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Bud Grossmann’s
Words of the Week
for the Week of
November 6, 2005
Published as Fiction in a WIP
dated September 25, 2001.
© 2001 by Bud Grossmann.
All Rights Reserved.
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’49 Hudson, 2003
© 2003 by Bud Grossmann
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IT FOLLOWED ME HOME
Retrieving the small stack of mail out of the box near the front curb, Gilbert Lowden whistled in surprise, “Ryan Reinhardt! Well, I’ll be damned.” He was looking at a legal-size envelope bearing two first-class stamps and, in the return address, the handwritten name of Lowden’s long-lost college buddy. Thumbing through the rest of the mail, he noted nothing of consequence. Lowden walked up the driveway and along the flagstone walkway to the front door of his suburban Baltimore home. Instead of going in, he opened the screen door and set the mail inside, on the foyer floor—everything except the letter from Reinhardt. Lowden’s wife, Celeste, was not at home on this sultry September Saturday afternoon.
Lowden stuck the thick envelope into his hip pocket, took his Leatherman multi-tool from the snap-flapped leather holster on his belt, and brought out not the knife but the bottle opener. He walked past the bed of roses (no longer in bloom) below the bay window of the kitchen, and went into the garage, to the refrigerator at the back, and got himself a beer. He came out again, returned to the front yard, and sat down in a plastic lawn chair under the big maple, still leafy and green. He popped the cap off his Pabst Blue Ribbon and took a long swallow. Then he put away the bottle opener, brought out the blade, and carefully slit the top edge of the envelope.
Seven pages, neatly typed. Two color snapshots were enclosed, one was of an old automobile of a make and model Lowden did not immediately recognize; the other evidently showed the same car’s dashboard and steering wheel. Lowden smiled. No photos of friend or family. But he could picture his pal, a six-foot-eight, blond-bearded, hollow-cheeked, gravel-voiced scholar. In thirty-some years would Reinhardt have aged? Lowden doubted it.
Seven pages. Some flattery, some reminiscences. A little gossip about old classmates. Career talk. Deaths, divorces. Children and achievements. A wonderful letter—this Reinhardt guy could write! And then, the best part, the car:
One final thing. I’ve never been able to get the antique car bug out of my system. It’s been about 15 years since I sold my ’31 Ford Victoria (Paul sold me the body/frame/fenders and doors; I came up with the rest). I’ve been kinda lookin, you know ... but not too seriously ... well, the other day, on the way to the hospital, I spotted a 1949 Hudson Commodore 8, and to make a long story short, it followed me home. It’s 100% complete, with only 60,205 miles. It sat for a long time and the engine froze up. A previous owner took the head off and pulled out two pistons before freeing up the engine. That’s the way it was when I bought it, so I’ll need to reinstall the pistons and head, put brakes on it, and exhaust system, and it should be drivable. The body is excellent; the interior is almost flawless (just smells old). Unfortunately the color is black, but it could use a paint job. I’ll track down the original color options and pick something more interesting. In case you want to know what a ’49 Hudson looks like, it’s like the car in the movie, “Driving Miss Daisy.” BIG car!
Reinhardt’s phone number was in the letter. Lowden looked at the clock. Maybe he would call. He read the letter through again. He finished off his beer and uncapped another. The sun was setting. He went inside through the front door, turned on a lamp in the living room, and put the mail on the dining table. Then he entered the guest bedroom where Celeste did her sewing and where one wall was all bookshelves. He found his college yearbooks, from ’68 and ’69, and looked up Reinhardt, wise and worn beyond his youthful years.
Gilbert Lowden and Ryan Reinhardt were born in 1949. Where, wondered Lowden now, would a ’49 Hudson take a man today? Lowden took a swig of beer, and felt like he was eighteen again. He looked at the letter. The interior is almost flawless; it just smells old.
He went into the living room again, dropped into his La-Z-Boy, and closed his eyes. When Gil was fourteen and living on his grandparents’ Nebraska farm, he would sometimes hurry through his chores, then slip away to hide in a ’46 Chrysler Highlander, rusting and retired, up behind the barn. The plaid mohair upholstery, dusty and musty, gave off a scent of antiquity. Gil would lean back and rest a foot upon the big, busy dashboard and prop a pulp-paged paperback upon the enormous steering wheel with its thin, chromed horn ring that fully encircled the cone-shaped hub. Two gravel roads bordered the farm, on the west and south. The year Gil was fourteen, they were blacktopped by a county crew. One night the Lowden boy and his cousin Barry poked around in the cab of a grader parked on the shoulder of Schulmann Road. Beneath the seat they found a stash of “men’s” magazines. Some became a permanent part of the Chrysler Highlander literary collection.
Reinhardt had not mentioned what he had paid for his hobby car, but his friend Gil Lowden figured, whatever the price, the Hudson had to have been worth that much and more. After all, even before it was up and running, it had transported Lowden, in perfect comfort and in a matter of minutes, halfway across a continent.
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