Over Retarded

In the space of approximately the last eight months, my Check Engine Light (CEL) has come on six times.

That's too many times.

Some people, when their CEL comes to visit, ignore it for as long as they can. "The only sign that it's time to take the car into the shop is smoke pouring out from under the hood," these folks might reason. I don't subscribe to that particular theory. I'm a mechanic's wet dream. As soon as that light comes on, I'm on the phone with Soly, my sixty-nine-year-old Israeli mechanic. I've been taking cars to him since I was sixteen years old. Eleven different cars. Everything from a 1989 Volvo 240-DL to a 2001 Volkswagen New Beetle done up as Herbie the Love Bug. I'll never forget the first day I drove into his shop behind the wheel of Herbie. He stared at it, suspiciously eyeballing the 53 on the hood and he looked at me.

"I don't understand it," he said, shrugging indifferently.

Now I drive a 2002 Volvo S-40, and the Check Engine Light just keeps coming back-- like a dog to its own vomit, or... herpes. It's pugnacious, and I admire it in a way. Every time Soly runs the diagnostic to see what the fault code is, it's always the same:


That's just a portion of what the fault code says. The whole thing reads "CAMSHAFT POSITION TIMING OVER RETARDED BANK ONE".

I didn't know something could be over-retarded. I thought that was the whole point of being retarded, that that particular situation is more under... than over.

But what do I know? I don't even know what a camshaft is, nor do I care what its position is. It was pointed out to me by Jack, Soly's Chinese assistant, that I have twin camshafts in my car, just like I have twin babies downstairs in my pack'n'play, but, more than that, I don't understand.

Soly has been saying, "The next time this happens, we'll replace the position sensor," for the last four times I was at his garage. Each time, he turns off the Check Engine Light, tells me not to worry about it, and sends me away without any money changing hands. This time, yesterday, he told me the same thing, and I said, "Look, I'm tired of this, can we just replace the fucking sensor already?"

"Sure," he said. He walked away to get a pen so he could write down my car's VIN number so he can order the part, and my phone rang. It was my father. He said the hospice nurses just told him that my sister's husband probably won't make it through the night. My parents went to see him the day before-- wasting away to nothing-- you can see tumors all over his body, through his skin. It's a horror movie, it's a nightmare. It's Hell.

"Fuck," I said, "okay. I love you."

"I love you, too, Mummy," he said, and hung up.

We say, "hang up" still, but these phones we use these days don't have receivers and cradles anymore. Funny.

Just as I was about to leave Soly's garage-- the part will be in in a few days-- he chanced to ask me how my brother-in-law was doing. I told Soly what my father told me on the phone and Soly clenched his jaw and looked away.

"Goddamnit-- he.... you know, it is-- this world-- I don't know. You call it luck or whatever-- it's. It's not luck, it's... it's shit."

I looked at this man-- this man who was educated by nuns in Egypt, who ran through the desert to fight for Israel in the sixties, the same time that my father did the same thing, this man I've seen scream and curse at customers who have accused him of ripping them off, and I watched in astonishment as his nose started to run, and two tears got lost in the depths of his thick, gray and black bristled goatee. He wiped his nose with an immaculate white handkerchief that emerged somehow pristine from his grease-covered work pants.

"Tell your sister from me that I am sorry for her, and that she has to be strong-- to take care of her son. She has to."

We stood there in his garage bay and looked at each other for what seemed like forever. Neither of us knew what to say. I don't know if I was embarrassed or awed or in love or depressed or what-- probably ashamed, though, that I had not been able to shed any tears for this man who married my sister and fathered my nephew-- this man I barely knew, and, frankly, never really wanted to know. But I expect my tears will come a plenty in time, when the shock of the moment has worn off, and the reality of what this man's untimely passing has done to our family and our lives has cruelly set in.

"I'll call you when the part comes in," Soly said. And I got into my car, turned the key, and the Check Engine Light was gone, but my camshaft is still over-retarded, and the world is still upside down. This morning, I texted my sister-- my brother-in-law made it through the night. How many more-- who knows? Who knows anything anymore.

No Need for a Curly

Yesterday, I spent eight hours at my job, and two hours at my mechanic's job.

I joked with my wife, after I'd finally arrived home, that "my day was great until I left work." And, for someone who works at an inpatient psychiatric hospital, that's saying something.

Actually, spending two hours with your sixty-eight-year old Israeli mechanic and his indeterminately-aged though much younger Chinese assistant isn't a half bad way to decompress after spending a full working day among 70 psych patients and some similarly-afflicted staff members. At least, at the garage, you've got the bay doors open and the sunlight is streaming in, and you're surrounded by cars, in various states of disrepair. Cars and mechanics-- simpler both than your average psych patient.

Soly and Jack have been working together since "1996 or '97, I can't remember," said Jack when I asked him yesterday. Soly, the sunburnt sabra, screams and curses. Jack, the obedient Chinese assistant, dutifully and quietly takes abuse. Soly is very much like hot-tempered Moe, and Jack is definitely Larry-- hapless, in the way, liable to get his hair pulled and his face smacked.

The only thing missing in that garage is a Curly, but I don't see any twinkle-toed, obese, balding men with high-pitched voices and a propensity for playing the spoons entering the picture anytime soon. Though I don't think it would surprise me if one did.

I went to see Jack and Soly yesterday because, on Tuesday, they changed my tires and noticed that I needed new front brakes and rotors.

"Why?" I asked.

"WHY?!" Soly screamed into the phone, "because the FAH-KEENG ESS-HOLE who owned your car before you put brakes on WITHOUT CHANGING THE ROTORS! Volvo, BMW, and Mercedes, if you change the brakes, you HAVE TO CHANGE THE ROTORS!"

And now I know that. And so do you. The person who owned my car before me obviously didn't know that, and now she was being maligned by some short, angry Israeli in a dirty work shirt and shorts that she'd never met.

This is what life is.

And so, yesterday, I went to Soly and Jack's to have my brakes (AND ROTORS) put on. But they didn't fit.

So they ordered another set to be delivered to the shop. They arrived forty-five minutes later, during which time I watched Soly fight with two customers and turn someone away who wanted to buy scrap metal from him for $0.15 a pound.

"What am I, a fah-keeng retarded?" he asked me, rhetorically, I presumed.

The second set of rotors didn't fit either.

"Oh my God, wat dee fak! JACK! Call Jeff and tell him to get me rotors here now. GODDAMNIT!"

I stared at my car, up on the lift, with the two front tires off. I wasn't going anywhere fast, so I sat down on a rickety wooden chair and enjoyed the atmosphere and the conversation. Mrs. Apron had been there earlier that morning to get her oil changed and her car inspected and to get new wiper blades on.

"So," Jack said to me as he was yanking a 16-inch tire off the rim of a 2009 Ford Econoline van that had just failed its emissions inspection, "you gonna have twins-- you the big daddy. No more money."

"That's right, Jack," I said, smiling, "so enjoy swiping my debit card today-- if you guys ever get the right fucking rotors here."

He laughed.

Other people might have been indignant about spending two hours in a garage, especially after they'd just worked a full day, but I wasn't. Because we could talk, about having twins, about mortgage rates, about what it's going to be like for my father if my wife and I have at least one boy.

"Let me tell you," Soly said, "for Iraqi Jews, if you have a son-- forget about it. That is eeet! He going to have your father around his finger, for good."

"I sure didn't have him wrapped around my finger-- my sister was always the favorite."

"But you are good," Jack said, furrowing his brow, "you always do the right thing, you grown up."

"Jack, shut up!" Soly yelled, "dat's not what eet is about! The sister is like the father, so he look like he like her more. But he is good. You are good. I didn't go to school for a fucking psychology, I can talk to you for five minutes and I know that you are good. And your father would facken' kill himself to make you happy."

It's funny, discussing the dynamics of your family with your car mechanics, but we've known Soly and Jack fifteen (maybe fourteen) years. I took my first car for its first oil change there. The barber who gave me my first haircut. The doctor who gave me my first shot. These connections mean something to me, and I cannot let them go.

And, even after two hours and three sets of rotors, I don't much want to.

Anger Management

It's not the anger, we tell they who must be told, that's problematic-- anger is, of course, a normal human emotion-- it's what you do about the anger you feel that can be problematic. Like, for instance, engaging in self-injurious behavior, i.e., placing your fist through some drywall or abruptly and forcefully introducing a loved one's head to an item from your toolbox. Maybe you're angry at your boss for some passive-aggressive slight or other and you stifle it all day or all week only to, on an otherwise languid Sunday afternoon, explode at your spouse, or your cat, or your window air-conditioning unit.

Poor, poor Emerson Quiet-Kool. We hardly knew ye.

This is probably going to come out sounding (unintentionally) funny, but I'm not particularly good at getting angry. Of course, you're reading that going, "What the fuck does that mean?" and I suppose I'd have to come right back at you and say, "I don't really know." I suppose I say that because I am under the impression that one ought to be "good" at getting angry, as if there is some sort of skill to it. And I think there probably is. Believe me, I know how to swear and rage when one of my vamp-teeth pierces my lower lip while eating a Granny Smith apple, and I certainly know how to unleash a stream of delightful epithets when a Toyota Camry stops in front of me, for no reason other than the fact that the driver is probably having a T.I.A.

So... I can do that. I'm not all that deficient.

But, when it really counts, when it gets emotional, well, that's sometimes where I run into a mite of trouble. Because, see, emotions-- um... I'm not particularly good at emotions either. I'm fine with talking about how I'm feeling, it's just that I launch so enthusiastically and skillfully into the talking that I rarely find that I get to the feeling. Maybe I'm flattering myself a bit here, but I think that I can sit with someone for, oh, I don't know, say 50 minutes, and pretend that I've just talked about my feelings the whole time when, really, truly, I haven't said anything.

I'm kind of awesome that way.

Oftentimes, when I get very angry, I get very quiet. Why? I guess it's because I feel like I need that time to sort through what I'm feeling, because, even if the emotion is one that should be relatively easy to pinpoint, most of the time, the road to arriving at that particular emotion is, well, foggy. And I don't use my foglights very often, so I need that time to find the switch on the stalk. Or is it a button on the dash?

See what I mean?

Maybe, I think, I sometimes trick myself into believing that I don't have a right to be angry. Or maybe it's that I'm scared of what other people will do or think if they see me get angry. Maybe I'm scared of what I'll do, or think, or say. My mouth is scary, and not just because my teeth are fucked up and English-looking. Scary things emanate from my mouth. My cakehole. My venom-pocket. It's a cruel place. It's supposed to help, and heal and, for roughly eight hours a day, it succeeds, to varying degrees, but I'm afraid of what happens when the time-clock swipes out.

I'm afraid.

And fear will keep you from doing lots of things, I suppose. It'll keep you from taking risks. It'll keep you from confronting realities about the world in which you live, and your job, and yourself. It will keep you from climbing rock walls, or at least it'll keep you from enjoying it. It'll even keep you from getting angry.

Yesterday afternoon, three big, angry black guys were this close from beating the shit out of my 67-year-old Israeli mechanic. They had pulled into his garage in a beat-up Pontiac Grand-Prix with two shredded front tires. My mechanic had the nerve to ask them where their spare was. They didn't have one.

"Driving without a spare is asking for trouble," the mechanic said.

"MOTHAFUCKA! JUST FIX THIS SHIT!" one of the men screamed.

A mouth-match ensued, and my approaching-elderly Sabra mechanic, who has shot Arab soldiers dead in the desert many years ago, was winning. But I knew, at any second, it could go the other way, and I was scared. I work in a place where simmering violence lies just below the surface, like a camouflaged snake ready to pounce. And here I had survived another day, only to probably be killed in the cross-fire in my mechanic's garage. Fortunately, the driver of the car exited the vehicle, got between the parties, and apologized to my mechanic for his friends, and reason had prevailed. Anger was, sort of, managed. The temperature outside was 92 degrees, but it had cooled down considerably in the garage, and, as I went into Soly's office to settle the bill for my new car battery, he remarked that he hadn't seen my wife in quite some time.

"I know-- that's what happens when people buy Hondas, you never see them anymore," I said. His gaze shifted from the credit card machine to meet my eye and he said, with a mischevious glint,

"Maybe I should get one for my wife!"

And we both laughed, more out of relief that we could than anything else.

Triggers, Coping Skills, and Registraion, Please

I talk a real good game.

Really, I do.

That's why you're still here, you know. You haven't figured out what an immense fraud I am, in spite of the fact that I've provided you with untold amounts of factual evidence to support that contention. In spite of the fact that I just told you I'm an immense fraud. You haven't quite gotten the message yet, because you like my shenanigans. You freak.

Or, maybe you already know I'm an immense fraud, and you just don't care. I don't know which makes you a bigger freak. Either way: you're a fraud and I'm a freak. No, no-- wait. Strike that. Reverse it.

Or not.

Day in and day out, I sit across the table from people whose arms look like a freshly filleted hibachi steak, people who are labile or homicidal or disogranized or disheveled or depressed, or detoxing-- and I talk to these people about things like triggers. What is it that sets you off? What makes you descend into either a passing or a momentous sadness?

Is it a song on the radio? Is it loud noises? Is it physical or environmental? Is it pay-day, or Christmas, or a certain person? A certain street-corner? Is it getting the flu? Is it me, or is it you?

I talk to them about how anything can be a trigger, anything for anyone. I talk about the big things, like September 11th, and the little things, like February 14th, and everything in between. I talk about how triggers are going to happen because life happens around us-- we cannot control that. All we can control are our reactions to these triggers.

And, while on the subject of those reactions, I talk to these people, and believe me, they talk back, about coping skills. What do we have in our personal arsenal (actually, perhaps "toolbox" is a better word to use around people with weapons charges and some with a penchant for a little good ol' fashioned pyromania) to assist us in dealing with situations where we are triggered? Can we go to a "safe place," either a literal one or a figurative one, in our mind? Can we summon up a soothing melody, or journal, or call a supportive friend or loved one? Can we take a walk? Can we immerse ourselves in a good book? Can we use a stress ball?

Can we talk to someone?

For so many of the patients with whom I work, the answer is, sadly, "no." Either family have disowned them or distanced themselves, friends are users and shitheads, therapists are unavailable or non-existent-- many of these people are alone in their heads. And, for some of these folks, that can be as scary as being a four-year-old at bed-time who's petrified of the dark.

For all of my good-talker, talks-a-good-game talk about triggers and coping skills and the like; I lost it yesterday. I got triggered. Coping skills where like, wha wha what? And I just fell apart.

Nobody died. Nobody got sick. There was no jarring phone call at 3:00am to let you know that a loved one's pelvis had exploded or a friend had wrapped his Durango around a 7-Eleven. I just... couldn't find my registration card for my car.

Yeah. And I wasn't even stopped by the police. I needed it so Soly, my cantankerous, 67-year-old Israeli mechanic, could inspect my car.

I had brought him my insurance card, and the title to my car, which I own outright. I thought that would be enough. He was talking on the phone when I walked into his garage-- which, somehow, you're allowed to do. Take that, OSHA. As soon as he saw the title in my hand, he held out his hand to me, in the "No," format, and said to the person on the other end of the phone,

"Look, if the car has a problem here, it will have a bigger problem out on I-95, so, either you want my help, or you don't. So, think about that, and let me know. Shabbat Shalom." And he hung up. It was my turn.

"What the fuck is that?" he said to me, staring at me icily, as if I had just walked into his garage with my dick hanging out of my fly, still slimey after impregnating his daughter.

"What?" I asked innocently.

"I don't want that. I don't want the title. I need the registration card. With the barcode."

I stared at him. And then he started yelling at me.

I'm used to Israelis yelling at me. It's happened all throughout my life, at some of its finer and some of its lower points. My father has let me have it with his explosive, broken-English tirades more times than I can count. I've been getting my car fixed at Soly's since I was sixteen, and I know that walking into his garage is about as emotionally safe as walking into a snake-pit. There is always a chance that you're going to get venomized by an Israeli slitherer.

I had been operating under the impression that, when you owned your car outright, that your title was your proof of ownership, that you no longer got that registration card with the barcode. It's not true. I got the car in April of last year, and so I just didn't remember getting the registration card. I searched with maddening frustration through my wallet, and I threw some things around haphazardly in my glovebox. Nothing.

Defeated, my wife drove me home. Soly would fix my hazard light switch on Saturday, I told myself, and the inspection and emission test would just have to wait until I ordered another fucking registration card from the state.

When we got home, I searched everywhere I could think of for that fucking card. In the pile of clutter and disorder of old cellphone holsters and bumper-stickers and gloves and cards and watches (pocket and wrist) on top of my dresser. I looked in a wallet I had abandoned earlier in the year. Just expired gasoline credit cards.

"I'm going back to Soly's," I said to Mrs. Apron, "I just have to search through my glovebox again."

"You do whatever you need to do," my wife said, clicking away at the computer.

I can't even tell you what was in my glovebox. No, I can. Because it hurts, so, therefore, I must do it.

About 8 fliers from the production of "Iolanthe" that I was in in... ready? November.

Approximately 25 raffle tickets from a 50/50 from work for the patient fund that was held in, ready? October. That I lost.

6 CDs without cases.

4 CD cases.

5 audio tapes, including Beethoven, Leon Redbone, and lots of mixes I made for my wife when we were courting long distance.

Vehicle service receipts.

The original window sticker for my car (it was expensive in 2002!)

A pair of brown, tortoise shell glasses in a ziploc bag (to keep them fresh?)

A ribbon that my wife uses to tie her hair back because her hair blows around in my car.

Oh, and my registration card.

I marched into Soly's garage with it clutched in my hand and I slammed it down on his scheduling book. He looked at me.

"It was in my glovebox the whole time, and I am a fucking disgusting mess," I said, by way of further explanation, and I turned around and walked out. On my way out, I turned to the new black guy Soly brought on recently to help out.

"I hope he doesn't yell at you like he does to me." The black guy smiled.

"I yell at everybody!" Soly yelled after me as the door swung shut behind me.

When I got home, I sat on the floor of our office, and I cried.

"I'm disorganized," I told my wife, "and that's something I usually ride you for."

She held me tight.

"Oh, buddy-- do you have any idea how much I love you? You give me things I never even knew I needed. Someone to talk to. Someone who listens to me. Someone to hold my hand when things are scary. You save my life every day."

Someone to talk to. When triggered. To cope.

"You're doing the scariest thing of all with me," I said to her, as the tears welled up in my eyes again. "Life."

And she hugged me again.

P.T. Loser

This is a picture of a broken tie-rod that Soly & Jack, the Israeli and Chinese mechanics with whom I trust my car and my life, removed from my 2001 PT Cruiser yesterday morning. Jack realized I needed a new tie-rod when he was in the process of putting two brand-new tires on the car, replacing two old, bald ones. When he put the new tire on the front passenger side and tightened the lugs, he put his hand on the tire and it wobbled around like a wagon wheel from Oregon Trail.

"Oh, shit," Jack said.

"Please don't say that," I said, knowing I was already looking at around a $200 service bill for the oil change and the two tires.

But it was definitely an "Oh, shit," and my total for the day ended up being $395.38.

As Click & Clack would say, "Looks like Soly's going to make this month's boat payment."

Frankly, I have difficulty picturing 61-year-old grizzled and gnarled Soly piloting a boat. At least, not any boat that doesn't have an Israeli flag on its side and an anti-aircraft gun on the stern.

I know, also, that Soly and Jack don't tell me something's wrong when it isn't. When they removed the bum tie-rod, they showed it to me. "You needed a new one of those more than you needed two new fucking tires," said Soly, "if that snapped, and it was close to snapping, you'd be dead."

I was going to ask him to take the tires back then, but they were already on the car.

Going to Soly & Jack's always fills me with a mixture of emotions. On the one hand, I really enjoy being there. I like the way their garage smells, I like the sound the heater makes when it turns itself on, I like Soly & Jack's uniforms-- and not in that annoying hipster way, either-- and, of course, I just like Soly & Jack. I like talking to them about Sarah Palin (Soly: "She would have made a good prostitute.") and I like talking to them about where they came from (Jack: "I came here from China in 1991, January 1st. My sister and I slept for 24 hours our first day here. Heard fireworks. I was so fucking bored for two years.")

What I don't like is giving them lots of money. This tends to happen, though, when I bring around the PT Cruiser. Bushings, ball-joints, broken rims, haywire electrical system, a sunroof that closes sometimes, oxygen sensors, tie-rods, dog-bones (yes, apparently there's a rear component of my car's suspension called a "dog bone." It's got three holes. Jack showed it to me.) All things break. I understand that. When they break, you need to fix them. I just wish things wouldn't break so often and that, when they did, they were cheaper to replace.

For a car built on the cheap, it's not very cheap to fix.

"This thing is a fucking joke!" Soly yelled at me today, in between sips of his coffee, which he drinks from a miraculously pristine white ceramic mug, "It gets, what, 20 miles-a-gallon, barely, it accelerates like a fucking old dog, and it looks like a cow that's bending over!" He energetically gulps some more coffee and then he rages, his forsaken, broken teeth jutting out like icicles, "That's why they only made this piece of shit for one year!"

I stared at him. I was shocked. I thought Soly knew everything about cars.

"Soly, they're still making them today."

"WHAT?!" he bellowed furiously at me, spitting coffee onto my cardigan, "Then how come every goddamn customer I have who drives one of these things drives a 2001?!"

Using my internet-ready smartphone, I Googled "PT Cruiser" and showed him that Chrysler began production in 2000 and it's scheduled to continue until 2010.

"What is that," asked Soly, peering at my phone under his bifocals, "a Blueberry?"

"Yeah," I said, "with cream on top."

"What probably happened was," Soly reasoned, "they sold the PT Cruisers everywhere in 2001, and, when smart people realized they were pieces of shit, they sold the rest of them down South, where the retards live." In spite of his insinuation that I am equivalent to a Kentucky-fried, sister-fucking retard, I laughed.

When Jack tells me that the tie-rods are "always going bad on these cars," I complain that this is what he says whenever I bring the car in for something.

"What doesn't 'always go bad on these cars'?" I asked. Jack smiled at me.

"The seats."

Soly refers to my car as the "P.T. Loser."

I told him that my wife really loves the car and has a great desire to only have one car payment, which I respect and understand. The Cruiser is paid off and is titled under my name. She has a 2009 Honda Fit which she loves more than Jesus loves his Birkenstocks.

"My wife loves this car and she thinks it's indestructable," I told Soly, "her mother has one that has over 200,000 miles on it."

"Well, she's crazy-- she's probably had every fucking thing rebuilt on it besides the radio antenna! It's not even the same car it was in 2001 anymore."

I told him that I wanted to sell it and get a 1968 Beetle. He laughed.

"See? You're fucking crazy, too! You are perfect for each other."

We both cracked up at that. In the midst of our laughter, Jack came up and informed me that the motor mounts were starting to go. He motioned for me to come over so I could see for myself.

"No," I said. "I believe you."

How Many Israelis...

Question: How many Israelis does it take to jump-start a PT Cruiser?

Answer: 2-and-a-half.

My father tried, God bless him. I, the half-breed, tried along with him, but it took the skilled, weather beaten hands of Soly, the Israeli mechanic to whom we are devoted, to get that engine to crank. I couldn't believe it but, at 8am this morning, there he was, standing in my driveway with his sleeves rolled up.

I'll bet you thought mechanics stopped making house-calls, or never did.

When my father came over to the house yesterday to try to jump the dead car, the only thing he succeeded in doing was setting off the car alarm. At least ten times. This alarm is one of those aftermarket ones, the ones that scream "1990s," with the intermittent beeping, horn honking, buzzing, siren that, after about three minutes inspires you to go digging into your left pupil with a broken Coke bottle.

Our street is a small street, with small little houses piled almost on top of each other. It was a beautiful day yesterday, so everybody on the street was either outside gardening or puttering around with their windows open.

EEEE! EEEE! EEEEE! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! BooOOOOOP! BoooOOOOP!

We're anxiously awaiting the arrival of our "Most Popular New Neighbor" award.

Being Israeli, my father has little capacity for sympathy or empathy-- these are mostly Western traits born out of guilt and self-loathing, of which he has none. Because of this, he was thoroughly uninterested when I hysterically insisted that he stop the futile, and very noisy, attempts to jump the car.

"Shut up already," he said to me, applying the red and black cables to the thoroughly coked-out battery once again.

BoooooOOOOOOOOOOOOP! BoooOOOOOOOOOP!

"Dad, please stop. Please. People are going to start leaving us death-threats in our mailbox."

"Just turn the fuckin' key, please already."

Nothing. Not even a click.

It took 20 minutes of alarm howling and my pleadings to get him to stop. I think towards the end I was actually clutching his shirtsleeve.

"Okay, okay. Jesus," he muttered as he threw the jumper cables into his car. "Call Soly in the morning, he'll come over and jump it for you."

"He will?"

"Yeah, he did it for me," my father said, shrugging.

Sure enough, Soly, short, hairy, loud, pulled into the alley behind my house at 8am this morning. He was driving a white Nissan Altima from the mid-nineties, a customer's car. Soly always drives customers' cars for his own errands while they're in the shop. I can only imagine what he does in my car when it's there all day. He stopped the Altima right in the middle of the alley. 20 feet away, I observed a shirt-and-tie neighbor getting into his Ford Explorer, ready to go to work.

"Soly, you know you can park next to my car, you don't have to leave it in the middle of the alley."

"If someone's coming, I'll move it. I'm not parking it here forever," he assured me gruffly as he took out the power booster and jumper cables.

"Yeah, but I think that guy over there in the Explorer wants to get out."

Soly squinted his eyes at the Explorer with its headlights on and the engine running.

"Fuck him!"

As Soly popped the PT Cruiser's hood, I noticed the Explorer making the extremely tight three point turn to exit the alley the other way. He had to reverse and go forward about six times.

I warned Soly that the alarm would probably go off the minute he touched the jumper cables to the points.

"So? Turn the fucking thing off with the gizmo," he said, referring to the electronic key fob. I knew this wouldn't work, but I said nothing. The alarm was an aftermarket, ultra-sensitive piece of equipment installed by Mrs. Apron's father years ago, and I had no idea where the specific key fob that controlled that alarm was, but I played dumb, because I didn't want to get yelled at by two Israelis in as many days.

Sure enough, as soon as the jumper cables were applied, the electronic melody blasted through the early morning air of suburbia at approximately 312 decibels.

"JESUS!" he shouted over the noise, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TRYING TO DO? WAKE UP YOUR ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD?! TURN IT OFF! PUSH THE GIZMO!"

I did, and nothing happened. He stared at me.

"This is no fucking factory alarm!" he shouted, pointing his small, fat, hairy finger at me. He was accusing me of concealing information from him, and he was right. I was.

"Somebody put a fucking alarm in here!" I stared at him, and I shrugged like an imbecile.

"San-af-a-beech!" he yelled as he stuck his head underneath the steering wheel of the car.

"Ah-HAH!" he roared. "You see this fucking button? This is the control for this bullsheeet alarm! Push it when I attach the jumper cables."

I did, and the alarm died. It died. And the car started. Peace prevailed at last.

He eyed me suspiciously.

"The factory alarm for a PT Cruiser just honks the goddamn horn, it doesn't do all this beep beep beep bullsheet."

"Oh," I said.

He looked at me.

"Follow me to the fucking shop."

And I did.

And now you know that it takes 2-and-a-half Israelis to jump-start a PT Cruiser, though I suspect that one could have done it on his own.