Christmas Came Early

May 27, 2007

"I had one of those little trucks," my neighbor said when she found out about the used Ford Ranger I bought on eBay. "I loved it. But I wouldn't let word get out that you have it if I were you. People are gonna start crawling out of the woodwork looking for help moving their shit. You'll see."

Friday morning, I was out the door at 6 a.m. to catch a Metro-North train from Grand Central Station to Poughkeepsie, roughly two hours to the north, to hand over the money and pick up the truck. I had to go on a weekday while the DMV was open, so I could get the truck registered and get plates for the drive home. The reason I left at daybreak was so I could get back to the city in time for a half day's work to help pay for it.

A silver Honda pulled up in front of the train station. "You looking for Victor?" the driver said to me while another guy climbed out of the passenger side.

"Yeah," I said. "Is that you?"

Victor was laughing. "You just took the train up from the city, right?"

"Yeah."

"Get in."

I got in the car and we started driving to his used car lot.

"You're here to buy a truck, right?" he said, laughing.

"That's right."

"Did you see the guy who got out of my car at the train station?"

"Yeah."

"I saw him standing in front of the station and I tooted my horn. He jumped in the car and we started to drive. We were on the road that we're on now, right about here, and I was making small talk, y'know, talking about the weather and shit. Then I said something like, 'You got a good deal on the truck,' and he looked at me like I was nuts. 'Truck? What truck? What are you talking about?' You're here to buy a truck, aren't you? He tells me no, he's here for a meeting with some-company-or-another. Oh shit, I say, and turn around and bring him back." He laughed and put his hand to his face in embarrassment. "So that's why I'm asking you: You're here for a truck, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's me. You got the right guy this time. I'm glad you didn't sell it to that other guy."

"Haha, yeah, imagine?"

We drove for a few minutes before he said something he must've said ten times during the day and probably a thousand times in his life: "Christmas came early this year."

"You got a great deal on the truck," he said, "I took a beating on this deal. I thought it was going to go for a lot more money, another thousand at least—"

In other words, he was being exactly what he was, and everything I expected him to be: a used car salesman. "Christmas came early this year," he said again.

Buying a car sight unseen is a dicey business to begin with, and telling me that Christmas came early didn't put my mind at ease. I know for a fact that Christmas only comes once a year and always on time, and now that I'm an adult, it's rarely anything to get excited about. Victor assured me I'd be happy, and that if I wasn't, he'd take it back, no questions, no hassle. Okay, that part helped.

We pulled into a small gravel lot on the side of Route 9W in where five or six pickup trucks in various states of condition were parked side by side. Each one was polka-dotted with bird shit.

"Look at this, these fucking birds," said Victor as I did a walk-around. "Sorry about that."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "Shit happens."

"Ha, yeah," he said. "But you wouldn't believe how finicky people get about every little thing on a used car. Everyone is out for an impossible deal, and everyone thinks you're out to swindle them. If they want a brand new car, then they should go out and spend 30 grand and get a brand new car. I tell you, this business is nothing but headaches." He changed the subject. "You said you have a motorcycle?"

"Yeah," I said. I knew what he was thinking. "It'll fit, don't worry. It's a '68 Triumph. A 500. Small. It'll fit."

"Yeah, good, 'cause I was gonna say, you're not gonna fit a Harley back there."

Aside from the bird shit, the gray Ranger in the middle of the pack looked as good as it did in the pictures. Victor pointed out a couple of rust spots and showed me the trick of opening the finicky hood, then went inside his small cement-block office to fetch a set of dealer plates to screw on so I could take a test drive. Meanwhile, I looked the car over. I'm not exactly an expert, but everything seemed even better than I expected.

I returned to the lot, handed over the money, and filled out the paperwork. Then Victor drove me to the DMV office. With the deal done and papers signed, he had trouble thinking of what to say. "Christmas came early for you this year," was the best he could do. It makes me uncomfortable when someone continues to try to sell me something after I've already bought it, so I changed the subject.

"Beautiful day," I said. "It was a pretty train ride along the Hudson River this morning."

"That is a nice ride, isn't it? I used to commute to the city every day. I used to be in the jewelry business and worked on 47th Street for thirty years. I got out of that business when everything changed."

"Changed? How so?"

"It got a lot more dangerous. Guys used to stand on the street checking out diamonds this big," he said, making an O.K. sign with his thumb and forefinger. "Just standing right there on the street corner. Now forget about it. I quit when that guy went missing."

"What guy?"

"This jeweler. He had a shop in the Jewelry District. His shop got robbed, and the guy went missing. He was missing for days, and no one knew what had happened to him. Turns out he'd been killed and stuffed in a box — he was just a little guy — stuffed in a box inside the jewelry shop. The cops had been sitting on that box and everything, all stumped about where the guy was. After that, I was like, This isn't worth it, and retired."

The line at the DMV wasn't too bad. Not like New York City lines, anyway. The clerks actually smiled and joked with me. When I got back in the car with Victor, I commented on how pleasant they had been.

"That place? Are you crazy? I hate those people in there. They always give me a hard time about everything. I never see anyone smile. You must've caught 'em on a good day or something. I hate that place. Anyway, I'm always happy to see license plates. I was half expecting you to walk out empty-handed anded shaking your head. It happens."

We returned to the truck, screwed the plates on, and I was good to go. Victor shook my hand. "Nice to meet you," he said. "Enjoy it. Good luck," then added, "Christmas came early for you this year."

I knew he would.

In related news, check out the gangstas in the '63 Impala lowrider that we passed on the West Side Highway (or who passed us, rather):

"How many times do you think they were pulled over between Georgia and here?" I said, noting the car's Georgia plates.

"Look at the Jersey Boys," said Deborah when a dusty and rusty Honda Civic with Jersey plates pulled up on the other side of the lowrider at a traffic light. We watched the four wannabe thugs who were crammed inside, trying hard to look cool and unfazed, though they obviously felt trumped. While Deborah and I gawked at the Impala, the thugs in the Civic strained not to even glance in its direction as the driver nonchalantly turned down his stereo in deference to the thump thump thump of the hip hop beats coming from the Impala.

"Aww," said Deborah. "Poor guys."