I need a skeleton to rest my head on.
I need a place to eat French bread on.
I need a heart that is warm and whimpers
I need a love with whom I can share a snickers.
Candy bar laughter
morning after,
a lonely chapter written fresh
as a new car.
Fresh as a shining star,
Baby you are.

I need something to show me liquid freezes.
Chad read that line and was like, Yeah,
Oh Jesus, does he mean a freezer?
Oh Jesus what is he trying to say with this tongue twister?

Back to the poet writing with his Twitter fingers.
I like when my energy increases a bit.
Call it seasonal affective.
Call it March madness.
Call me a Swiss Miss sober seamstress.
To show me where the swisher sweet is.
I want to laugh, lucky I still can.

A little in debt from Bertera Nissan.
Took me at my most maddest moment
and now I wait for the morning after
an auction, I don’t even know when it will happen.

Wait to
get the bill,
Till then, thirty-five dollars
a day I pay
and all I can do.
I patiently wait.
In the mail, it will come.
A bill.

For a car deal they could have easily passed on.

Picture a warm Augustday, a Friday.
Things are going my way, not really.
I have blown up my life completely
and no longer have a real place to live.
Technically, I’m homeless.
Just got out of a treatment center.
But things are going my way. In my head.
Great day to buy a car today,
I’m worth it, I say,
and I’m in Auburn.
I see a dealership, and I go in.

Manic man made mad look is in fashion?
I must not of been that bad to them.
Even though my wife called and
urged them Please don’t sell it to him.

Mad enough, because they ran my credit.
Found a bank as shady as them
and not with many rejections.
And when I was in the hospital,
my car was ready but I wasn’t.

Tried so many times
in the hospital to fix the problem.
The hospital must have
records of the calls
while I was trying to heal
and figure out all that had happened.
I tried over and over to reach them.
They wouldn’t help me
while I was in the hospital.

“Hey, its the person you sold a car too
I was hospitalized
while the car deal went through?
Yeah, the one his wife pleaded with you
to not sell the car to?
Yeah, no? There’s nothing you can do?
Well is there someone I can talk to?”

Two months later, couldn’t pay the bills.
Tried a deferment from Metro Credit,
and they just didn’t want to do it.
Ms. Harris, what about the deferment?
What was that document I filled out
and sent to you then?
I know you probably don’t care,
but my little bit of credit is ruined.

So if you are wondering why I write this.
It’s ’cause that’s the way the cookie crumbles
That’s the way it’s going down.
Called a lawyer for free advice,
and they couldn’t get the deal
to go down.
My friend Andy wrote to the BBB.
Even Nissan National
got back to him (not me).
See I was the one with the mental illness.
Truly I was the consumer in both senses
of what the word means (IYKyK).

So then my friend Andy
tried to help me solve this.
Tim the manager kicked us right out
of Bertera Nissan’s office.
I went to pick the car up
after trying to sell the car back.
They said it was used and wouldn’t buy it
though the car never left their lot

They had registered the car.
I deregistered it.
and then also cancelled the insurance
They said that was a bad mistake
because If a tree fell on it,
you’d be responsible.
So then I registered it again
and got my own insurance
because Bertera did a slightly shady thing
and put the car under my wife’s insurance.
So when after it was all said and done
basically everything was ruined.
So I hustled to get the car insured again
and then tried to work with Ms. Harris
and plead to Metro Credit Union
for the car loans deferment.

So ok, Bertera tried to buy it back
for 10,000 less than what I bought it for.
Even though I hadn’t set foot in it.
Didn’t drive it once until finally I took
the problem away from Bertera
and put it solely on me.

Truthfully, I got fucked over
and he bank took the car back in January.
I think I had the car for one whole week.
Now Bertera Nissan is laughing at this.
So callous, couldn’t see the manic
or couldn’t care less.
Oh this was the best:
In their defense, Tim the manager
said I must not be mentally ill
if I had a license!

Guess I am a good little actor.
But the police, the hospitals
and the doctors
Said my mania was clearly showing.
But they sold me the car.
I was already hospitalized and drugged up.
Didn’t pick the car up which I bought in August
Until finally in January when my old faithful’s heat died.
And I think I had the car for a week not even
Had to get the car, thought it was the way
to try and settle the whole thing
And now the bank won’t do anything.
Took the car right from my parking lot
of the sober home I live at now.
Now it sits in an auction floor,
and they want 35,000 plus
paid in full.
Well of course that won’t happen.
So my hands are tied
and I can’t do a thing about it
but write this poem
and rant about it.

They told me at Metro
their hands are tied,
won’t even let me try
and make it right.
So now on top of the 35,000
I have to pay,
the car gains in interest
every night.

And the collections guys
were happy and smiled,
said this thing happens all the time,
it’s how it’s always been.
A bank really is a car dealer’s best friend.

But boy, that was a costly mistake.
How mania can break the bank.
So now I wait for the auction,
bleed thirty-five dollars a day,
can’t do nothing.
They won’t let me pay any of it
unless it’s paid in full.
How the heck can I do that?
I lost my job when I was in the hospital.
Almost became a Post Officer.
Day after New Year’s failed the driving test.

If there was a honest bone
in the bank’s body,
they would let me settle it up
and let me keep the car,
give me a chance to make the payments.
I’d be an Uber driver.
The car would be smoke free.
But that’s not the way the cookie crumbled
At least not the way it’s looking for me.

This is a true story.
Tell somebody.
This can’t be truly
how a car dealer
can do business
and laugh with the bank
while I just bear witness
with nothing I can do,
just waiting for a
2023 Nissan Rogue to sell
way less than market value.
Nothing to do but wait
for this saga to end.
But hey, I must not be mentally ill
if I have a license. Right, Tim?
I wonder if there’s any one
who would write to him?

Probably not. The mentally ill can’t write.
Shady businesses are shady bank’s best friend.
And a consumer is really a consumer in the end.
I’m so mad. Put down the pen.

Try and go to sleep,
wake-up and take my medicine.

 

Jason Wright is the editor and founder of Oddball Magazine. His column appears weekly. His third book, Train of Thought 2: Almost Home is available now at the Oddball Book Store.