Arnie smiled—a small smile. “That’s right,” he said. “Will says there’s a wire crossed in there someplace. I don’t think I’ll fool with it. It’s sort of neat, having a milometer that runs backward.”
“Is it accurate?”
“Huh?”
“Well, if you go from our house to Station Square, would it subtract five miles from the total?”
“Oh,” Arnie said. “I get you. No, it’s not accurate at all. Turns back two or three miles for every actual mile travelled. Sometimes more. Sooner or later the speedometer cable will break, and when I replace that, it’ll take care of itself.”
Michael, who had had a speedometer cable or two break on him in his time, glanced at the needle for the characteristic jitter that indicated trouble there. But the needle hung dead still just above forty. The speedometer seemed fine; it was only the milometer that had gotten funky. And did Arnie really believe that the speedometer and milometer ran off the same cables? Surely not.
He laughed and said, “That’s weird, son.”
“Why the airport?” Arnie asked.
“I’m going to treat you to a thirty-day parking stub,” Michael said. “Five dollars. Cheaper than Darnell’s garage. And you can get your car out whenever you want it. The airport’s a regular stop on the bus run. End of the line, in fact.”
“Holy Christ, that’s the craziest thing I ever heard!” Arnie shouted. He pulled into the turnaround drive of a darkened dry cleaner’s shop. “I’m to take the bus twenty miles out to the airport to get my car when I need it? It’s like something out of Catch-22! No! No way!”
He was about to say something more, when he was suddenly grabbed by the neck.
“You listen,” Michael said. “I’m your father, so you listen to me. Your mother was right, Arnie. You’ve gotten unreasonable—more than unreasonable—in the last couple of months. You’ve gotten downright peculiar.”
“Let go of me,” Arnie said, struggling in his father’s grip.
Michael didn’t let go, but he loosened up. “I’ll put it in perspective for you,” he said. “Yes, the airport is a long way to come, but the same quarter that would take you to Darnell’s will take you out here. There are parking garages closer in, but there are more incidents of theft and vandalism in the city. The airport is, by contrast, quite safe.”
“No public parking lot is safe.”
“Second, it’s cheaper than a downtown garage and much cheaper than Darnell’s.”
“That’s not the point, and you know it!”
“Maybe you’re right,” Michael said. “But you’re missing something too, Arnie. You’re missing the real point.”
“Well suppose you tell me what the real point is.”
“All right. I will.” Michael paused for a moment, looking steadily at his son. When he spoke his voice was low and even, almost as musical as his recorder. “Along with any sense of what is reasonable, you seem to have totally lost your sense of perspective. You’re almost eighteen, in your last year at public school. I think you’ve made up your mind not to go to Horlicks; I’ve seen the college brochures you’ve brought home—”
“No, I’m not going to Horlicks,” Arnie said. He sounded a little calmer now. “Not after all of this. You have no idea how badly I want to get away. Or maybe you do.”
“Yes. I do. And maybe that’s best. Better than this constant abrasion between you and your mother. All I ask is that you not tell her yet; wait until you have to submit the application papers.”
Arnie shrugged, promising nothing either way.
“You’ll be taking your car to school, that is if it’s still running—”
“It’ll be running.”
“—and if it’s a school that allows freshmen to have cars on campus.”
Arnie turned toward his father, surprised out of his smouldering anger—surprised and uneasy. This was a possibility he had never considered.
“I won’t go to a school that says I can’t have my wheels,” he said. His tone was one of patient instruction, the sort of voice an instructor with a class of mentally retarded children might use.
“You see?” Michael asked. “She’s right. Basing your choice of a college on the school’s policy concerning freshmen and cars is totally irrational. You’ve gotten obsessed with this car.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
Michael pressed his lips together for a moment.
“Anyway, what’s running out to the airport on the bus to pick up your car, if you want to take Leigh out? It’s an inconvenience, granted, but not really a major one. It means you won’t use it unless you have to, for one thing, and you’ll save gas money. Your mother can have her little victory, she won’t have to look at it.” Michael paused and then smiled his sad grin again. “She doesn’t see it as money flying away, both of us know that. She sees it as your first decisive step away from her… from us, I guess she… oh, shit, I don’t know.”
He stopped, looking at his son. Arnie looked back thoughtfully,
“Take it to college with you; even if you choose a campus that doesn’t allow freshmen to have cars on campus, there are ways to get around—”
“Like parking it at the airport?”
