Hello. I am Dan Eastman

Gift Car

Today I became very sickly and could not go to tell a comedic story at the Philadelphia Art Museum. So, instead of a video, here is the much longer, more boring text version.

When I think of my father showing love I think of money. Not that he was rich, he exactly wasn’t poor either. In terms of money our family could best be described as “economy-sized”. However, my father had a very low emotional output. He didn’t show love with affection but with presents. Or as I like to call them: Leverage. Whenever Papa Eastman needed his kids to do something, there’d be the little guilt gift to motivate us. Dad would say something along the lines of “Oh, I gotta wash my own truck? I buy you pizza for dinner and you can’t even wash my truck? Jesus. I wanna drink Milwaukee’s Best and watch M*A*S*H reruns but no. I have to wash my truck while my kids eat the pizza I bought.” Then we’d be all “Okay. Okay. You’re right. We are terrible children. You bought us that large Domino’s pizza; the least we could do is clean your GM truck with four wheel drive and enlarged wheels for navigating rough terrain.” And I’m not just trying to vilify my father. I took certain liberties and was pretty much a bastard child almost all the time. I will get to that later.

Flash forward to age 17. I had worked multiple paper routes to save up and buy my first car entirely in cash: A 1992 Chevy Cavalier. It was an old clunker as most first cars are, but I was excited. However, just four short months (they were all February’s) into owning it, I’m driving on a main highway in rush hour traffic when something in the steering begins feeling tight. Then it was very loose. The brakes seemed to be operating on their own. I pumped the center pedal to no avail. The brakes had ceased working altogether. Cars hissed by me. I found myself imaging I was trapped in Maximum Overdrive, the film about killer automobiles directed by Stephen King. I was beginning to suspect that Stephen King was directing my life since it was all turning into bullshit. I looked up just as I was about to crash into the rear of the car just ahead of me. I pulled the emergency brake and stopped just in time. I drove the rest of the way home using only the e-brake. I parked and slouched low in the driver’s seat. My first car had already died. And I was broke.

Fortunately for me, my father was there to offer the greatest gift anyone could give: a new used car. Sure, I knew he was just up to his old tricks but I couldn’t turn down a 1999 Ford Escort in so-so condition. Not in 2004. And it wasn’t long before he was telling me to do things like “Go vacuum the lawn. Wash my whites. I bought you a car so you leave me alone in my Lay-Z-Boy recliner. I’m trying to think louder thoughts here.” Or whatever drunken spew he was slurring about. It didn’t matter to me as long as I had that car. I drove it everywhere. I drove it from Watertown, New York to New York, New York to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I drove that car from the top of upstate New York all the way to Fort Lauderdale, Florida even though my father told me not to. I was a freewheeling rebel. I was so cool. I was like Jack Kerouac without pretentious fans and jazz, two things that are very obnoxious. I was a party on wheels. Even though sometimes the party would break down and need fixing and my dad would tell me to get a real job. I would be like “I got a real job. I’m the assistant night manager at Quiznos. It’s this internationally known sandwich chain and nothing at all to frown at. Jesus, Dad!”

Yes, with this great new used car also came my rebellious streak that had been developing over the years. I don’t know why I acted out so badly once I got behind the wheel of that car. I basically victimized this machine and ran it into the ground. Perhaps I saw it as an extension of the old man and wanted to use it as a means of taking out the aggression I had built up toward him over the years. A car was a big gift. There’s a good chance it meant as much to him as it did to me. Every scratch on the car was a little bit of payback for any time he drank too much or yelled at us.

After several years of traveling and partying and an overall lackadaisical attitude toward anything but those two things, it all came to a head on one fateful evening: the evening of flashing blue and red lights in my rearview. I was pulled over for not having a taillight and erratic maneuvers, technically. A series of horrible decisions and circumstances had led me behind the wheel after heavy consumption of alcoholic beverages. I could try to explain away my reasoning but no amount of explaining can justify acting like a stupid idiot. And anyone who drinks and drives is absolutely a stupid idiot serving of at least an infinite number of face punches.

As I’d mentioned before, I was broke. All of my money had been funneled into traveling and drinking. There was no way I could afford all of the fines and lawyer fees. The answer came almost instantly. I contemplated for less time than I should have. I would have to sell the car. I didn’t want to but it felt like the only way. And after what I did, I deserved to lose it. I wouldn’t need it for a while anyway. I was expecting my father to explode at the news that I had sold the car. Instead he looked more hurt than I was. He didn’t say anything. He just accepted it as a loss and moved on.

My father and I don’t talk much anymore. Sometimes he’ll call and make small talk like “I am at a party. I will kill on demand!” Or any gibberish that’s better read in text messages than shouted over a phone. And he never bought me another gift again. However, he did give me one of the greatest gifts of all, one I’ll take to the grave: Thick hair. I will never go bald.