In 2014, I bought Greenie for under $1,499 in a dusty parking lot in central California, only hoping that he would get me as far as Montana – from there I’d get something more reliable, I told my dad, a mechanic. I had a hunch that Montana was where I was supposed to be. And I had just met someone. It seemed like a good omen that the used car salesman who sold me Greenie was a fly-fisherman, just like John, the guy I had just fallen in love with back in Big Sky. The salesman calmly left me to make up my mind, and pace the parking lot a few times before I was finally ready to walk up the steps to the office and write a check in exchange for the keys.
Four winters, two lost keys, a flat tire, repeated maulings by an adopted 100-pound dog with separation anxiety issues, and more than 70,000 miles later, Greenie the 1999 Saturn SL2 coasted me safely into a patch of grass by the highway and let out one last smoky gurgle. He had done his job and then some. I was picked up by two morticians in a mini van traveling to Anaconda with a labradoodle dog in the back. Somehow, that also fit in with my time with Greenie: even at the end, he carried me to a story, one that I’d tell my dad later that week, describing the automatic door of the mini van slowly, painfully, opening to reveal an empty stretcher that I climbed in next to, the labradoodle beside me, as I was taken to a spot that had cell phone reception where I could call for a tow.
Greenie’s other role in my life was a secret storage unit, when my life started to overflow from our 1-bedroom house. It took five plastic bags and a box to get everything out, and back into our living room, where I had 24-hours to myself to sort through it all on my own later in the week.
It was like going through journal entries from the last four years since I came to Montana. There were old agendas and budgets from town council and hospital board meetings in one bag. Camping equipment and music festival lineups in another. One bag held all my roller derby gear and duck taped skates when I was the Gwyn Reaper. I found a wig, a green jacket and an 80s era felt jumpsuit from two White Front Halloween parties when John and I went as Maude and The Dude one year, and break-dancers the next. There was the first draft of a wedding invitation. Then two plastic wine glasses from our honeymoon road trip back to Montana, when sparkling wine was sent out to us as we swam in a pool overlooking Big Sur. There was a bag of walnuts from my parents’ backyard – wedding guest gifts – and a Happy Anniversary card sent last November.
Car break downs are always stressful, especially when you know it’s the end, and money has to be scrapped together for a new vehicle. But standing in my living room, looking around at all my loot, I just thought about what a life Greenie and I have had together. How he transported me from the coast to the mountains; from one season of my life, to the one I’m in now. I rolled the dice. And Greenie got me where I needed to be.
Tomorrow I’m off to Butte to pick up my next gamble – a 1990 Pontiac Bonneville for $1,350.
I’m hoping it can just get me to work and back until the end of the summer. But there’s a part of me that’s hopeful.
