In 1991 your mother and I decided to make a trip to Dallas to attend a Thompson family reunion. Our cars were too small for long distance driving, so your Grampa Martin offered to lend us his 1979 Oldsmobile Delta 88.
He drove the car from his home in West Virginia to ours in Dayton on the Wednesday prior to Memorial Day weekend. That evening he gave your mother and me a tour of the car. He showed us how to operate the windshield wipers, cruise control, shifter, radar detector, and CB radio. We sat with him while he had a brief test conversation with a trucker on I-75. He supervised me while I strapped in your car seat.
He showed us the location of the spare tire and the jack. He showed us the contents of the first aid kit and location of the fire extinguisher. “I wonder if I should take this?” he mused. Then, looking at you and your brother Max playing in the front yard, he chuckled, shook his head and put it back in the trunk.
When I got home in the late afternoon, we hit the road. As soon as you and Max were buckled into the back seat, you both slipped off your flip-flops. Max could not abide footwear in the car, and with you and Max it was case of monkey see monkey do. At least we didn’t have to re-tie flip-flops.
You were surrounded by coloring books, crayons, kid’s books, games (paper and electronic), and toys. It took Max about a half an hour to exhaust these resources and start asking if we there yet.
We headed south on I-75 to Cincinnati, took I-71 to Louisville, and I-65 to Nashville. We stayed the night in a motel, were up early the next morning. We ate breakfast in a local diner as the red ball of the sun rose in a clear Tennessee sky. We repacked the car, and, with your mother at the controls, headed west on I-40 to Memphis.
We had been on the road for a little less than two hours, when your mother said, “We need gas and I’m getting sleepy.”
“Okay, stop at the next exit.”
While I waited for a pump, your mother took you and Max for a potty break. By the time I finished gassing up, the three of you were back in the car. I hopped in the car with my wallet still in my hand, so I handed it to you mother to put in her purse.
We had been on the road for only a few minutes when I noticed something odd in the rear-view mirror. “Wow, we sure are kicking up a lot of dust.”
Your mother looked around. “None of the other cars are kicking up dust.” I looked at cars around us. She was right.
I slowed the car and pulled off the road and onto the shoulder. As soon as the car stopped, black smoke erupted from under the hood.
“Oh, shit!”
From there things started to happen very fast:
· You boys teleported out of the car (at least that’s the way it seemed), and wound up some distance away from both the road and the car.
· I went to the front of the car, your mother went to the trunk.
· One 18-wheeler appeared on the shoulder at front of the car, another to the rear.
· I tried open the hood, but it was already too hot to touch.
· Somehow your mother got the trunk open. (How did she get the keys?)
· I looked through the grill and could see that the carburetor was on fire.
· You mother, all 5 foot nothing and 110 pounds of her, flipped suitcases over her shoulder and onto the ground.
· Both truckers rushed to the front of the car, fire extinguisher in hand.
· Your mother dashed to front of the car with the fire extinguisher from the trunk.
· “Take the boys to those trees!” I said pointing to three small trees about 50 yards back down the road.
· We emptied our fire extinguishers to no effect.
The three of us looked at each other. I shrugged, “Thanks for stopping.”
“Good luck,” said one. The other nodded, and they went back to their trucks. The next time I looked they were gone.
Your mother looked back and saw me getting into the car. “Jamie, get out of that car,” she screeched.
But I ignored her; we needed her purse. It contained both our wallets, all our money, credit cards and driver licenses. While I was there I grabbed the water jug. It was a bright, hot, muggy late spring morning in Tennessee and was only going to get hotter.
I trotted after you and easily caught up. I handed the purse to your mother.
She said, “Oh, right.”
I picked you up and urged Max and your mother to move more quickly. Once we were in the sparse shade of the trees, I put you down and turned to look at the car. Where we stood under the trees was perhaps 50 feet higher than the car. It gave us a perfect vantage point from which to view the mayhem.
Given a hot enough fire, it is astonishing the number of things that will burn: plastic, rubber, wiring harness, motor oil, suspension and transmission lubricant, even aluminum. The entire front of the car was engulfed in flames: red, orange, yellow, blue. A dense column of black smoke rose high over our heads. A westerly breeze brought us a nauseating burnt chemical smell and a fine black soot that fell on us as long the car burned.
Max burst into tears; you looked at him and decided it was a good idea. In his tiny six-year-old voice, Max said, “Oh, we should never have come on this vacation. How will we get home? How will we ever get home?”
I burst out laughing; I laughed so hard I doubled over and tears filled my eyes. Your mother said to me, “Are you okay?”
“Oh, yes,” I managed to say. “I’m just fine.”
“What’s so funny?”
“That is your father’s car!” She gave me quizzical look and I stopped laughing. “Well,” I said, “we’re on a real adventure now.”
I knelt next to you and Max, and gathered you into my arms. “Hey, guys, don’t cry, everything is going to be fine. You’ll see we’re going to be just fine.”
There was a loud pop from the car that made us all start and I stood up; the front passenger side tire had caught fire and burst. It turns out automobile tires burn for an amazingly long time.
A Tennessee Highway Patrol car pulled onto the shoulder. The trooper got out of the car, put on his campaign style hat, and called out “You folks okay?”
“Yes, officer,” your mother replied. “We’re okay.”
He nodded, turned to look at the traffic coming from the east, and stepped out onto the roadway with his hands raised. The Memorial Day weekend traffic started to pile up in front of him. He went and spoke with the drivers of the cars in the right and left hand lanes, then walked back to us.
“I’ve called for a fire engine; the closest one is a volunteer outfit in Oakland. Might be awhile.”
I nodded.
“I also called for a wrecker.”
“Thanks.”
From that moment, the quality of time changed. Events in the previous ten minutes had happened at such a pace that their exact sequence is difficult to recall. Afterwards they had the languorous quality of an underwater ballet.
The fire, which had been a trencherman eager to devour the carburetor, transformed into a gourmet determined to enjoy every morsel. We sat down on the ground, drank our water, and watched the progress of the fire.
For the longest time, it feasted on the front tires and the engine compartment, but eventually we started to see small tongues of flame in the passenger compartment. The dashboard erupted and the windshield cracked, then shattered. Still the fire continued its leisurely pace; inch by careful inch, it ate the carpet, the door cards, the headliner and its foam backing. By this time the hood of the car still smoked, but had ceased to burn. The dense black smoke filled the passenger compartment and poured out of the opening where the windshield had been.
Then the front seat began to burn and burn and burn. The fire inched into the floor of the back seat and found many tasty goodies, canvas shoes, flip-flops, comic books, toys.
At this point I began to be concerned; the car had a full tank of gas, and if the heat made it split, that could be dangerous. I was just thinking of moving us further away from the car when the fire engine hove into view and parked in the median.
A lone fireman stepped from the truck and surveyed the car. After a moment, he opened a compartment on the side of the fire engine and pulled out a fire fighting suit, boots and a helmet, and began to put them on. He seemed in no particular hurry. Once he had geared up, he went to the back of truck and began to pull the hose out, again showing no urgency whatsoever.
I thought, Come on, man. That car is going to blow.
He stretched the hose across the road.
He went back to the fire engine and manipulated some controls.
The hose inflated with fire retardant.
He strolled back across the road.
He picked-up the hose.
He opened the valve.
Fluid gushed from the hose.
And the fire was out.
He continued to hose down the car.
However, in a surprisingly short period of time, he dragged the hose back to the fire engine and began to pack up.
The state trooper let the cars go. I can’t count the number of times I’ve passed a scene of some roadside carnage, police cars, fire engines, emergency vehicles, wrecked cars, and thought I’m glad that’s not me. But this time, it was me. I looked at you, your mom, your brother and myself. We were covered with black soot from head to toe.
I looked up at the traffic slowly filing by and just then a car with two couples passed by. The woman in the front passenger seat, hands clasped to her chin, looked at us with such profound pity that I laughed again.
Your mom looked me like I was a crazy man. I reached out and took her hand. “Everything is going to be fine,” I said.
“I know.”
I looked at you and your brother. “You guys okay?” You both nodded. “Pretty amazing, huh? You and your mom stay here. I’m going to look at the car.”
“Be careful, Jamie.”
“You bet.”
All that was left of the front tires were threads of steel belting; the paint on the hood and fenders had burned away. The plastic dash and the rug were gone. All that was left of the steering wheel was a thin metal ring. The front seat had been reduced to the metal frame and springs. The back seat looked a Salvador Dali painting – a melted amalgam of sneakers, plastic toys and games, with part of the backseat stirred in. The charred, chemical smell gave me a headache.
The trunk, however, was untouched. Half our luggage was in the trunk, half was on the ground and covered with soot. The State Trooper helped me load the bags from the ground back into the trunk.
A flatbed wrecker pulled up in front of the gutted car. Two men got out of the truck: a large, heavy set, dark-haired man in his 40s and a tall, slender youth.
“Dbiz all abidobil?” asked the older guy, his words obscured by in a thick southern accent and severely stopped up sinuses.
“Pardon?”
“Is this your car?” interpreted the younger man.
“Oh, I was driving it, but it belongs to my father-in-law.”
“Ogay, be god um.”
The younger man jumped up onto the bed of the truck and went to the winch at the back of the bed. He took hold of the hook and, as the older guy worked the controls, pulled the steel cable off the end of the truck. Then the older guy tilted the front end of the bed up so that the backend touched the ground and the bed had about a 30-degree incline. The younger man crawled under the hot car and carefully attached the winch cable. The older guy started the winch.
But before the car could move an inch, the cable snapped off the connection. The rear tires were locked into place by the mangled transmission; the metal in the engine compartment was fatigued by the heat of the fire. They tried twice more with the same result. Finally, they found a structural member that would take the load, and the winch dragged the car up onto the wrecker.
As the older guy leveled off the bed, the State Trooper said, “I’ll take your wife and older son in my car. You take your younger son and ride in the truck.”
“Okay.”
We got into the vehicles and twenty-five minutes later we were in the air-conditioned office of the salvage yard.
Three guys unloaded the trunk and brought our suitcases, bags, cooler and our grocery bag of food into the office. Your mother and I put our heads together.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“Get a rental car, I guess.”
“And go where?”
“Memphis tonight. Dallas in the morning.”
“You think?”
Looking at you two, I said, “This is a great lesson for them. Bad things happen and you just keep going.”
“All right.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I’ll get kids cleaned up a little and make lunch; you get a car.”
She nodded and turned to the older guy. “Can I use your phone? Have you got a yellow pages?” He took her into his office and I spent considerable time in the men’s room washing hands and faces.
I made a PB&J on white for Max, string cheese and Goldfish crackers for you, and roast beef sandwiches on wheat for your mother and me. Ordinarily, you would have had water from the jug in car, but that was dry. There was a soda machine in the breakroom and I let you and Max split a Sprite.
We got some interesting looks from the guys at the salvage yard. The husband making lunch? The wife making phone calls? What will Yankees think of next?
I put the sandwich down in front of your mom. She said, “I found a car.”
“Great!”
“It’s at the Memphis Airport.”
“Oh.” I turned the older guy. “Any idea how I can get to Memphis?”
“I hab da dake a abidodil to Membiz diz abermoo. I dake you.”
“That’d be great.”
“I’m calling my dad now.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, he,” she gestured to the older man, “wants some information about the auto insurance.”
“Oh.”
She picked up the phone and called her parent’s home collect.
“Hi, Daddy.”
Pause.
“Well, first, everybody is okay.”
Pause.
“Yes, but we had a problem with your car. It caught on fire.”
Pause.
“Yes, fire.”
Pause.
“We don’t know. We were just driving down the road and the engine caught on fire.”
Pause.
“I’m pretty sure it’s totaled. The front tires burned, the engine burned…”
Longer pause.
“Daddy, I don’t think you understand. There’s nothing left of the radar detector. The car burned up.”
Pause.
“Yes… yes. Look, we’re at the place, the junk yard, where they towed the car, and they want some information…”
I went back to make sure you boys were good, eat my lunch, and pack up the food.
Then we sat there. For an hour. And a half.
Then the older guy walked into the waiting room, looked at me, and said, “You reby?”
“Yes.”
I followed him out of the office and around back. The flatbed wrecker had been loaded up with a mid-70s Pontiac GTO that looked like it had just come out the showroom.
“Wow!” I said.
“Booty, uh?”
I nodded, and for the second time that day I climbed into the passenger seat of the wrecker. We headed down I-40. When we reached the outskirts of Memphis, we turned south onto 240. Shortly after 240 turned west, we took the airport exit.
As we came down the ramp, the older guy pumped the brakes and down shifted with some urgency. Fortunately, the light was green and we coasted through a left turn under the highway. He managed to stop the truck at the next light using the hand brake.
“Brakes out?” I asked.
“Kindly like.”
“Shoot.”
“Be albright.” We inched down the road and ten minutes later he pulled into a parking lot across the street from the Budget rental office.
I put out my hand. “Thanks for everything. You’ve been great.”
His meaty grip enveloped my hand. “Yal belcob. Is nuffin.” I hopped down from the cab and crossed traffic to the office.
There were ten or so people in three lines at the counter. I took my place behind two others. Almost immediately everybody turned to look at me. I guess I didn’t smell so good, and, even though I had washed my hands and face, my neck, chest, clothes and arms were still black with soot. It made for an uncomfortable 20 minutes.
When I finally got to the counter, the young man behind it asked what he could do for me.
“I have a reservation for a car.”
“Last name?”
“Thompson.” And we went through the car rental ritual. Eventually he handed me a set of keys and directed me to the car. It was a white Chevy Impala with a dark gray interior, thank God.
When I walked into the office at the salvage yard, Max shouted, “Daddy’s back.”, and ran to give me a hug. You and your mother were not far behind. We put as much of the luggage in the trunk as possible, but a couple of the smaller bags wound up on the floor of the back seat. Another had to be stored between you and Max on the back seat.
“Nick doesn’t have a car seat,” your mother said to me quietly.
“Yeah, I’ll be careful.”
Forty minutes later we were in the outskirts of Memphis and looking for a motel. All our AAA books had burned in the fire, so we were flying blind. “That one looks okay,” your mother said. I parked next to the office and went in.
“Do you have any rooms available?” I asked the clerk.
She smiled and said, “Yes, sir.”
“Great. I need a room with two beds.”
“We can do that.” Then she looked at me with a straight face and asked, “Smoking or non-smoking?”
“Non-smoking. Definitely non-smoking.”
We parked next to our room. When we had unloaded the bags, your mother undressed you and Max and put you in the bath. We scrubbed you three times each. We cleaned up the suitcases as much as we could. Your mother took a shower, then I took a shower. We stuffed all the smoky, sooty clothes into a plastic bag and closed it tight.
Your mother said, “We need to do some shopping, but I need to eat first.”
“There’s a Cracker Barrel next door.”
“That’s fine with me.”
Walking up to the restaurant, Max tugged on my pant leg. “Dad, the sign says, ‘No shoes, no shirt, no service.’” He held up one foot to show me he was bare- footed.
“I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.” He nodded. The hostess seated us, despite my shoeless children. We ordered and, in surprisingly short order, our food arrived.
The waitress came by to check on us and Max showed her his bare feet. “My shoes burned up,” he said.
“What?”
“They burned up when the car caught on fire.”
“What?” she said again.
“Our car caught on fire about 40 minutes east of here on I-40.” I said.
“How did you get here?”
I smiled. “Perseverance. And with a lot of help.”
We finished eating, I paid the check, and we walked out to the car feeling much, much better.
Your mother pointed down the street. “There’s a Target.”
“What’s a Target?” There were no Target Stores in Dayton and I’d never heard of it.
“It’s like a slightly nicer Walmart.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
We put each of you guys into a shopping cart and started to load them up. Among the things we bought were shoes and flip flops, a car seat, a small boom box, a Raffi tape (Baby Beluga), a Pecos Bill tape as retold by Robin Williams, and Amy Grant’s Heart in Motion.
We installed the car seat and drove back to the motel room. Pretty soon everybody was in bed and we all slept like the dead.