You Can Have It

My Focus

I explained to my dad there was no point in wasting money on a new car for me when I moved to Los Angeles because I’d rather have a used car and spend the extra money on a painting.

“Are you joking?”  He scoffed.  “Your car is your most valuable asset.”

“No, I mean an original, Dad,” I said.

“An original what?  You need to spend your money on a car.  You don’t want it breaking down all the time, do you?”

I didn’t, but nothing brightened up the room quite like a painting.

“Use your senses,” he said.

So we bought a new car—a Ford Focus—and sure enough I didn’t take good care of it.  Within a year, I’d knocked off one of the side mirrors, and by the following year, I’d knocked off the other one, twice.  Additionally, I smoked in it, so cigarette ashes accumulated on the dashboard prompting one of my friends to ask me if the car had dandruff.

And every time I called home, my dad checked in on it.

“How’s your car?”  He’d say, as if my Focus was a kid growing up.

“Same,” I’d reply.

“Still running okay?”

“Yep.”

“Look good?”

“As good as a Focus can look.”

It was perfect timing then that, one week prior to my dad’s first trip to L.A., the Focus got side swiped at an intersection and was left with a dent and black scrape on its driver side door.  Didn’t bother me much; now it was gangster.  My dad, on the other hand, threw a fit.  He spotted the dent the second I pulled into the Embassy Suites parking lot to meet him, ripping off his prescription sunglasses to get a better look.

“Hi!”  I said, rolling down the window to greet him, my mother, and younger brother.  “Welcome to L.A.!”

“What happened to your car?!”  My dad yelled, his eyes narrowing in on the dent.

“Oh that?”  I said.  “Don’t worry about that.”

“What happened?”  He repeated.

“Hit and run,” I replied, which was a lie because the other driver had actually pulled over and offered me his insurance information, but I was late for work and didn’t feel like dealing with it.  Besides, it was more of a bruise than anything.

The real lecture came a few months later however, when my tax returns came in and I told my dad I was finally buying that painting I always wanted.  I might as well have told him I was going to sew the money together and use it for toilet paper.  In a last ditch attempt to motivate me, he proceeded to tell me a story about an old friend of his named Frank Keesler, who, he noted, was “very successful” and “worked in the Kennedy administration.”

Frank, decades ago, used to play golf with my dad and one day had noticed a dent in his car.  “Just like yours, Court,” my dad said.

Frank told my dad he absolutely had to get a new car because it made my dad appear unsuccessful to other people.

“See?”  My dad said.  “Do you want to look unsuccessful?”

“Well, I kind of am,” I said.

“Huh?  Why would you say something like that?”

“Look Dad, it’s different here in L.A. Everyone has a scratch on their car.  It’s practically an accessory.”

“No trust me,” he retorted.  “People are going to look at that scratch and think you’re unsuccessful.”

“They’re already going to think that when they see the Focus.”

Better to spend the money on a painting so when I was rich, famous and successful, I’d have something to hang on the walls of my mansion.  The Focus would be long gone by then, therefore the painting was clearly the more worthy investment.

A year later, nevertheless, and the Focus was back in the spotlight.  I moved into a fancy neighborhood in Beverly Hills because I knew someone who cut me a deal on a guesthouse.  It was located off the very well-to-do Doheny Drive, a route lined with homes all siphoned off by gates that required voice activated codes to enter the driveway.  The yards were sculpted by horticulturists; they had water fountains, rose buses, and ugly statues of half-naked people.  Palm trees and other tropical fauna blocked the more furtive estates, and you could often hear the splish-splash of rich kids playing in their pools while their nannies gossiped on the phone to friends.  The only drawback really was there was no parking available on my block; street parking was by permit only so I had to find a spot a little ways up the hill where it was unrestricted.

Every day, I hiked up and down Doheny to a side street where I could park with little concern.  It was annoying, but periodically I’d see Herbie Hancock walking out his front door, so I’d give him a nod, and in my head we were friends, and that made it all worth it.

One day, as I was leaving to run an errand, a bright red, sparkly Range Rover pulled up beside me in the street and stopped.  The man behind the wheel—a white, middle-aged guy in an Oxford shirt, with white hair as shiny as his car—rolled down his window.

So I rolled down mine.

“Hi,” I said politely.

“Do you live here?”  He asked, in a tone suggesting I couldn’t possibly.

“I live down on Cory Avenue,” I explained, “but it’s restricted parking so I have to park up here.”

“Ah, I see,” he replied.  “Well, that’s my spot.”

He gave a nod to the road indicating that the patch of street where I was parked belonged to him.  I turned and inspected the patch, then turned back and stared at him because I thought perhaps I’d misunderstood something.

“That’s my house right there,” he said, pointing to the New England-style manor behind us.  Evidently, because this portion of the street touched his lawn, it was his, in the same way that the air filling up my apartment was mine.

“I see,” I said to the man with shiny white hair.  “Well, I guess I’ll just pull forward a few feet and park there.”

“That’d be great,” he answered.

I determined it probably wasn’t that he was particularly partial to that spot, rather he didn’t want my Focus parked out in front of his manor in case people might associate the two.

For awhile I obliged the man’s wishes, but then one day, feeling bold, I decided to take the spot anyway because, well, fuck him.  I relished the thought of him pulling up in his Range Rover with Bon Jovi blasting on the stereo as he tapped his designer alligator shoes against the foot pedals, only to discover my Focus sitting there like a pile of dog crap in the yard.

It was brilliant.

So I did it. And the next day, there was a note on my windshield.  A typed note, which read as follows:

July 27, 2009

PLEASE PARK DOWN THE STREET

As a courtesy to the residents would you kindly park your car down Cordell a bit (just as the road starts to curve).  There isn’t a house there, so you won’t be STEALING a valuable parking space from us.

Thanks!

I was expecting something scribbled on the back of an envelope so this was like a Hallmark card.  A smile took over my face as I patted my dirty Focus on its back—who said you couldn’t be successful with a dent in your side?

I went ahead and parked my car down the street where he suggested (incidentally, it was in a ditch), but I also started snipping roses from the bushes in his yard to put in my apartment.  Stealing yet again, as that was my way.   I figured the roses would look really lovely beside my painting, and since they would just be dusting pollen on the man’s shiny, red Range Rover, I was actually doing him a favor.

My Painting

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