Auto Biography XIV

“Jules”

Mum: “Jings, Betsy.”

Older older brother: “It looks like it’s going 100 miles an hour and it's standing still!”

Management co-worker: “Clearly the admin staff are making too much money.”

To this day, I don’t know how much our brand new Camaro cost. I do remember that the purchase process was excruciating. I went to three banks and was told at each that I wasn’t a good risk because I had no collateral and the car wouldn’t be worth what I was paying for it. (That’s when I learned that loans are only given to people who don’t need the money.)

I don’t even remember how we wound up at the dealership in the summer of 1996, perusing a shiny automatic that looked green from one angle, blue from another, and purple at a third. The colour was called “mystic teal”. The sales dude was called Anthony. From the instant we set foot on the lot, he was on us like white on rice. A likeable young chap, determined to get us the car of our dreams. Well, of Ter’s dreams. She was the Camaro freak – but if I had to own a Chev, the body style in 1996 was my first choice. The old Camaro was starting its death spiral, so my sole condition for upgrading was that a replacement have no previous owner. No abused lease rejects, no neglected pre-owned wheels spiffed up for suckers. I wanted to manage a new vehicle from scratch.

That new vehicle eluded us for weeks because of the “no collateral” clause. We test-drove a less-expensive Cavalier, but who were we kidding? It was Camaro or bust. Eventually, we told Anthony thanks but no thanks and drove our crotchety old wheels back home.

The gods—and Anthony—were not about to let us go, however. Some days after bidding Mystic Teal a final farewell, the phone rang. “I’ve found two new Camaros for you, ladies, but I know you won’t want one of them.”

I dared to ask why not.

The kid replied, “It’s silver.”

Oh, yeah. Aside from “no previous owner”, my other sole condition was “not silver”. (I still don’t understand the appeal of silver cars.) “Okay,” I said, “what’s the other one?”

“Black.”

I sighed. “We’ll be right out.”

Driving down Cook Street, we were absolutely silent. I was fed up thinking about how to get a car we clearly couldn’t afford, until my little voice murmured the very words that Ter spoke aloud as she turned left onto Bay Street.

“We could call him ‘Jules’.”

Well, that was akin to kissing the bear’s nose. Once he had a name, he was ours. Or, rather, we were his.

The financial whiz at the dealership wheedled a deal with one of the banks that had originally told me to sod off—this after I refused, at the age of 35, to ask my dad to co-sign a loan—they gave us a handful of clams for Ter’s old Camaro, and the two of us left work early to collect our new toy on the first day of autumn in 1996.

The car was being shipped from the mainland and hadn’t arrived yet. I will always remember sitting at the dealership, looking out the plate glass window at the traffic streaming along the highway. Suddenly, there he was: sleek, black, shiny; a panther prowling up the outside lane, a tawny yellow eye blinking right as he turned off the main road. “There it is,” Anthony announced “your new Camaro.”

Taking possession of a brand new sportscar is a joy unlike any other. A new mother doesn’t feel as much for her newborn as I felt on first glance at our fabulous, glossy, witchy-eyed ride. I was practically salivating. I’ve no idea what Ter was thinking or how she felt ... but have I mentioned that our fresh-from-the-shell baby was a standard shift and she had learned on an automatic? That’s right, folks. Ter did not know how to drive a stick.

But, in typical Ter fashion, she was fearless in her enthusiasm to learn. The very next night, we were in the mall parking lot, she behind the wheel, me having kittens in the passenger seat—to this day, I don’t know how I taught her to work the gears but I must have done something right because she was soon cruising in expanding circles around the lot. “Let me take it home,” she said, bubbling over with pride at her mastery of clutch and gears. (In truth, she did pick it up pretty fast.)

Erm, ahhhh, uhhhh ... “Okay,” I croaked.

So, of course she chose the route that featured what we refer to as “the Fat Choy Hill”—an intersection at the crest of a 40% grade with a Chinese market perched on one corner. It would have been fine had the light stayed with us, but no, as we approached, green turned to amber turned to red. I, who had once rolled my dad’s Toyota about twelve feet back on a gentle slope, recommended downshifting to keep the wheels in motion, to no avail. And, yes, the car stalled not once but twice, with a BMW breathing on our bumper and me freaking out at Ter’s elbow. Give credit where it’s due, though: flustered as she was, the bumblebee got her wings whirring and achieved liftoff as the light went red again. We got through the light.

The BMW, naturally, ran it.

* * *

It feels odd to write so clearly about a vehicle long gone, but he served us well and we loved him to the last. I have said before that you can’t own a car for fourteen years and not have a bunch of stories to tell, so further tales from “Ter and Ru and a Car Named Jules” will be posted as more memories surface. Stay tuned!