Last is the oldest and biggest of them: a tall muscular guy I would’ve put in his early twenties, except that Rafe told me only kids up to age eighteen are allowed here. He’s black, with a shaved head and white glasses, and his expression is serious and a bit suspicious. Like he’s waiting to decide if he’s happy to have me here or not. He’s taller than me—maybe six foot two—but not as tall as Rafe, and his worn white chinos, white tank top, and white Converse are all spotless.
“DeShawn,” he says in a voice softer than I expected.
“Okay,” Rafe says, “let’s go talk about cars.” And he does seem excited, rubbing his palms together like he’s one of the kids.
“So,” I say once we’re standing in a ring around Rafe’s BMW, “this is a 1985 BMW 320i. I know that sounds like just a bunch of numbers and letters, but it’s actually kind of like a… a… a secret language that gives you clues about the car. And when you know how to decode the secret language, it saves lots of time because you can shorthand stuff. Okay, so it always goes in that order. The first thing you say is the year. So, Rafe’s car was born in 1985.”
“Dude,” Carlos says, “your car’s ancient. It’s older than me!”
“Not older than me,” Rafe says, raising his scarred eyebrow in warning.
“Me either,” I say. “So, okay, next: BMW. That’s the name of the manufacturer. Anyone know where BMWs are from?”
“Germany,” says Ricky. She’s moved her bangs aside enough so that she can see the car with one eye.
“Yeah, that’s right.” I smile at her, but she keeps staring at the car. “Know what it stands for?” No way will any of them know this. Hell, most people who own BMWs don’t know what it stands for. I look at Rafe, who shrugs, proving my point.
“Bayerische Motoren Werke.”
Ricky again. Holy shit.
“Uh, yeah, that’s right.” She’s staring blankly at the car. “Do you know a lot about cars?” She shakes her head. “Do you know anything else about BMWs?”
“BMW. Established 1916. Produced aircraft engines but forced to stop based on the terms of the Treaty of Versailles prohibiting the manufacture and stockpile of arms or armored vehicles. Began producing motorcycles in 1923 and cars in 1928. In the 1930s, BMW engine designs were used for Luftwaffe aircraft, including the first four-jet aircraft to be flown—”
“Holy crap, so Conan has a Nazi car?” Carlos says.
I can’t take my eyes off Ricky. She’s staring straight ahead like she’s reading this information out of the air.
“Hey, Ricky?” I say. She jerks her gaze toward me. “That’s really impressive. How do you know all that?”
“Yo, Ricky Recordo right here! She’s got a straight-up photographic memory,” Mikal says, stepping closer to me and winking.
“Oh. Cool,” I say. “Great. So, we’ve got the year, the manufacturer. Then the model of the car. In this case, 320. Well, 320i, but the i just means it has fuel injection—anyway, the 320 refers to which BMW it is.”
The kids are looking a little blank.
“But, okay, so a 2014 Honda Civic is simpler: it was made in 2014, by Honda, and the model is a Civic. Got it?”
“Got it,” a few of them echo.
“Pop the hood?” I ask Rafe. He has to contort to do it from outside the car and he’s surprisingly flexible. He has on worn black jeans that sit low on his hips and hug his ass perfectly and a gray henley with the sleeves pushed up his muscular forearms. Damn, I am not paying attention to that right now because I’m supposed to be talking about cars. Uh, no, I’m not paying attention to that period.
I force my eyes to the car and resolve not to look at Rafe again. Under the hood is familiar territory, and I lose myself for a moment in the satisfaction of seeing everything exactly where it should be. When Daniel was little, he had these books he would beg me to read to him that he got from the school library where a wacky science teacher miniaturized the kids in her class so that they could see things at the micro level. Daniel would sit on my lap and we’d trace the students’ path through the human body, through a hurricane, through the solar system. That’s how I feel when I look at a car. Like I’m tiny and can imagine a path through all its different systems. It’s dumb, I guess, but it helps me picture everything.
I figured that I’d start by explaining how each of the systems work—engine, exhaust, brakes, cooling, electrical, fuel, suspension, etc. It will give them a good sense of the basics and how all the systems interrelate.
“So, does anyone know what makes a car starts when you turn the key?”