Carlos Santos had been avoiding me. He knew what we had to do, but had been putting it off. My old friend, you see, had a pretty good fender bender with the car of a teenager who thought that texting his girlfriend was more important than looking out the rear view mirror when backing out on a major thoroughfare.
Crunch!
My friend now has a nervous tic in his right eye due to constant anticipation of potential cars lurking in driveways, which may or may not pull out at the last second. He also has a brand new car, courtesy of the Good Hands people. And that’s what we had to do – break in his new car.
Carlos’ old car, a GMC Jimmy, was just right as a hunting and fishing vehicle. It had some rust on the body, so if we happened to bump into a tree or two on a logging road, it was no big deal. The car seats were well worn and having a little bird dog drool here and there didn’t cause so much as a stir. There were cigar butts in all the ashtrays and tobacco juice stains on the floorboard. We always kept a couple of Hare’s Ear nymphs in the fabric on the sun visor, in case we ever forgot our fly boxes. And there was probably a half box of loose 20 gauge shotgun shells in reserve beneath the seats. That’s good information to have when the doves are really flying. It was a damned good car.
But now Santos was driving a nerd-mobile, a brand new Jeep Cherokee with no visible personality. It was up to me to help Carlos break this car in.
“Let’s go grouse hunting,” I said on the phone.
“I’m busy,” he said.
“I haven’t said when yet, so how do you know you’re busy?”
He was lying and I knew it.
“You know we’ve got to get this over with,” I persisted.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’ll pick you up Saturday morning.”
My two bird dogs hopped eagerly in the back seat, but only after Carlos insisted I spread out my hunting coat on the seats.
“How are we going to get any huckleberry briars in the upholstery with a coat on the seat?” I grumbled. “And besides, I just got a new coat for Christmas. Put yours down there.”
About halfway to Augusta County, a certain gaseous aroma drifted from the direction of the back seat.
“Whew!” he said. “What was that?”
“Probably spaghetti scraps and Purina Dog Chow,” I opined. “That’s what the dogs had for dinner last night, but I may have used too much garlic.”
“My car will never be the same,” said Carlos, tears welling up in his eyes. “That’s why I don’t have dogs. They smell like dogs, they act like dogs. Even their mothers are dogs.”
When we stopped for gas, the dogs were ready to hunt and raced across the seats, pressing their drooling muzzles against the windshields and leaving long slug-like streaks on the glass.
Carlos’ car was starting to get a little personality. And later, when the dogs got into a bag of barbeque potato chips on the floorboard, scattering crumbs in every direction and somewhat altering the color of the upholstery, the new Cherokee was beginning to take shape as a genuine hunting vehicle.
During the morning hunt, we flushed six grouse. I should say that my dogs flushed six grouse on their own.
“Don’t these dogs ever point?” my friend inquired.
“Not so much after eating barbeque potato chips,” I admitted.
But my ever willing and hard hunting dogs had managed to plow through every creek and mud hole in Deerfield. They were wet, filthy and stinking to high heaven when we loaded them back in the car, so much so that we left the windows down on the drive back home.
We didn’t kill any grouse that day, but at least Carlos now has a car he can be proud of.