Brutus
Through Jimmy’s eyes, Brutus was both noble and handsome. The bull-nosed 1956 Morris Minor rattled and wheezed into his life in 1970 after Jimmy parted with seventy-five hard earned dollars. For reasons known only to himself, he decided the Morris Minor’s appearance befitted the name Brutus. However, any correlation between Jimmy’s docile first car, and the Roman senator who orchestrated the demise of Julius Caesar, was a laughable overreach. Originally marketed as an economy car, Morris Minors were cheap and under-performing. Brutus had originally sported duck-egg blue paint but subsequent owners had amateurishly daubed splotches of grey, and white, over rust and dents. Jimmy’s additions to its mélange of colours included yellow splotches of Kill-Rust he’d hand-painted over further rust. He didn’t consciously choose yellow, that’s the colour of the remnant he found in a tin in his uncle’s shed. Jimmy wasn’t phased; he didn’t expect it to pass its next registration check anyway. Brutus had a unique appearance; it would be easily identified in a police line-up, particularly in a country town.
By 1971, Jimmy was 18 but still on apprentice wages. His affection for Brutus segued into a second love. One-sided at first, eventually Yvette, a year younger, returned his attentions. They began dating and, for 6 months, Jimmy would collect Yvette from her parents’ home on Friday nights. Like a hawk, Yvette’s father would silently circle Brutus at the kerbside, noting worn tyres, cracked windscreen and dimming headlights. Jimmy and Yvette were oblivious to his headshake and exhalation of breath as the multi-coloured Brutus departed asthmatically for the Skyline Drive-in Theatre. She wasn’t quite 18 yet, so pub gigs were problematic. Yvette’s affection for Jimmy didn’t extend to Brutus. She was quietly embarrassed to be seen in Jimmy’s car, so the darkness in the drive-in theatre helped her feel less noticed.
Jimmy’s choices of movies were often dubious. He was rarely able to read a room. One night, ‘Count Yorga: Vampire’ was screened. He’d cajoled a reluctant Yvette and eventually convinced her to attend. It was chillingly scary. Yvette remained in a state of agitation on the passenger side of the car and studiously avoided sliding across for their usual Friday night front-seat snogging. The movie had an extremely disturbing and unexpected conclusion. The heroine, whom viewers thought had been saved from the vampire, Count Yorga, swished contentedly through a pristine, snow-clad forest in a jingling horse-drawn sleigh. Doe-eyed, she blissfully turned to her rescuer and smiled adoringly. The film scene froze as the rescuer, fangs bared, lunged at her exposed, milky white neck. From multiple vehicles, the audience screamed as one. Then the credits rolled. Audio speakers were hastily unhooked from windows, engines revved into life, headlights flipped on and, lemming-like, there was a mass exit from the isolated Drive-in and back towards town.
Except for Jimmy’s car. It wouldn’t start. He turned Brutus’ ignition key fruitlessly until there was nothing left in the battery. Yvette was apoplectic. They were the last car in the darkened Drive-in and she was panicked. Fear of the dark, fear of abandonment, fear of vampires. Jimmy, heart racing, eyes darting around the void, crept uneasily from the car and raised Brutus’ bonnet. He twisted the battery terminals and tried again. Nothing. They’d parked in one of the back rows, so Jimmy had to traverse 100 metres in darkness towards the closing café and projection room. Yvette locked Brutus’ doors from the inside while Jimmy sought help. With most external lights out, Brutus was barely visible.
The manager drove Jimmy back with his own car. Yvette, by this stage weeping and wiping away thin strings of distress snot, initially baulked at unlocking the doors. Relenting, the manager used jump-starter cables between the two cars. Towards midnight, Brutus, Jimmy and Yvette trundled off into the blackness. Not a word was spoken. Reaching the security of her home, she turned to Jimmy. No kiss was offered, none was anticipated. She muttered feebly, “No more. Goodnight.”
Months later, after zero contact and puzzling moments of self-reflection, Jimmy heard on the grapevine that Yvette had been spotted around town as a passenger in a shiny new Torana GTR XU1 driven by a young local real estate agent. They’d even been seen together at the Skyline Drive-in, back row!
Struggling to understand the vagaries of relationships and what went wrong between he and Yvette, Jimmy whispered a heartfelt farewell. Releasing the handbrake, Brutus rolled unceremoniously over the lip of the disused quarry before slamming nose-first into the lake’s murky surface. It seemingly gurgled “goodbye” before disappearing ten metres below water level onto rocks and sludge. From his vantage point above, Jimmy choked back a tear for lost love. Although it had only existed for a brief period of time, there’d been genuine chemistry. He loved that first car.