And Then They Stole It

By Denis Johnson
Originally published in Midnight Mind Number Three

The first car I owned was a Volkswagen Bug. This was around 1968 or 1969. It was a unit from the 50s. I remember you cranked up the heat by turning a kind of faucet handle that jutted from the floor. The car started out green, but I painted it blue one day with a couple of cans of spray paint. It deteriorated steadily until it had no brakes and both the steering wheel and hand brake could be removed with a flick of the wrist. Finally this guy, Marshall, one of my housemates, took it out and blew the engine. I was back in that town just last month and ran into Marshall, and we talked about the little VW, and he claimed he wasn’t the one who blew the engine. It sat out front of our house for a few weeks and then one day while I was taking a bath I looked out the window and saw the police hitching it up to a tow truck, and then they stole it.