Owner’s Expense

I came out of the pet store and my car was gone. The parking lot was empty. I couldn’t believe it. For a while, I just stood there with a big bag of cat food in my arms until it grew heavy, then I went back into the store. “Hey, I was parked in the lot across the street,” I said, and the cashier winced. The cashier had nervous, twitchy eyes and a nametag that read Kitten. Kitten told me that the lot was for the bank and the bank alone.

“But the bank is closed,” I said, stupidly.

Kitten gave me the address of the private towing company, which was several miles away. 

“I’d like to return this cat food,” I said.

The sunlight faded while I walked deep into an industrial or post-industrial part of town shelved by anonymous warehouses. Chimneys towered overhead, probably defunct. It suddenly occurred to me that Mother’s cremains were still in the car. I’d buckled the urn in the backseat and mostly forgotten about it, having been reluctant to bring it inside, since I hadn’t decided yet whether to hide or display it. Cremains was a funny word, I thought. Mother wouldn’t have liked being reduced to a portmanteau. The cremation had been her idea, anyway. I asked what she wanted me to do with her once it was done, if she’d like to be scattered into the ocean, perhaps. “Of course, you’d try to drown me,” she said. So she was still there in the backseat.

The lot was guarded by barbed wire fencing. I could see my car inside, crowded among other shabby vehicles like a lost dog in a kennel of strays. The office was around the corner. I had to ring a doorbell to be allowed inside. The brawny man behind the counter was shielded by bulletproof glass. He didn’t have a name tag, but I recognized him immediately. He had been in the parking lot in front of the bank, the only person there aside from me. He had watched me from his truck while I crossed the street to the pet store. He hadn’t said anything then, just waited for me to go out of sight before he seized my car and sped away.

He didn’t say anything now. “I'm here for my car,” I said. I told him the make and model and he told me the price. I was flabbergasted. It was much, much more than I could afford. It seemed like maybe more than the car was worth.

“I’ll have to think about it,” I said. “But for now, can you let me into the lot, just for a moment? My mother is still in the backseat.” 

“There wasn’t anyone in the car,” he said. 

“No, well, her ashes are there. In an urn.” 

He fixed me with his ghoulish eyes and shook his head. “In that case you’ll still have to pay the fee.” 

“Look, I'll be right back. I can leave my ID with you.”

“I don't need your ID,” he said. “I already have your car.” I stared at him, exasperated. His mouth seemed to twitch into the smallest of smiles. “But, if you leave something of real value, I can let you have the whole car back. One of your eyes perhaps?”

Reluctantly, I agreed. I didn’t know what else to do. I followed him into the lot where his truck was parked. Metal bars in the shape of a cross lay in the bed under a crane. He unfastened a big hook from the crane and replaced it with a little one that looked more like a fish hook. He told me to keep my eyes open wide. I tried not to blink, but I couldn't help it, and kept blinking, so he held me roughly with one hand to force my eyelids apart while he used his other hand to place the hook. I waited patiently as he returned to his truck and started the chain. There was a loud grinding noise and then my eyeball was there on the gravel by my feet. “I’ll keep this until you come back with the money,” he said, scooping it into a glass jar. Then he handed me a receipt and an oily rag to stanch the bleeding. 

After parking back home, I unbuckled Mother from the back seat to finally take her up to my apartment. I put her on top of the bookshelf by the TV, which I thought was a prominent and respectable spot. My two cats leapt up onto the shelf and sniffed at the urn, evidently suspicious. I suddenly remembered that I still didn’t have anything to feed them.