My son Gargoyle came home for the summer and right away he went out and got a job. I should be ecstatic.
Except we live in the French Quarter, and he could’ve maybe walked down the block to find a job. But nooo, he has to find one far enough away he can drive his new car to. New to him that is — he bought it from my brother-in-law Lurch, so God knows what kind of experiences this car has had. I know it’s seen a lot of potholes.
This job is at a McDonald’s 30 minutes away. Which happens to be where his girlfriend Gilda works. And I am not going to say precisely which McDonald’s it is, because somebody might sue me for implying they got idiots for employees.
Not that Gargoyle actually is a idiot. He makes very good grades in law school, so he got to have some brains.
So what if he got some aggravating habits. I bet the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court don’t put the toilet seat down either.
Anyway, he comes home from work on the bus one night. He says his car broke down.
Next day he and Lurch go over to where he left the car, parked at a curb and check everything out. They even try to jump the battery. Nothing.
For two weeks, he rides past his own car on the bus every day on the way to work, and again on the way home.
It is putting a dent in his social life. He is too embarrassed to take Gilda out on the bus.
I tell my mother-in-law, Ms. Larda, about it and she borrows an old set of keys to this car from her son Lurch and she gets my gentleman friend Lust to drive her over to where it is and take a look at it. (If this car was going to make a death stop, it could have at least found a free parking slot in the Quarter. Then we could walk to it.) Anyway, they take a can of gas with them.
Now, Ms. Larda is a very good Catholic. She knows how to get her way with God. So after her trip to the car with Lust, she tells Gargoyle she done a novena — that’s nine days repeating special prayers— for the intention that his car gets fixed. And she says the next time he rides by there he needs to get off the bus and get in the car, say a sincere prayer for the state of the world and start it up.
Well, by now he got his schedule arranged so he catches the bus just exactly on time to get to work. If he gets off the bus and fools with the car, he’ll be late. And at night it’s dark and he’s tired, and he don’t want to get off the bus.
After a week of this, Ms. Larda calls me up and says she’s going to put her foot down with that boy. She didn’t make that novena for nothing. And the next morning she is over here at 6 a.m., rousting him out of bed.
She holds a doughnut out in front of his nose as she guides him to her car, and off they go.
Pretty soon she shows up back at my house, and we sit down and have coffee. Also doughnuts out of a bag in her purse. (Not beignets. Don’t ever carry beignets in your purse. You’ll never get the sugar out and the dog will always be trying to lick inside it.)
She tells me what happened. “Well, I made him pray, like I said. And then, the car started, and off he went.”
“Wow,” I say. “Your novena worked!”
“Sort of,” she says. “Now I actually have to do this novena. I don’t do novenas for nothing. They take too long. But now that I have pointed out the gas gauge to him and told him prayers don’t work without gas, NOW I do the novena.”
Maybe also pray he’s got the brains to hire a chauffeur. Gargoyle and the Chief Justice.
