University of Northern Iowa

The Wife's New AutomobileAuthor(s): Dana ColeSource: The North American Review, Vol. 273, No. 4 (Dec., 1988), pp. 28-31Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25125022 .

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The Wife's New Automobile A Story by Dana Cole

VV e'd have probably gotten along just fine if I hadn't

bought that satellite dish last year. Once the wife got a

gander at the goings on in places like Dallas and Knot's

Landing, well, things weren't the same after that. She started asking questions like how much money did we have in the bank, how much was the farm worth, what tax bracket did we fit into. Things she never took an interest in before. Then she saw this report on "Lifestyles of the

Rich and Famous" about Idaho leading the nation in number of millionaires. I tried explaining to her that there's millionaires, and then there's /w/Y/ionaires, but she started getting some strange notions just the same. Like the one about the luxury automobile. She pointed out

that she'd never been seen in anything other than a

pickup since we started dating, back when Ike was still in the White House. Said she wanted her one of them auto

mobiles like the one that what's-her-name on "Dynasty" tools around in.

She said, "Pretty please, Gus, honey," then she nib bled on my ear like she used to when we was kids. I couldn't stand it then and I still can't, so I give in just to

get her to stop. I said she could have her a luxury automo

bile, but only if she agreed to buy American. She sent for some brochures, and before I knew it she

had a rig all picked out. But something didn't set just right. I mean, what business does a potato farmer have

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DANA COLE

buying an automobile that's advertised as "sumptuously elegant"? Sounds more like a remark you'd hear at a San Francisco hairdresser's birthday party. If the boys at the

grange ever got wind of that, I like to die. Now I reckon you've heard about the hard times that

have befallen the American farmer. Believe me, my heart

goes out to those poor folks in the cornbelt, but I bet

you've never heard a potato farmer complain. And I'll tell

you why: There ain't many things that a man could've got into back in the fifties, back when farm credit was easy, that would've panned out better than spuds. Back then,

potatoes was strictly something you had with your Sunday potroast. But today you got your Tater Tots, you got your frozen french fries, you got your convenience foods like

chips and such, and of course you got your fast food joints. You have any idea how the french fry market has ex

ploded open in places like Japan and China? A billion

hungry Asians with hankerings for Big Macs and Whop pers means a whole lot of side orders of fries and soy sauce. And you know where those fries come from. You can bet it ain't Taiwan.

Well, the long and the short of it is the wife got her

luxury automobile. To get it we had to drive the old '59

Chevy half-ton across the state, all the way to Boise, but when we finally got to that auto showroom the wife found her the automobile she wanted right away: a Champagne on-Antique Gold number with a Admiral Blue leather in

terior. She said, "Wait'll the girls at the Cut 'n Curl see me in this!"

It kind of riled me, though, the way she carried on

with that flashy-toothed "sales representative" in his tur

quoise-studded string tie and his imitation Tony Lamas. You'd of thought he was The King himself instead of just some droopy-eyed car salesman, i:he way she swooned to

his "yawl's" and his "yessim's." Up here the only place you hear people talk like that is on "Dallas," so I guess he seemed kind of exotic to the wife, and as you can imagine, he had her eating out of the palm of his manicured hand.

Made me just want to pay the man and get on back to the farm.

Come to find out there was a snag in the deal: In order for us to drive out of here today was the way he put it, we had to take on a few extra "selected options." Before I could ask him what this did to the bottom line, he shot a look over his shoulder like a coon about to be treed, and said

we better close the deal before his boss got back from lunch. He allowed as how he had to be half crazy to offer such a one-time deal, made us promise not to tell any of our friends, and expressed grave reservations about his own future in the sales end of the automobile business.

But we were such nice folks, he said (looking right at the

wife), so against his better judgment he was going to give us this "swingin' deal." Before the wife could ask him

what swang about his deal, I quick signed the papers, gave him the keys to the Chevy half-ton, and without so

much as a look under the hood or a good kick of the tires, we drove that luxury automobile right off the lot and into traffic. Did it so fast, that salesman was probably having second thoughts about our credit.

Well, I'm here to tell you, that baby was a smooth

cruising machine. I mean, it just about drove itself, that

rig, like one of them boats that goes around in circles in the pond at the State Fair. We floated along home in our twin comfort lounge seats with their six-way power adjustments, dual power reclining action (not recom

mended for driver while driving), and four-way articu lated headrests. We played with the power windows and the power locks and the power moon roof just like a

couple of kittens with an unlucky mouse; we diddled with the electronic instrument panel and the automatic climate control system; and we listened up when the comput erized messenger warned us when we ought to slow

down, or when we should start thinking about looking for a gas station.

I hate to say it, but that automobile turned the wife into a

different breed of cat. She may not have the figure of what's-her-name on "Dynasty"?the brunette?but she

sure was beginning to develop that woman's style. It was the dangedest thing: The wife wouldn't actually drive the automobile anywhere; that was my job. She just wanted to be seen in the thing. Wouldn't even let me near it any

more in my work clothes. Said I might get grease on the

upholstery or mud on the carpeting. And wouldn't you think an honest working man could have a little chew now and again in his own automobile? Forget it. It got to where she wouldn't even think about letting me drive that rig

without first she looked me over front and back like a

Marine drill sergeant. If that ain't enough, I just heard from the 1RS. I should

have realized from the get-go they wouldn't allow that automobile as a business expense?even though I kept the trunk loaded with prime Russets and Reds, because in these parts you never know when you might run into a

buyer from Burger King or Frito-Lay. But the tax man

says you gotta be a undertaker if you want to write off

sumptuous elegance. I say who gives a hoot about ele

gance when they're headed for the boneyard! When I go, just throw me in the back of the pickup and plant me with the potatoes.

Speaking of the boneyard puts me in mind of how we come to get rid of the wife's automobile. It all started when old Claude Willits?everybody called him Mr. Claude?met his maker over the radio.

Mr. Claude was something of a local hero. Years ago he sold out his feedgrain business at a tidy profit and used some of the proceeds to build the first radio station in the

valley. Now our valley is surrounded by mountains, and it used to be you could never get no radio reception except an occasional fuzzy signal out of Pocatello, and that only on a clear night. Up until Claude started his station, the

only musical entertainment in town was the jukebox at

Sadie's Sugar Shack. So KLOD-AM was the biggest thing to hit the valley since indoor plumbing.

Anyway, one day last summer, Mr. Claude had just finished interrupting a Gene Autry number with a news bulletin about somebody's cow running loose out on the state highway when he took sick all of a sudden and just slumped over onto the turntable without so much as a

whimper. The needle made an awful, scratchy sound, and just ruined that record. Anyone listening knew right

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away something wasn't right. Moose Ledbetter and a

couple of the other Volunteers rushed over to the studio and somebody fetched Doc Haskell. In the excitement,

nobody thought to turn off the microphone, so everybody listening to KLOD heard Moose say: "Mr. Claude? You all right?"

No answer. Somebody else said, "He don't look too

chipper."

"No, he surely don't," said Moose. A little while later, Doc Haskell could be heard to

arrive. Moose said, "How bad is he, Doc?" After a pause Doc said, "About as bad as a man can

be."

Somebody cleared his throat. Doc said, "Come on,

boys. Let's lay him out before the rigmo sets in." There was some grunting and groaning, and Moose

said, "Holy moley, is this thing on?" Then the radio went dead.

Up to that point, it was just like an old-time radio show.

Mr. Claude's widow, Wilma?everybody calls her Mrs. Claude?is known far and wide as a tight-fisted woman even though her husband did right well for him self when he sold out the feedgrain business. What was left after building the radio station he'd invested in potato futures, and if you've been paying attention, I don't have to tell you that was no dumb move. So when Claude

passed on, Mrs. Claude was not hurting financially. But a lifetime's habits die hard. Some folks'll tell you Mrs.

Claude is plain stingy; others say she's just practical. Both

persuasions had plenty to talk about when she decided to

just get Mr. Claude into the ground, thank you, never mind carting him off to Boise for preparations', as they call

it in the mortuary business. She said, "We'll do it the natural way, the way things was done before folks made such a fuss. No sense pickling garden fresh cucumbers," she said, "when you're going to have them with tonight's supper."

So the funeral was set for the next day. And since we had the fanciest new car in town, who do you think got asked to drive the widow to the cemetery?

Mrs. Claude didn't want to hire a hearse all the way from

Boise, so Ned Ferguson offered the use of his Interna tional Harvester Carryall. Mrs. Ferguson wasn't too keen on the idea, Mr. Claude being preservative-free and it

being such a warm summer day and all, but Ned re minded her that they bought the Carryall in the first place on account of its many uses, and here was one they hadn't even thought of before.

I led the way in the wife's pink and gold rig, and I wished the irs man was there to see it. The wife sat in back with Mrs. Claude, who must've been all cried out, because she was just as dry-eyed and calm as you please. She said she wanted her husband's burial to be real sim

ple, just like Mr. Claude himself, and then she asked what kind of mileage did we get.

When we got to the cemetery I got out and went around to help the widow out of the car. I took her by the arm but she stopped and asked me wasn't I going to lock

the car, her purse was on the back seat. I said that I didn't think she had anything to worry about, we were parked right next to the hole. But she just give me a suspicious look and said she would not budge until her purse was

under lock and key. I almost asked her what kind of folks would rob a widow right at her husband's graveside, but the wife gave me a look and I thought better of it. Then I remembered about the Anti-Theft Alarm System, one of them "selected options," so I reached in through the

window and punched the "Alarm Set" button on the

computer console. I told Mrs. Claude she had my per sonal guarantee that her purse was as safe as stock in

McDonald's. Then I steered her toward the Carryall, where Moose and Doc and Ned were waiting for me to

give them a hand. We rassied Mr. Claude's box over to the hole where

the wife stood with Mrs. Claude, Rev. Dingle (preacher at the First Valley Pentecostal Church of the Golden

Rule), and about half the adult population of the valley. Tiny Terwilliger was leaning on his shovel and looking at his watch. Rev. Dingle got everybody's attention by say

ing how he'd been asked to say a few words. I caught Doc Haskell casting a worried look at Mr. Claude's box with the sun beating down on it, and I knew he was thinking that if Rev. Dingle's words was as few as usual, we might soon be smelling something a mite stronger than the

manure on Tiny's shoes.

Well, the reverend started in talking about a lamb. Under the circumstances, that was supposed to be Mr. Claude. Pretty soon he was on to the shepherd and the flock. From the way Rev. Dingle talked, I'm not sure if the shepherd was supposed to be the Lord or Rev. Dingle himself, but it's a pretty good bet that the flock stood for the rest of us. Now there's lots of ranchers in these parts, and this opened up all kinds of possibilities for the rever end. He commenced to jibber-jabberin' like a television

preacher with a good head of steam and miles of track before the next commercial break. I never seen a bible

thumper yet who could warm up to hellfire and damnation the way old Rev. Dingle can. The way he saw it Mr.

Claude was the lucky one, to be out of it, while the rest of

us, well, we was still in for it.

Along about this time Tiny Terwilliger caught my eye. He give a nod toward the wife's automobile, and at first I thought he was just passing the time, telling me with eye-language that he thought it was a pretty impressive piece of machinery. I nodded back an eye language "much obliged," but Tiny kept on looking at the rig, then at me, then at the rig again, then back at me.

Each time he looked my way, he made his eyes go wide and buggy, like a man trying to swallow something too big for his throat. Then it come to me suddenly that Tiny's trying to tell me that my lights is on.

Sure enough, I'd turned on the lights to lead the funeral procession, and I plumb forgot to turn them off

again. Now the last thing I wanted was a dead battery. I

didn't feel like having to jump-start a thirty-thousand dollar automobile in front of half the town, so I waited until they began to plant Mr. Claude into his hole, then I

slipped away from the crowd while Rev. Dingle was

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DANA COLE

trying his dangedest to make Mr. Claude's peaceful eter

nal slumber sound like the best thing since Velveeta cheese. Just as I heard him say, "Let us pray," I reached in through the window for the light switch.

Until that moment, it hadn't ever occurred to me what

the Anti-Theft Alarm System was all about. But I found out in a hurry. The horn started honking, lights started

blinking, the computer monitor started flashing WARN ING: UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY, and every darn head that had just bowed in prayer now turned toward me. I didn't have time to bask in the attention: I jumped into that automobile and started hitting switches and turning dials and pushing buttons, but none of them would stop that racket. So I figured I'd start the car and drive it off somewheres where I could get out the owner's manual

and figure out how to make that automobile shut up. Well, the minute I turned that ignition key, the danged est noise I ever heard started up. That got me so riled up I

pounded the leather-coated steering wheel with both

fists, which was a mistake, because the moment I did

that, the darn airbag inflated with a big WHOOSH!,

pinning me to the seat. I kicked and I clawed and I twisted like a man drowning in molasses until I finally

managed to work my hand into my pants for my pocket knife, and I'll tell you, them airbags is tough! But I was

finally able to puncture it, and it made a noise like a tractor tire blowing out.

There I sat with my ears ringing and that deflated

airbag setting in my lap like a mess of spilt taffy, and it took me a moment to realize the automobile was moving.

Backwards. Somehow in all the contorting and genuflect ing with the airbag I must've kicked the gearshift into

neutral, and now I was so discombobulated I couldn't for the life of me get to the brake pedal. I glanced up into the rearview just in time to see Mr. Claude's mourners part

ing like the Red Sea, and I seen Rev. Dingle go flying past the window like the Angel Gabriel himself. Before I could do anything, there was a big jerk and a bump, the alarm racket stopped all of a sudden, then all I could see was blue sky. For a moment, I thought I'd joined Mr. Claude in the hereafter. Then Mrs. Claude commenced to wail

ing, and I realized I was still a far piece from paradise. When I finally got the door open, I seen that the front

end was sticking up off the ground on account of the back wheels was stuck down in Mr. Claude's grave. I managed to untangle myself from the airbag and swing my legs out of the rig to jump down. But my feet landed on some loose

spuds that must've spilled out of the trunk when it

popped open, and though I disremember this part, they tell me I did a back flip right into Mr. Claude's hole.

Lucky for me, his coffin was covered with potatoes, and

they kind of cushioned my fall. When I come to, Rev. Dingle was standing over me

sermonizing about how it's easier for a camel to pass

through the eye of a needle than it is for some folks to get to heaven. I could tell he wasn't too happy about being upstaged by a luxury automobile. Mrs. Claude was stand

ing right behind him, and when she seen I was all right, she stomped off declaring that she'd rather ride back to town in the back of the Ferguson's Carryall than with "That Man," meaning me. And the wife, she looked like

if Mr. Claude was to peek out of his box and ask her to

change places, she'd've took him up on it in a wink. A few of the boys helped me up out of the hole and I

was still a little shook up, but Doc Haskell looked me over

and said there was nothing wrong with me that a stiff drink wouldn't cure. Donnie and Ronnie Steadwell, the twins that run the gas station north of town, come up to

me and Donnie said he sure hoped I was planning to bring that automobile with me to church on a regular basis, just to sort of keep Rev. Dingle on his toes. Ronnie asked did I do weddings, too. Said he was fixing to marry off his

daughter soon and he wanted to do it in style. Everybody got a good chuckle out of that, then Ronnie went off to fetch a tow truck so Mr. Claude could have his hole back to himself.

When Ronnie got the rig all hooked up and pulled out of the hole, I asked him did he have enough gas to get to

Boise. He said he did, and I said, "Let's go, then," and we towed the wife's luxury automobile back to the dealer.

They still had our old '59 Chevy half-ton, and they was real nice about letting me trade back for it. Even up.

Ronnie and me stopped at a few bars on the way home, and by the time we got back to the valley it was after midnight. I figured the wife would be ornery when I

got home, so you can imagine my surprise when I found her waiting up for me with a pot of coffee and a piece of fresh-baked rhubarb pie, my favorite.

She couldn't wait to tell me what had happened. Seems that in all the excitement at the cemetery, every

body forgot all about Mrs. Claude's purse on the back seat of the luxury automobile. About the time me and Ronnie Steadwell was on our second or third beer at the Beaver

Trap Lounge, that droopy-eyed car salesman must've

found the purse down on the floor where it probably ended up. He must've got a look at her bank book, because he jumped into that pink and gold rig and drove all the way back across the state and returned the purse, personal, to Mrs. Claude.

Well, I wouldn't have believed what happened next if the wife hadn't been there to see it with her own eyes. She was still with the widow, trying to calm her down, when the salesman showed up with the purse. In fact, the wife was the one that introduced them. Mrs. Claude got one look at that salesman and said, "The name's Wilma."

And wouldn't you know it, the two of them hit it off like a

couple of lonelyhearts on "Love Boat." Before sundown,

they was on their way to Reno in the wife's ex-automo

bile. The wife wasn't even sorry to see the rig go?after what happened at the boneyard, she didn't want to be

seen in the thing again, anyway.

I was still trying to take this all in as the wife dished me out another piece of pie and said, "Gus, honey, I been

thinking. Let's get us one of them mobile homes and go see the world. You know, Dallas, Palm Springs, Beverly

Hills? I always did want to see Beverly Hills. One of them mobile homes is what we need?the kind with its own satellite dish and all. It'll have air conditionin' and a chemical toilet and, you know, one of them. ..."

But I didn't hear the rest of it, because her voice got all soft and breathy as she closed in on my ear. D

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