This essay was first published in the literary journal Alligator Juniper. It was later republished in the debut batch of Phone Fiction, an online platform for reading short fiction (and literary essays) on your mobile device. (Very cool).
Frank is my late father-in-law who died in 1997. I inherited his car. It wasn’t easy…at first.
“I’m not sure when my late father-in-law’s town car became our car. It wasn’t when we wrested it from Mom, who we decided couldn’t safely operate it anymore. It wasn’t when we changed the title to my name. For even after that, I saw it as Frank’s Buick, a.k.a. the Batmobile, so named because of its dual automatic “ComforTemp” controls in the front seats (leather), its “Twilight Sentinel” feature that turns the headlights onand off depending on how light it is outside, the heated windshield, the cruise control with automatic reset, the illuminated entry system around door locks, the electric radio antennae that telescopes into hiding every time you turn off the radio.
“The sexy stereo system. …”
