Keith, his mom, and his brother moved away from the
ghost town
before Keith hit middle school. Thus Keith never really knew what it was like to grow up there. He thought you didn't really know what a place was unless you went to at least middle school there.
He did visit once. Drove there after he got his driver's license at sixteen. It was about 2.5 hours away. Just short enough for a day trip. But Keith's car was such a junker that it nearly blew out.
At the ghost town he ran into a mechanic who was eating at the diner who'd noticed Keith's car.
"Sweet ride, guy."
"This?" Keith had a bad attitude about the car. Thought it was shit. Wished he had a new sports car. "This is a piece of crap."
The mechanic frowned. A sour frown.
"Now what makes you say that?"
"Thing barely runs. I drove like two hours to get here. And I thought it was going to break down the whole time. You don't have that worry with new cars."
The mechanic smiled. Pointed to his old red truck. "You see that thing? That baby's 30 years old and it's still running like a dream." He smiled and closed his eyes. Dreamed about something. Then looked back at Keith. "People always want to buy new cars. But if you take care of cars they're meant to last pretty much forever."
He looked at Keith's car. Looked at the bad shape it was in. "Now your car. This one's probably too late. But the next car you get. Make sure you take care of it. It'll take care of you."
Keith nodded. Didn't say anything. He wasn't mean mugging anymore.
"See you, guy. good luck!"
Keith took a big lesson out of that trip. To take care of his cars. Oil changes every 4000 miles. 5000 at the latest. Rotate the tires. Transmission fluid change every 30,000 miles. Don't believe in that lifetime warranty hogwash.
Ever since returning from
Spacecity
he'd had the same car. The world was turning electric. Soon there'd be no gas cars on the road. Except maybe Keith's. Was he opposed to an
electric vehicle
? No. But why get rid of his perfectly good working car just for the sake of some ideology?