This Really Happened To Me... Baby, You Can Drive My Car

Seattle, spring of 1978, the Husband is part owner in a unique grocery store, delicatessen, cafe with the clever name- Plenty, & as would be expected, he worked long, problem plagued days. I had joined him a few months earlier as the dining room director of Plenty, because quite frankly, they needed my help. Plenty was a great looking space- designed by the Husband, that served excellent, innovative American cooking to go or to eat in, but the table service suffered. I wanted Plenty to be the big success it deserved to be, & I knew just how to fix the problems. This ruffled a few feathers. But, I was a gifted dining room manager, & a deluxe, distinguished waiter. I had the dubious honor of having been named 1992 BEST WAITER IN SEATTLE by the Seattle Weekly. I would like to have been named best actor, or even best lay. The staff at Café Flora, my place of employment, razzed, ribbed & ridiculed me, so I couldn't actually take any pride in the honor. They even defaced the article with my picture on the bulletin board. That crew really knew how to keep me in my place.

I left my estimable position at Café Flora, to jump on board at the Husband’s venture. After a fagged out & frazzled 15 hour work day, my man & I were anxious to get to our car & get home to our cottage & our dogs. In the spot where we had parked the automobile was… nothing. The car was gone. Vanished. We ascertained that it had not been towed, there was no restrictions on parking where we had left the auto & no violations.We were weary & worn down & wanted nothing more than to get home, but apparently someone had stolen “Granny” (so named because she was a gift from the Husband’s grandmother when she was no longer able to drive). Granny was a 1982, 2-tone Chevrolet Caprice & she was as ugly as my husband was handsome. Granny was especially lovely because we were never able to find the source & fix her considerable oil leak, & many a catering order had spilled inside of her on the way to the deliveries. Granny was temperamental, crabby, leaky & stinky. I eventually became just like her. We didn’t like her much, but on this evening we really wanted to get home.

We reported Granny to the police as stolen & thought it was the end of the story. Stolen autos are rarely recovered & being a 4 wheeled piece of shit, we couldn’t imagine the car’s fate. As we would have it, Granny was recovered, with the thieves riding in it, caught red-handed. The auto thieves had torn out the dashboard & burned cigarettes into the unholy upholstery. The crew was 4 Afro-American girls, all under age except for the ring leader- Clinique. The court had written me, inquiring what sort of punishment (community service, restitution) I would want for the minors, if they were found guilty. I answered that I wanted them to fry. I wanted them to suffer. I wanted to pull out their press-on nails. We had worked a long trying day & we just wanted to get home & the girl gang had taken my only transportation.

On they day of the trial,  I represented myself; it wasn’t so tough- they stole my car, simple & clear, the young ladies explained to the magistrate: “that man gave us his car to use, if we would perform certain sex acts with him. We needed the car, & we were afraid to bring it back, because we didn’t want to have to do the sex stuff with him.”  I was gob-smacked at the audacity of the gang.  It was however, one of the great moments when being gay had its own payoff.  I addressed the magistrate & the girls’ lawyer & stated: “I am an adult gay male, in a 15 year relationship with the same man. I like men sexually. Not young black girls. I really like firemen, if you know any. My boyfriend & I own the car together… & I need the court to understand, I am not above loaning out the car in exchange for sexual favors, but I was thinking of something along the line of Keanu Reeves as the loanee.  In fact there are a number of men that I would let barrow the car with the understanding of special favors as payment. Please, please… don’t tell my boyfriend.”

The girls did their short time & the restitution, but the story does not end there. For years later, we would receive calls on our answering machine (remember answering machines?) with the voices & the giggling of young black girls: "Hey, you got a new car we can barrow, faggot?"

This gentleman may borrow my automobile, anytime.