My papa used to sell used cars and when we were kids we would walk down to his lot on summer days and buy ice-pops at the store next dear. We’d troll the lots looking for what Papa called “stealers” - which cars were bogus. Which ones Papa had filled with sawdust and which ones had their meters turned back.
I learned real quick to see the bullshit behind the battle. That’s what Papa called it. “Don’t fall for what’s in front of you. Go find the bullshit behind the battle. That’s what you’re really fighting against.”
I was always real good at pickin’ out the phonies as a kid and my Papa was real proud of me. “That one’s got a good eye,” he’d say, and he’d wink at me.
When I was 11 my Papa started letting me come down to the lot to watch him work. He didn’t approve of having women in the family business, I couldn’t work in the chop shop like my brothers did when they were older, but I didn’t mind sitting in the showroom with Papa so much. It was air-conditioned. Plus I got to watch him with the customers.
Boy was he a killer. My Papa could sell glasses to a blind man. The first trick is to get real humble, just telling ‘em that you ain’t got nothing good enough for ‘em. Not special enough for someone like them. Then as the two of you walk to the lot, you make sure the first car they see is a real doozy. You know, show ‘em something that’s way out of their range. Papa used to keep this souped up Chevrolet he had just for this very purpose. No one in our kind of town could afford anything like that, plus I’m not even sure the damn thing still had a motor in it, it just looked real nice. Shiny chrome fenders and caps, glossy black paint-job, original leather interior – every small town boy’s wet dream.
You’d just sit there and watch ‘em blush as they walked by, all them boys with their first few month’s paychecks in their pocket. They’d look at that beauty in front of them, and they’d know they wanted a car just like that.
That’s the first step: you plant the dream.
Now they’re not thinking so much about getting something simple. Just to get to work. They’re thinking about cruisin’ the strip on a Saturday night, they’re thinking about some pretty gal in the backseat, they’re thinking about being a real hot shot.
Then you explain, “Oh you like that Billy/Johnny/Timmy/Joe? Yeah she’s a beauty, she is. Maybe someday, eh?” And you chuckle in a very wise way as if you knew everything there ever was to know about their dreams.
Then you show ‘em all the crappers. Cars you wouldn’t sell to your worst enemy for about a million bucks. You dumb ‘em down. You show them the ideal, and then you show them the bottom of the ol' barrel. This will pour a whole lot of cold water on those visions of pretty gals and they’ll start getting antsy, getting scared.
Now here’s the clincher: now you take ‘em by the car you want them to buy. You got to have a car ready for any guy who comes on the lot. Some piece of wreck that you fixed up real nice on the outside but who’s got a few screws loose maybe. It ain’t too hard and don’t take too much time to throw on new tires and rims. Cleaning up on the inside is a whole heck of a lot harder. And it ain’t no job for men like my father, that’s for sure.
So they see this car, lookin’ pretty hot. And their mouths start to water. They can hardly believe it. And you see them droolin’ over this car so you say, casually, “oh yeah, this one here. She looks real good, almost brand new, owned by an older woman who ain’t driven her much. But she’s got some rust damage on the inside, you’ll have to tinker around in there some. Nothin’ too hard, if you don’t mind that sort of thing. But I don’t know if you’re that type of guy” and you say this like it’s the biggest compliment you ever told anyone.
Now it’s a matter of machismo. Now he’s lookin’ at this car like it’s the damn holy grail of man. You let him poke around the interior. He’s thinking, it’ll be my creation. My resurrection. My triumph. And damn ain’t she pretty?
You’re sold. He’s ready to buy. He’s so distracted with joy that he don’t see the contract that he’s signin’. And you get as much of the money up front as you can cause God only knows how long that wreck will drive before the motor falls right out the bottom onto the road.
Needless to say we moved a lot when I was a kid.
Spending my summer’s down at the lot wasn’t so bad and after a while I kind of enjoyed it. It was like watching a movie clip over and over. Sometimes I felt a little bad, especially as I got older and those boys started lookin’ kind of nice to me. But they are all the same suckers. All wanting the same thing. Some idea of a dream that don’t got no insides. And that don’t do anybody no good.
Not me. Not my Papa. Not none of them boys. Because a dream that’s nothing but a shell will always cave in on you someday. You just end up sittin’ around, waiting for the bottom to drop out.
