After I called off work on Monday, Tracy texts me, unprompted, asking if I needed a ride Tuesday, the following day. I accepted and she dropped me off at the shop, where the car was done and waiting, even paid for thanks to my parents — though this added weight to my guilt. The mechanic, Lex, I’ve known for a while now, and I’ve always found him a kind, trustworthy guy, and his wife is an incredibly sweet lady. As she handed me the keys from across the counter, I said to her, “As much as I like seeing you guys, hopefully, I won’t be back soon.”

Finally, it was over. At least for a while, so I hoped. Happy to have my car back, I start it up and turn out if the parking space and approach the exit of the small lot, and as I do, I hear a haunting, familiar sound. A cracking sound. Convinced I was being paranoid, that it was all a product of my overactive imagination, I continued onward to the exit and then had precisely the same experience that I had had on that Sunday. I put my foot on the brake and though the car stopped, it went to the floor — just as I had experienced when the brake line busted some time ago.

In disbelief, I open my car door and look to confirm. All too easily confirmed. Lex must have heard it all the way from the garage, too, as he came running up, a look of panic, frustration, and embarrassment on his face. He drops down to the ground, takes a look at it, asks me for the keys, and then drives it back into the garage.

Back in the office, his wife asks when I start work, and I tell her in about twenty minutes. She drove me to work and we decided that when the car was done she’d park it at my work and leave the keys under the seat. I tried to relax over a cigarette before going inside, taking my temperature with the third-eye gun and waiting by the time clock.

Two minutes before I’m to clock in, my phone starts vibrating. Its Lex. I pick up.

“Bad news buddy,” he says. “When it happened again, it cracked the frame.”

He explained that when the frame cracked, the break line had also busted, which was why the peddal went to the floor. He said he was fixing the brake line right now, and he should have the frame by tomorrow — and assured me, with apparent emphasis, that it would be done by tomorrow. The part would cost 250$.

At this point, I felt exhausted, furious, drawn into that all-too-familiar dark well within my psyche. After I clocked in, I went about my usual — gathering trash, collecting them in the gondola, and then rolling it out to,the corral to,the side if the store, which housed the dumpsters. There, I made another call to my parents. I’m almost thankful I got the answering machine. I gave them the rundown. Later, my father texts me, referring to the “cursed car” and how he thought we should start looking around for a new vehicle for me.

So I was back to my parents rescuing me financially. Back to relying on friends for rides. Back to feeling ashamed for not being able to stand on my own, thankful for the friends and family I am lucky enough to have, but feeling guilty for taking advantage, no matter how necessary that was, given my pathetic, stagnant lot in life. A lot which I was stuck in because I was apparently incapable — due to lack of focus, lack of ambition, and an incredible reservoir of ceaseless anxiety — to overcome; to rise above.

After texting Moe, he agreed to pick me up and drive me home after work, and we bullshitted a bit in my apartment, which certainly helped my mood. I then had to call my dad the following morning to take him up again on his offer to drive me to work. He picked me up at 2 and, on the way, spoke to me of the plan him and mom had put together.

My parents had just sold their truck, as they had inherited the truck of my uncle, who had passed away. Their thought was to sell my car, get me that truck, and that they would buy a new truck. Despite the guilt, it was a relief. I never thought that I would feel so happy at the prospect of getting this car out of my life, but here I was. The thought was that this would happen in a month or two; the car only had to last me that long.

Despite the fact that Lex had yet to call me back, my father drove us not to my fast food place of employment, but to the shop instead, where Lex said he was about done with the car. My father paid (again), we said our goodbyes, and I waited a short time inside.

The door between the lobby, office, waiting room — whatever you want to call it — and the garage was open, and from that perspective I saw them take my car for a test drive. I’m not sure this was a typical proceedure, but felt even if it was, Lex felt it necessary to do it this way on this particular occasion due to what had formerly happened. Evidently it was a good thing, too, as the car came back shortly thereafter and whoever it was that had done the test drive said something to Lex regarding something about the transmission, something they had failed to do, which Lex sounded frustrated about.

A few moments later, I was told the work on the car was finished. I went outside and the car was already running, driver side door open and waiting. I adjusted the seat settings and nervously backed up and approached the exit. Aside from what was clearly an entirely fucked up alignment, which I believe I then and there decided to have some other shop align, all appeared to be fine and fucking dandy, though given experience, an undercurrent if skepticism remained that I was utterly unable to shake. I made it passed the exit this time — at last, success! — and made it to work, in fact, with no other issue along the way.

I at first decided to get an alignment at a shop in the town I live in on Friday, the first day of my weekend, but discovered upon calling them on Friday that they — of course, of course — don’t do alignments. Trying to control my frustration, and determined not to return to Lex’s shop so soon, I figured I would bring it to another shop, this one in the town where I work, early on Monday, the second day of my work week. After consulting with a friend of mine at work, whom I will call Jiffy, as well as Moe, both suggested another shop in town — even closer to work than Lex’s shop, which was already incredibly close, and essentially on the same road. I decided to go there for an alignment the following Monday.

Before I was able to do so, Sunday evening happened.

As I’m leaving work at 11, I’m going back and forth about stopping at Circle K to get a lemonade and some bean dip for the big bag of tortilla chips I still have at home. I feel this strange fear telling me not to stop, to just drive straight home, but I decide to ignore that gut feeling and stop at Circle K anyway. I park, leave the car on, take my other set of keys, and lock it. I go inside, get a lemonade and settle on a jar of Salsa Con Queso. Once back in car, put it in reverse, stop, and put it in drive.

I step on the gas — and I’m still going backward.

Did my dumbass not put it in drive? I check. Its certainly in drive. I step lightly on the gas again: I’m still going in reverse. The shifter is all loosy goosey, too. Frustrated, I drive it in reverse to back of the lot, my door still open, and put my foot on the brake a short distance from one gas pump. I’m still screaming fuck and other obscenities, and in the process I think scared some little kids in the back seat of the car at pump. Guilt on top of rage now. I can’t put it in park at first and I can’t just keep my foot on the peddal, so I use the emergency brake. Then I turned off the car.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Try to breathe deep.

I get out and look under the car, then pop the hood and look down into its guts, as if I would even know what I’m looking for or would even know if something was out of place. Then I sit in back in the car and try to start it again.

Nothing. It wouldn’t start. Lights on the dash lit up, but nothing else, not the faintest noise.

I take out my phone. Should I try to secure a ride home or call AAA first? I saw that Sean had sent me a meme over messenger. Without commenting, I bitched about my car having issues again. I felt bad asking him to drive me home yet again, so I looked on the messenger list, and Steve was recently on. I asked him if he was busy. He said he was picking up Ronnie, a kid who I often close with. I asked if he could drive me home. I didn’t get an answer before I decided to call AAA, and I was on the phone with them with when Steve arrived at Circle K with Gus, Ronnie, and Sean.

After talking with the woman on the other end of the line, she said the tow was on its way — and I was the same tow company that had cone for me a week earlier, when the car took a shit by the exit at work. ETA was circa an hour.

Sean got his girlfriend to come up with the car and Steve took Ronnie and Gus home. As we waited, Sean said how it would be funny if it was the exact same guy that towed by car from before, too.

It fucking was.

And so they drive me home, with Sean offering a few hits from the pot-pen on the way. It was like pouring water on a fire.

Even as we were still waiting for the tow truck to arrive, I realized something: my car had essentially lost power. Unlike that dream I had, there were actual lights on the dash when I turned the key, but just like in the dream, it made no sound when I did it.

Was that dream really a preminatory one? Not an exact flashforward, of course, but a mishmash of happenings-to-be involving my cursed car? Or am I looking too deeply, seeing what isn’t there?

And of all things, why have premonition involving this goddamned car as opposed to something, anything else? Because it serves as an effective metaphor for other things, simply because its an emotionally-impactful circumstance, or because its the point at which every thing in my life goes downhill and embeds itself deeply in a mound of shit, potentially ending with my life in ruins, even my death?

Carl Jung seemed to cradle the idea that if we repress some issue — an internal, psychological issue — and we are adamant in ignoring it, it will manifest as an objective circumstance in a concerted effort to grab our intention and force us to face it once and for all. He also wrote that:

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

I’m powerless, I can’t move forward in my life, I’m stuck in reverse…

If this isn’t all superficial bullshit, if the dark of my mind, my unconscious, is truly striving to drive in a message to me, why can’t it just state it blatantly, directly? Why must it be in words I could never hope to misunderstand or, as the case seems to be, in symbols and metaphors I could misinterpret and perhaps only see the significance of in retrospect? And where is the guidance? Not merely what fucked up and endlessly frustrating things are going to happen, but what I might do about it? Not merely signs as to what will go wrong, but what reaction is most appropriate, what the most promising path to follow might be?

I felt so stuck and fucked, and not in the good way.

I called the shop the following day, feeling embarrassed, frustrated, but, most of all, depressed as shit. I called just to ensure they got the note I’d left on the front seat of the car. They had. His wife, who picked up the phone, went and got Lex, and he seemed deeply sympathetic. “One thing after another with this thing, huh?” I couldn’t help but agree. Apparently, it was just something to do with the shifter, some little, cheap piece I can’t remember the name of but looked up online later. He said he thought he had one laying around and could have it done by the end of the day.

I called off that day, a Monday, just as I had the previous Monday, and for the same reason — because my car had to be towed Sunday, albeit a different Sunday, and I was tired of having to ask people for rides. I didn’t tell my parents because they’re worried enough about me and this car lately, have done more than enough for me lately, and now that I had my check deposited I thought I could actually pay for however much this was going to be. I did need a ride to the shop the following day, however, so I called Moe again. He dropped me off the following day, and I just made it up the steps to the shop before the door opened and Lex’s wife was waiting there, keys in hand. He didn’t even charge me. I was incredibly thankful for that.

All was well by Wednesday, which is today at the time of this writing — for the next fourteen minutes, anyway. As I was driving home from work this evening, I suddenly saw something moving in the road up ahead. A raccoon. The biggest, fattest trash panda I’ve ever seen in my fucking life, munching on something — something cast out of a car window by some pathetic litterbug, no doubt. I swerved to the right to miss him, he moved to the right to dodge me, but my car and the obese fuzzball were evidently destined to meet with an impact that made me wince.

The car appears to be fine for once — time tends to fucking tell — but as for roly-poly trash panda, I’m not at all confident. If he isn’t dead, he’s hurting like hell and probably wishes he was.

Yay for more guilt. There’s always room for more guilt. Its like fucking Jello.

At some point, the apparent bad luck, rage, anxiety, guilt, depression — it becomes so absurd that even as my blood boils, I have to just laugh and shake my head. And then go home and channel my boiling blood through my fingers as a means of catharsis.

Until this fucking car is out of my life, I hope this is the last chapter with respect to its constant need of repairs. When this began, I was so happy to have this car. I never thought I’d be so happy to see the end of the road with respect to my relationship with it.