Tripod: Get Where You're Going

COPING WITH THE LOSS
OF A LOVED ONE
by David Wallis
"You should be dead," State Trooper Leonard Fornabia told me. The twisted remains of my 1985 Alfa Romeo convertible were strewn before us on the pavement of the Northern State Parkway.
Moments earlier I had been cruising to my parents' Sag Harbor home -- Patsy Cline warbling "Crazy" on the stereo -- when my Spyder began to swerve inexplicably. I gripped the steering wheel and tried to alter course, but control was no longer in my hands. The car clipped the concrete traffic median at about 60 miles per hour. Flipped over like a pancake. Then silence.
I opened my eyes. The road looked foreign from my new vantage point: hanging upside down like an Apollo astronaut. Immediately, I wiggled my fingers and toes. "OK, not paralyzed," I thought. I then spent the longest moment of my life suspended in shock until I realized that perched upside down on the Northern State was not a great place to be hanging around. I unfastened my seat belt and punched the passenger door. It scraped against the asphalt, but opened just enough to let me crawl free.
Blood from cuts on my hands covered the sleeves of my white shirt. I brushed glass fragments off my forehead, but my face remained unscathed. For a Friday night, few cars were on the road. No one came close to smacking into the wreck. Even my trusty Powerbook survived. But I had killed my beloved, Sophia.

Sophia -- yeah, I named her -- was gorgeous. Not a flaw on her curvaceous, cappuccino-colored, body.

Sophia -- yeah, I named her -- was gorgeous. Not a flaw on her curvaceous, cappuccino-colored, body. Ah, the sound of her. That low-pitched purr that said, "Go faster, I won't stop you." She accelerated with authority. Glided through corkscrew turns. And debunked the reputation of Italian auto-engineering as inferior, braking with precision and starting up reliably -- even on blustery January days, when I'd dress up like Admiral Byrd and she'd go topless.
I took better care of her than I did myself. I ponied up two hundred dollars a month for her garage at a time when I considered finding a roommate to help pay the rent. Every spring, she received a comprehensive tune-up; I haven't had a physical in years. She dined on premium. I ate generic. But money didn't matter; she turned heads at a period in my life when I wondered if I could.
It was the tumultuous summer of '92 when I found her. Sophia was with a portly executive no longer able to squeeze into just one of her two seats. I had just broken up with my live-in girlfriend of five years (a backseat driver), was prematurely losing much of my hair (Is there ever a good time to lose your hair?) and wanted out of my job as a corporate event planner.
I could no longer manufacture that "customer is always right" smile when confronted by an inebriated investment banker complaining about the height of a centerpiece. But it took another year of therapy to wean myself off a steady salary. I had always wanted to write, and at 25 felt young enough to take a risk. I started my transition by emptying a folder of calligraphied menus. Soon, there would be rejection letters from editors to file.

Occasionally, I'd scan the used car section for a Jaguar XKE. But I was only looking. Honest, nothing serious.

Despite a plummeting checking account -- and ego -- Sophia provided a steadfast source of support. A spin together down a country lane became the perfect prescription to combat tsurris. A place to primal scream without waking the neighbors. Occasionally, I'd scan the used car section for a Jaguar XKE. But I was only looking. Honest, nothing serious.
I began driving while still cutting my baby teeth. Every Saturday afternoon my dad would perch me on his lap in our block-long 1963 canary yellow Ford station wagon. I steered. Dad worked the pedals. We used to laugh at the shocked expressions we elicited from drivers passing a car seemingly operated by a shaggy-haired eight-year-old. To egg on other motorists, my father locked his hands behind his neck, and pretended to yawn while whispering the rights and the lefts.
Although my Bar Mitzvah marked my coming of age at 13, it was not until my 15th birthday, the day I received my learner's permit, that I imagined myself to be adult. Florida allowed me to take the exam one year before New York would, so I visited Uncle Hy and Aunt Rachel, residents of a Fort Lauderdale retirement community that I called "cemetery village." I usually dreaded the annual pilgrimage. But that year I gleefully immersed myself in the pervasive odor of Ben-Gay. I wanted that learner's permit so badly that I would have worn it on my shirt like a badge.

And the beige-colored fragrance-mobile scored few points with teenage girls hoping to straddle the back seat of a Harley.

By 17 -- a full-fledged licensee -- I had grown tired of borrowing my parents' car. The wagon had long been junked, so I was relegated to my father's Chrysler minivan. My dad, an importer of spices, normally used the vehicle to deliver everything from frankincense to cinnamon sticks to his customers. The van smelled like a rolling church. And the beige-colored fragrance-mobile scored few points with teenage girls hoping to straddle the back seat of a Harley.
Determined to impress dates, I broke open my Bar Mitzvah bank account and bought a kelly green 1973 VW Super Beetle. The Bug was cheap ($850) and easy to fix but I secretly coveted my older brother's flashier cars. First Steve returned from college in an aqua 1971 Volvo P1800, the one Simon Templer drove in 'The Saint." Two years later he pulled up in a black 1968 Mustang convertible. A muscle car. Each vehicle he brought home fueled my envy, reminded me I was the kid brother.
After selling the Bug, I went carless for three years. Three years too long. I had flirted with a maroon TR6, an English model. But friends who knew her said she was fickle. Always in the shop. Then I met Sophia. She was sitting outside a fast-food joint. I walked over and -- this might have been a bit forward -- ran my hand slowly across her smooth torso.
My ashen-faced father nudged my shoulder. He then guided me off the gurney, thanked the emergency room staff and ushered me into his car. As we hit the Northern State, I had the urge to say kaddish. "You know, you're very lucky," Dad said. I answered him by recounting the moments before the crash. Did an oil slick foul my traction? Did I doze off at the wheel? I tried to explain what happened, but couldn't. My father shushed me. "It's only a car," he said, "It's only a car."
"Mr. Live/Dead, Mr. Live/Dead," repeated the ruddy-faced Sicilian, before pointing out Sophia.

A few days later, my father and I visited Giuseppe, a kindly Alfa mechanic who paid me five hundred dollars for what was left of Sophia. I walked into his garage, my hand extended, but Giuseppe clenched me in a bear hug. "Mr. Live/Dead, Mr. Live/Dead," repeated the ruddy-faced Sicilian, before pointing out Sophia.
I didn't recognize her. Her top -- which had shielded me -- shot straight up in the air, the frame gnarled like an ancient oak. She looked like she had taken a left-hook between the headlights. Giuseppe already had removed her battery, tires and speedometer to transplant into some other ailing Alfa. I hopped into the driver's seat one final time. Not to pretend shifting into fifth on a straightway, but to pry the stereo from her scarred dash. Patsy Cline still had a song to finish.

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David Wallis has written for "The New York Times," "Esquire" and "George."
© 1996 Tripod, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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