Amazing, aren’t they, the wonders of modern technology. Sometimes, the instant and worldwide communication afforded to us by the internet or the capabilities of smart phones and modern cars seem almost like magic. Remember that for later.
The phone upon which I’m writing this is plugged snugly into a USB port in the center console. I wonder if it’ll drain my battery. If so, well…at least I’d be free. On the plus side, apparently, it being plugged in is what’s giving me the ability to access the phone’s features. Amazingly, I was able to log onto the internet that I may tell my story. Granted, I can’t see anything, but I can just…feel the phone plugged in, let’s say. I don’t know if anyone will ever come across me. I have no idea where I’m at, but I suspect I could tell if someone were to touch me. If you happen to come across this, my name is Nate Lawson from Richmond, Kentucky. Please tell my parents I love them.
I was a cashier at Home Depot. I was 29. I was saddled with $75,000 in student debt and not even a degree to show for it. I’d moved out of state for a job that initially agreed to hire me only to give the position to a late applicant instead because they had far more experience than me. I was devastated. I’d already settled into a ratty little apartment, and here I was, in a strange town with no job. So, I found work where I could and quickly became depressed, feeling as if I’d lost at the game of life.
I’d never had a girlfriend. I can’t tell you any clear reasons why besides shyness and no one ever coming along whom I could definitely call “the one.” Wanting to turn this around and feel a little less like a loser, I resorted to dating apps. In short order, I found Caroline. I don’t know what it was, but almost immediately I felt a spark from our initial conversations–I knew I had to meet this girl, to learn more about her. She just seemed so genuine, so easy to talk to, so pretty and funny and clever and confident. A real winner in life, with a stable big-girl job and a mortgage. What can I say? Opposites attract.
I wasn’t completely transparent about my work and living situation to Caroline, I admit, though I doubted she would judge. I preferred to tell her after I met her in person; I didn’t want to risk scaring her off before I even got a shot at a first date. Eventually, we did agree to a time, day, and place for a first date, and of course, I was running late. I was also paranoid my car, with splatters of mud around the tires, would turn Caroline off. I had fifteen minutes to get to the restaurant–Taste of Italy–and I was ten minutes away according to my GPS. It would be close if I decided to stop for a car wash. I only did so because I happened to pass one on the way.
Looking on either side of the major road I was on, I spotted a sign that read “Uncle Charlie’s Car Wash.” I remember grimacing at the sign, which was very crude–a piece of whitewashed plywood with messy black letters painted on it. Regardless, it seemed like it was my only shot at ridding myself of the dirt before Caroline saw it, so I pulled into the spot where the sign was standing. I was surprised to find that I’d pulled not into a parking lot but onto a long, winding, smoothly paved path that seemed to lead far away from the busy city. Uncle Charlie’s Car Wash eventually did come into view, standing by itself peacefully with woods surrounding it. Apparently, it was self-service. I could see no adjoining gas station, no workers, no nothing. But it was a car wash, and that was what I needed, and fast.
I pulled up to the car wash’s entrance. A perfectly ordinary-looking kiosk/pay station took fifteen bucks from me after I selected the most thorough car wash offered. I then rolled into the mouth of the carwash, put my car into neutral, and then let the water jets and suds do what they did best. I had misjudged how long this would take. I had a measly two minutes to get to the restaurant.
I cursed. Not only was I frustrated, I felt defeated. I’d have to call Caroline. The date would be off to a bumpy start, but maybe it would at least end well. Before I did anything however, I cried in despair, “God, I wish I was at Taste of Italy right fucking now!”
I heard something like a giant snapping his fingers. The water jets in the car wash seemed to lose control. They were spraying everywhere, violently. Flurries of color from various liquid soaps swirled around me at an incredibly rapid rate, as if I’d been sucked into a hurricane. And in the next instance, I found myself deposited safe and sound in the parking lot of Taste of Italy with a minute to spare before the date was set to begin.
Naturally, I was flummoxed. I remember sitting there, eyes wide, hands trembling on the steering wheel. I didn’t know what had happened. But somehow, my wish to be instantly teleported to the restaurant had come true. I remember my first thought being I’d somehow “lost” some time, that getting to Taste of Italy on time was such an anxious experience, my mind had “blocked it out” to protect me. I had been taking a higher-than-average dosage of Lexapro for a couple of years, and had a history of bad anxiety, but I didn’t know anxiety could be that bad, to a point where your conscious self just “checks out” during a very stressful event and your animal mind takes over to get you through that moment quickly and without you realizing it.
Or Uncle Charlie’s Car Wash was a teleporter. I thought that too.
Caroline looked amused to see me so flustered when I cautiously walked up to the table she’d gotten for us.
“You look like you just saw a ghost,” she greeted me with a chuckle.
I wanted to tell her what had happened. It was only natural to want to talk with someone about it to try and make sense of it. But perhaps that wasn’t proper conversation for a first date.
“Not a ghost,” I said, chuckling myself, “but some idiot on the road pulled out in front of me while I was going 65, maybe 70. I nearly shat myself.”
“Oh shit!” Caroline cried. “I’m glad you’re okay!”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I told her, still shaking, but smiling nonetheless. “I just hate assholes. You know how it is.”
“Ugh, tell me about it,” Caroline said. She looked me up and down and a little smile came across her face. “I’m glad you’re not like that, though.”
The night went off without a hitch. Somehow, I’d done it. But you don’t want to hear the details of my perfect first date with Caroline, I know. What you want to know is if I tested my theory about Uncle Charlie’s Car Wash.
Well, I did. I went back a few days later, burning with curiosity. It seemed like I was the car wash’s only customer. No one, neither staff nor patron, ever seemed to be there. I even went at different times of day, just certain I’d see another human being there at some point. But I never did. I quickly discovered that Uncle Charlie’s Car Wash was indeed a teleportation device. I could say “I wish I was at the bank,” and the storm of soap and water would whisk me away to the bank–not just any bank, but the specific bank where I have an account. I found the wash was smart like that, as if it knew me and exactly what I meant or what I wanted when I stated where I’d like to go. I could say “I wish I was at my favorite retail store,” and it would take me to the closest Target in town. I could tell it, “I wish I was at the park where I played soccer as a kid,” and it would take me to the exact park where I’d played, back home in Kentucky. Soon enough, I realized that when I wished to go somewhere, I couldn’t wish myself back. So, I resolved not to wish myself anywhere too far away.
Uncle Charlie’s Car Wash helped me, also, in my pursuit of Caroline. One day, I wanted to follow up on a plan we’d made to go on a second date. Caroline said she’d love to but she was stuck on a boring business trip in a town 100 miles away. I offered to “make the trip,” and she said while that was sweet, she didn’t want me to go to the trouble. But I said it was no trouble at all, and she was shocked but also deeply touched when I showed up at her hotel the same day as when I called her, having apparently made the trip in record time. Not only that, but I also came bearing a gift of a two-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper, which she’d identified as her favorite soda on our first date when insisting competitively to me that she could totally beat me at a burping contest. She flew into my arms that day.
I used the car wash several other times to get closer to Caroline. I could say “take me to Caroline’s work,” and she’d be confused but happy to see me at her building, offering to take her to lunch. I could say “take me to Caroline’s favorite chocolate shop” and I’d arrive at our next date with a box of her favorite chocolates. She was all smiles around me, all the time. Everything seemed to be going exactly as planned, and nervous as I was, I was ready to ask her to officially be my girlfriend. I thought of how I could use the car wash to take her on romantic getaways to countries she’d always wanted to see. I had full faith in the car wash to take us all around the world. She’d think I was crazy when I revealed to her how I’d found her work, how I’d known what her favorite chocolate shop was without her telling me. But when we went through Uncle Charlie’s together, she’d see, and she’d be awed by its magic and maybe stay with me forever once she saw all I could offer her through its power.
That never happened, though. Eventually, Caroline quit answering my texts. After a while, though, she did, apologizing and saying she was overwhelmed. Her mother had been diagnosed with cancer, she told me, and she felt compelled to uproot and move back to her hometown to care for her. I told her we could still see each other and nearly told her about the car wash and how it could allow this, but she said she needed time to herself. I respected her wish.
Caroline did move, and she did so rather quickly. I offered to help her, but she politely declined. I said I hoped her mother would be okay. She thanked me. I said maybe I could come see her some day. She shrugged. Forced a faint smile.
It was the end for us. I could sense it. But I couldn’t accept it. I stayed in contact with Caroline mainly through text, but she’d respond sporadically at best. She told me that her mother was receiving treatment and she’d found a new job that paid better than the old one. Her mood seemed to brighten. It was then that I texted maybe I could come see her. She never answered that text. But she did call me, a few days after I sent it.
“I’m sorry, Nate. But I’ve found someone else.”
She talked about this guy named Chase, a childhood friend. She talked about how he’d helped her care for her mother and secure a job. She spoke about how she only ever saw me as a friend and she didn’t mean to lead me on. She said she’d moved in with Chase and was living in a house just across the street from her mother, who lived alone and needed her care.
“Caroline, please!” I pleaded as a sob choked me. “Please, can we just–can’t we talk about this? What if I came over there? We can work things out! We can–”
“Nate,” Caroline said firmly, “I don’t think Chase would like that.” And after I pled with her some more, she promptly hung up.
I tried to call Caroline immediately after that, but she wouldn’t pick up. I couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be real. I tried to move on from her, but she wouldn’t leave my head. She was the first thought to enter my head when I woke up every morning and the last thought to leave my head before I drifted off to sleep. And even while asleep, I’d see her in my dreams. I found myself unable to get out of bed most days. It got to where my job at Home Depot was on the line because I kept failing to show up. The sudden turn in my fortunes was too much to bear. So, I paid a final visit to Uncle Charlie’s Car Wash.
It was a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon when I did it, when I suspected Caroline would be off work and at home. I pulled up to Uncle Charlie’s Car Wash, standing alone, no other souls in sight, as always. This time, however, I did not stay in my car to go through. I stepped out. And I approached the car wash’s gaping maw. I intended to teleport myself straight into that bastard Chase’s living room to settle the score with him, man to man.
I paid my $15 and marched into the middle of the wash. “Take me to Chase’s living room!” I bellowed. And I felt the storm around me–I felt powerful jets of water slicing me. Great globs of soap hit my eyes, causing them to burn. I screamed in excruciating pain as I felt myself seemingly being ripped into shreds. Or rather, stretched into something new. My body became rigid. My eyes, it seemed they’d been dissolved by the soap. They kept burning and burning until they simply sizzled away. I felt myself being stretched and pulled, as if by great whirring mechanical hands. I was being reassembled, changed. The wash, I found out…was not meant for transporting people…only cars.
I’m a car now. What make? I don’t know. What model? I don’t know. Does it matter? Of course not. As I said, I wouldn’t be able to write this if my phone, which I’d had in my pocket when I entered the car wash, wasn’t plugged into me. And thank God I could tell you my story just so my few loved ones know what happened to me, even if they won’t believe it. I don’t think I made it to Chase’s living room. I do have some sensation of touch, and if I were in a living room, surely someone would have tried to remove me by now–to drive me out a hole in the wall, take me apart so I could be carried out, something.
No, I’m not anywhere near Caroline. I offended or broke the car wash by walking into it, and now I’m as far away from her as possible. I know the engine is on. I can feel it rumbling, roaring with life. But soon enough, it’ll die, and presumably I will too. And even if someone finds me and drives me to a new home, what kind of life will I live? I have no control over the tires (I’ve tried), no control over anything except this phone. I would just be a machine to be used until I become obsolete, like I was as a cashier checking customers out at the Home Depot an eternity ago.
Hopefully my battery dies soon. Or I run out of gas. It can’t come quick enough.