How to Properly Dispose of That Clunker

         As far as actual elapsed time since it left the factory, our car was not really a clunker. It was a 1997 Ford Escort station wagon, most likely a medium green when it was first made, but now the colour of something one would find in a bile duct, except for the flat-black hood. That same time had reduced the rest of the grocery-getter to a point where calling it a beater was putting it lightly; a stain upon the gold stars of anyone caught driving it. This is to say us. We got the thing for three hundred dollars from the parking lot of the tattoo shop where it had attempted repose, then seven years into its hellish existence marked by lax care and violent driving. The odometer had departed into the good night at 201 271. The headliner and the underside of the roof were now one and the same. Somewhere around its journey, the aft quarters had become nearly uninhabitable as they had become a rubbish bin. The lower cushion on the rear seat was no longer upholstered. Access to these negative-star conditions, should one be brave enough to want to gain entry, could be achieved only through the door on the drivers’ side. Escape could only be made via the door on the other side. None of that roll-down-the-window-and-grab-the-handle stuff, either, because only one window worked. The rear hatch was also vestigial.
         Once past its appalling appearance, actually driving the car was another terror beyond imagination. The key had to be inserted at precisely the right angle, at precisely the right side of the slot, with precisely the right amount of force in order to start. Otherwise, it had to be removed and tried again. Success was greeting with the starter exploding to life with the sound of an angry chainsaw, followed after a few seconds by the engine coughing to life. An aroma of smoke and fuel would filter into the cabin through the vents, probably the only thing to come through them in years. Shifting the car into gear was a trial-and-error process: First, ensure the brake pedal was touching the floor Next, force the lock button (two fingers are occasionally necessary) down. Count the number of clicks to find the desired gear, and then slowly release the brake. Hit the gas pedal and the engine would slowly grind its way through the gears, the speedometer needle shaking like a heroin addict up the scale.
         We endured three years of this torture. Three fucking years. It was a stupid decision to buy the car. We could have gone to any car dealership in the greater metropolitan area and nailed a better value. An untold amount of spit and paper clips were wasted in keeping the thing together as those three years melted into one another, eclipsing what we spent to get it.
         Those days were now over.
         A new sheriff was in town, in the form of a brand-new Chevrolet Aveo. It was smaller than the Escort, but every piece of it was intact and worked. The car was obsolete now, and we wanted revenge for what it put us through. We left it in the backyard while we plotted its destruction. The idea was unoriginal. . .or maybe not, we weren’t really sure. What we did know – and all we cared about – was that we would be coming back without the car.
         With the city behind us, Highway 6 became a four-lane affair that snaked its way further into the beautiful country along the river into the plateau, surrounded by a spider web of winding country roads, only about half of which were paved. We picked one and peeled off onto it. The scenery whipped by as the speedometer shivered its way up the scale. Forty, fifty, sixty, seventy. There wasn’t much erring room; the road was about the width of a supermarket aisle and constantly plunged down a blind hill or wrapped around a blind curve. Our tires were the first to really feel the heat, leaving the road on the hills only to slam back down, and sliding awkwardly across it on the curves. We bounced all over the formless seats, banging our arms against the doors, and knocking our heads on the bare roof. At one point, a fork appeared, with our road diving sharply to the right while a dirt path took its place. There was no way in hell we could have made that turn. We jerked the wheel to the right anyway. The tires screamed for mercy and the car plowed onto the path at a forty-five degree angle, where it promptly lost its footing in some fine dirt. An explosion of choking dust surrounded us as the car did a 180 and slid backwards into a tangle of dead ivy. When the sound died off, the car was still running, so we crept nervously through the palpable dust back to the main road.
         The road descended down an enormous hill on the other side of the fork, and off we went, gaining speed abnormally fast. We fell down it like an avalanche, bounding left and right at the whims of the choppy pavement. A bridge standing just inches from the surface of a stagnant creek terminated the hill. The speedometer showed eighty when we slammed into it. The suspension collapsed, the underside scraped the concrete, the steering wheel flew free, and lo and behold, we were out of control again. We skidded sideways off the road, mowed the grass on the left side, drifted back across the road, and bullied aside a clump of shrubs into a giant marsh. Mud and water sprayed in every direction, smearing the windows. The speedometer needle flashed back. We tramped the gas pedal again and vaulted forward. The one windshield wiper did its best, but we were too liberal with the throttle, or perhaps having too much fun, so the windscreen was soon obscured. On several occasions, the car was caught in the deep mud, forcing us to force the engine to the breaking point to get out. The fourth time was the most frightening, as the car suddenly went into a list and jolted to a halt. Five minutes of revving the engine and twisting the wheel didn’t work. We piled out. The car had hit a ten-foot sapling, which, instead of snapping in half, lifted one of the front wheels a few inches above the ground. Mud dripped off the tire.
         Our fun was over. Now we were stuck far out into a dismal marsh in the middle of nowhere – and in the middle of winter. We stood in a circle, passing a blunt among us to forget the cold as we figured out what to do. Meanwhile, the car took its first break in a long time, covered in mud and idling doggie-style on a sapling.
         No. Fuck that.
         It wasn’t over.
         We rummaged for a while in the back, eventually finding the long, thin tire iron. The engine roared its disapproval when we jammed the instrument between the gas pedal and the seat. The free tire spun violently on air, the other dug into the mud. We found positions round the car and began rocking it in an attempt to dislodge it from the bush. The tire occasionally found its way to the ground, hammering the door with projectiles. We stepped on the branch that the wheel was stuck on, and to our surprise, it crackled and collapsed. The car was suddenly in motion again. None of us were in it. We gave chase, dodging the brutal volley of mud that the car threw behind itself. It found its way to a patch of lilies, where it really took off, its engine rumbling as it gained distance on us. We struggled through the freezing liquid ground. The car found some of its old tracks and followed them into a patch of deep mud, which temporarily stunted its forward momentum. We jumped in before it could wrest itself free.
         Now we had another problem: We couldn’t get the tire iron off the gas pedal. We struggled with it as the car steered itself in an endless circle. Finally, we hit something and the iron jerked free. The revs died off and the car slowed. We threw the iron out the window. And off we went again.
         Back on the road, we discovered yet another problem. Our drivers’ side tire was flat. It was becoming more and more difficult to keep control as speeds once again entered high double digits. The steering had gained a numb, thrashing quality now, causing us to weave all over the road. A loud grinding noised emanated from the underside of the car, and the stench of burning rubber entered the cabin along with powerful vibrations. We didn’t have much longer to go.
         The road once again swept into a blind right-hand curve. If we couldn’t make the last one with all four tires intact, making this one with a disintegrating tire was going to be impossible. In an effort to minimize the impending crash, we jumped from gas to brake, and locked the wheel fully to the right. Grip was lost. We fishtailed into a mound of dirt off the road. The passenger airbag exploded, the hood slammed into the windscreen, and we rolled completely over. Glass and loose items flew all over. The hood was ripped free and cartwheeled into the woods. We skidded on our roof for a few yards, then everything stopped. The only sound was steam gently simmering from the radiator. Fluids spattered onto the ruined windscreen. For a very long moment, we wondered if we were okay. We gingerly piled out of the wreck through the rear hatch, which had been torn open in the rollover, and gathered at the opposite side of the road. Nothing seemed to be broken, except for the car, which was now beginning to emanate smoke from its engine instead of steam.
         And then it hit us: We finally killed the car. Its reign of terror was ended on a narrow country road by a mound of dirt. The smoke coming from the engine grew darker and darker, until licks of flame were visible from between the front wheels. That grew into a campfire, which then grew into a bonfire that consumed the entire car. And there we stood, using that fire as warmth as the sun fell behind the mountains and the sky went dark. The fuel tank exploded with a pop, causing one of the doors to fall off.
         When the fire finally died out, tiny licks of fire barely visible through billowing smoke, we decided to leave before any fire brigades decided to come investigate. It took about three hours of walking (and attempted hitchhiking) to make it to Lieiton, where we found a trucker who volunteered to take us back to the university. We never heard about the car being found on the news, and no authority figures ever came to ask about it. However, we had one helluva story to tell at the Quad when we got back.