THE BELL CURVETired of car trouble

I just went out to our garage and found my stepson, Erik, emptying his car. Since it was the first time in many years that stuff was coming out instead of going in, Erik was up to his hips in an assortment of debris that would make a fascinating time capsule for the survivors of global warming to dig up someday.

He did not welcome my appearance on the scene, hoping, apparently, to dispose of this mountain of chaos in some mysterious manner before I knew about it. And I didn’t want to linger, because I was afraid he might find some sort of decaying creature in the mix.

The reason he was thus engaged was because his car expired over the Fourth of July holiday ? turned up its toes, deposited a final exodus of oil on the pavement and left the world in which it had served nobly for 180,000 miles and 14 years. The oil leak was the terminal disease. The patient mechanic who has caressed and bullied and medicated our cars for many years told Erik he had three options: he could give the car a decent burial, buy a new engine or make temporary repairs of the oil system that would be expensive and would only lead to more expense to keep it running. And since the car looked as if it had survived a roadside bombing in Iraq, we decided it was time to exercise Option One.

And so Erik turned to the American Cancer Society, which aims to reincarnate his car into a useful member of society. If they can pull that off with this car, there simply is no challenge beyond their reach. What remains of the right front fender hangs perilously close to the tire beneath it and has been held more or less in place for many years by generous applications of duct tape. There are long scratches on both sides of the car, apparently inflicted by the stucco walls that surrounded the cramped parking space at the building in which he lived in Los Angeles before he moved back home.

His 1992 Toyota Camry, once a resplendent red, has graced our street for almost a year, now, probably dragging down real estate values and inciting some of the locals with its bumper stickers, the centerpiece of which is a wistful Kerry-Edwards plea from the election of 2004. The others, if I understand the subtleties of Erik’s generation, have a two-level appeal that protects them from the fate of the one I ordered him to remove in this neighborhood of children because the message was quite specific. But beneath its hood, the heart of this faithful car beat stoutly, fed generously and with increasing frequency by repairs that probably could have bought him a BMW if laid end to end.

Because this derelict now awaiting the tow truck of the American Cancer Society was once my car, I especially admired its long demonstration of resolute courage despite suffering a new owner who never met a car wash. Although I don’t normally build relationships with inanimate objects, it has saddened me to see this former friend degenerate into an unshaven, unclean, socially unwelcome, down-at-the-heels old man that drools oil.

Now, my wife Sherry and I have to turn our attention to buying or leasing a new car. We are a three-tier car family ? at least until Erik sells a screenplay and can do his own car shopping. We move cars down the ladder and buy from the top. So my current 2000 Toyota Corolla will go to Erik, I will take over Sherry’s 1999 Camry and she will get the new car.

That’s OK by me, since she does most of the business driving and also has an urge for more than respectability in a car. She wants a little flash and dash. All I want is dependable transportation at minimal expense that won’t require any more than just the basic knowledge of when to take it in for servicing. That’s not too far from my relationship with Navy aircraft a few centuries ago. I got good grades in ground school because I memorized the material. Once I understood why I took off and landed into the wind, I felt that my technical education was complete. Same way with cars.

But we will look at the three or four models that interest her and then sit across a desk from a salesman in a cubby-hole office and write numbers down on yellow legal pads. And the salesman will go to his manager to see if he can possibly be talked into giving us this car at a dreadful loss to the agency since his salesman did, indeed, propose it to us. And when we say we’ll compare his numbers with several other possibilities and get back to him, he throws in some Angels tickets and the certainty that this offer will be taken off the table as soon as we leave, and we move along to repeat this procedure at the next stop.

I know people who actually enjoy this sort of thing. Meanwhile, to look at the bright side, we will be enhancing property values ? including our own ? when the Cancer Society tows his car away. Erik did a splendid job of disposing of the residue ? although I’m careful opening closet doors in his room ? and there will surely be a fallow period before the old habits kick in again. I can fuss at him, just as Sherry has fussed at me, to get it washed. And we’ll acquire a new car, and the whole process will start all over again. I just hope a part of that process will be a new life of service ? in whole or in parts ? to reward the loyalty and faithfulness of an old car.