When my Dad was 32 he had it all figured out about the car wash. We'd go up to the Busy Bee in the early morning, before the crowds showed up, and he'd lecture me each time on the proper methodology. The secret was in the sequencing - you'd start on rinse and the first thing, the essential first step, was spraying down the scrubber. That way you didn't get the grit from the last person on your car. Next, by rinsing the car quickly and moving right into the sudsy spray, he'd stretch his first two quarters through the entire wash cycle. Then he'd switch to using the clean scrubber when the spray timer ran out. Scrubbing time was free. His pale sweaty forehead wrinkled in concentration as he wielded the brush around, tidy knit shirt and white socks under loafers, knees popping while he puffed and sighed. Then he'd make the second set of quarters cover both the final rinse and wax cycles, spending a dollar on his car instead of a dollar-fifty. Not that the extra fifty cents was a critical issue - our suburban split-level had quiet carpets and chilly central air. It was the principle of the thing, figuring out how to work smart, being deliberate. "You've got to pay attention to what you're doing" he'd say. After the washing we'd drive around for a little while, so the car would dry quickly with no spots. That was my favorite part. No more dodging spray in the cold morning air, goose bumps on my knees. Just his talking, explaining his answers, detailing other methodologies. I loved my dad's deep, reasoned voice. I knew which questions to ask to bring the conversation forth - they had to be smart, not dumb; I paid attention.
When I was seventeen and called my mother a fucking bitch and she slapped me and it left a mark on my face but I went to school anyway and just didn't look anyone in the eye, I was so scared of what I'd become. In the moment I screamed at her something dark and chaotic made the dust rise. I wasn't even mad at her, I was angry at someone else but she just wouldn't leave me alone and the words had escaped. When my father came home the reckoning would surely begin and I'd have to face my shame. But after dinner, there was his reasoned voice again. He quietly outlined the situation, the facts and descriptions of reality, and the three of us talked. I don't remember a single word we said, just a picture of him sitting in one ugly chair, my mom in another, in the yellow light of their lamps, in their quiet living room. I thought it was remarkable how well our family communicated, all those logical words.
When I was 23 and I'd take my Toyota in for a wash, there wasn't a scrubber any more, just the spray. And the recycled water left oily tracks no matter how much rinsing I did.
My parents started becoming divorced when I was 27. I remember them sitting next to one another at the pizza parlor during the negotiations, indifferent strangers. My mother's suicide attempts shook the world on their own, without me around as catalyst. I used to dream of her as big thunderclouds. While their marriage was collapsing I was afraid to drive, I couldn't make it down the highway, I kept imagining myself crashing into the bridge abutments and burning. Crash and burn. Their divorce was finalized a few years later. An undercurrent that couldn't be talked away had washed through the habits and manners of their marriage, and it was gone.
Now my dad can't keep a job. He'll call me up and still sound reasonable when he tells me that he's been let go again, but he's already got resumes going and contacts have been made. I never ask him why, how it is he keeps being fired. He lives in the kind of neighborhood we never used to drive through, the place where the pizza man won't deliver.
When my husband and I wash the car, I don't explain the proper methodology. I let him take the lead; a compromise I've chosen, or maybe I just didn't fight it. He seems very certain of his answers and doesn't offer reasoning, isn't big on pontification. He does have the deep voice. And I drive the car around afterward, watching the water run away in the sun.