I had just turned sixteen, and had a car. But I didn’t have a license, and I couldn’t drive it. I couldn’t not drive it because I didn’t have a license, though. Not having a license didn’t stop me from driving my mother’s Buick LeSabre, or my dad’s AstroVan. The problem was the car itself. It was a 1964 Rover 100. Very cool, the kind they use in England as taxis. It had a two-tone exterior, green and black, with a maroon leather interior. The console was wood-paneled. And it had suicide doors. It sounds great, I know. But we had bought it off a man who was restoring it with his father, as a hobby. Unfortunately, his father had died before they had completed the restoration, so he sold it. Even though I had no knowledge of mechanics, much less of British cars, I wanted it. And my mother, a pleaser I’m sure ‘til her dying day, got the car.

Many painstaking improvements were made. My uncle spent hours adjusting the electrical components. He installed all the lights, interior and exterior, and the stereo. My mom took it to Mexico to have the interior refurbished. Everyone had some small hand in making that car go, it really was a community effort. But it was also a total disaster. From day one. Any part that had to be ordered new took weeks to receive, because we had to request it from the only carrier of Rover 1964 supplies in the U.S., in Texas. I can remember push-starting it about a hundred times. The gas tank leaked, and it chugged that stuff like nothing else, so I was constantly at the pump. And I was always nervous about smoking in or near the car. Then, to top it all off, I lost the keys to the Rover at a party, when the guy’s parents came busting in and screaming at the top of their lungs—sending us all fleeing the property. Fortunately, the ignition in that car was looser than a 10th grade tramp. It would start up with just about any key you could jam in there. So I used a house key, at about a forty-five degree angle, to do the trick. It should go without saying that the car was monstrous huge and, without power steering, nearly impossible to maneuver. U-turns were totally out of the question. And I often stalled out due to the schizo clutch, which would some times react to the slightest change in pressure, and others sit firm and obstinate beneath my panicked foot. Driving the Rover pretty much gave me an anxiety attack. So I usually enlisted the help of others—boys—to drive the car wherever we needed to go.

This resulted in my being in the company of lots of different boys, some for extended periods of time—days, even—since we were on summer vacation, and I had my own place, but needed to drive frequently in order to shower someplace without a crazy Mexican nazi vet hovering around just outside the bathroom door. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong impression, though. These boys were driving my car…nothing more. But they did have friends! Friends who wanted a place to do all the stuff they couldn’t do at home. And that resulted in word spreading about my apartment, and it becoming a haven for some of the most unsavory characters in Whittier.