The cars line up like toy soldiers, all tin and mechanical parts, one after the next. It is astonishing, how many people in Los Angeles are at the car wash in the middle of the day. I’ve counted seventeen so far. The fancy and the not so fancy – from Mercedes to Honda, and everything in between – they’re all looking for a good winter licking, a bath to wash the storm’s dregs away
“Forty-five minutes,” the attendant tells me. “For a basic wash?” I ask, squinting my face, so the frown lines in between my eyebrows create deep grooves. He nods in the direction of the line of cars and the guys in green Polos, feverishly drying and wiping, running rags along the bases of 4-Runners and Tahoes. They are flipping clean cars like silver dollar pancakes on a griddle.
I tell him I’ll think about it for a minute. I put the car in park and sigh. I pull down my visor, slide open the mirror and give myself a quick glance, as if this will somehow sway my decision. I look tired. I look like a need a tall glass of water. The frown lines are set. I’m tired of the same old thing; everyone in LA is always doing the same old thing, I think, disheartened. Even me. This car wash episode somehow a metaphor for my sheep-like tendencies. Get in line, pay the ticker, and wait for something different to happen.
I look at the sun, shining off a blue-green Hyundai next to me, and watch a young mother pull her child from a back car seat. At least the weather has changed in the New Year, even if I haven’t managed to change my habits yet – my eating habits, reading habits, writing habits, people watching habits. They’re all the same. But the rain is on recess and it’s a balmy 77 degrees. Warm for winter, even by LA standards.
I haven’t moved the car from park to drive yet; I can’t move it. The attendant is giving me the angry eyes, the hurry up and make up your mind eyes.
Another car rolls in behind me, blasting Joni Mitchell. Took all the trees and put them in a tree museum. Fitting, I think, as I glance at the machinery, not a tree in sight, but still, trite. Just turn it off, or at least down. People are trying to wait for their cars in peace here.
I put the car in drive and move forward a few feet, but change my mind and throw it back into park. The car behind me honks, but I wave it around me. It is just a car wash, I whisper. You can still change habits this year. You can still make different choices.
I roll down my window and listen.
“What’s with this weather?” almost everyone exclaims as they pace the paved grounds, looking for something to pass the time. Some move the plastic backed chairs from underneath an awning to bask in the sun. I stay in my car, undecided. I can’t step out into the sun, both figuratively and literally, because I made the unfortunate choice of throwing on a sweatshirt with nothing beneath it. But this is a mistake I make often, and I pay the sweaty price as such; tit-for-tattered gray hoodie.
It has been my uniform for days, the ones prior to today where rain pounded the pavement, salting and peppering the ground with clear and murky black walloping raindrops. It’s been a montage of flooded streets, cars floating through intersections, debris crossing from one side of the road to the other and back again, trees falling, twigs peeking from under windshield wipers.
But not today.
I turn my head around and watch to try and create a different montage. Piece together a different scene.
The men work ardently, cleaning out the wrappers and lint as small as bacon bits from cars, whistling to each other, signals missed to a blind eye.
Conversations from feet away ring clear. I shift my attention from one conversation to the next, as if I am waiting to hear someone tell me what to do. What decision to make, but they talk about menial nothingness. Dying for the shot of hearing one relevant topic in the air, but it’s not there, and perhaps I’m not really looking for it.
“How do you like that Audi you’re driving, that one has a back seat, ya?” a man asks his friend. “Still looks good too, how many miles on that guy?” he continues, nodding toward the newly-waxed car. Its tires even shine.
His friend is wearing Tevas with white gym socks. “I don’t worry about all that,” he says, indicating that he is beyond appearances. He is an exercise in oxymoron. They walk toward their respective cars as the attendees wave rags in the air like white fl f ags.
There is a guy wearing a red and white striped polo, but his right arm is a stub. A mid-thirties woman in an Everlast tank and red flower tattoo around her biceps. Two teens who should be in school.
There is no romantic allure at the car wash, just rag and bone type junk, collected beneath seats, leather and cloth alike. Just patrons watching and waiting for the dirt to leave. But some dirt is fixed, a constant. Stray dog hairs stick to cloth seats. Not even industrial strength vacuum cleaners can remove those memories.
But leather, leather gets wiped clean; wealth affords such luxuries.
The attendant is back. He raises his eyebrows, saying without saying, “You coming, or what?”
I look around. I could leave. There’s space behind that VW. I could get out.
Maybe I’ll start that second novel. Maybe I’ll finish the first. Maybe I’ll finish reading The Tin Drum. I started reading that Thanksgiving of 2009. Maybe I’ll wash my car in my driveway.
I look back at the man; his nametag reads ‘Manuel’. I sigh and put the car in gear.
Next time, I tell myself. I have eleven months left.
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