Like everything else, it had a good side and a bad side. When Dad drove up in the 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air, I saw only the good side. Freshly waxed by some nefarious used-car dealer, its metallic cabbage color highlighted the razor-sharp horizontal fins of its rocket-like body. There was a hubcap missing on the front driver’s side but the rear wheel sported a spinner that could have ruined chariots in the Coliseum.
The passenger side lowered my expectations. The rear quarter panel was dimpled like an apple doll from door to taillight and hand spray-painted in an almost matching color. Thankfully, that magnificent fin was undamaged. Both spinner hubcaps were still in place but the rear one had been dented in the destruction of the quarter panel. The remedy was obvious and within the hour I had moved both good hubcaps to the driver’s side and taken the dented hubcap off of the passenger side. It was physically impossible, I knew, to look at both sides of the car at the same time.
Within a month I learned how to park so that only the good side was visible and always encouraged dates to get in on the driver’s side and slide over. In a time of bench seats, this had the double advantage of keeping the bad side of the car unseen and allowing my teenage self a glance at my date’s legs.
The only other problem that came standard with my ’59 was the tendency of the battery to die while my friends and I sat at a local grill watching girls and listening to Del Shannon or the Beach Boys on the radio. My father’s solution was not a great help. He supplied a set of jumper cables, which required finding a helpful stranger or friend and creating just the kind of scene that mortifies a teenage boy. I attempted to forestall the problem by parking on an incline whenever possible. The three-speed column shift straight drive would start at a three-mile-an hour roll if I popped the clutch at just the right time. The Park Inn Grill on Cherry Road had a parking area that allowed for the perfect downhill roll without anyone having to push.
The Park Inn, Hardees and Shoney’s Big Boy were the devil’s triangle of our search for adventure. All three are gone now, along with Porter’s Grill near the Catawba River bridge. Porter’s back row parking was for the heavy hitters of dating and would have required major prowess with the kind of girls that our sixteen-year-old selves dared not hope for…yet.
The ultimate coup in those innocent years was to date an out-of-town girl. The local girls were certainly every bit as good looking but they didn’t carry the mystique of the unknown. I met Kathy through her cousins at a summer church camp and after finding ways to invade her circle of friends, asked her to the end-of-week party. Since she lived only a scant ten miles away, I looked forward to a promising relationship.
The thrill of dating Kathy diminished a bit a few weeks after church camp when I drove to her house in the dark to pick her up. The narrow country road seemed cut with a scoop creating a tunnel of trees overhanging both lanes. The only light, other than from my headlights was an occasional phosphorescent glow from decaying wood in the forests along the road. I confess that dark nights made me uneasy and the uncertain battery in the ’59 Chevy made me even more apprehensive.
The road to her little community of Van Wyck wound for five dark miles and was deserted except for a small AME Zion church complete with tombstones and just beyond the church a low narrow bridge. The state had evidently been doing some recent repair work on the bridge because I noticed that there were construction barricades pushed to the side of it.
Kathy lived in a pre-civil war white two-story frame house with a wide dirt driveway. At the end of the driveway was an old covered stone well complete with bucket. The driveway gave me room to turn around and back up to the well so that the good side of the Chevy faced the house and I was on a slight incline.
When I knocked at the door, Kathy’s old fashioned “What do you intend to do with my daughter?” father answered the door. I had to endure questions about our destination, my father’s income and my non-existent police record before Kathy finally appeared.
She was worth the wait. Kathy wore one of those VillagerÒ dresses with the little-round-collars on which circle pins were all the mandatory rage. Rumor was that they were “virgin pins” and that the side on which the circle was worn indicated virgin or non-virgin status. I never saw one worn on the “non-virgin” side but had deep suspicion about some of the wearers. I had no such suspicions about Kathy. I don’t think any teenage boy would have braved the wrath of her father.
The road back to civilization was much less gloomy. We went to Lancaster to see The Pink Panther and, like everyone else at the time, I got a chance to practice my Inspector Clouseau impression which, I was sure, was flawless. Even now, some of the things I thought were “cool” make me blush for the foolish kid I was.
The drive back to her house was full of talk and fun and at about 10:30, we drove up in the driveway. I again backed up to the well but before I could stop her, Kathy got out on the bad side of the car. We walked to the house and after a quick kiss at the door, she invited me in for a minute. Her father, a little less intimidating with her safely back home, asked about the movie and after a few minutes, asked the question that seemed harmless at the time.
“Did you tell him about the old well?” he asked Kathy. Not really waiting for an answer, he launched into a story he obviously relished telling.
“During the Revolution,” he began, “a company of Hessian soldiers were camped about half a mile away on the banks of the Catawba River. Local patriots were furious about it and looking for ways to settle scores for crops lost and livestock stolen. Just at sunset, one evening, a Hessian soldier rode up to the well to fill his canteen and was ambushed by a small group of angry patriots. He was shot several times as he leaned over the well and just managed to climb on the back of his black horse and try to escape. Again the patriots opened fire and the rider and horse fell dead.”
Kathy looked at me the way teen girls always look when a parent tells a well-worn story but I was caught up in the narrative.
“Over the years,” her father continued, “people claim to have seen a rider on a black horse ride up to the well and have heard the sound of the bucket hit the water and even the snort of the horse. The few people brave enough to approach the rider reported that horse and rider would vanish without a trace.”
He left the room to give us a few minutes to say goodnight. As I stepped into the night, there was just enough moonlight to see my way to the car and to see the stone circle of the well behind it. I admit to a long wary look at the well but there was no black horse and no Hessian soldier so I got safely into the car.
Thankfully the finicky battery fired on the first turn of the key. I put the column shifter down into first gear and let out the clutch. The ’59 lurched a few inches forward and stopped like someone had grabbed the bumper. My mind raced as to what was happening but I could not bring myself to look in the rear-view mirror. Searching my limited automotive knowledge, it occurred to me that first gear must be broken. I shoved the shifter up into second and again let the clutch out. Again there was a little movement forward and a sudden grab. Despite my panic addled brain, I finally realized the my mistake. I had not released the hand brake.
Pulling the brake catch and slamming the car into first gear, I roared out of the driveway with all the power the six-cylinder could muster. This was an ominous beginning to the drive down the long dark road and I was driving a little too fast.
That’s when the banging started. Something (or someone) was banging on the passenger door. I was driving 45 miles an hour on this narrow dark road and the banging kept getting louder. I racked my brain for a reasonable explanation that did not involve a dead soldier or a hook (you have heard the old hook story). When I slowed down, the banging slowed down.
The seat belt!
At that time there were no shoulder harnesses and most seat belts did not retract. Kathy must have closed the seatbelt in the door and the banging must be the buckle slamming against the door. I managed to convince myself that the seat belt was the problem but I was not sure enough to stop the car and check. I slowed a little more and controlling the steering wheel with my left hand, I slid across the vast front seat, pushed the door open, grabbed the seat belt, pulled it in and slammed the door.
That should have been enough. I was plenty shaken by the ghost story, the problem with the brake and the seat belt noises. It should have been enough but there was more to come.
About halfway back to civilization on the desolate road was the small low bridge.
As I topped the hill before the bridge, I saw the barricades had been put back across the road. They were not there 45 minutes earlier as Kathy and I returned from the movie.
There were only a few reasons that someone would have put the barricades back across the road. One, the highway department had come out in the middle of the night to replace the barricades…not very likely. Two, someone had come out and put the barricades across the road to stop a car and rob or kill the driver. Three…there was no three. That’s all I could come up with.
It was crunch time. I had to either stop and move the barricades or try to break through them. Sounds like an easy decision, but I was terrified to face my father with a further damaged car and I certainly could not drive the rest of the road with broken headlights. I skidded as close up to the barricades as possible, put the car in neutral and locked the parking brake. I left the engine running, positive that this was not the time to trust the battery. Running to the nearest barricade, I grabbed the end and, at a run, dragged it out of the way just enough to get the car through the opening.
I made it back to the car but as I jumped in I heard screams and yells and saw a pair of headlights come on. The other car had been backed into the woods and it pulled out and followed me to Highway 521 before it turned around and headed back on the road toward Van Wyck.
The rest of the trip home was on more familiar roads and, though I checked for headlights constantly, I made it home shaken from the experience.
The next afternoon, my mother called me to the phone and when I answered, a voice said, “How was your date last night?” It was Bobby, Kathy’s cousin from church camp. The crack in his voice told me that he already knew. He and Tim, another cousin, knew about the date and saw us come back to Kathy’s house. Since the Van Wyck road was deserted and no one else was likely to be on that road so late, they rode to the bridge and, on a whim, dragged the barricades across the road, hid their car and waited for me to come along.
They did not know that Kathy’s father would tell the Hessian story, or about the brake and the seat belt. They had no idea how shaken I would be when I reached the barricades.
I did call Kathy but we never went out again.
At age 71, I was at a party and struck up a conversation with another guest. When he told me he was from Van Wyck, I told him about going out with Kathy. He laughed and said, “Did her daddy tell you about the ghost at the well?”
People may say there are no coincidences but I know better. There are coincidences and sometimes they are terrifying.
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