A CAR, TWO GUYS AND A BAG OF BULLETS
Joe Fiorito
Toronto Star, Canada
March 15 2006
There is a 1992 Lincoln Town Car on a hoist in a garage up on Sheppard
near Kennedy. There are two guys standing around, talking.
The car is British racing green. The tires have been kicked. The
mileage is low. The seats are white leather and the car is fully
loaded; power this and that.
The one guy has good hair, nice manners and some dummy bullets in
a baggy. He wants to buy the car. The bullets in the baggy are a
red herring.
The other guy has a Goodyear vest and a trim moustache. He wants to
sell the car. The bullets in the baggy make no difference to him.
The bullets are .22 calibre, with plastic-covered, cotton-wadded
tips. They do not figure in the story, except as an aside.
The car does not get sold, not today. But the guy with the good hair
wants to buy, and the Goodyear guy wants to sell, and it’s a pretty
good deal, all things considered.
What’s the holdup?
A bit about Roland: He is a man of a certain age. He was in the London
cast of Cats a long time ago. He doesn’t dance any more. He writes
music instead. It’s easier on the knees.
It’s also why he is short of cash. Nobody in the arts is money-rich.
If you are money-rich in the arts, you are in some other kind of
business.
Roland needed wheels six years or so ago. He was on a tight budget,
so he went to the city auction. The car he liked had been used hard
– it was an old cop car, a ’92 Lumina – but he figured it had been
well-maintained. For twelve-hundred bucks he got himself a deal
on wheels.
You buy a used car, you have to get it certified. Roland asked around
and somebody said he should go see Sarko Ghazarian, who was reckoned
to be an honest garage man and a good guy; also vice versa.
A bit about Sarko: He is an Armenian from Lebanon who studied political
science at university in Beirut. If you know anything about Armenia,
you know why he grew up in Beirut. If you know anything about Beirut,
you know why he came here.
It’s all political science.
The old cop car checked out fine, and this was the start of the
friendship. Roland took to dropping in on Sarko now and then, whenever
he was in the neighbourhood. He’d bring coffee. The bullets?
They are irrelevant. Roland is a shooter of the breeze, and nothing but
the breeze. And Sarko? I never met an Armenian who didn’t like talk.
Roland drove that old cop car for a year or so.
One summer day he took his father for a ride in the country. His
father was 92 at the time. Roland figured a drive in the country
would be nice, because you know what this town is like in the summer.
Somewhere around Milton in the middle of the day, the air conditioning
gave out. The old cop car got hot. Roland’s father felt a tightness
in his chest. He rolled down the window. He had trouble getting air.
Roland took him to a hospital.
After his father died, Roland got rid of the old cop car for scrap.
That’s when he found the bullets; training rounds, a couple of them
in the trunk. He put them in a baggy. He kept them as a souvenir.
He got around town for a time in his mother’s car. But his mother
is getting on in years and she no longer drives, and her car is nice
and new.
She told Roland to sell it recently.
He can’t afford to buy it from his mum, so now he needs another set
of wheels. There was a time when he walked horses at the track. You
can’t get a racehorse as a loaner and ride it around town while you
raise enough cash to do a deal.
Roland dropped in to see Sarko a while ago. He said if you ever hear
of a good used car for a price …
Sarko said it was funny you should say that. He’d had a call from a
woman in the neighbourhood. She wanted to get rid of her car, a 1992
Lincoln Town Car, in good shape.
Roland said great, that would be really great, but he had no money
at the moment.
Sarko said the money was not a problem. He said he’d buy the car from
the lady and Roland could buy it from him whenever he got the cash.
Sarko feels good when he does good things.
The Lincoln is still on the hoist. Roland hasn’t raised the money
yet. The bullets are still in the baggy. They are a conversation piece.
I never heard of such a thing in a garage.