THE VAN OF DESTINY (pt. 1)

September arrives abruptly, knocking me free from these thoughts. Acorns fall with crashing reports like military salutes around my parents’ house in the wooded hills between Hershey and Hummelstown. Somehow, they jolt me from my complacency even more than the very real gunshots that slew Jonas Strunk. Before I know it, Arthur has left for Japan, vowing to teach a class of elementary English students the wonders of Sir Mixalot, and Julian has departed for Azerbaijan without a word, but after leaving a South Allison Hill Civic Association t-shirt neatly folded on my bed. I curse myself; I had meant to take him for a trip in the van before he left. Instead, I’m still looking for a van, wearing his tshirt.

I’ve spent the latter part of the summer researching cars, looking up prices, occasionally visiting a dealer to check out a vehicle. This one’s in Maryland, and I can’t find a mechanic to crosscheck it. This one’s closer, but they won’t let me take it to a mechanic. This one gets lousy gas mileage. This one’s too small.

At last, I find a handful that seem to fit. One is at a dealer in Palmyra, and two are at William Huffle’s Used Cars in Mechanicsburg. At the latter, a well-groomed, slightly pudgy young man named Eric shuttles me around the inventory, answering questions and opening doors. He’s polite, collected but not suave, and encouraging but not pushy. He generally disproves all the bad rap on car salesmen. One of the vehicles I’m looking at is a 2004 Chevrolet G1500 Express cargo van. I decide it makes more sense than a similar Ford I’m eyeing, and ask to drive it to a mechanic in Hershey to get it checked out. Eric agrees, and hands me the keys.

It’s something of a shock after the little Toyata Prius I arrived in. Cargo vans, I think, have crossed the invisible divide that separates cars from 18-wheelers. The thing is enormous. At first, it’s like I’m steering a boat down the middle of 322. I can imagine the rudder shifting with the steering wheel, watery asphalt grinding away in a rough charcoal wake. When I go up hills, the engine sounds like a jet intake, and when it gathers momentum, I have the vague sensation of riding an asteroid on an Earth-skimming near miss. In my old cars – the current Prius and a much-beloved old 1991 Honda Civic hatchback – the headlights of minivans and SUVs blasted bothersomely through my rear window. Now, I look down with perverse satisfaction at the drivers of these once towering behemoths as they lean anxiously forward in their now-absurd little buggies. SUVs, I hear, don’t do very well in crashes. Just before I give myself a mental smack on the hand, I imagine my craft cruising serenely, sublimely through a twisted pond of Hummer metal.

The company that previously owned the van installed a system of shelves and grates in the cargo bay. Many of them would serve me well – I was planning on installing something similar anyway – but in their current empty superfluousness, they’re nothing but noise pollution. When I hit a bump or break, the vibrations travel through the whole vehicle ending in the metal-frame shelves, which then shake, rattle and roll, making a truly ungodly racket. Strauss’s Alpine Symphony includes scoring for a Thunder Machine. This usually takes the form of a large, thin metal sheet that some sturdy young percussionist draws out and shakes like hell to cut through a 123-piece orchestra. If he could have heard it, Strauss may have preferred to simply use a Chevrolet.

But on some level, I like the din. I felt real disappointment in many aspects of the Prius, which displays gas mileage on a little onboard computer screen, runs silent as a ghost but repeatedly emits a small, civil beep to remind you when you’re backing up and chirps wildly at you when you don’t buckle your seatbelt. Compare this rather aggravatingly civil personality to the van, which roars and rattles but somehow stays in one piece and chugs gasoline like a frat boy sloppily chugging Beast in a keg stand. It’s like leaving your elementary school librarian to go out and play in the parking lot with a Hell’s Angel.

And as it happens, the gas mileage isn’t actually so bad (for a van). Its large frame is built on a 1/2-ton chassis – as opposed to the one-ton chasses supporting vans designed to haul huge amounts of cargo – so it achieves the same level of efficiency as a smaller vehicle. This is important to me, both because I have trouble ethically justifying an automobile that guzzles more gas than necessary, and because gas will be my biggest regular expense on the trip, pretty much replacing rent and utilities evenly.

My mechanic gives it the go, more or less, and I drive back to Huffle’s with my father, who knows less about cars than I do, but comes along for support. I’ve settled into the feel of it, the lower pickup and greater momentum, the larger turning axis and the rear-well drive. It’s really surprisingly maneuverable. There’s a light whistle in through one of the windows. “So, are you going to take me across the country so I can listen to all the sounds out there?” I silently ask the steering wheel. I hit a bump. “GragragrakukukukukakakakakakaCHUNKgaDUNKabrrrRUNKKKUKNKNKKkkk!” the van replies. Yes. This is it: the Van of Destiny.

Back at Huffle’s, Eric abruptly disappears once it becomes clear that I’m buying. Out of nowhere pops a stout grey leprechaun. He’s short but compact and dense; one would imagine that if he curled up tight, he’d do well as a bowling ball. His gray hair is flattened desperately under a snugly fitting baseball cap, and wild gray moustaches stick out every which way like tumbleweed. Glittering, squinty blue eyes twinkle out from his behind thick glasses. “Hi!” he shouts gruffly, gripping the syllable in his stomach before launching it out like the bolt of a trebuchet. “I’m Bill,” He thrusts forward his hand. I take it; he shakes firmly, someone spastically, and then hollers “siddown!,” thumbing the chair in front of his desk. “Now lemme tell you something about cars, son….” The cavalry has arrived.

Bill, the human foghorn. Bill, the Used Car Philosopher. Good old Bill, your best friend when buying a used car. Bill goes on for about five minutes about the glories of used cars before he gets it that I’m not considering getting a new one. There’s a fresh Prius outside; I guess he figured I was thinking on a classier level. I explain that I received a grant to buy the van, and so am working in a very strict price range, and ask if the price negotiable. “Is the price negotiable!” he shouts, abruptly leaning back in his chair, hands over his head. He drawls the words with weary familiarity. Then, suddenly, he’s leaning forward again, hands on the desk before him. “Now that’s a good question. Is the price negotiable. Now, you see, at this establishment, we don’t have a whole lot of window dressing. You see this office? Now, I could get myself my own room, get Eric over there a nice little cubicle, get leather chairs for us to relax in, but I don’t. Why? Because that would make your van more expensive. Now, here at Huffle’s, I need to be competitive. That highway out there is nothing but used car lots, and I need to be competitive. So I don’t put in a whole lot of this and that, so that the price on that sticker there can be as low as it can be.” I apologize and tell him that the price on the sticker is out of my range, and ask if he could lower it. “You ever bought a house, son? How old are you?” I’m twenty-two. “See, you don’t understand. I built this house. Now I’ve got to choose between selling these vans for a certain price and keeping this house. You see where I’m coming from? I’ve got a house to maintain. That’s where I’m coming from.” The age question riled me a little. I say that I understand where’s he’s coming from, but since I’m working on a budget for all my expenses next year, I have to choose between his van price and eating. That’s where I’m coming from. “Now you looked at a lot of other cars,” he draws leadingly. I nod. He changes tactics again. “Okay, well you’re not going to get a better deal in the midstate. Why don’t we try and make something work, here. Why don’t you go ahead and tell me a price that you think you’d be able to pay, and I’ll tell you if it stacks up with where I’m coming from.” I quote him a price, knocking a thousand dollars off the sticker. He blinks at me, then leans back again and shakes his head. “Now, you see, what you’re telling me, the question you’re giving me here is, do I want to do business with you, or do I want to make money? You know, do I want to make a profit? Now don’t get me wrong here, I’d love to give you this deal, but that’s just out of my range of consideration. Now I know you’ve got your own concerns, but I don’t think, see, that I can make that number square with my concerns.” I ask him to make a counter-offer. “You see, if I give you this van for your number, you can just drive off. But then when you want another car, you might come back here, and you know what? Ol’ Bill will be plain gone. See, I got to be competitive. And if I’m giving away vans like that – if I’m not thinking about my business, well I’m just gonna disappear and you won’t be able to come back to Ol’ Bill for a new used car.” I ask him to make a counteroffer. “Now lemme ask you a question here,” he says instead, leaning forward more, peering out at me over his glasses, squinting further, little slits of eyes twinking. “Lemme ask you a question, real straight-forward, yes or no. Okay?” Okay. “Real straight-forward.” Okay. “Is there any way I’m going to sell you that van for the number on the sticker?” No. He leans back with expression of a parental disappointment. “Fellowship for what?” he drawls. Music, I reply. “What kind of music?” but then, just as I’m trying to think how to answer, he blurts out a number almost under his breath, adding 800 dollars to my offer. “That’s only two hundred dollars away from the sticker price,” I reply, “so it’s still out of my range. But I tell you what, I understand where you’re coming from, so I’ll meet you in the middle.” I give him a number 500 off. He squints at me. “Excuse me a moment,” he says, launching out of his chair and going to a back room, talking and laughing loudly at another employee, leaving me to sit quietly at an empty desk with my father, who looks at me inscrutably. Eventually Bill returns. “Excuse me,” he says again. He has papers in his hand. “Now look at this,” thrusting them at me, “these are complete records for everything that’s happened to this car since it got bought. Everything. Now, this car has been serviced religiously every three thousand miles since day one. Now, you’re not going to find a record like that on a car like this anywhere in the midstate. So what do you say to this number right here?” He says, pointing with his pen to his last offer. No, I’ll meet you halfway. He leans back again, giving me that same disappointed look. “What kind of music?” he asks again. I’ll send you a CD if you give me the car. Suddenly he’s shouting again. “Eric! Eric, whaddya think? Should we sell him this car? I think he got a fellowship from his dad. He’s gonna send us a CD.” Eric looks uncomfortable, and mumbles something. Bill doesn’t listen. “Fine!” He barks. “It’s a deal,” he is suddenly soft, fatherly. “It has been a true pleasure doing business with you.” The hard twinkle promptly returns. “Now you can clear up the details with Eric, like whether you’ll be paying in one check or multiple installments?” And just as suddenly as he appeared, he’s gone.