MY NEW CAR
MY NEW CAR
My rubbish cars - always breaking down. Pieces of junk were all I could afford. Wife was ashamed to be driven to the shops in the Starlet. I wanted a new car but couldn’t afford it, just teaching English in highschool. I needed to find some extra evening work for car money.
I thought it best to get a real cheap but reliable runabout and wait a bit longer for a better car to come along - when the money became plentiful. Eventually, I bought up a third- or fourth-hand little Toyota Starlet. Like Joseph, she wore a coat of seven colors. With her previous drivers, she had had some crashes, and panels had been replaced but never repainted. My highschool boys were highly indignant because this allowed boys from a rival school to laugh at their teacher. Now, a respray would have cost more than the original cost of the car, so one Saturday afternoon I personally repainted her with a large can of household mid-gloss blue, and a hand roller. This gesture made the car rather dull and less of an environmental eyesore. It also made her less noticeable - this at least stifled the rivals’ laughter.
She had a broken bumper, no radio, a rear indicator light made from a plain bulb with a yellow christmas candy wrapper. Easily stolen, the bulb had to be removed whenever I parked, and re-inserted when I started her up again. My pal Colm at the garage assured me that all Toyotas had what he called “bulletproof” engines, meaning they never broke down. Despite her ragamuffin appearance, after a few weeks driving her, I realized she was in fact reliable and never broke down, and I fell in love with her there and then.
But love is not everything - I was still being leaned on for a more stylish looking machine. My wife’s aspiring tastes, which ranged from outright posh to middling movie-star opulence, emphatically excluded ragamuffin. So I found what I felt would be a suitable quick earner of easy cash in the local paper. A job advertised teaching adults in the evenings. It seemed the local magistrates’ courts were interested in hiring a teacher to help deal with some problems of minor offenders in their care. I got myself an interview. It was in the local adult education college in the town, an old fashioned and somewhat neglected institution in a rough part of town: mahogany staircase, huge mahogany table, and old blackboards and chalk, some broken windows, very little security or supervision of the grounds.
I should have suspected it wasn’t the most popular job attracting a lot of competition, when the secretary looked up from her knitting and asked, Name?
Kerrigan, I admitted
Oh you’re the candidate for the teaching job, aren’t you?
I hesitatingly assented.
Just go right in, Mr. Kerrigan, they’re waiting for you.
Sitting on one side of the huge table, first I explained my own background to the four committee members. They then gave me a run-down on the students. In general, they explained, these were unwilling students. After brushes with the law in its various guises, these minor offenders had been placed on court probation, on conditions which included attendance at my classes in English and Sociology. These would hopefully help with their job success and general societal acceptance. The men across the mahogany table gave me no syllabus; and I was expected to just make it up from experience. The job didn’t pay much but it was better than nothing. I could at least sense the purchase of a finer car after a year of this work.
The next week I started classes, and quickly discovered that the problems with these students ranged from plain illiteracy to outright indifference. The seven students put in very little effort, and all I wanted to do was write on their papers the classic sarcastic comment “Much improved - almost poor”. So we tried to liven classes up somewhat. We moved the rows of old desks into a circle. I invented role- play scenarios for them to act out emotions and also to get to know each other.
Now Charlie, you’re a cop and Andy is a burglar that you’ve just caught. What do you say to him?
Nothing, Mr. Kerrigan, I would just punch him one and shove the bracelets on.
Plainly role play wouldn’t work. Their real life experience was more relevant. I gave them stimulating imaginative essays to write, puzzles to solve, codes to break. We studied and analysed newspaper articles, especially on crime. We gradually read our way through a crime novel. I felt it would seem familiar territory for them. However, instead of offering literary criticism they offered ‘professional’ opinions on whether the criminals, the police, or the “briefs” had acted cleverly or stupidly. A new slant for me.
In another lesson, I gave Charlie ( attempted burglary, first offence - 6 months suspended ) a newspaper article to study on burglary. Then I asked him a comprehension question,
Charlie, what do you think the burglar was actually looking to steal in this robbery , since he got caught with no snatched stuff? With an empty bag ?
It became obvious that he couldn’t treat it as a disinterested interest question, possibly because the case in point involved one of his cronies, so he resorted to,
My mind’s gone blank, Mr. Kerrigan. I was listening carefully, but when you said me name me head just went blank, sorry. I reckoned it was probably a line of defence he had practised in court, possibly on advice from his “brief”.
OK Charlie, thank you anyway
Billy, a first time car thief, not very successful ( 6 months suspended), snorted angrily at this lame excuse. He was angry most of the time, at the others, at me, at the police, at life generally. He was very angry at Samantha.
Samantha ( shoplifting sweaters - 4 months suspended , repeat offender, but no other crimes) insisted on using words like ‘stone’ or ‘biscuit’ in her essays to describe colours of her illicitly acquired clothing.
I really like a biscuit-coloured sweater and a stone-coloured pair of jeans, know what I mean?
When she read her essay out Billy got angry - a kind of delayed anger at his mum, a delayed resentment because he was colorblind, and she too had used these words when he was small. Probably the biscuit/stone issue hid deeper parental problems which I couldn’t deal with. Of course as soon as they learned of his colorblindness, the rest of students started with the popular inquisition whenever a colorblind person is trapped. It was like asking an angry cat if she liked dogs.
Can you tell green from pink? What color does blue look like to you?
What’s this colour, Billy? How do you see the grass?
Blue, you fool !!
Sitting close to Billy was Demitri, a Russian migrant worker (two months suspended - possession of 4 ounces of cannabis - attendance at substance abuse class obligatory), whose English was extremely limited and he offered the thought that,
Sometime I too see ze spinning grass - which is blue or maybe pink
Then I asked Demitri to repeat some phrases I had given him to practise. Practising out loud, he clearly enunciated,
I am happy……. I am driving………. I am playing with a beachball…
I said he had done very well. But then he stood up, straightened his black leather jacket, stroked his beard with one hand and gave his best spoken effort which was in response to my question,
What are you doing now Demitri?
I am a beachball…
Quite possibly after a little cannabis he thought he actually was a beachball - maybe on those occasions when he also saw the grass as blue, despite not being colorblind.
After the laughter, the class began to discuss the grammar of the present progressive tense. Now, in my class I had Gerry and Mike. They looked like respectable gentlemen but were two really old guys past retirement age (2 months suspended for fighting and disturbing the peace - first time offenders, no other crimes). They had been arrested in the post office fighting about who jumped the line for pensions on pension day, and in the process broke the newly installed security window.
I decided to sit these two apart with Andy in between. To make my teaching task even ‘easier’, they had given me Andy, a Glasgow truck driver ( 3 months suspended for using illegal green gasoline - first time offender ). A young man in his twenties with a shock of red hair, he had a Scottish accent you could scrape barnacles with. Nobody understood a word he said. Ever. His accent was practically opaque to anyone not from the Clyde Valley. Sympathising with his problem, I tried to illustrate the difficulties of learning a new language. I told them the story of my trip to the theatre in Madrid - how I went up to the glass window to get tickets in my “fluent” Spanish…I recited the tale,
So my wife and I went to the theatre in Madrid and I am lined up waiting to buy tickets at the glass window.The sales girl has the two tickets in her hand and asks in Spanish for money several times, but not understanding I just repeat several times ………
Dos boletos por favor, senorita
………. and she is waiting for the money to be handed over - till some Spanish guy behind me gently pushes my arm forward with the money and she gives me the tickets.
At this, Andy laughed till he almost fell off his seat. I wondered if he really understood me - from his sporadic emissions of Glaswegian comment . He certainly seemed to grasp my words, even though I didn’t his.
Haw haw tha’s fekn marv Jimmi - I nev’r heered o such a yan - but monys a mickle macks a muckle !
The exact meaning was no doubt based on his Clyde humour and his innate canniness aboot money.
He added thoughtfully, "Aw man, oot ma tree last night, Pure mad wae it! If a guy says out to me I’da skelped ‘im one guid”
I failed to readily see the relevance of the comment, but said,
Thanks for that, Andy
Andy actually scored highest in the class in his final test exam because there was no verbal component.
So the English and Sociology progressed towards the end of the session. But while I was teaching them one night the door burst open in mid-class and someone shouted at me
Your car’s being stolen right now !
With a deep-throated roar like a bear sensing danger, a voice erupted,
Thievin’ bastards! I’ll skelp their fekin’ chops - I’ll burrrst them bastards if I see’m”
Wth this Glaswegian echoing strongly in my ears, I ran out the door.
As I disappeared through the door, the students rushed to the windows and animatedly discussed who the car thief probably was.
In the brief minutes it took me to get outside, the attempted heist was over. A woman neighbour overlooking the car park of the college had shouted from her upstairs bedroom window to two of my highschool students to block the car park entrance with another vehicle - and they did. The thieves abandoned my car. Doors open. Motor running. Skedaddled. This vigilante action kind of repaid my eyesore-removal environmental gesture with the blue gloss paint, I felt. At least now the Starlet looked worthwhile saving from thieves.
After I reparked my car and trotted back to the classroom, the students were all instantly on my side with various threats towards the perpetrators, etc. I was quite touched. The sociologist in me kicked in. It was the nearest thing they knew to expressing affection. The students all suggested who it had been; but also claimed alibis immediately - no doubt based on their experience in police hands.
In the last week of the session, on the Tuesday, my car went missing again from the parking lot. So I thought this time the thieves had succeeded. In any case, it was gone when I went outside after class with the students. I had to walk home.
Well it’s gone again…probably for good this time, I philosophized.
Aye mebbe so, Jimmi, is close to what Andy probably said to me.
Who knows sir, you might get it back again? Asked Billy.
Izvinitye..I am a not liking car gone yes? added Beachball.
The guys were not as supportive as in the past and were strangely quiet, saying almost nothing about the loss of the car this time. I began to think the worst about them. My main thought was - was it the same thieves ? Did my students know who it was? Did they themselves have a hand in the theft? If so, how would this affect their suspended sentences?
The next day, Wednesday, was the last day of the session. We had arranged a party at the end of the course - awarding of diplomas, dance music and eats in the classroom. Then afterwards they ushered me outside - to see my new car,
Surprise surprise for our great teacher!
Da da Car is comes back da? Better, da?
Come awa, Jimmi - ye’r a braw teacher.
They all crowded round good naturedly, with Gerry and Mike struggling with each other to try to be the first to shake my hand. I never did get paid enough to buy a new car but this was a wonderful surprise instead. On Tuesday the series of classes had been almost over, and they were so pleased that they had taken my old Starlet away without my permission and had improved it as a surprise for me. And to think I actually thought they had stolen it! God knows where they had got the parts and the money to pay for the work. But it was beautifully done, with new chrome-plated bumpers, a factory-fresh rear indicator unit, new radio and CD player, and a complete respray with shiny real car paint. I could imagine them compromising their suspended sentences with my car’s improvement. I shuddered.
But there were no repercussions. All in all, my car’s involvement with the town’s minor criminal society ensured that she lived a longer and better life. And my wife’s aspiring tastes were satisfied. After all, a love affair with a car is one thing, but we can’t have the highschool vice-principal driving a roller-painted Starlet, no matter how reliable her engine, can we?
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