Scratch Beginnings_ Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream - Adam W. Shepard [74]
I didn’t know much about the operation of automobiles either. After a test drive, I planned to take any prospective buy to a transmission specialist who could give me a diagnostic test for $50 and determine if the transmission was in good condition. The only repairs that would totally break my bank account involved the transmission. The emergency money that I had set aside could cover a busted water pump or a new timing belt, but if the transmission went, I would probably have to sack it and buy another car.
Max wasn’t around, but Jimmy Jr. (Max’s son, he told me), took me around the lot of about twenty or so cars to help me find one to take for a test drive. I settled on a silver pickup truck with a $900 price tag on the windshield. I hopped in and told Jimmy Jr. that I was going to take it to “my transmission guy” and that I would be right back.
“Hold up, are you kiddin’?” he asked, a funny, contemplative look plastered on his face. “You think you’re just gonna drive that truck off the lot?”
I was clearly unfamiliar with the system of taking cars for a test drive, and Jimmy Jr. was really intrigued that I thought I was simply going to drive away in his pickup truck. He looked at me for a second, confused almost to the point of laughter. Then, he laughed.
“You can’t be serious. Where you takin’ it, did you say?”
“To my transmission guy, up there at Willis Transmission Specialists.”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this. My pappy is gonna kill me.”
Because he knew that I was serious about buying a car, he let me take it, but I wasn’t gone long. I didn’t drive a half a mile away from the lot before I realized why the truck was priced at $900. Whenever I shifted from first to second or second to third, the car would hesitate for a moment and then kick into gear. I didn’t know what kind of problem that was, but I knew that I would at least like to own the car for a little while before it had a problem like that. So I returned to the shop for my second choice, a beautiful 1988 GMC Sierra S-15 pickup truck. Black, without a scratch on its exterior.
So that was the one I ended up taking to the transmission guy up the street from the used car dealership on Rivers Avenue. It took him fifteen minutes to hook it up to the computer, return no codes, and determine that the transmission was in good shape. Which was all I needed to hear. It was driving fine, and besides a host of aesthetic problems on the inside (passenger side window stuck in the “down” position, driver side window stuck in the “up” position, sun visors missing, leather interior torn to shreds, dirty floor mats, no radio, just to start the list), I wanted it. I didn’t care that it would repel the ladies or that it could only seat about a person and a half comfortably. That baby got eighteen miles to the gallon and had a reputation for running forever.
But I didn’t tell any of that to Jimmy Jr. I got back to the dealership and put on my serious, negotiating face.
“Well?” he asked. “What’d them boys say?”
“Shoot, man. They said it was a’ight. They wouldn’t buy it, but I might still be interested.” If nothing else, I had just dropped $50 for the diagnostic test, so I wanted to see what kind of deal we could work out.
The S-15 didn’t have a price tag on it, but I assumed that it would be right around the same price as the first pickup truck I had taken for a test run. In any event, those prices are just a starting line for us consumers to work down from anyway.
“How much are you askin’ for that guy, anyway?” My disposition was so nonchalant.
“That’n there, we’re askin’ fifteen hundred.”
Ha! I thought, before I realized he was serious. How was I ever going to work my way down to a grand from that?
“Man,