The Sheet Metal Slave Auction

By Pavlov Chekov

The Great Melting Pot. America. Where every nationality of the globe comes to live in freedom and peace to pursue the American Dream. The newcomers soon realize that this vast land, with its fruited plains and amber waves of grain, is not easily navigable by foot, rail, or bicycle. Just try pedaling up the majesty of your local purple mountain on a ten-speed. And when Amtraks aren’t derailing, the system is still far too inefficient compared to wherever our immigrants came from. Europe. India. China. It doesn’t matter. Passenger rail service in our country is not good. Try hopping an Amtrak from Kansas City to Orlando. First, you’re going through Chicago and then DC and switching trains a couple of times. Our gleaming alabaster cities are not friendly to walkers and our buses are far too infrequent to rely on. We are not Germany or Japan. Public transportation is not one of our strong suits. The problem is our size. This land is just too big. Manifest Destiny determined years ago that we here in the States would need a new means of travel. Eisenhower recognized this and built our wonderful Interstate system. You want to enjoy real freedom in these United States? You need a car. A horseless carriage.

And so it was, in pursuit of money to purchase such a conveyance, that I found myself driving cars and trucks at an Auto Auction in Central Florida. I was working for a temporary staffing service, who required only my license to hire me for an afternoon of driving used, repossessed, and otherwise neglected vehicles through auction bays. The temp service arranged a ride to the auction for me. I rode with Keith of Oviedo, a professional water-skier who had much experience in auto-auction driving and gave me a quick briefing on what to expect. We were introduced to our lane leaders, who told us how and where to drive and what to do if we accidentally ran someone over. “It happens,” they said.

For someone without a car, the experience of climbing behind the wheel of a Volvo or a Jeep (or anything for that matter) was a huge thrill. I could taste the freedom of the road, (or in this case, the parking lot) almost getting some of these vehicles into third gear as I navigated the endless rows of cars and waited my turn to display my ride to the waiting dealers.

Some of my cars were sad. A Toyota with a dice gear shift knob gurgled and sputtered and tried to die as I crept forward in line. The air didn’t work. Not a good thing to Florida Used Car Dealers. An Oldsmobile van wouldn’t start and required a jump from one of the roving MWBAs (Mechanics with Bad Attitudes.)

“Keep it running!” my lane leader barked as I left the parking spot and got in line.

One of my cars wouldn’t even take a jump start and required one of the push vehicles to see it through the bay. The push vehicles were crusty Ford Fairmonts with three tires mounted on the grill. I looked in the rear-view at the push vehicle guy who seemed oblivious to the whole operation. He was randomly ramming my bumper when he felt like it and ignoring my brake lights as I tired to avoid rear-ending the Mercedes in front of me. 

The pace was frantic as I approached the auction bay the first time. I was unnerved as dealers crowded around my vehicle and poked their heads in the windows or ran their fat knuckles across the vents to check for the cold air that everyone wants. They asked what the mileage was. They asked how it drove. And they seemed to be trying to get run over. Pop the hood, gun the engine. (Make sure you’re in neutral when you do.)

Used car dealers have a reputation even lower than that of lawyers, ministers or advertisers. They are, fairly or not, considered to be swindlers and con-men, out to make a buck and hide the defects of their wares to unsuspecting buyers. (They don’t help themselves at all when they advertise.) But they are in business, and they need to make a buck. It’s the American Dream they are pursuing. The way you accomplish that is simple. Buy low, sell high.

Now imagine every nationality this country has ever welcomed represented in the form of a used car dealer. I was driving through a United Nations gauntlet of guys on cell phones speaking at least ten different languages. In salmon colored slacks. Rose tinted glasses. Greased back hair. Gold jewelry. Sure, some of them didn’t fit the stereotype and the day was far too warm for anyone in a checkered sports-coat.

The crowd got thickest right near the auction bay door and the heads popped in more frequently. 

“Are those actual miles?”

How did I know? I was a peon netting three bucks an hour. “Yes,” I replied, as he relayed the info into his phone in another language, Kelly Blue Book open and pages flipping.

The knuckles kept coming in the window, grazing the vent to check for air. Mileage and air was all they wanted to know. And do the power windows work. I tried to listen to the auctioneer as he rattled in that bizarre tongue spoken by only a few talented people, but I couldn’t tell what the cars were going for. I just watched the auctioneer’s assistant intently, waiting for him to knock on my windshield, signaling me to drive out, park, and grab another car.

We drivers did this for hours and I was usually in the next car and waiting in line before I even paused to figure out what I was driving. I began to check the glove-boxes and visors as I waited. Loose change. A winning lotto ticket. You never know. I remembered the advertisements for these cars when they were new, before their interiors began to come unglued and their formerly tight suspensions and steering got loose and sloppy. I heard one dealer remark about my Buick Reatta,

“That used to be nice car.”

The sun beat on us as we raced back to our lane leaders. The lane leaders were intense, chain-smoking women, pointing and yelling and barking orders. My lane leader seemed to trust me and liked giving me beat up, hard to drive cars that some of the other drivers were squeamish about. When I was given a decent vehicle, the difference at the auction bay door was noticeable. The dealers would crowd around and get in the way, assessing this sheet-metal slave and calculating the profit. It was almost pure lust. The difference in their reactions to the nice cars versus the ugly ones made me sympathetic to the wallflower girls at a high school dance. No one wants me. They all want the pretty ones.

After a while I was comfortable amid the noise and hectic pace of the line near the auction bay and I began to sell the vehicles to these sales pros. I knew what they would write on the windshields in florescent markers under colored flags. I began to speak to them in those terms, answering them before they could poke their heads and knuckles in,

“Low miles! Cold Air! Runs Great!”

They seemed to take my word for it. This was getting to be too much fun. I was selling used cars to used car salesmen.

I showed off the stereos and revved the engines and put on a show for this United Nations Assembly of horseless carriage traders; these sheet-metal slave buyers who would polish a rim here and seal a leak there and make a little cash in getting rid of these things.

As the sun set and the dealers grew tired, the pace slowed and we drivers could feel the end nearing. We filed into the office to collect our time cards and Keith the water-skier drove me back to the temp service office. We agreed that it was an interesting day and that most used car dealers have the reputation they do for a reason.

I collected my paycheck the next day. Twenty-six bucks and change. I’m on my way to someday owning one of these conveyances. I will be driving Eisenhower’s Interstates, across these States United by highways, my destiny manifested in a used vehicle, purchased warily from some salmon-slacked guy with a cell phone on his ear. And now I know what to look for. Cold air and low miles. 

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