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The Dream Machine

Mark Herden

    You have your reasons for wanting to go back in time. You gravitate toward anything that suggests those long-ago, lost years. Those classic cars, staples of your youth, can still be bought over at Chevy Land. You’ve been nosing around there for so long now that every time you walk in the owner smiles and asks: “Getting your fix?” He understands.
    As you approach the building this time, that nostalgic hunger of yours is beginning to fall prey to “reason.” Don’t be so shy about spending your money.
    Listen. . . . Sixteen Candles, by The Crests is playing on that Jukebox standing just inside the door. It’s a Wurlitzer—an original. Look at it; the selections are backlit in red. You like those glass tubes curving around the corners and running up the sides of the machine. They’re filled with some sort of blue liquid in which golf-ball-sized spheres glint and revolve as they course their endless path.

    No salesmen are around now. You admire the cars. The white ‘57 T-Bird has been here for a couple of weeks. There’s that black ‘60 corvette with the hard top—very classy. Behind the corvette is a car that wasn’t here last week. A sparkling blue fifty-nine Chevy convertible.

    You walk over to it. It’s wide, crouched low. Your reflection appears in its gleaming, stainless chrome. And that rear bumper, it’s like a magnet for the eyes. But still, you look over your shoulder. You know you appear reserved, contemplative. Stepping over to the passenger door, you lean in to scan the dashboard. So many big gages—like ornate clocks. Star-bright steel panels cover the inside of the doors. And the two-tone bench seats? Talk about expansive. The interior of this car looks like the inside of a Bluebird Diner.
    “They don’t make them like that anymore,” a salesman says.
    This guy you’ve never seen before. You can’t imagine him fitting in anywhere but here. You don’t see many slick, black pompadours. He’s wearing a canary yellow button-up sweater with black boarders running up the front. His face is narrow; his cheeks set deep. He is very tall and stoops slightly toward you, giving the impression that he is about to let you in on a secret.
    “No they don’t,” you answer.
    “If you have any questions on this car, I can tell you every detail—the car was mine... until recently.”
    You’re sure that he realizes you’re slowly but surely being drawn in. He has dreams for sale, and you’re in a position to buy.

    He opens the hood. The motor is as clean as a hospital room. There are three carburetors in a row, each having a chrome, coffee-saucer-sized top—three little mirrors. Again, the car has revealed you.
    “Three-forty-eight cubes with tri-power,” he tells you.
    He shakes your hand. “Jerrold Kellogg is the name. They call me Doo-Wop Jerry.”
    Doo-wop? You’ve heard of it. Those old vocal groups where singers’ voices take the place of instruments. A guy with a bass voice, for example, might sing Sha-boom-sha-boom trying to sound like a bass drum, while another guy sings the words to the song. A backup singer sometimes repeats the words giving them that echo effect.
    You ask him if he ever sang in a group.
    “Still do. Call ourselves The Flashbacks. Do a lot of revivals around this area. We sing songs by groups like The Moonglows, The Skyliners. Have a lot of fun.”
    “Weren’t getting to drive your car all that much?”
    “With the singing and the car I wasn’t getting enough time with the family. Wasn’t fair to my wife. She’s put up with a lot from me. She’s a good woman. Heck, back when we first met I was short on money, so she paid for my digs. To this day her dad doesn’t know. How about you—married?”
    “No.”
    “Single,” he says and ponders the word with a smile. “Certainly has its advantages.” He pauses for a moment, then motions with outstretched fingers to the Chevy’s huge hood and says: “You can have something like this with a free conscience.”
    A quick image flashes through your mind; you’re with Darlene Smith and Eddie Player, and you’re talking out in the school parking lot.

    “I’ve always wanted something like that,” you say, looking at those white-wall tires.
    “Take it for a spin,” Jerry says. “It’s a great car. It’ll take you back in time.”
    “That’s what I’d like to do,” you say.

    He laughs at this. “Pretend it’s 1959 again. I don’t blame you. There was an innocence then that you won’t find anymore.”
    He doesn’t seem to be on a sales pitch.
    “Sure, I’ll take it out,” you say.
    You leave the top down and drive the back roads leading up to Lancanster Hill. You step on it. You hear the vacuum, a great building up of air that makes you feel a surge of excitement. Out over the hood wheat field’s gleam from the sun—like seas of gold. Below, Blueberry Lake looks bluer that you’ve ever seen it.
    When you return to Chevy Land you don’t see Jerry in the showroom window. You park the car by the side of the building and leave the keys in it. So much money, thirty-five thousand dollars. Now you’re having second thoughts. You slowly walk from the car.

    Where am I going? you ask yourself.
    You turn and start toward the building. You begin singing a song that includes the words “been so long.” You don’t remember ever having heard such a song.

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