One of the nice things about New York is that stuff happens here that you can't make up. Take the first week I got my P1800. Two years ago I bought a green '68 with unknown mileage from a dude in Kansas City. I got it for a good price, but paid dearly to ship it back to New York. When it arrived at my house on the back of the shipper's truck, it wouldn't start.

"That's funny," I said. "It started in Kansas City."

"This is New York," the truck driver said.

"You're right," I said. I gave him two dollars. He produced a can of carburetor spray, shot a couple of shots inside the dual carbs, fired it up, rolled it off the truck, whereupon it died instantly. As I stood there looking at it and wondering what to do next, he asked me for a job.

I said, "What?"

He said, "Anybody with a car like this has got some money. I been living and sleeping in this truck every day for the past year. I need another job, bro."

Bro.

He and I, I should mention, are both black.

I said, "Brother, do I look like Rockefeller to you?"

"No," he said, "You look like Puffy."

That got me mad. "I do not," I said, "look like Puffy. Puffy is a rap artist. I" -- and I said this with great pride -- "I am a jazz musician. There is a difference. Besides, you think Puffy would be living around here?"

"They say he lives in New York somewhere."

"In this pissy little suburb? Where you from?"

"No place. I live in this truck. I was born in St. Louis though."

"Don't tell me your life story, man. I do not have a job for you nor a place for you to stay. I'm sorry, man."

He looked disappointed, then spied my four-year-old son who was ogling the P1800 and munching a bag of Doritos. The truck driver eyed the Doritos hungrily. I didn't want to fight the guy over a bag of Doritos, not with my new car and my son standing there, so I took the bag of Doritos from my son and said, "You want some?"

He gratefully took the bag of Doritos, climbed into his truck and split.

That was day one.

The next day, I put some gas in the car and presto -- she fired up. I named her Al Green and drove her all around, ball joints creaking, disc brakes moaning, everything in the car begging for mercy, dual carbs leaking gas onto the manifold, no front shocks. My son and I cruised like madmen. I know I belong in a nuthouse putting my kid in a car like that, but she's nice and tight now. At the time, I truly did not know what the fuck I was doing. It just seemed cool.

About a week after I got her on the road, I drove to a record store. Just as I was about to hop into the Al Green to head home, this dude approaches. He was about 18 or so. A hippie, earring in his nose and one through his bottom lip; hair down to his shoulders, a couple of tattoos, leather jacket. I kept about four feet off him and watched him close.

He said, "Hey, I have a P1800 just like that in my garage."

"What year?" I asked.

"'72. I want to sell it."

"Why?"

"I can't afford to drive it," he said. "The insurance is too much. Plus," and suddenly the guy choked up. Tears came to his eyes. He said, "It belonged to my mom, and she died and I just don't have the heart to drive it anymore." He stood there looking pitiful.

Even though he was a rough looking dude, I felt a little sorry for him. Moreover, I was thinking about that car. I couldn't buy it. I wanted to, but I'd just broke the bank buying the one I had. Plus, with his mother being dead and all, it didn't seem right. I was thinking all these things even as the words, "You said it was yellow?" slipped out my mouth.

"Bright yellow," he said. "'72. Fuel injected. Mint. I just want someone who will take care of it. I'm not interested in the money, really."

"Lemme have your number," I said. He obliged.

That phone number burned a hole in my pocket for three days. I would pull it out during the middle of the day and look at my four-year-old son jumping around on the living room floor. Would a lifetime of working at Staples await him if I splurged that four grand I'd salted away for his college education on a second P1800 that I didn't need? But then again, my boy would look rather righteous tooling off to college in an electric, solar powered P1800. I was born in a Brooklyn housing project myself. I never dreamed of owning a car, not to mention two P1800s. But then if I splurged all my savings on a car, would we end up back in the projects? This is the kind of paranoid thinking that hits you when you move to the suburbs and stay there seven years. All this went through my mind as I dialed the kid's number.

A lady got on the line. I asked for the kid.

"She said, "He's not here."

I said, "I'm calling about the Volvo."

She said, "What Volvo?"

"The yellow one his mother had. The one who died."

"Who's this?" she said.

I told her who I was.

"I'm not dead," she said.

There was a long silence as I scraped my jaw from the floor.

"So there's no car?"

"I had a P1800 ten years ago, but I scrapped it. They towed it outta here on a flatbed. Don't call here no more, wacko!"

The ringing noise in my ears, I later discovered, was the sound of her slamming the phone down on the receiver.

Like I said, that's what I like about New York. You can't make this stuff up. Thankfully though, I have the Al Green and she's now tip top, totally rebuilt front end, brakes, Weber carb, the works. When I drove her to the old neighborhood last summer I was the KING. Everyone dug her. I even showed her to Rev. Caldwell, the woman preacher who runs Gospel Tabernacle. She came out to take a look at Al Green after church service on Sunday. "I asked her, "What do you think?"

She said, "Praise the Lord. Lemme stand next to it. Take my picture next to it."

I did. But I can't send that in. I don't want to ruin Rev's reputation. A P1800 is just downright sinful.