I’m standing at the end of my driveway in the dark, watching Mrs. Varnick’s trailer, waiting for her lights to go out, getting really pissed off. I’ve been watching for at least a week and her lights went out at eight thirty every other night. She must have picked up a clear signal on reruns of Lawrence Welk or Hee Haw with her rabbit ears, because it’s a quarter to nine and she’s still plopped in her BarcaLounger in the living room with the TV flickering and every light in the house blazing like she owns the damn electric company.

I decide I’ll wait until nine and then go for it, because she’s deafer than Mozart or Beethoven or whoever the deaf one is, and she probably has the TV cranked up anyway. But it’s freezing, my legs are bare under my skirt, and doing my little so fucking cold jig isn’t getting my blood pumping anymore. So I tell myself Mrs. Varnick must have fallen asleep in her chair. The woman eats dinner at four in the afternoon. She’s got to be snoring away, dreaming about Lawrence and his powder blue tuxedo shirts by now.

Grabbing my guitar, I move in, walking soft, keeping low. The car isn’t locked, but she wasn’t kind enough to leave the keys. I squeeze my Ren & Stimpy keychain flashlight between my teeth to keep it lit and aimed at the spot my instructions refer to as the “ignition tumbler.” I don’t know why they couldn’t just say “place where the key goes.” Thank goodness I read through the instructions in the library when I copied them. I had to look up most of the terms. So I take my dad’s screwdriver and shove it between the metal ignition tumbler and the plastic of whatever the place underneath it is called. I can’t get the tumbler part to come out and I have to keep prying at it around the edges the way you open up a paint can, all the while looking up to check on Mrs. Varnick every few seconds.

Finally, it pops. I shove the screwdriver into what I assume is the ignition switch, hold my breath, and turn. The car hiccups. I let it go. If I can’t make this work, I’m screwed. I promised myself I wouldn’t get into wire stripping and removing dashboard panels. It’s all too complicated and I have to be able to put the car back like nothing happened. I wiggle the screwdriver. Try again. This time the engine turns and the car starts. Headlights off, I back out of Mrs. Varnick’s driveway, watching her living room window carefully. She doesn’t move.