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She's pretty as a daisy
But look out, man, she's crazy
She'll really do you in
If you let her get under your skin
-The Coasters
But because you're mine
My heart took that final choke...
-Carl Perkins
It's September 21st, 1957, and for the first time - the first time in his whole miserable life - Roland LeBay is in love.
She's prettier than anything he's ever imagined could exist: cherryred silversleek snowwhite, miles of gleaming chrome, polished glass and sharp angles, lean and poised and all his.
("--you boys and your cars," Mama always said contemptuously, and Daddy would just laugh and laugh and laugh drunkenly while George stared at Roland with narrowed eyes, as if he'd work out some secret scheme churning slow in his brother's mind if he looked at him long enough--)
"It's a beautiful car," Veronica says mildly.
She bounces Rita gently in her arms, sticky thumbs jammed inside their daughter's gummy wet mouth, and he'll worry about the kid making messes and spilling things later; right now, all he wants to do is stand in the soft glow of the afternoon sun outside Libertyville Chrysler and admire his new prize.
"She is," LeBay agrees. He can barely hear Veronica's voice. The custom paint job alone makes the brand new Fury stand out above everything else in the whole goddamned lot, all the Belvederes and Concords in the world looking like a band of ugly renegade misfits next to her.
"Very beautiful." He allows a rare smile in his wife's presence, eyes never leaving the Fury's windshield and his reflection in it. Light glints off chromed fins, jutting aggressively towards the sky; autumn red tint streaks down the body's sides like bloody war paint. "Needs a fitting name, too."
"What are you going to call it?" Veronica asks, caution evident in her voice. The remnants of a few early afternoon beers force him to restrain himself from backhanding her over such careless use of the word 'it.' The car's not an 'it'-- no, no, it's a her.
Of that much he's certain.
His wife's expecting some cheap old man's fantasy resplendent in the name, generic, clumsy - Dragster, Killer, Speedster - but no.
"Christine," he says slowly, languorously - testing it in the late September air.
A streak of sunlight runs along her grill, a flash of blinding white teeth.
-
Georgie is the first to make an ill-advised comment about Christine.
Of course, that no-good brother of his only sidles over to his place for Thanksgiving and Christmas because the freeloader's got no place else to go, never bothered to find a wife of his own, spent too much time getting a big head over teaching all those little shitters up at the local high school, always thinking he's so much better than the rest of the family (thinking he's so much better than his own goddamn older brother, the only one in the family who'd made something of himself and gone to war and come back to tell about it), and it's false concern in the bastard's eyes when he takes Roland aside one night and remarks on how much time he spends with the car--
(Veronica - a woman normally so meek and respectfully frightened, a woman who would apologize for dirtying up one's knife with her own blood should they take it upon themselves to imbed it into her side - talks about Christine as though she were another woman; as though she were a threat.
In a way, LeBay supposes she is--)
--and he escapes by feigning a headache, a migraine, and although George clearly doesn't buy it, Roland darts his gaze away and elaborates by saying he needs to get back to Veronica and the kid. The kid--
Rita. That's right.
He has trouble working out her name for a minute, but he doesn't let this concern him, can't let it concern him later that night when Christine purrs just like she was made for it and backs down the driveway and out to the 6th Street Tavern, clean and smooth as hot metal over ice.
-
If brothers are good for nothing: sisters turn out to be worth less than shit.
Marcia and her husband, some Pollock Catholic with suspiciously liberal sympathies, are down from the mountains one particular summer weekend when Christine's feeling under the weather. The kid had wanted to go to Kennywood today, ride the carousel, play carny games, fatten up on junk food, spend money they don't have to spend. You promised, you promised, you promised, Daddy, but oh, he'll take her another day; it's just that Christine's engine mounts are busted and he needs a little time to smooth things over, is all.
He's bent over and under the hood, up to his elbows in oil and grease, ignoring the terrible ache in his back, running loving fingers over the struts, when Marcia coughs from her perch on the green plastic lawn chair set up beside the garage. She coughs once more, louder this time, but he doesn't move to acknowledge her until she finally speaks.
"Funny," she says. He turns slowly to look at her.
"What's that?"
"Funny," she continues, lips pursed tight around a Lucky Strike as she considers him through dust-smeared horn-rimmed glasses (how much she looks like a fucking contemptuous, condescending insect she'll never know), "how every time you're supposed to spend time with your wife and child - every time you're supposed to spend time with your family - something goes wrong with that car."
The accusation isn't blatant in her tone, but it doesn't need to be. LeBay drops the wrench with a solid thud.
"Now, wait... wait one goddamned minute." He heaves a shuddery breath, willing himself to calm down. His fingers curl tight, reflexive, around the right front strut tower. "Just what have those shitters been telling you?"
She laughs hoarsely. "Those shitters? Do you mean Veronica and Rita, Roland? Are you referring to your wife and child?" She takes a long drag on her cigarette, shuts her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose, the way she does when she has a headache.
His eyes are slitted almost shut, flat and hateful. "Don't you twist my words arou--"
"I don't need to. You've stated things plainly enough." She pauses, takes another drag, exhaling slowly. "There is, though, something I'm curious about. What happens the one day you have to choose between that car and your family, Roland?"
He's stupefied at such a question - this is finally too much. How dare she. How dare--
She stands, now, ready to head back inside the house; smiling at his lack of a response. It's a cold smile, icily poisonous.
"I think I already knew what your answer would be."
-
It storms the day of Rita's funeral.
Christine's windshield wipers move rhythmically (hypnotically) under the downpour; sashaying, almost. Waving good-bye, he likes to think. Veronica acts too upset to be near her, making a scene ("I will not ride in that car," she says, such hate in her eyes that his spine stiffens and he has to move back to ensure he won't strike her, won't make a scene in front of the others), has to be driven to the cemetery in George's piece of shit '51 Buick, and that's just the ol' female jealousy rearing its ugly head again, of course.
It's not Christine's fault she died, honey. It's God's. Direct all of your anger at Him.
This nonchalant reassurance only makes her cry harder.
Georgie and Marcia waste precious little time in cornering him but good after the service, oh-so-gleefully taking the opportunity to tell him it's time to say good-bye to Christine, now, too. Too many bad memories, they say.
O-ho, there are plenty of things he could say to that. Plenty of (excuses) reasons why he won't. Not ever.
He's in his fifties, his daughter's gone, why take away the only (other) thing that brings him joy in life?
(other than his wife, of course)
It's ridiculous to blame an accident - blame someone choking, for Chrissake - on an inanimate object, isn't it?
He settles on the most practical, the one they'll likely pay heed to: it'd be financially unwise.
This results in being a poor decision. The angry expression contorting Marcia's face is nothing compared to the defeated one on George's, the same hangdog expression he had as a three-year-old, the time he beat the little shitnose raw for getting in his way. That's it; that's exactly it. They're in his way.
They're all in
(their)
his way.
-
When Veronica takes her own life inside Christine several months later, he ignores Marcia's old question, the one that sometimes likes to echo itself to infinity inside the dark, decaying cavity of his own skull.
(what happens)
Not an option.
(what happens the one day you have to choose?)
He didn't have to choose.
The women in his life, see-- they chose for him.
-
"Good one, Rollie."
LeBay snorts and shuts his eyes, grabbing another Iron City from the cooler and handing it blindly to George. He hears a soft intake of breath, good ol' Georgie likely about to start one of those sorry OhnonoIreallyshouldn't protests, but thin wrinkled fingers finally brush against his own, silently accepting the beer.
"You sure you're still all right with living out here alone?" George pauses after the question, scratching at the side of his neck, and LeBay knows he's not imagining the note of hope in his voice when he continues, "No trouble from local kids?"
"Those little shitters know better than to start anything with me."
He cracks one eye open, and George's face is expressionless, just as white and blank as a polar bear's ass.
LeBay takes a long sip from his beer, letting loose an ugly chuckle.
"You come up here to lecture me, little brother? Come to get your laughs in? You won't get anything. Take your charity game bullshit to the juvenile delinquents you're used to, this old bastard didn't fall off the haytruck yesterday."
A change suddenly splits George's face, darkens it. Beer splashes from the open can as it shakes wildly in his clenched fist.
"It isn't normal. You've got no friends. No friends but that goddamned car," says George, like it's an insult, and LeBay just shakes his head and grits his teeth, he's got friends, he's got plenty of friends, Buddy and Gene and Eddie and Elvis and Carl, they like to ride around with him and Christine all the time, and if George can't see that, well, then he's no better than the rest of the shitters out there, parading around like they're something special, like they're more alive, because nothing could be further from the truth.
Nothing.
-
The shitters conspired to keep him from getting Christine, and now that he's approaching his sunset years, they're conspiring all over again to take her away, too. Vision tests, mandatory state license renewals, it's all part of their plan. He struggled for what seemed like forever to acquire her, and now, years later, they have to struggle to stay together.
Fitting, really.
But, see, here's the thing: he'll die - no, hell, they'll both die - before anyone gets Roland D. LeBay into their fancy doctor's offices where it's legal to charge a veteran - a hero - an arm and a leg for all of their fancy little examinations, just so they can squint at him over their little bifocals and clipboards and sneer and say, So sorry, sir, but those eyes of yours, we're afraid they're just no good--
Watching Christine deteriorate
(die)
inside the garage was painful, but putting her on display in the yard hurts like a worse kind of hell. Yet it only takes two days after parking her outside until a suitable replacement happens along, and yes-- that's when LeBay knows the truth - he's not selling her to just anyone; he's finding a replacement.
The kid's looking at her with this half-insane, half-love-starved glint in his eyes, and LeBay feels something clench tight in his chest. Not affection for the brat, no, and certainly not affection for his shitter of a friend, his friend with the wise-ass holier-than-thou attitude that reminds him far too much of ol' Georgie, but he knows he's looking at ...
(some kindred spirit, someone else who's been getting it left and right from the shitters of the world since day one, and wouldn't it be nice to make them all...)
...solidarity. Because there's potential, all right.
(...pay.)
There's certainly potential.
"What did you say your name was, soldier?"
The kid grins up at him from behind Christine's steering wheel, expression shy and hopeful behind Coke-bottle glasses.
-
It's September 2nd, 1978, and for the first time in his whole miserable life, Arnie Cunningham is in love.