Tinkerbell on Walkabout Read Online Free PDF Page B

the brush and cutting across a
firebreak that runs along the fence, bridging Highway 49 and the county road.
We find a place where the links have been cut from the bottom of the support
post and refastened with lightweight wire. We easily slip into the lot.
    Inside, we expect to see the Chrysler LeBaron, returned from
impound. We are in for a shock. The spot is occupied by a Cutlass Supreme. The
dim glow of the junkyard lights reveals it to be green. I suspect this is the
car that was supposed to be here all along. Question is: how did it get here?
    Mom would say I should just ask the car. In her world,
despite the objections of the Church Fathers, inanimate objects have spirits
you can communicate with. In my world, cars don’t talk.
    We don’t know what to expect, but we decide the best vantage
point from which to observe the unexpected is the rooftop of the parts shack.
From here we can see all the way from the front gate to the back corner. At
10:47, we hunker down for what may be a long night.
    At 12:35, July’s phone vibrates and Lee demands to know
what’s going on and if we intend to stay there all night. July is telling him
to go back to sleep when a flashlight beam slices through the mist from
somewhere beyond the rear corner of the lot. July shushes Lee, flicks off her
phone, and slides forward to peer over the ridgepole, watching the light
wriggle up from Highway 49.
    A metallic clatter announces that someone is messing with
the fence along the firebreak. The dogs commence barking. Tonight there’s no
one to let them out.
    The section of fence through which we entered the lot is
disappearing, left to right, rolling back from its support post. When the
entire section is gone, the blunt nose of a tow truck pushes into the dimly lit
aisle, pulling up just this side of the rusting Cutlass. It’s towing a second
old junker, also green.
    Four guys pop out. In seconds, they’re on the Cutlass like ants on an Oreo. In
the dim light, they strike me as average. Average build; average height;
average clothing. They’re wearing jeans and khakis; camouflage. They push the
car out into the aisle, out of the way of the laden tow truck.
    One guy trots back to the tow truck and jockeys the car
they’re towing into the empty spot. The dispossessed Cutlass is then attached to
the tow bar and carted away, the fence rolled neatly back into place behind it.
    In less time than I would have thought possible, the car
swappers are gone, leaving behind another green car, two gawping women, and a
pack of frantic, laryngitic mutts.
    When the dogs eventually calm down, July figures it’s safe
to move and talk.
    “What the hell was that?” she asks.
    “A drop off.”
    “Of what?”
    “I’m just dying to know, aren’t you?” I slither backwards
off the roof of the parts cottage and swing to the ground in its shadow. July
follows.
    We approach the wreck cautiously. It’s a LeBaron. A glance at the driver’s side rear quarter panel
indicates it is the LeBaron. July slips past it, all the way to the
fence that overlooks the highway.
    Since I’m
alone with the car, I take advantage of the opportunity to have a word with it.
In The Mother’s Country, the
spirits of houses are called domovoi . I’m not sure what to call the spirit of a car, but I’m game: “ Autovoi ,” I improvise,
“where have you been?”
    Predictably, there is no answer. I decide my time is better
spent examining the trunk latch. I’m
absorbed in that when July returns.
    “They took off.”
    I tap the latch. “Locked.”
    “Damn. You any good at picking locks? I suck.”
    “Fair to middling if I have a locksmith’s kit. Which I don’t.”
    She puts a hand to her hair. “And I had to braid instead of
pin.”
    “That hardly ever works anyway. Let’s see if we can get one
of the back doors open. Maybe we can get into the trunk through the back seat.”
    The back doors
won’t budge. I mutter
to the autovoi that it really could be more helpful, and