Dad says I can borrow the car.
“Thanks, Dad!” I say. “I won’t be gone long.”
I’ve been borrowing cars from Dad since I was 17. Back then, going on 50 years ago, I borrowed the car to meet friends after school, or drive to the mall or go out on dates. There were hard-and-fast dad rules for borrowing the car back then, about how many friends could ride along, how fast I could go and, especially with the latter, how late I could stay out with the car on a date. Which usually matched the hard-and-fast rules of my date’s dad.
This time, going on 50 years later, I just wanted the car to go up the street to the park, where I could stretch my legs, get a little fresh air and watch the sun go down. I’d been helping my going-on 91-year-old dad while my going-on 90-year-old mom’s been in the hospital, and I was looking forward to a little break in the piñon-scented foothills of New Mexico where I grew up.
It felt strange at age 65 to be asking Dad to borrow the car again. Retro. Weird, even. I mean, I make dad rules of my own now! I’m about old enough to have kids old enough to have kids asking them to borrow the car.
“So,” I ask Dad, force of habit. “OK if I’m back around sunset?”
“Sure,” he says. “Just don’t lock yourself out of the car.”
Ha ha! I don’t remember ever doing anything that dumb when I was 17, I thought on the way to the park. Although, I have had some misadventures borrowing the car from Dad.
There was the time I asked if I could drive his smoldering red Alfa Romeo convertible, the car Dustin Hoffman made famous in “The Graduate.”
“You can drive it,’’ he said, gesturing to the clutch and stick shift, “if you can drive it.”
I couldn’t. But, weighing the potential benefit to my social life of a convertible Italian sports car, I was willing to take a shot. I mean, how hard could it be?
Rock hard, apparently.
“X#*(@)&@+$, Mark, X#*!()+!” my dad (a former sailor) said as I shifted into first, eased up the clutch — and let a geyser of gravel shoot straight up behind us in the car.
“Turn it off!” he said, as gravel returning from low Earth orbit pocked and pinged all over the smoldering red exterior. “Now!”
He scooped gravel off the seats, put the top back up and drove us home in silence. I never asked to borrow that car again.
Ha ha! Like that would ever happen again, I thought. I pulled my dad’s current, not-quite-as-smoldering red automatic Ford Edge into the lot at the park, grabbed my knapsack and spent the next hour walking east into the foothills near home. Exactly one hour into the wilderness later, I turned and walked west so I could watch the sun set on my way back to the car.
It was an especially beautiful sunset. So beautiful I almost didn’t notice the slip of paper under the windshield wiper until I’d gotten in and started the car.
“This park is about to close or has already closed,’’ the note read. “If the park has already closed please do not attempt to remove your vehicle before the park reopens tomorrow at 6 a.m.”
“X#*(@)&@+$, Mark, X#*!()+!” I said to myself. Funny how we internalize our early lessons. It’s what dads do for us when we’re young.
I hit the gas like Dustin Hoffman in “The Graduate” and drove at a speed far exceeding any dad-rule limit hoping the gate wasn’t closed yet. It was indeed closed — and padlocked!
But, whew, I thought. At least I hadn’t locked myself out of the car as Dad had warned me not to do. I’d just managed, you know, to lock his only car out of the rest of the world.
I pulled the cellphone out of my pocket and braced myself to call home. It felt strange at age 65 to be calling my dad to fess up that I’d messed up with his car. Retro. Weird, even. I mean, I make dad rules now!
He took it surprisingly well. No grounding. No “X#*(@)&@+$, Mark, X#*!()+!”
“Can you maybe drive around the gate?” he suggested, after a moment of dad thought.
“Not without destroying the gate,” I confirmed. “And the sign on the gate says, ‘You will be held liable for any damage as a result of trying to remove your vehicle before the park reopens.’ ”
“So what are you going to do?”
I felt awful. Ashamed. About 17 again.
“Stay with the car, I guess, put the seat down, sleep here,” I said. “Until the park opens in the morning, and I can drive out.”
“No,” Dad said, after another moment. “I don’t want you doing that. It’s going to be 20 degrees up there tonight. Lock it up, leave it there and come home.”
It’s what I would have said to my kids, who are about old enough now to have kids asking them to borrow the car.
It’s what dads do for us, even when we’re older.
Mark Gauert is the editor of City & Shore magazine, which is published by the South Florida Sun Sentinel. He can be reached at mgauert@cityandshore.com.