The 1988 Chevrolet Celebrity

A thousand dollars, sixty thousand miles, a retired schoolteacher, and the oil change that ended it.

  • Words and photographs by Scott Cartwright
Winter 2019

By 17, I worked and had saved up some money to buy a car. I purchased a 1988 Chevrolet Celebrity Sedan with 60,000 miles on it from one of my mom's customers, a retired school teacher. It was shit brown, but I loved it. I paid $1000 for it. I had driven it for a year, washed and waxed it regularly. The interior of the vehicle was a rich burgundy velour with a wood paneled dash. It had only an AM/FM radio and none of the AM radio stations worked. Good, I thought. If dad had to borrow my car, he wouldn't set it to the EIB radio network. It was something that he did. He regularly trashed cars, changed presets, and left them filthy. I was selfish with my vehicle. The headliner was detached and came down around nearly to the top of my head. I always loved that feature, driving at night, the dark interior absorbed the streetlights and added to the moody vibe of the interior.

I was driving one day and was waiting at a yield sign to make a right turn going home, and Smash! Somebody hit me from behind. I only felt a significant tap against the rear bumper and the back of my head as it dug into the padded headrest. I wasn't hurt, just mildly alarmed, ears ringing. That was my first automobile accident. I looked through the rear view mirror in my car and saw a lady in a jeep looking alarmed, with her cell phone still on her ear.

I composed myself and asked if she was ok. She made me wait outside the car as she was again having a conversation on a corded car telephone. I waited on her to finish. I looked at her through the glass in amazement that her self importance needed a cumbersome telephone dedicated to her inside her car.

After five minutes, she -- quite frazzled -- got out of the car and quickly composed herself. We shared superficial niceties such as "How are you today? Are you concussed, do you need medical attention?" the stuff that someone says to another to make them believe that they care, even though they don't.

She began projecting to me trying to make me feel it was my fault. She was orating this as if an invisible crowd was present in amphitheater seating on the side of the road. My head was a little slow from the accident but at least had the 16-year-old sense to say, "No I wasn't parked, I was waiting at a yield sign as traffic was coming down south on Grogans Mill Rd, and besides, I saw you on that brick phone from your rearview mirror when you hit me." She backed off and said, "I can't wait for the police to come swap information." I continued,"Ok let's trade information, and we can get out of here." I gave her my license and insurance, and I got hers. I started writing down information and got to the address on both documents, it was the house our family was foreclosed out of in the 1980s.

I went home and told mom what happened, and she said, "you need to go and get your car's damages appraised and get a repair list." I did that. I went to a family mechanic and auto body shop and got an estimate on the damages. There was a dent in the chrome bumper, the cheapest option was to get a new one rather than dent it out and re-chrome the whole part. The paint was significantly flaked off on the back passenger side quarter panel--that entire part needed to be repainted. The brake lights weren't working with one brake light busted, needing replacement. An estimate came back for $1500.

I called and scheduled a meeting with the husband and wife. I drove over to our previous foreclosed home in my mom's car and was met by the couple in the driveway where I had learned how to ride a bicycle. I remember scooting myself down the street on my brother's big ass Bones Brigade skateboard. Nostalgic memories, captured in saturated earthen and green values from a Canon T50 that now sat in a pile of loose change in the plastic tray in my dad's apartment bedroom. The box sat in a faux mahogany side cabinet that was once part of an elaborate bedroom set when my parents were still together and living in the house I was sitting in front of.

I sat in the car for two minutes to calm down, then got out to confront them both in a scene that I could envision as Grant Wood painting c. 1998. Husband, front foot out, dominant. Wife ¾ view, looking away, disengaged. We started again with the niceties, "How's it going? Fine" etc... I tried to make a little small talk. "My family used to live in your house, we moved out when I was in the 2nd grade," I said. "Wow, Really ?!?!" he replied. Now that I looked back on it, he had to have known immediately that it was because we were foreclosed on. The tone changed, we were getting more comfortable about talking about the business at hand. "What do you think you need to fix the car?" I pulled out the estimate and proposal I had written up for $1500, and a list of all of the expenses. His eyes narrowed, and his happy demeanor quickly melted. "I... I... I mean it's only some lights a bumper and some paint right... How does this cost $1500?" I said that was what two mechanics agreed as the exact cost, it was a fair assessment. "What about $500.00?" He asked. I said, "um, no, I can't do that. This is what the cost would be if we settled this under our insurance of which I will be doing if you don't agree to this transparent estimate." " You don't have our insurance information, do you?" "Yes", I replied. He looked over at his wife who still appeared ¾' view looking out of the frame and didn't look up or say a word about it. He remained silent for a second, quietly cut me a check for $1500 and I said "thank you." I walked back to my mom's car and looked back at an agitated couple bickering as they retreated through the garage into the door leading into the kitchen. I looked down at the check, wondering why we didn't go through the insurance to handle the dispute. The people who picked up my parents lost dream house, the house that had been ruining their relationship, didn't seem happy either. I drove off, promptly deposited the check and luckily it cleared. The universe gave me a free shit brown colored car plus five hundred dollars. I looked up at the house and realized it had been painted since we lived in it. I check up on it from time to time and read how it is sold on the market, recently it was described as:

Custom home with nice built-ins, wet bar, tons of closet space/storage. Interior is spotless and clean, freshly painted, BRAND NEW CARPET! Huge deck, private lots at the end of the street, nice trees, very quiet, full sprinkler, energy efficient ceiling fans in all rooms, whirlpool tub in Master, his and her closets, high ceilings...HOME SPARKLES!!

The price a few years ago was 160k, but with amenity upgrades was flipped up to 210k for the current asking price.

Six months later, after washing and waxing my free turd, I went to the local Jiffy Lube on Sawdust near the onramp to I-45 N to get an oil change. I waited, reading some sports illustrated, paid my $25 and drove off. I got maybe a mile down the road, and the car felt oddly metallic with a slight buzz. Then the power steering locked up and the engine shut off. I popped the car into neutral so that I could slowly brake the car without wrecking it. I walked to a pay phone so that I could call my dad and brother.

We towed the vehicle behind my dads truck with a tow strap, me in the Celebrity, my brother driving the work truck. Pulling a car this way is relatively tricky. You do not have power steering. The tracking of the vehicle requires some physical force to keep the car on the road if the power steering doesn't work. The brakes continuously need to be feathered so that you do not have slack in the tow strap. Failure to manage the brakes can either ram the towed car into the tow vehicle, or too much strap tension will break the belt. We dragged the car to our family mechanic where it took a few days to get a diagnosis.

A couple of days later I got a call that a typical family mechanic would give a16-year-old boy he perceives as idiotic.

"Hey!?! Are you stupid!! Did you ever change the oil in this car??!?!".

I said, "don't treat me like a dumbass, I was taking the car for an oil change just before The vehicle shut down."

Both of us came to the same conclusion at the same time... "Wait, did they put engine oil back in the car?" "Nope." The mechanic, saying the obvious, "well you get on the phone to their owner explaining what the hell happened and what their employees did." I did so, and promptly called my insurance to let them know what happened. After negotiations, I was able to get $7,000 back for an engine rebuild that all told cost $3,500 to complete. I was $4000 ahead. The motor took eight weeks to restore and my insurance allowed me to rent a Dark Green 1996 Chevy Impala. A heavy ass sedan, with V8 engine, and fast for its size. 0-60 in 6 seconds; shit brown wasn't fast. I met a girl I ended up dating for a year during the time I was driving the Impala, as though I developed an alternate personality driving around a new slick vehicle. Eight weeks later I was forced to give up the Impala and return to my life with Shit Brown. There were some new stipulations though, the rebuilt iron duke motor had to have time to break in and make sure it was balanced and timed right. For the 1st one thousand miles I was instructed:

Looking back on it, the amount of shit I was given by the girl I was dating for driving this vehicle at 55 mph on the freeway was pretty hilarious. The car never operated the same again, so I decided to sell shit brown before I went to college. I sold it for $500. Shit brown ended up being not only free but paying me $4500 that I quickly flipped $1500 of it back into a grey 1991 Buick Lesabre that another grandma was willing to part ways with. I drove this car through college, selling it before starting grad school in 2004, and not needing a car again until moving back to Texas in 2008.