow going. Both cars are almost head to head, both pushing speeds beyond 200. The traffic before us, forewarned by flashing lights, quickly moves into the slow lane to give the two battle mongers enough space.

And the engine stalls.

Shock.

Fear

Disbelief

She rapidly loses speed. All of a sudden the past 3 minutes are being played out in expedited rewind.

The competitor is gaining ground again, quickly.

Soon, I see the brake lamps getting smaller once again before me.

Then I see them light up.

Then they get closer as I try to shift down to find the torque curve again.

I’m cruising now, her haggard bones refusing to put her heart through anymore torture. There is hardly any impetus left. Slowly I slide towards the shoulder, where the other car has already pulled over.

She keeps coasting as if unwilling to stop. As if unwilling to accept that old age has finally done what no measure of difficulty could ever do. Spirit fighting against common sense. Heart against broken body. Guts against defeated mechanics.

A small stream of steam is pouring from under the hood. The smoke from the exhaust pipes has turned black. The smell of over heated rubber is strong enough to penetrate the rolled up windows, and the pungent odor of boiling axles is inescapable. And yet she coasts on, always losing speed but never dying down.

Once past the now stationary adversary, I pull her to the curb. Switch the engine off, with the gear in neutral I let her dictate how far she wants to go before admitting defeat.

Doesn’t go very far. Maybe 50 meters beyond our final challenger.

For a moment everything stands still. The wind buffeting from the trucks whizzing by rock her gently, as if to put her to sleep. To make the pain of realizing one’s stock in life easier.

I put my head on the wheel, and sigh. Turn the key, the engine doesn’t turnover. It chugs like a diesel truck but doesn’t come to life.

Its silent now. Just the wind and the morbidity of defeat. I can almost see her bite her lip. Keep the tears from falling. But cars don’t cry, they don’t exude emotion. Those that can come to terms with what they have been reduced to, continue to bitch and whine thru whatever remains of their lives. Those with proud legacies, with score cards and fan followings, don’t ever come to terms. They fight till they loose.

And then they die.

And so I sat in the corpse of my most loyal of all comrades. The only one who has witnessed everything that I have ever been a part of. From back seat trysts, to front seat break ups. From winning distinction to flunking a grade. Most of everything, accomplishment and humiliation have been shared with her.

They say when you are dying, you see your life played back before your eyes. But

she has no eyes, just head lights… and they don’t see much of anything, they just light the way. So I see her life played back for her.

And am surprised at how much there is. There is so much to remember, so much to be proud of, its almost a shock even to me. How notorious she had grown when every night I would pit her against competition that was always more likely to win. But never lost, because she just wasn’t willing to. Like the underdog race horse, who paves his way into history not with great speed or resilience but by sheer force of will. And guts…

There’s a tap tap tap on the window…

It’s the victor come to gloat. Inflict the final wound upon the misplaced ego of a broken warrior with illusions of long lost greatness.

I flick the switch to roll the window down.

It’s a kid. Younger than me by at least 5 years. Dressed in whatever is considered hip apparel these days. FUBU printed on his sweat shirt in bright orange letters, instantly triggers my migraine.

Before I can utter a sullen greeting he shoves his hand thru the window with a big reverent smile on his face.

“Good fight, what happened?”

I’m taken aback. This unprecedented show of sportsmanship… it would feel like salt being rubbed into wounded ego if not for the blatant admiration in his eyes as he steals a gaze away from me to soak in the beauty of chipped black paint over rusted steel.

I pop the hood and get out. We walk over to the front of my Spartan soldier and lift the bonnet. I’m in good company, I decide. He’s a kindred spirit. One who’s disappointed at winning by default rather than being justified at winning a race that held hardly any doubt about who the victor would be.

We discuss for a while what Honda used to do so well back in the days this piece of nuts and bolts was put together. Without Vtec technology and variable valve timing and pgmfi, they still managed to put together an engine that would put up a fight till the day it blew up. An engine that had a heart and a soul and pride and hunger. Not a beast of burden, not an appliance that wins because it is built to win. But one that wins because it wants to, because it will use whatever is at its disposal and make up the rest from thin air just to taste the intoxicating rush of glory that it was never meant to have,

He is definitely better versed than me when it comes to the mechanics of the whole thing.

His wows, and damns at seeing things I have never really known are strangely flattering.

“Well.” He goes, “I think I’m gonna ask dad to sell this piece of shit and buy me one of these” he says pointing at my little wonder car.

But, but. my mind says, its 15 years old?.

“They don’t make em like they used to anymore”. He answers my subliminal query

We shake hands, he offers me a ride. I decline saying that she’s just over heated, that I will stick by her till she’s feeling better.

He doesn’t roll his eyes or looks at me as if I’m crazy, he nods his head and says he understands, that he would do the same.

I instantly like him, think of teaching him the finer points of street racing so that he can be the best amongst the rest. But he’s got a younger car, one with vtec, and pgmfi and variable valve timing. He’s got technology on his side, the finer points of double clutching would be wasted on a car without a carburetor. So we wave good byes and he screeches away to where he was headed before I had to make overtaking me a hard fought battle for him.

I get back into my car, smiling ear to ear. Wondering if she heard this youngster singing her praises.

Nuts and bolts, I think. Nuts and bolts. Baby, you’re anything but.

I turn the key again, the engine chugs.

And roars back into life.

She’d heard him all right.

I pump the gas a few times just to hear the reassuring battle cry of 107 horses in unison.

Put her into first, jump the clutch and let the tires squeal onto the tarmac.

The road stretches long and straight into the night. Somewhere in the distance I can still see his break lamps burning the horizon red.

It’s a challenge.

Like a suicidal bull, she and I aim at the red far in the distance. Bet he’ll be surprised.

And this time, we play for keeps.

As I feel her engine surge with renewed will, I begin to smile.

And I know she does too.

Game on!