Trapp wasn't perfect. He didn't always win. The following Wednesday he played with Wallace again, and this time they had a 48 percent game. More than half the field did better than them. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The funny thing was that he and Wallace hardly argued at all.
While I was driving Trapp back to his house, I felt the gas pedal start to vibrate, which was always the first sign of trouble. I increased my pressure on the pedal, but helplessly watched the speedometer go from sixty, to fifty-five, to fifty… .
Cars were speeding past me on both sides. The guy behind me was right on my tail. I swerved into the right lane, nearly getting us killed.
"If I returned a club, he could have discarded his losing spade," my uncle muttered.
My foot was pressed to the floor and the speedometer was down to thirty, but I had to be careful. This had happened before. At any moment something would catch and I'd be going ninety.
Suddenly the engine roared, the car lurched, and just as suddenly it died. I managed to coast to a stop on the side of the highway.
"Am I home already?" asked Trapp.
"Not quite," I said, then explained the situation. "Don't worry," I assured him. "It happens all the time. We just have to wait about twenty minutes while it fixes itself."
"It fixes itself. That's quite a car."
"That's what happened the last time," I said. "I don't know," I admitted. "I guess I know as much about cars as Captain knows about global warming."
He laughed a double "Hah! Hah!" then asked me if I had one of those new cell phones thingamajig.
He had me call a tow truck. He was going to have the car taken to a certain dealership he knew on Jackson Street.
I tried to tell him that car dealerships overcharge for repairs, and that I knew a good mechanic who was cheap.
"If he's so good, then why does this happen ‘all the time'?"
"Good point," I said.
He told me not to worry; the owner of the dealership was a bridge player. I took that to mean she'd give me a good deal on the repairs.
While we waited, he asked me what I thought of "this game of bridge."
I wasn't sure how much I wanted to tell him.
"You don't have to answer," he said. "I'm sure it seems boring to you. No flashing lights."
"No, it seems very challenging," I said.
"So, what do you like to do?" he asked. "Do you play any games?"
Once again, I considered telling him that I'd been dealing out bridge hands, but instead I mentioned playing video games with my friend Cliff. That was a huge mistake.
He didn't think too highly of video games. "You don't play the game," he said. "The game plays you."
I tried to explain that some video games take a lot of thought and skill, but he said it was "like lab rats pushing buttons. A light flashes, and the rat presses his nose against a button, causing a nugget of food to drop out of a chute."
The tow truck arrived and took us to the car dealership. When we pulled into the lot, the owner came out to greet us. She was a red-haired woman wearing boots and a cowboy hat.
She gave Trapp a hug when he stepped out of the tow truck, then immediately launched into bridge gibberish. "I pick up ace, queen fourth, king third, void, and six solid clubs, missing the ace. My partner opens one diamond— my void, of course—and I bid …"
That was fine by me. I figured the more they talked bridge, the less she would charge to repair my car.
"Do you play bridge?" she suddenly asked me.
"Me?" I asked. Maybe if I told her I was trying to learn, I thought, she'd fix the car for free.
"Alton likes video games," said Trapp.
So I bet you're thinking that my uncle paid for the repairs?
Nope. He bought me a new car.
I was stunned. I must have babbled incoherently for about ten minutes as I thanked him over and over again. I even asked the dreaded question "Are you sure?" at least five times.
It was one of those fuel-efficient hybrids. "If I'm going to have you driving me to bridge tournaments," he said, "just so I can indulge my ego, it seems, at the very least, we should get good gas mileage. No reason to unnecessarily pollute the environment and waste the natural resources of other people who are struggling to lead real lives."
The owner of the dealership told me to bring her the pink slip for my old car at my convenience.
It was embarrassing getting all my junk out of the trunk of my old car and putting it into the new one. Fortunately, Trapp couldn't see my crumpled schoolwork and dirty socks.
"Who's to say what's a real life?" I asked, once we were back on the road.
You would think my parents would have been happy about my getting a new car, what with my father losing his job and all. You would think.
My mother complained that it would raise the cost of our insurance. My father demanded to know how much I got for the trade-in.
I'm not kidding. He was afraid I got ripped off.
My father doesn't trust car salesmen. He also doesn't like lawyers, bankers, plumbers, electricians, politicians, or swimming-pool contractors.
"We still have the pink slip," he said. "That means it is still legally our car."
He wanted us to go to the dealership and take the car back. He was sure we could sell it ourselves for a lot more than the dealer paid for it.
Once again, Leslie came to my rescue. She reminded him that the woman was a friend of Uncle Lester's. If we made her mad, Uncle Lester might cut us out of his will.
I realize it's a cliché for a teenager to be embarrassed by his parents. Cliff often complained about his parents, but I always thought they were pretty cool. Was it possible, I wondered, that there was somebody, somewhere, who thought my parents were cool?