My new car was formerly owned by a Japanese. I’d like to believe he or she was a decent type, and that the car was never party to anything horrible, like, say, a drive-by shooting (if such things happen in Japan). I’d also like to believe he or she isn’t standing right now in the parking lot of some karaoke bar in Kyoto wondering where the hell the car is.
Point is, though, I’m way on the other side of the world. I know of no particular arrangements Japan and my country (which shall remain nameless, just in case the owner of the car happens to be reading this) have worked out with Interpol where vehicles are concerned. The upholstery’s in great shape, the body is fine, and everything works. Everything works now, that is.
As one of my snobbish, brand-new car-driving friends puts it, I should have known. I learned of the deal from one of my brother’s most shady acquaintances. The dealer’s name was Cookie (well, not his real name). Cookie’s lot was located in the thick of the used-car heartland known as The Bamboo. This is the netherworld of the automobile business, a universe which has thrived over the years on the sale of used parts from dubious sources. Scattered among little country houses were grimy spare parts emporia resembling movie sets out of Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome.
With the emergence of a market for used Japanese cars, The Bamboo blossomed into a huge, chaotic bargain basement for pre-owned vehicles. Among the mountains of oily spares were rows of Nissans and Hondas in various stages of undress, Miatas with crumpled bonnets, dusty Toyotas with gutted dashboards.
Looking people in the eye was not one of Cookie’s habits. From the tone in which his parents, who lived adjacent to the lot, addressed him, I gathered he was the black sheep of the family, set up as a used-car salesman as a form of punishment. The car looked okay when I first saw it. A few nicks and scratches, nothing a body job wouldn’t take care of. Cookie urged me to take it for a run, assuring me that the deafening rattle I heard as I threw in the reverse gear and backed out the lot was simply a shield that needed bolting down.
The car drove fine. I tooled around The Bamboo a while, taking the opportunity to look out for better deals at other lots on the way. On returning to Cookie’s establishment, I checked the trunk for rust, looked over the engine. Things looked good. It was Monday. I assured Cookie he’d have a cheque by Friday. He assured me he’d take care of the rattle.
Cookie’s wife and I spoke several times over the course of that week as the car went to be licensed and prepared for life in a new country. It went to the valuators and emerged with a clean bill of health. The day we closed the deal, however, the whites of Cookie’s eyes were the colour of raw meat. When he spoke, I had to stand upwind so I wouldn’t get high. I whipped out the cheque. “You don’t want to sheck the car out first?” he enquired, listing to one side. The car was parked, luminous with polish and Armor-all, in a locked garage.
“I din want to tell you in front of she,” he said, indicating the area where his wife was waiting. “But I had two beers this afternoon.” I looked at him like this was a revelation. “If she find out, it go real upset she,” he continued. I assured Cookie his secret was safe, though in retrospect it occurs to me that I’d missed the perfect opportunity to have a couple of hundred knocked off the agreed price. He confessed they hadn’t had time to fix the rattle, but it was a simple matter of bolting down the shield.
The next morning, I took the car to my mechanic. “You got this at a steal,” he said, when he heard how much I’d paid. I didn’t too like his choice of words. He cranked open the bonnet; his face went instantly into one of those puzzled grimaces. “Where’s the engine shield?” he asked. I shrugged and looked into the engine, and sure enough, I was seeing the garage floor. He said it wasn’t a crisis, but I’d want to get one soon to protect the engine from stones and such.
Later that day, the air conditioner, which hadn’t exactly been blowing at Arctic temperatures (Cookie had assured me it was nothing a dose of Freon wouldn’t cure), started blowing air that was sub-Saharan. The air conditioning people ended up having to remove the entire compressor, which they said had a bad coil. The next day they called to say the entire compressor was shot.
And so on and so forth. Several new parts later, the car is no longer a steal (though I’ve still spent less in the long run than my snobbish new car-driving friend). My biggest regret, though, is that I didn’t tell Cookie’s wife about those two beers.
