Al Washes His Car, Spring Nears

The Boston Herald

I walk cross the street to chide Al about washing his car on the first nice day in months.

"What," he says, "you've never seen me out here in the cold? You never saw me in my rubber gloves? I've been doing this all winter long. Where've you been?”

I must have been in the kitchen still sipping coffee or upstairs getting dressed. He must have done all his rubbing and scrubbing long before dawn because I totally missed him in his rubber gloves. But there is no missing him this day. He is in his driveway, hosing and scouring and buffing and vacuuming all morning long.

From my office window, I saw his garage door up and his car out, waiting, like an obedient child, for him to appear. Never mind the red-winged blackbird. Never mind the feisty stubs of green making their way through frozen ground.  Never mind the unseasonably warm temperature. Al's car in his driveway is the real sign of spring.

His dog Dante, a cute black thing with a tail that curls like an umbrella handle, bounded out of the house and there was Al bounding out right behind him, in a lightweight jacket and baseball cap.

Al - husband, father, barber, card-carrying grown-up - is really a boy in a man's body. He needs to run. He's like a kid at recess. An adult's pace is not in his nature.

I watch him from my window, Al in perpetual motion, straightening, fixing, sorting, piling, rearranging, walking Dante, always doing something, always making me smile.

After every snowstorm, during every snowstorm, he would snow blow his driveway, then shovel, then chip at any snow and ice that dared to remain in his path. He never let the snow get ahead of him. That's the secret of his success.While the snow is falling, he's picking it up and putting it someplace else.

It's not an easy job. His driveway is large enough for three big cars and though he has but one, he shoveled the whole thing so that when we didn't shovel our driveway we could use his. He shoveled a fat turn-around space so that he and we didn't have to back out onto the busy street. He even shoveled his roof, cross my heart. I've seen him up there (when his wife Katherine isn't home), watched him fetch the ladder, lean it against the house, test it to make sure it's on sturdy ground, then climb it in his heavy parka and gloves and work boots to clear the gutters and hack away at ice and snow.

But Monday, the snow was gone and Al's driveway was full of spring things: two buckets, a shammy, an extension cord, a vacuum cleaner and assorted bottles of liquid.

Al used them all. He cleaned the body of the car with one, the chrome with another and the windows with something else. He took out the floor mats and scrubbed them then leaned them against the garage door to dry. He vacuumed; he Windexed.

Dante, lolling in the sun, and I sitting at my computer, watched and smiled.

At 1:30 p.m. he put all the mats back but one, rolled up the extension cord, cleaned out the buckets, carried everything back into the garage, untied Dante and bounded back indoors.

A few hours later, he returned to the car in his winter jacket now, because the sun had faded. He shook the remaining mat, put it in the driver's side, got into the car, backed into his turn-around space and drove away.

I watched him, his car the only clean thing on the street, all gloss and spit-shine, like a young man's first car. Most adults get bored and indifferent and grouse all the time. Most adults complain about all we have to do. Not Al.  He still likes life. He still likes living life.

"Hey, you want to wash my car when you finish yours?" I yelled over to him.

He said, "Sure. Anytime."

And the thing about Al is he means it.