I was involved in a hit and run.  Well, more accurately, my car was.  I was somewhere else, just living my life, paying no attention.

It happened in one of three places.  At the Bel Age Hotel, Lucques restaurant or in front of Felice’s house.

I used to be super-vigilant.  Checking my car for injury after every valet parking adventure.  You see I had a bad experience.  At Xavier Cugat’s old restaurant on La Cienega.  The food wasn’t very good, but you’ve got to try everything once.  And when I emerged, completely sober, my margarita-swilling days behind me, my passenger side window was down, and when I swung a curve, the door opened wide.  But I didn’t find out until the very next morning that there was a dent in the door.

Try collecting.  The restaurant contracts out the parking, even though it’s on their property, and the attendants shrug their shoulders like they’re Cam’ron being questioned by the police, and you have to augur for information.  And, being incredibly pissed you ultimately get some leads, which yield unreturned phone calls which force you to track down the proprietors in person, just on principle, not wanting to be beaten.

Collecting was hell.  Then again, my friend Stephen had his radio stolen from the lot at Cucina and could never collect, and he’s more tenacious than I am.

I hate being beaten.  Maybe that’s it.  Or maybe it’s the downer of the experience, the lack of faith in humanity.  Or maybe it’s the repair process, and the fear that as soon as your car is back in order, it’s going to get hit again.

It was not the kind of dent that you could make and not be aware of.  It’s spread over half of the rear door on the driver’s side.  So just because you’re an illegal living in the States you have no responsibility?

Call me racist, but the truth is most of these parkers don’t have green cards.  Then again, considering what they did to get into this country, shirking responsibility for misfeasance pales in comparison.

Oh, it could have been someone pulling a u-turn in front of Felice’s house.  Which is even worse.  You can’t leave a note?  You’re probably the kind of person who pees with the seat down, leaving urine all over where I’m supposed to sit.  Karma will get you, but where does that leave me?

And I schlepped all over town on Friday, finding out that to get this dent repaired it’s going to cost me $891.  Or maybe $770 if they don’t have to blend the paint into the driver’s door.  Oh, I could get it done cheaper, but the car’s not that old.  And I’ve had a bad experience twice.  Paint fades.

And the free maintenance on my car is running out in weeks, so I scheduled a service on Tuesday.  And contemplating this as I was picking up my mail at my abode after midnight tonight, I thought back to my youth.  Making lists for the dealership, of what was wrong, what needed to be repaired.

And as I crossed 23rd Street, in the darkness, I recalled my ’63 Chevy.  It was a convertible.  My father found it on a client’s property in ’73 and overpaid for it.  My older sister drove it, I had it for a year, and then my younger sister named the vehicle and killed it.  It leaked oil, and sometimes water.  And if you weren’t paying close attention, it would pull off the road, you had to fight to keep it going straight.  No baby boomer would let his child drive a vehicle like this, but this was a different era.  My dad had seat belts installed, and then we were off.  And when I came home from college he took the car to Russell Chevrolet, for service.  With my long list.

Almost none of the delineated items were addressed.  Whether it be incompetence or my father’s ultimate unwillingness to pay, I have no idea.  But recalling all this, I wished my dad was still here.  To take care of my car, if not me.

It wouldn’t be that big a deal.  It would be his responsibility.  Not so much monetarily as…  Well, he was a buffer between me and the real world.

But now he’s gone.  And that sucks.

But what also sucks is that I’m now older than he was when he took that Chevy Impala in for service.  He was just 52.  He had rules.  You always went to the dealership.  You never let a gas station do repairs.  You get what you pay for.

Funny how I’ve embraced all his precepts.

It’s just that I’m not as responsible.  He had three kids.  He paid for not only their private college educations, but graduate school.  And it’s not like he inherited a single dime, nor did he strike it rich in the market.  He just carved out his little piece of the world, his little domain.  Built on sustained hard work.  He was the integral part of the enterprise.  He’d drive across the state for less money than I’d leave the house for.  But that’s what it took, to keep it together, to make everything run.

My sister was chagrined when he got her a Pontiac and she found out she had to fill it herself.  Oh, he paid while she was going to social work school at USC, but it’s just that when you lived in our house, my father filled the tank, you never had to worry about it.

He only lived sixteen years more than I am right now.  I feel unprepared for the inevitable.  In so many ways I’m still a child.  I need him here, in my corner, to help me get through.