Bill Coons Classics #87: 
"Lo, This Be... Jacked Up!"

January 3, 2007 11:33AM

            I spend a great portion of my formative years reading Marvel Comics, and I can’t think of a better way to have spent my life.  Some of my dreams take the form of comics, in the sense that they are introduced with a comic-like cover and feature some of the same characters. I’ve had several “What If...?” dreams complete with long monologues by Uatu the Watcher.  The Bill Coons Classics series are fictional stories for those who want more tales of my late father.

This is a tale from my childhood, of my denim leisure suit clad father, in all of his long-haired, walrus-mustached glory. He had all of these features in the late 70’s, before I was born, but since this story is a retcon, its canonicity is dubious at best.

“We’re a little backed up, so we’ll call you when we’re done.”

Fair enough. My dad borrowed their phone and my mom picked us up.  The dealer never called back.  My father was livid. The next day was nothing short of amazing.  My father didn’t sleep. He just spent the whole night sitting at the kitchen table in his underpants, smoking, and staring at the telephone, waiting for the shop to open.

Yelling at people over the telephone was the ground state of my father.

            “This is Bill Coons.  You have my Re-nawlt Lee Car, for an oil change with tire rotation, is it done yet?”

            “The oil change is complete, but the tire rotation is not, and that will be some time.”

My dad turned away from the phone, only to realize that it was exactly what the wanted.

“You know what? Forget you people.  I’m picking up my car.” He told her.

“I’m sorry Mr. Coons, you cannot do that.”

            “Why the hell not?”

“You have yet to pay for services rendered.”

“I don’t want services rendered.”

“Well, that may be, but you are still bound to the contract you made yesterday afternoon.”

“I disaffirm that contract.”

“What?”  said the confused receptionist.

“Well, remember when I agreed for the oil change and tire rotation?”

“Yeah...”

“Well, I’m un-agreeing.”

“Sir, you can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“That not legal.  We had an agreement... a contract!”  My dad smiles at the receptionist’s statement, takes a drag form his cigarette, and continues.

“Breach of contract is not a crime.  It’s a tort -- a civil wrong.  For something to be a tort, damages must exceed twenty dollars.”

“So what do you call this then?”  she snapped.

“Nothing.  Furthermore, since no services have been rendered on either side, and I’m still in the three-day ‘cooling down’ period, I exercise my right to disaffirm this contract.”  said my father, in one breath, to stunned silence on the other end.

“I’ll be by shortly to pick up my car.”  My dad tells him with a smile.

“Sir, you can’t do that.”  said the receptionist.

“Why not?  You have no legal reason to keep my car.  I’ve made that clear.”

“Your car isn’t here anymore.”  she states.

            “What do you mean my car isn’t there?”

“Your car was shipped to the Renault Tire Rotation Directorate in Santa Clara, California yesterday afternoon.”

“What?”  screams my Dad.

“It makes sense, Mr. Coons -- division of labor.  We could maintain a standing army of mechanics all throughout the US and Canada at a tremendous expense, but it would be simpler to rotate all tires in one location.”  said the receptionist, reading from her script.

This was the first of a long series of poor managerial decisions which led Renault to sell its distributor, AMC, to the Chrysler Corporation, and abandon the North American market entirely.

            After a few angry breaths, my dad slammed the phone back on its hook.  After lighting a second cigarette, and smoking it in a single, thirty-second drag, he exhaled the smoke with demonic eyes.

“I’ll be back in while,” he told my mother, and trudged off to the garage and rummaged for the air compressor to blow up his Huffy Inflatable Aeroplane.

The Huffy Inflatable Aeroplane was designed and built by the consortium of Piper Aircraft, the Coleman Company, and the Huffy Corporation.  The principle engineering was completed by Piper, using their PA-38 Tomahawk as a template. Coleman was responsible for the manufacturing, given their experience with air mattresses and tent poles, for the airframe.  Huffy manufactured the landing gear.  Upon completion, Coleman and Piper gave all credit to Huffy, largely so that they could take the fall.  As far as we know, only one was ever sold, which was to my father, at a cost of 3.8 million S&H Green Shield Stamps.

            Upon inflating the airframe, he filled the engine with Coleman fuel and placed in inside, then hooked up the propeller, along with the intake and exhaust pipes.  He came back in momentarily to make a jumbo bologna sandwich smothered in ketchup, grab a can of Coke, and some fluid for his Zippo lighter, because he never had any luck with those.  

            “Ryan!”  she shouts.  “Help me start this thing!”

            So I go outside, he climbs in, and situated himself.

“Contact!”  he shouts.  I give the propeller its initial spin and pull the blocks from the landing gear.  My dad waved goodbye as he taxied into the street and took off.

The Huffy Inflatable Aeroplane remained centered in the field of vision, with a map of the United States double-exposed over it.  A red line was gradually drawn across it to indicate progress, complemented with a John Williams fanfare.  Eventually the scene cuts to 350,000 square foot factory. A white caption appears below it reading “Renault Tire Rotation Directorate,” and “Santa Clara, California” beneath that.  Then the captions disappear into the ethereal realm from whence they came as the Huffy Inflatable Aeroplane lands in the parking lot and taxis to a garage door on the side.

            My dad walked inside, only to find the factory completely empty, except for one man in coveralls, with an air compressor and an impact wrench.  My dad said nothing, and lifted his car with a blue Lego™ car jack, which was proportionately scaled for an adult to lift up a car, even though such a device would offer little mechanical advantage.

            “What are you doing?”  shouts the mechanic, and my dad snatches his impact wrench.

            “I’m getting’ a tire rotation.”  said my dad, as he rotated his tires.

            Not knowing what to do, the mechanic called the suits at Renault, who in turn, called the authorities.

            The police found him outside the Renault Tire Rotation Directorate, just as he finished meticulous folding his deflated aeroplane.  The suits at Renault tried to have him arrested, only to be disappointed to learn that it is not illegal for someone to steal their own car. Especially when they are able to produce two forms of ID, along with title and registration.

            “Haha!”  shouts my dad, pointing at the suits.  “I’m never buying a Re-nawlt again!”

            The suits at Renault shook their fists at my father as he made his way to I-80, and drove the twenty-six hundred miles back to Meadville.  Shortly thereafter he needed another oil change.  He did it himself this time, but in the dealer’s parking lot, in order to spite him more efficiently.

* Granny’s is the name I assigned my maternal grandmother. Apparently when I was leaning to talk, I could only address things in the possessive.