Follow Carmen, a young and deeply closeted gay teenager as he navigates the 1980's and 1990's yearning for love and trying to find where he fits in.
This story is rated M because it contains elements of death (including children), homophobia, religi...
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The other thing that resulted from Trevor's adventure was that I decided I needed my own car. Driving Mom & Dad's vehicles was fine and well, but the hamburger fight showed me that I really should be abusing my own vehicle instead of theirs. I didn't need anything fancy, I just needed something that was mine. I started saving every cent I could get from beer bottles, shoveling driveways, mowing lawns, and any other way I could earn cash. Through March, April, May, and into June I saved and saved.
During this time Dale and his father were getting more and more involved with that cult church. It got so bad that his mother moved out to live with her parents in Beaver Bank. Things were getting weird at Dales house – any time we went there to play Nintendo or anything his father would stand in the doorway to the living room and just stare at us. It was creepy as hell.
Finally I had saved up $800, and it was time to look for a car. Dad picked up a Bargain Hunter for me, and he went to work circling all the ads for cars that he felt would be suitable for me. After he did so he handed me the paper. I scanned the ads that he had circled, and chuckled. Things like 1984 Chevy Chevette. 1981 Dodge Aries K-Car. 1980 Chevy Citation. 1982 Ford Escort. 1984 Renault Fuego.
In other words, nice, practical, 4-cylinder economy cars. I crossed every one of them out and then started looking for something that I wanted. 1975 Malibu with the 400. 1977 Maverick with the 302. 1979 Nova with a 350. 1977 Thunderbird with the 351. These were more like it. I called all of these ads and none came to fruition, the cars either having been sold or were basket cases. Then one ad caught my eye. It had no description at all, it just read "1978 Trans Am, $800". Ok, this might have some promise. I called the number, the guy still had the car! He wouldn't say much about it over the phone though. I made arrangements to go and see it.
Dad suggested that I take Mark's friend Paul with me to look at it because he knew a lot about cars. I asked Paul and he was eager to go, so off we went, all the way to Chester to look at it. Pulling into the guy's driveway I was certain I had heard the dueling banjos from Deliverance. This place was way back in the woods, a bunch of scrapped cars all over the place, and a mobile home covered in tar paper in the middle of all of this squalor. Among the cars was my prize, the Trans Am. It was black, clearly painted with a spray bomb, with lots of rust all over it. The original Trans Am wheels were gone, with plain black steel wheels in their place. The hood scoop appeared to be missing, leaving a gaping hold in the center of the hood. It looked terrible.
I loved it.
"It's beautiful!", I said.
Paul was a little more reserved. "Looks like a piece of shit."
"Well, we drove all this way, let's get out and look at it", I replied.
I parked the truck, we got out, and walked over to it. The hood scoop wasn't missing, it was just sitting too low in the hole. That was odd. Paul reached under the hood and pulled the release. The hood opened up, and there was a jewel: Instead of the original Pontiac 400 engine there sat a Chevy small block in all of its orange glory, with rusty chrome valve covers.
