The engine gave its final death rattle last August as we rolled to a stop in front of our house. I sighed, locked the door, and walked away. Unfortunately, like an idiot, I've been optimistically hanging onto the car for months. I've now wasted $700 in insurance just to watch the car rot. Every day, I’ve walked past my car and shaken my fist in impotent rage.

But that’s behind me now. My insurance expires shortly, and so will my marriage if I don’t get cracking. So I go online to see if anybody wants to make me a trade.

Now, according to ICBC figures on the GVRD website, there were 312,070 vehicles registered in Vancouver on January 31, 2006, and a total of 1,346,705 in Greater Vancouver, Surrey, and Langley. In the last decade, the number of cars on the road increased by 12 percent: Vancouver has 52,963 more vehicles than in 1996, and the region as a whole hosts 282,422 more vehicles.

That’s a lot of cars! With that many cars to go around, I figure chances are pretty good that somebody out there will want to trade me their boring new car for a sweet antique ride like mine. So I visit Craigslist.org and post this ad under Cars/Trucks for sale:

Subject: Best Car Ever!! 1989 Chevy Cavalier
Price: $2000 or trade up
Location: East Van

Breaks my heart to sell this classic ‘80s beauty. Must sell PRONTO.

- 2-doors that lock
- Stick shift, 265 K, man-driven
- Mono audio-cassette
- Free dog blanket
- Backseat good for sex
- Trunk filled with car parts that fell off
- Could be convertible if you sawed off the roof

P.S. It's probably minor but this gorgeous car refuses to start. Ran awesome; now it don't. Great starter car!
P.P.S. Cars in background of photo not included.

A day later, and still no replies to my ad. Time to get creative. I return to Craigslist and post this ad in a section called Missed Connections. It’s the lonely hearts section where desperate guys post ads for women whom they’re too gutless to talk to on their bus to work.

My ad read:

You: cute dog walker; Me: redhead model
Age: 17 (East Vancouver)

Sunday, corner of Carolina and 10th, you looked right inside me and shyly touched your hair. You smiled. You looked gorgeous. My heart leapt. You look like a woman who can take me places where we've always wanted to go.

How about a leisurely drive in the slow lane by no later than Wednesday morning?

Carpe diem!

Respectfully yours,

The Cavalier Redhead

1500 CDN

No luck on that one, either. But as I kept trolling through Craigslist, I stumbled across this:

CarsForFilms is holding an OPEN REGISTRATION for vehicle owners! Any vehicle, from motorcycle, RV, truck, regular, antique or ecotics (sic) CAN APPLY!

There is even room for crashed vehicles! Please register at WWW.CARSFORFILMS.COM

Please indicate your desired daily rental for your vehicle!

Cool! So I fired off this missive:

From: Ken Hegan
To: Info@carsforfilms.com
Subject: Hot redhead seeks agent

Dear CarsforFilms,

I love your supercool website. Next to the picture of the sultry hot blonde resting her scantily clad booty against that lucky little Mustang, it says that your company, "through technology of the internet and the effort of it's associates, are on the way to become a leading supplier of REGULAR, EXOTIC and CUSTOM vehicles and related items to ADVERTISING, MOVIE, VIDEO and TELEVISION and EVENT industries!"

That's fantastic, CarsforFilms! I love the technology of the Internet! This gorgeous 2-door hardtop comes with new tires and its own stick shift. Backseat has the faint scent of dog vom and ratty upholstery. Basically this beauty would make a helluva good crash car, though to be honest, the engine doesn't really start anymore.

So unless your chase scene starts at the top of a hill, I guess I'm really saying that my jaunty Cavalier would make a great 'crash-into car'. Do you know any crappy big-budget TV shows shooting in Vancouver, like JAG or whatever, that need classic cars to crash into during their patented nail-biting chase scenes?

Warm wishes from the rainforest,

Ken Hegan

P.S. I need to ditch this beast by Wednesday morning OR ELSE.

No responses. Now, I know better than to wait around for Hollywood North to call. In fact, I’m starting to realize that getting rid of a junky old car is like being single. You gotta play the field. So I flipped through the Reel West Digest, the authoritative guide on to how to harass people in the BC film biz. And, lo and behold, on page 104, I had a sudden "Eureka!" moment. Excited, I ran to the library’s free public computer, and sent this email to the woman behind such locally-lensed classics as AGENT CODY BANKS, K-9: P.I., and FREDDY GOT FINGERED.

From: Ken Hegan
To: Coreen Mayrs
Subject: Hardbody redhead seeks bombshell role

Dear Coreen,

My film biz sources, who rarely ever lie, tell me that you, Coreen Mayrs, are the finest casting agent in the known universe. I see you're casting the new Pierce Brosnan buzz film, BUTTERFLY ON A WHEEL, in which "a perfect family's dynamic is ruined by a kidnapper's brutally efficient plot."

Say, does this kidnapper's brutally efficient plot involve a car chase through the mean streets of Vancouver, during which your kidnapper smashes his vehicle Steve McQueen-style into parked cars of a certain vintage?

If so, I'd like to introduce you to my fiery-red '89 Chevy Cavalier. As you can see from the attached photo, it's the perfect car for a kidnapper to use in his getaway. Coreen, say there's a scene where the kidnapper commandeers an '89 Chevy Cavalier by yanking out the driver and taking over the wheel. My car would be perfect.

Now, I should tell you that the engine doesn't exactly start. But maybe that could raise the stakes for the kidnapper. When the engine doesn't turn over, we'd root for him a little bit as he bangs his head against the steering wheel in frustration.

Or maybe at the climax of the movie, your hero is supposed to ram the kidnapper's Chevy Cavalier off a high cliff so it explodes in a ball of flames while the hero says a zippy one-liner like, "Kidnap that, Fernando!"

Nobody's offering you their Ferrari to blow up, right? Exactly. For a low low cost (say, actor's guild minimum plus a buyout), I can get you a rust-red '89 Chevy Cavalier that'll ignite right on the first take. Hell, half the parts are already falling off, so they'll have no problem flying in every direction.

Interested? Send word, Coreen. My heap is ready for its close-up!

Very excited over here,

Ken Hegan

Yet again, no response. Great. So apparently the film biz is booming so loudly, casting agents can’t even notice real talent when it breaks down on their doorstep.

Still stumped on how I’m going to dump the beast, I took my dog for a walk along Commercial Drive. Suddenly I saw a sculpture that was so cheesy, it gave me a salt rush. The 7-foot fiberglass sculpture was a gaudily painted bear dressed in a polo shirt and Bermuda shorts. Reared up on his spindly hind legs, this "Spirit Bear" was waving like the Queen with one hand and scratching his nut-sack with the other.

At first, I frowned and looked away, thinking this was yet another Commercial Drive mime. But later, when I surfed the Web, I discovered that this bear was supposed to be "art." Various artists were commissioned to design 10 distinct Spirit Bears that would stand guard over multiple Vancouver locations. Each bear comes with a cutesy name like "The Tooth Beary," "Love Mama and Papa Bear," and my personal least favourite, "Vancoubear."

This gave me a cunning plan:

From: Ken Hegan
To: Mayor Sam Sullivan
Subject: Artistic Proposal: Taking it to the Streets

Dear His Worship Sam Sullivan, Mayor of Vancouver,

Sir, it has come to my attention that Vancouver boasts the finest public art in the world. Forget Rome, London, Paris, and New York. Next to Vancouver's prized public sculptures, those art-deficient towns look like nose-picking amateurs.

Just gaze upon Vancouver's eye-popping cement '100' under the Granville Street Bridge, and our wonderful tangle of rusted steel in Vanier Park. How marvellously po-mo! But now your delightful Spirit Bears (bears wearing flip-flops? genius!) have almost made me forget Vancouver's painfully beautiful killer whales that were airbrushed to look sort of like "Bobby Orrca" and "Orca Presley."

Impossible acts to follow? For most artists, yes. But now I, Ken Hegan, am preparing to unveil a new sculpture series that will blow those mammals off the map! My series of 200+ sculptures is made from actual parts of a collectible antique rust-red Chevy Cavalier.

Here's how it works:

The City of Vancouver pays me a handsome fee for the opportunity to stuff my car with C-4 plastic explosives and then publicly blow it into a bazillion pieces! The backdraft will knock your socks off, sir, so lock the brakes on your wheelchair!

Next, City workers will pick up the pieces and mount them prominently around town: Strathcona can display a piece of my shrapnel-scarred spare tire. Marpole can erect my stick shift. City Hall hangs my half-melted steering wheel from your flagpole, and so forth.

Collectively entitled "The Carpse," my artistic explosion symbolizes how viciously high rents have devastated our city's art scene and forced artists to abandon Vancouver and live in dingy suburban basement suites.

Either that, or The Carpse represents the potential threat of evil-doing, Winter Olympic-hating terrorists who, according to VPD Chief Jamie "sleepless nights" Graham, may be plotting to destroy our Winter Canadian way of life. Either way, it's pretty cool to blow up a guy's car, hey?

Sir, this is truly a unique opportunity. Artistic genius doesn't happen every day. So, starting today, right now, you have 24 hours to claim The Carpse for Vancouver or I’ll take my art to Kamloops.

I remain your loyal and faithful servant,

I.M. Ken Hegan
Artist
Mount Unpleasant (Fraser/Broadway)

No reply from the Mayor. Damn it all to Hell! Doesn’t anybody appreciate art anymore? Man, I bet if Jimmy/James Green was mayor, he’d be all over this idea like a frat kid on a porn star.

Come to think of it, what I should have said to the Mayor was, "Hey Sam, the cops know your van by now, so I bet you’re looking for a safer injection site. Tell you what: give me three large for the Carpse, and I’ll even smoke the windows for you. P.S. Only call my pager!!!"

Running out of options here. It’s 9:30 am and this morning my wife said I have to dump the car by day’s end. To prove that she meant business, before she left for work, she packed my suitcase and left it by the front door. "Hegan, I’ll be back at five sharp," she warned. "If I come back to see that junker still rotting at the curb, you’re going to walk around the block three times but only come back twice. Got it?"

Hmmm…what if I remove the license plates and abandon the car where it lies? It’s not like they could trace it back to me. Actually, that’s not true. When I first took ownership, the Feds made me tell them the serial number that’s etched into the driver-side doorframe. I suppose I could scrape it off, but I’m hardly handy, and the only tool around this house is me.

I know! DIY means ‘do it yourself’, not ‘do it myself’, right? So I’ll charge people ten bucks to sledgehammer the bejesus out of it. People will have to bring their own sledgehammer, of course, and I’ll make extra sure they flatten the serial number. Hell, I could probably charge people five bucks just to watch.

To sweeten the deal, I’ll paint the faces of Gordon Campbell, ‘W’, and Stephen Harper on the doors and hood, and maybe our weird Inuit-y Olympic mascot that looks like a retarded goalie walking like an Egyptian. I bet that kind of political violence would be a hit on Commercial Drive. Not that anybody on the Drive has two spare nickels to bang together. Also, I’m no expert, but it probably takes at least an afternoon to make really bad East Van street theatre.

Early afternoon. Palms are sweaty. Desperate for salvation, I hop on the Web and Google "how to get rid of your Vancouver car for scrap."

My first hit is AirCare’s Scrap-It Program, aimed at getting older, high-polluting vehicles off the road. By trading in your gas-guzzling beast, you can get $1,000 toward a new hybrid, $750 towards a new guzzler and up to $750 towards an electric bicycle, vanpool, or carpool, plus additional cash incentives for bikes and TransLink passes. Sweet!

I’m just about to sign up when I read the fine print: "Remember all vehicles being scrapped must be driven to the recycling yard."

Damn. If I had just a few more hours, I’d saw a hole in the floorboards and literally run my car across the finish line Freddy Flintstone-style.

The next ad I find online is:

!@ WANTED FOR CASH @!
YOUR DEAD, CRASH TESTED
OR UNWANTED VEHICLES!!
SCRAP Cars, Vans, Pick-Ups
No Whls No Prob. Hiab Equipt.
HONEST ENGINES
604-580-4715 or Cell-323-4485
honest_engines@shaw.ca

I call them up and talk to Charlie, who says that, on a good week, Honest Engines hauls off ten cars to the scrapyard. They’re a small company that used to do bigger business. Three years back, Charlie used to drag off four cars a day. However, competition is stiff right now because the price of scrap metal is high. Charlie says he can get anywhere from $90 to $135 a ton at a scrap metal place. The scrap metal place then trucks or barges it to Tacoma, where the car is ground down, and put on a boat to China, Japan, or Korea.

"Then it comes back as a Hyundai, microwave, or cheap Chinese tools," says Charlie. "We’re a tiny cog in the world economy."

Speaking of which, business is slow because Honest Engines can’t afford to pay for a fancy Yellow Pages ad. He sounds so sad about the competition, I feel sorry for him. But then I remember that (a) my wife is going to kick my ass and (b) I’m 1/16th Inuit so his company’s name kind of bugs me.

So I Google again and find:

"I see them everywhere. On your lawn with grass growing out of the windshield. Isn't it time to get rid of that Scrap Car?

Call Scrap Happy Cars and I'll come take it away for you.

604-719-3811"

Not bad, not bad. But picking up cars sounds like more of a hobby than a career, plus he/she didn’t mention the all-important $$$$.

I search again and get:

ALWAYS THE BEST!!
Car and Truck Removal, Copper
Aluminum, etc * 604-376-7012
$$ CASH FOR MOST $$

Good enough for me. So I call them up and talk to a nice fella who says he’ll send a flatbed truck over tout de suite, and pay a nominal fee to boot. Twenty minutes later, the guy’s thick-necked son, Adam, slowly winches the Carpse onto his flatbed. It starts to rain as I watch the back wheels bounce over the leaves and dead animals that once used my car for shelter.

I sign over the ownership papers. Adam says business is slow today. Normally they’d be hauling off at least eight beaters a day. Then Adam hands me ten bucks and drives my Carpse off to the slaughterhouse. I stand alone there for a moment, and suddenly I feel a tug on my heart. A tear slides down my cheek. On the one hand, I’ve saved my marriage with just minutes to spare. On the other hand, it feels like I’m in the terminal ward, and I’ve pulled the plug on a good friend who used to give me free rides, and who only broke down when I was in a hurry.

And while it’s the death of an era and the end of a friendship, on the bright side it’s also the start of a rust-red toaster in some god-forsaken Korean sweatshop. Toast on, my friend, toast on.

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