In late 2007, at twenty-three years old, I thought owning a car meant freedom. I didn't know it could belong to everybody except me. Mine was a 2008 Pontiac Grand Prix. It wasn't some beat-up first car held together with duct tape and hope, either. It was nice. New enough that when I pulled up somewhere, people noticed. And when you're twenty-three, that matters.
I loved that car. I loved the red glow of the dashboard at night. I loved the way the engine sounded when I got on it. I loved walking out of a store and seeing it sitting in the parking lot, knowing that I didn't have to call anybody for a ride anymore. Most of the people I knew my age were borrowing their parents' cars, catching rides, or walking. I had a Grand Prix. More importantly, I had something other people needed. I didn't understand the difference yet between being needed and being useful. I would.
At the time, We were in the process of buying a house with my then girlfriend, Crystal. Crystal was a college student. She had classes, books stacked around the house, papers to write, places she needed to be in the morning. Her life had structure. Mine didn't. That wasn't something I thought about much back then. Crystal was building toward something. I was twenty-three. As far as I was concerned, there was plenty of time to figure everything else out. Crystal came from a semi-wealthy family, her father worked overseas as a retired army ranger which took care of them very well. I was from a poor family that had been broken up when i was around 3, raised with my father by my sisters. I had never seen a life like that.
Money was the problem. I wanted it. Not millions. Not mansions. I wanted the kind of money that mattered when you're twenty-three. Gas in the car without using the last twenty dollars in your pocket. Food whenever you wanted it. Weed without having to ask somebody else. New clothes. A little cash folded up when everybody else was broke. I wanted to feel like I had something going on.
That's where Deandre Mason came in. Everybody called him Dre.
I didn't know Dre particularly well at first. I'd seen him around. Everybody had. He was older than me. Not old enough to seem like an adult, but old enough that the difference mattered. He always seemed to have money. Always had weed. Always knew somebody. And people moved differently around him. That was what I noticed most. People listened when Dre talked. I'd spent most of my life feeling like nobody particularly cared whether I entered or left a room. Dre could walk into one and change it. One afternoon, I was outside near the Grand Prix when he came over. He nodded toward it.
"That's yours?"
"Yeah."
"What year?"
"08."
Dre walked around the front of it. "Damn. twenty-three with an 08?"
I smiled. "Yeah."
"Must be nice."
"It is."
He laughed.
"Let me use this joint."
I looked at him. "For what?"
"Why you worried about it?"
"I'm not."
"Then let me use it."
There was something about the way he said it. Not threatening. Almost amused. Like saying no would make me a kid again.
"For how long?"
"Hour."
"Where you going?"
He smiled. "That's two questions." I should've walked away.
That's the thing people never understand when they hear stories like mine. Years later, everybody wants to find the moment. The moment you made the wrong decision. The moment everything changed. They imagine some warning going off in your head. Your stomach twisting. Some voice screaming, Don't do this. Real life isn't like that. Sometimes the worst decision of your life feels completely ordinary.
Dre reached into his pocket. He peeled two twenties from a folded stack of cash and held them toward me.
"Forty dollars."
I looked at the money. Forty dollars wasn't nothing when I was twenty-three. Then he reached into his other pocket and pulled out a small bag of weed.
"And I'll throw you this."
I looked at the bag. "How much?"
Dre laughed. "See? Now we negotiating."
Forty dollars and weed. For doing nothing. That was the part that mattered. I didn't have to sell anything. I didn't have to steal anything. I didn't have to fight anybody. I wasn't joining a gang. I wasn't committing some big crime. I was letting somebody borrow my car. People did that every day. At least that's what I told myself. I held my hand out.
"You fuck it up, you're paying for it."
Dre smiled. "Obviously."
I dropped the keys into his palm. He looked down at them, then back at me. Something changed in his expression for just a second.
I wouldn't understand that look until much later. Dre wasn't happy because I'd rented him a car. He was happy because I'd said yes.
"Hour," I reminded him.
"Hour." He climbed inside. The engine started, and I watched my Grand Prix disappear down the street.
When I got back inside, Crystal was sitting at the table with a textbook open in front of her. She looked up.
"Where's the car?"
"Dre borrowed it."
She stared at me. "Who?"
"Dre."
"Who's Dre?"
"Deandre Mason." That didn't help. She closed her book.
"You let somebody I don't even know take your car?"
"He's paying me."
"Paying you?"
"Forty bucks." Crystal stared at me for a second like she was waiting for me to tell her the rest.
"And?"
"And what?"
"Why is somebody paying you forty dollars to borrow your car?"
"Because he needs a car."
"Then why doesn't he have one?"
I shrugged. "Don't know."
Crystal kept looking at me. She was good at that. She didn't have to yell. Sometimes she'd just look at me until my own explanation started sounding stupid.
"What?" I finally said.
"Nothing."
"Then why are you looking at me like that?"
"I'm not looking at you any kind of way."
"You are."
She opened her textbook again. "Okay."
That pissed me off more. "What?"
"I said okay."
"He's bringing it back in an hour."
"Okay."
"And he's giving me weed too."
Her eyes came off the page again. I probably should've kept that part to myself. "Of course he is."
"What does that mean?"
"It means exactly what I said."
I shook my head. "You worry about everything."
"And you don't worry about anything."
At twenty-three, I thought that was an insult. Years later, I'd understand it was probably the most accurate thing anybody ever said about me.
An hour passed.
Then two. I checked the clock. Dre hadn't called. I sent him a text.
You coming back? No response.
Another hour passed. I called.
Straight to voicemail.
Crystal noticed. "I thought you said an hour."
"He probably got caught up."
"Doing what?"
"I don't know."
"Exactly."
I ignored her and called Dre again. Voicemail.
By seven that night, I was pissed. By nine, I was nervous. By eleven, I was convinced my Grand Prix was gone. Crystal had stopped saying anything about it. That was worse. Every time I looked at her, I knew what she was thinking. I told you so.
At 12:43 in the morning, headlights finally washed across the window. I stood up.
"That's him." Crystal didn't move.
I went outside. My Grand Prix pulled up, and Dre stepped out like he'd borrowed it fifteen minutes earlier. Another guy got out of the passenger side. I'd never seen him before. Short, Stocky with a Black hoodie. All I could focus on was the lights shining off his gold teeth. He opened one of the rear doors, reached inside, and pulled out a black duffel bag. Then he looked at me. Not casually. He studied me. I remember that. There are certain things your brain holds onto even when you don't know they're important yet.
Dre walked over and tossed me the keys.
"Appreciate you."
"You said an hour."
"Shit happened."
"You could've answered your phone." Dre reached into his pocket and handed me another sixty dollars.
I stopped talking. One hundred dollars. At twenty-three, that felt like real money.
"For the extra time," he said.
The other guy walked past us carrying the duffel. He didn't introduce himself. Didn't say hello. He just disappeared. Dre started to follow him.
"Hey." He turned around.
"What?"
"What were you doing?"
Dre stared at me. For a second neither of us spoke. Then that smile came back.
"You sure you wanna know?"
I looked at the hundred dollars in my hand. Then at the Grand Prix. Then at Dre.
"No."
His smile widened.
"Smart man."
He walked away. I stood there alone. Something felt wrong. Not wrong enough to give the money back. Just wrong enough that I remember it. I opened the driver's door. The seat had been pushed way back. The car smelled like cigarettes and weed. The gas tank was full. There was dirt on the passenger-side floor that hadn't been there before. I checked the center console. Nothing. Glove compartment. Nothing. Back seat. Nothing. Then I walked around and opened the trunk. Empty. I stared into it anyway. I don't know what I expected to find. Maybe nothing. Maybe something. Maybe I already knew more than I was willing to admit. I closed the trunk.
When I walked back inside, Crystal was still awake. She looked at me.
"Well?"
"He brought it back."
"I see that."
I held up the money. "Hundred dollars."
She looked at it, then at me.
"For borrowing your car?"
"Yeah."
"For a few hours?"
"Yeah." Crystal's expression changed.
"Why would somebody pay you a hundred dollars to borrow your car for a few hours?" I shrugged.
"Because he has money."
She didn't answer. I put the cash in my pocket.
"You think too much."
Crystal looked at me for a long time.
"And you don't think enough."
I went to bed.
The next morning, I spent some of the money on gas. Some on food. The rest stayed folded in my pocket. It felt good. That's another thing people leave out when they tell stories about bad decisions. Sometimes bad decisions feel fucking great. Sometimes nothing bad happens at first. Sometimes you get rewarded. That's what makes you do it again. Two days later, my phone rang. Dre.
"What's up?"
"Nothing."
"You using the Grand Prix tonight?"
I looked through the window at it parked outside.
"No."
"I'll give you a hundred."
I didn't answer immediately. Dre laughed.
"You thinking too hard."
"How long?"
"Couple hours."
"You said that last time."
"And didn't I pay you?" He had. That was the problem.
"One-fifty."
Silence.
For the first time, I thought maybe I'd pushed too far. Then Dre laughed.
"My man learning. So one-fifty?"
"Yeah. And some weed."
"You greedy little motherfucker." I smiled.
"Deal?"
"Deal." I hung up.
Crystal was standing behind me. I hadn't realized she'd been listening.
"You're giving him the car again?"
"He's paying me a hundred and fifty dollars."
"That's not what I asked."
"It's easy money."
"No."
"What?"
Crystal looked toward the window.
"There's no such thing." I laughed.
"There absolutely is."
"No. There isn't."
I grabbed the Grand Prix keys from the counter. Crystal watched me.
"Why does he need your car?"
"I don't know."
"Doesn't that bother you?"
"No." It did. Just not enough.
A few minutes later, Dre knocked. I opened the door. He smiled when he saw the keys already in my hand.
Three months later, he wouldn't have to knock. Six months later, people I didn't know would be sleeping in our house. People Crystal never invited. People I barely knew myself. My Grand Prix would disappear for days instead of hours. There would be nights when I wouldn't know where it was. There would be mornings when it came home smelling strange. Eventually, police officers would know the license plate. And somewhere along the way, people would stop asking whether I was with Dre. They'd just assume I was. But none of that had happened yet.
It was late 2007. Crystal still had her textbooks spread across our table. I was twenty-three years old. I had a 2008 Grand Prix, a hundred and fifty dollars coming to me, a bag of weed, and absolutely no idea that I'd just rented out the rest of my life.