"Meretzky’s Salvage" sat on what I recall to be an enormous amount of land three blocks away from my childhood home. "The Yard," as we called it, was cordoned off by a combination of chicken wire, chain link, and barbed wire, but was easily accessed by any number of adventurous kids via any number of holes that had been cut/torn/rusted out over the years. It was somewhat of an anomaly in the neighborhood, being surrounded by relatively new tract homes that had sprung out of the ground like mushrooms years after Bessie Meretzky parked the first discarded heap of iron she had reclaimed in the back corner of her small farm. "An eyesore," my father noted every time we drove by Meretzky’s yet, to my ten year old car-crazy eye, it represented a literal treasure trove of carcheological data that we were only too lucky to have a mere three blocks away.

My parents repeatedly warned me to never enter the yard, attempting to frighten me away with gruesome tales of children who were taken to the hospital following horrendous accidents that happened when they violated their parents’ similar prohibitions. Tales of dog-sized rabid rats, vats of toxic chemicals, and other dangers were regular fare of my parents when discussing the evils of The Yard. However, as any self-respecting ten year old would admit likewise, such stories actually added to the fascination I had with the rusting hulks that called to me like sirens to the rocks each time I rode my Sting-ray slowly past the rusted gates and dirty, cracked cement drive.

Jamie Meretzky, Bessie’s grandson, was in my grade and was the exact kind of kid my parents were thrilled they never had. Jamie chain-smoked by the time he was in Third Grade, swore artfully, twisting vulgarity and sexuality into alchemic sculpture, and was rumored to have a stash of magazines in The Yard that "showed everything." He was a source of circus fascination for his classmates; in all honesty, he was kind of a scary kid who by the age of twenty was a quadriplegic resultant from a high speed rollover in his junky old Camaro, but that’s another story entirely. I was a friendly acquaintance with Jamie, better to be that than an enemy of his I figured, but never invited any closer relationship over the years.

I was riding by The Yard one warm summer night, engaging in my ritual of slowly scanning the detritus to see if I could identify any of the tailfins or grilles or headlights or door handles of any of the burnt orange mass that rested just feet away from my curious fingertips. As if out of the oxide mist, Jamie appeared on the other side of the chain-link that night and asked me what was up. I stopped the bike, said "nothin’," and was shocked that Jamie actually struck up a conversation with me. He was smoking, wore a "Ford Rules" t-shirt with a Big Daddy Roth slab of leering artwork above it, oil-stained and bald black Converse All-Stars, and jeans that were once upon a time, blue. Our conversation soon turned from the usual pre-pubescent theme of tits to that of cars. After a brief period, Jamie snuffed out his smoke, and asked me if I wanted to come in and "cruise The Yard." As though under a hypnotic spell, I promptly forgot my parents’ warnings, numbly dropped my bike on its side, and walked for the first time through the hubcap-adorned gates of "Meretzky’s Salvage."

In the fading light, walking the paths between towers of metal, I recognized sun-rotted dagmars from early fifties Caddys, toothy grilles from a couple ‘49’s, orphaned Continental-kits laying against old Coke machines, cannibalized ‘Vettes, and a couple of weird little convertibles tucked snugly up against some vicious-looking farm implements. We stood for a minute and threw rocks at the windows of a non-descript (and bullet-ridden) sedan, and suddenly I awoke from my sheet-metal induced stupor and noticed that Jamie was talking about something having to do with never seeing his dad and how lucky I was that I had "real" parents, seemingly oblivious to how lucky he himself had it living right smack-dab in the middle of this wonderland.

We wandered around for a while, telling filthy jokes (Jamie’s were way better than mine) and eventually climbed one of the stacks of crushed cars and sat on the roof of one of them while we watched the sun set over the duck pond at the Deaf School. For whatever reason, that single moment seared itself into my memory with precise detail. I can still smell the tangy scent of rust, the dull odor of oil, and the dank mustiness of rotting leather. I can feel the dirty water pooled next to me in a dent on the roof of the car and can hear the Burlington Northern freight locomotive bellowing somewhere north of me out on highway 2. I can also see Jamie crying.

The sun burned down into an ember on the horizon and I realized how late it was getting. Panicked that my curfew had passed, I told Jamie I had to go to avoid the dreaded late-summer-vacation grounding. He nodded, wiped the sweaty tears off his cheeks with the front of his grimy shirt, hocked up a huge loogie, spat, lit up another smoke, and we carefully picked our way down the outcropping of Chevys, Fords, Pontiacs, and Buicks. As we walked toward the gate, I lingered over the two funny little cars. Jamie walked up to one of them, took out what I recall to be a huge knife, and popped off the chrome insignia that adorned the powdered, dusty blue trunk of one of them. He tossed it to me, told me to not be "such a fucking stranger," and headed into his grandma’s broken down old trailer. I yelled back for him to "not be so fucking strange" shocking myself at my f-bomb usage and sailor-wit, slipped the newfound illicit treasure into my pocket, hopped on my Sting-ray, and rode home, arriving exactly seventeen minutes after my curfew. Dad notified me that I was grounded for the next two weeks, but as I fingered the contours of the "M" and the "G" and the "A" in my pocket, I figured that some things in life were worth the cost. That night was one of them.

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