[joe-frank-list] 'Green Cadillac'

[russellbell at gmail.com]

	Joe buys a '1948 Hudson Club Coupe
(https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hBe8JwhApGF66qsZIdq6c2nCbwFNY4w3/view?usp=sharing)
in its original metallic gold color with a huge 300 cubic inch
flathead 6 engine.' at an estate sale in Bethesda (Maryland).  (This
is a large car, aimed at 'respectable' families, not people who want
fast cars.  Hudson, owner of Detroit's largest department store,
funded its founding.  It made less-expensive cars.  Minneapolis's
Dayton department stores acquired Hudson's, becoming Dayton-Hudson,
which started Target.  Hudson Autos ended up part of American Motors,
which Chrysler absorbed later.)  The following evening a parked car
whose brakes failed collided with it.  It was never the same again.  6
years later he had it towed to a friend's, where it sat for a couple
more years, when the friend's wife told him it had to go.  Joe took it
to his mechanic friend, Howard, made a deal that, after Howard fixed
it up, Joe would sell it and split the proceeds with him.  Driving it
around the weekend after Howard had finished, a fellow, Billy, runs
after him, wants to buy it, says he'll look just like James Dean
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dean).  (Dean never drove a
Hudson in the movies, drove Porsches as his personal cars.  Hudson
made sports cars, but the Club Coupe wasn't one of them.)  First Billy
takes it to the service manager at the dealership at which he works,
who points out all the rust on the undercarriage.  Billy goes crazy
with disappointment, damages the car.  The check Billy writes for the
damages bounces and he disappears.  Joe sells the car to a junk dealer
for $200.
	7:00: Joe, now working as a salesman at a used-car dealership,
buys a 4-year-old Honda from a guy, Brooks, who comes to sell it to
the dealer, for $5,000.  A week later, driving on Macarthur Boulevard
(a street in Washington DC and Maryland), cops arrest him because the
car is stolen.  Someone at the DMV had forged a title.  Joe has no car
and is out $5,000.
	9:10: A few days later Joe sees Brooks on the street, calls
the cops, who do nothing.  He confronts Brooks, who brushes him off.
	10:30: Joe sees Brooks again the next day.  He's parked a
late-model Peugeot, gone into a diner.  He left the keys in the car so
Joe steals it, parks it in a garage a mile away, calls the diner,
talks to Brooks, who tells him it's stolen - he can keep it.
	11:40: Joe, driving a car his boss had lent him (Remember what
Joe did to his employer's car in 'The wire'?), sees Brooks on the
Friday before Halloween with a new Lexus.  They end up on a chase out
US 50 into Maryland.  On an off-ramp they get into a fight.
Exhausted, they make friends.  (Joe chases Brooks 'west on 16th
street' - 16th is a north-south street (all numbered streets in DC
are; lettered streets are east-west; streets named after states are
diagonal).  South makes the most sense of the subsequent route.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_Street_NW)
	16:40: Some months later, Joe is waiting at a bus stop, where
he's supposed to meet Brooks, who was selling his beat-up '68
Cadillac, still owed him $500.  (Joe says the bus stop is 'at the
corner of Marshall and Fifth', which is in northwest.  The Native
American mentions waiting for someone to push him to the VA to pick up
his check.  The VA is at Irving & North Capitol, roughly a half-mile
east and a half-mile south of Marshall & Fifth.) A homeless Native
American in a wheelchair asks Joe to buy him some Wild Irish Rose (a
cheap, fortified, sweetened, 'wine', 'Richards Wild Irish Rose was
introduced in 1954 and at its height sold about two million cases
annually.  The brand is available in 13.9% and 18% alcohol by volume
and comes in both "red" and "white" varieties.  The red is described
as tasting like "cheap cherry hard candy" and the white like "crunchy
milk and fake vanilla".'
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavored_fortified_wine) That the store
has sold out of quarts and has only a single pint left could be a
deliberate commentary on the popularity of cheap, sweetened, fortified
wines on skid row.  The comment about the red 'flavor' reminds me of
the line in The Kinks's 'Lola' about 'champagne' that tastes like
cherry cola.)  In the store around the corner Joe has to wait while a
guy tries to pay with a check (not allowed) and a panhandler (also a
shoplifter) converts his change into bills.  Joe gets angry at the
delay, worries that he's missed Brooks.  When the Native American
can't find $2 to pay for the 'wine' Joe tips his wheelchair over,
dumping him on the sidewalk, spilling his wine.  Joe gets on a bus.
As it leaves, he sees Brooks pull up in the green Cadillac.

	Perhaps I'd make friends with Brooks, but I wouldn't give him
a car - just me?
	I've lived in DC and driven all these roads.  I've even lived
in Bethesda.

	http://jfwiki.org/index.php?title=Green_Cadillac

russell bell