The day after I posted my first article about the Celica, the timing chain stretched out. A stretched timing chain makes an engine that only dies at idle seem like a luxury. Now, the engine dies at random, without warning, and doesn’t start again for an indeterminable amount of time.
For most of the time that I’ve owned this gem, it had this cool feature where it wouldn’t start back up again after shutting down for about half an hour, give or take some time depending on the temperature, cloud cover, wind conditions, and humidity. I had to plan my trips accordingly. If I had to be somewhere in twenty minutes, and the temperature was 85ºF with moderate cloud cover, 35% humidity, and no wind, then I knew I would be exactly twenty-three minutes late.
It was all very charming and my friends/family all loved it, especially my girlfriend. But a stretched timing chain is a different animal. If I can’t tell when the engine will shut down, then my precise calculations are all for nothing, and if I have to be somewhere in twenty minutes, I could be there anywhere between on-time and sometime next week.
Nobody is that zen. This calls for drastic changes. I can rebuild the engine. I can buy another (very cheap) car and just not have a checking account anymore. I can cash out my meager 401(k) on a ticket to the Mongolian steppes and a yak, to live out the rest of my days in the nomadic tradition.
I didn’t expect to find myself at these crossroads so soon. The crazy part of my mind can’t help but wonder, what if I had never published that article? Would the engine still be ‘fine’? Would I have not incurred the wrath of the universe for trying to taking this first step out of the prison of an unambitious, risk-averse, salaried nine-to-five with a slow cortisol drip? Is one man’s prison another’s sky?
Robert Johnson, the legendary blues guitarist, is said to have met the devil at a crossroads one night. They say he sold his soul to the devil so he could play the guitar like no soul ever could.
Four years ago, I had a what they call a ‘major psychotic break.’ I tried to kill myself in a ditch on the side of the road in the California desert somewhere near the border of Mexico. I didn’t meet the devil. I ended up threatened at gunpoint and pinned with a six-figure helicopter bill. Let’s not talk about it. I don’t have any magical talents to show for it, just scars, guilt, and shame.
What do those two stories have to do with each other? I don’t know. It’s a stretch. It’s more of a stretch than my goddamn timing chain.
