Hubcaps

September 15, 2025

Greetings from the start,

There is a faded sign says ‘Iggy’s Pick-A-Part’, with a cartoon character holding what seems to be an exhaust pipe.  The sign is mounted over a single wide mobile home bracketed by a tall chain-link fence around the junk yard.  The dirt lot is empty except for a knot of crows.

Oscar slams the car door, a tinny, empty sound, and the crows float a few feet and land again, give him that look that only crows have, like they know something he doesn’t.  He walks across the gravel and pushes into the front door, but it sticks a little and his momentum is too much so he bumps his face against the glass. For some reason Oscar is mortified the crows witnessed this.

Inside there is a long counter, lined with a dusty collection of car parts and stacks of magazines.  The front of it is clad in scuffed paneling, someone has drawn on a heart with a felt pen.  Behind this sits a squat man with a sparse beard.  He is wearing a cap that says ‘Agro’.  He is on a yellow phone, a corded thing hanging on the wall, like from the set of Brady Bunch. He holds a finger up at Oscar, the universal sign for “Just a minute.”

Oscar looks out the window, jangling his keys nervously, looking at his car in the lot, the crows now surrounding it as if it were carrion. He waits until he hears the phone clack on its cradle and then turns back to the counter. 

“I’m supposed to ask for Bev?” Oscar says, and his voice cracks a little as if he’d just left puberty.

“That’s me.”  The points to his chest, as if that is a recognized form of ID.

Oscar waits for a beat, his mouth open, needing to ask the obvious question.  “I, uh, … was asking about some hubcaps for my Toyota Corolla.”

“Wheel covers.”

Oscar doesn’t say anything but his expression is, “Huh?”

“Wheel covers,” says Bev.  “We call them wheel covers, not ‘hubcaps’.  This ain’t the Nixon area.”

“I think you mean ‘era’ not ‘area’.” Oscar says, almost accidentally.

Bev snorts a little, which might be a laugh. “You a college guy?” he asks, leaning forward a little on his stool, like he’s a bouncer keeping the riffraff out.

“No, I mean, I went to community college, but it was just a few credits, I mean, I’d like to go back but…”

Bev snorts again, “I don’t care, I’m just bustin’ you.  You want wheel covers for what again?”

“Yeah, I sent an email, about my’85 Toyota Corolla.”  As Oscar is saying this he realizes how crappy his car sounds when he says it out loud. 

“Now I got it, yah, I know I know,” Bev slips off the stool. “Wait, just a sec.”

He opens a gray door behind him and yells into the opening, something to Jerry or Larry, some numbers and a voice yells back and he says, “Yah, ’85 Corolla.” The door slams. Bev sits down and says nothing but pulls a pencil from his cap and scribbles on a paper full of scribbles.

Oscar paces around the little waiting room, looking at posters for oil and tires, a calendar from three years ago, a stack of parts that he assumes came from a car. Or maybe the space station.  He looks out the dirty window at his car sitting alone in the lot, holding court with crows.  It looks worse than how he thought people see him.  The car was red, but the hood and trunk lid have faded to a near pink color.  The doors are pocked with rust and there is a big dent in one fender.  It looks like it’s been abandoned, without the hubcaps.  Wheel covers.

Jerry/Larry comes through the gray door and leaves a cardboard box on the counter.  Bev turns and pushes the box toward Oscar, looks down at a slip of paper. “Forty-four fifty.”

Oscar leans over the box.  “There’s only three hubcaps here,” I say, “I need four.”

“Wheel covers,” he says, “Yah, that’s all I got. Bettr’n’ nothing, maybe you’ll get lucky and find another one somewhere.”

“What are the odds of that?”

“Probably better than a guy with one wheel cover looking for three to match.”

Oscar considers this for a moment. There is a symmetry to the idea that feels right. He gets a glimpse of the car with the wheel covers, and somehow it feels less desperate, more hopeful.  He takes money out of his wallet, litters the counter with it, and picks up the box.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking,” Oscars says, regretting the sentence already, “What is ‘Bev’ short for?”

“Beverly.”

“Isn’t that a …girl’s name?”

Bev smiles, and Oscar notices that a front tooth is missing.  “Sometimes it is.”

Oscar knows but asks: “Anyone give you grief about that?”

He isn’t fazed by the question.  “Anyone give you grief about driving an ’85 Corolla?”

Oscar blows out a breath.  “Just me.”

Bev puts his elbows on the grimy counter, he points his chin at the lot outside: “Why you bother putting wheel covers on that thing? You are about doubling the value, right?”

Oscar swallows and looks up over Bev’s head for a moment. “I, um, got a date, a friend fixed me up, and I am trying to make a better impression.”

Bev nods.  “I’d bring flowers too.  You know.”

Oscar turns into the parking lot of the diner, bouncing slightly, jostling the bundle of daisies on the passenger seat. They are bound in a rubber band, still wet from the grocery store display. He second-guesses the choice for the fourth time. He looks back up at the diner.

There is only one car in between the pitted yellow stripes there.  He doesn’t know the year, but it’s an old Corolla, a dingy grey color, one taillight held in place with red tape. As he drives closer, he sees it has only one hubcap.

Wheel cover.

Hope this finds you with a match,

David

Copyright © 2025 David Smith