It seems I'd forgotten about this promised recount of my journey, but now reading a mystery novel, I stopped and recalled a missing person. I wondered if I could explore a time table from the time I remember last seeing him and my car.

Yes, my car!


The missing person was my auto mechanic, no ordinary man, but a rough, temperamental Sicilian. I had met him in 1997. Walking around my new neighbourhood, I often took routes that were beyond a normal foot-path. One day I noticed an auto repair shop and a parking lot opposite one another. In the lot was an old Honda Accord. No rust, looked good, seemed solid. With five hundred dollars I bought her. I know it was a she because not only did this car bring me into personal contact with my Sicilian she also brought me into a minor relationship with her former owner.

The car lasted all of that summer, and perhaps beyond. She drowned one winter from repeated rainstorms. But when I bought another car, a Saab, the Sicilian remained main man. I counted on him and he never let me down. He called himself, Vinny; I called him Vincenzo. He loved it.

The last time I saw this Vincenzo--I have another in my life--was shortly after the World Trade Center were hit by airplanes. Vincenzo's daughter had just flown off to California for her honeymoon. He was nearly hysterical with worry. He drove out to California to get his daughter and son-in-law. Somewhere between there and New York City, he decided life is too short. He sold his auto repair shop to one of the mechanics and disappeared.

I lost my Saab.

I am trying to remember not only the sequence of events, but a time table--when was it I hugged Vincenzo good-bye and cried as I walked away from Falcon, the car that plagued me and my chequebook.