Golarz: Don't fight the bully when he wants to choose his seat

Marion asked me to lighten up. Hope this does it.

In 1946, Dad bought a 1937 Buick Opera Coupe. It was built like a truck. The gauge of the steel approximated the American tank.

He kept it in the garage that he and his father had built. When he was not at work, he would perform any number of operations on it: oil changes, carburetor adjustments, spark plug changes, brake adjustments, wheel alignments, replacing kingpins and brake linings. These sessions were always capped off with washings; simoniz treatments and two or three Schlitz beers. He loved that car.

The only real defect of the car was its extensive rusted underbelly and subsequent holes in various places of the car’s floor from the salty East Chicago winter roads. In winter, the cold air coming up from the icy streets made the car’s heater useless. This didn’t bother dad though. He was one of the old warrior breed. Mom always brought a blanket to cover herself and my younger siblings. Dad just grinned, sang a little Al Jolson tune and drove on.

The backseat of the car was made up of two small opera seats. They each had a steel rod at their base that was intended to rest on a small metal plate on the floor and thus be level and function as viable seats. The plates had long ago busted through, so my brother Joe and I had to sit in the backseat area angled toward the floor. We would look down and watch through the floor holes as the streets zipped by beneath our feet.

Rainwater would spray up into the backseat if Dad drove too close to the curb where rain run-offs accumulated. We learned quickly not to sit behind the driver’s seat, for that’s where the tsunami always hit. We fought for the passenger side rear seat. Our short struggle would usually result in our squeezing together starboard side.

One time Dad, Joe, and I, ages 7 and 9, were finishing a pre-Christmas visit at Dad’s parents’ home. Dad promised to take an older kid home who had also been visiting. We knew the kid because he had bullied Joe any number of times. He had an ugly disposition. When we came out of the house, he shoved Joe to the ground on his way into the rear seat behind Dad’s driver seat.

He then exclaimed, “I’m sitting here, punks.” Joe tried to caution the kid but he said, “Shut up, punk.”

I motioned to Joe to come over and sit with me and then said, “Joe, he’s our guest.” Joe objected, “But, Ray…” I said again, “guest, Joe, guest. Let God handle this.”

Dad then raced to the car through a pouring, icy rain and sleet, slammed his car door, and exclaimed, “Hang on, guys.” He hung a left at the corner and headed south to Calumet Avenue. The wintery mix was falling, but Dad was in a hurry.

The rest happened quickly. Once on Calumet, he gunned it then made a sharp cut into the outside lane near the curb. Immediately, the rush of icy water overwhelmed the windshield and entire car. From the other side of the back seat, Joe and I heard this bloodcurdling, intense scream. We looked in the direction of where the kid had been sitting, but it was like trying to find him in the middle of Niagara Falls. Eventually, as the icy water dripped down, his face reappeared.

Joe and I tried not to laugh. We tried so hard to be Christians, but it was hard — really hard.