Models

an essay for radio by Philip Gerard

I am the youngest of three brothers, all of us born in a span of three years.

When we were kids, one of our perennial fads was building model cars. Mine always turned out to be unpainted heaps, splotched with glue, with ill-fitting windshields, crooked engine blocks, and hoods that wouldn't close. The wheels never turned, either-- it was easier to cement the axles to the chassis.

Paul, a year older than I, got better results, but he was usually more interested in roaming the woods or getting into mischief in town than sitting indoors all afternoon.

Stephen, the eldest, was the real maestro of model-building. Before starting his kit, he'd inventory the parts, carefully paring them off their plastic stems with an exacto knife. He'd read through the instructions, a sort of dry run without glue, making notes on especially difficult operations. Sometimes he'd put the whole thing back in the box and send away for a customizing kit, patiently waiting six weeks for the mailman to deliver it before continuing.

He'd agonize over colors, testing shades of model paint on scraps of plastic. Then he'd spend hours carefully painting the parts: gloss black for the undercarriage, hot rod red for the engine block, silver for headers and carbs, metallic blue or British racing green for the body. If the car came with a little driver, he painted him too.

Then he'd assemble the painted parts so carefully that you couldn't see a trace of glue anywhere-- it was uncanny, as if each little car were held together by air. He'd apply snappy-looking decals and add nifty extras-- spotlights, mudflaps, fender skirts. He'd even borrow unused parts from other kits, something Paul and I never thought to do.

His car models didn't look like the picture on the box; they looked better than the picture on the box.

And on all of his car models the wheels turned. That was his one big mistake.

It happened on a rainy afternoon. I was about ten. Stephen was out somewhere, and Paul and I were stuck inside, casting about the bedroom we shared for something to do. We were bored and restless. Finding nothing novel in our own room, we went down the hall to Stephen's.

There, occupying three whole shelves of a bookcase, were his car models, parked in neat, glittering rows. Slant-in, like a display in a model-shop window. The temptation was too much. I'd like to say it was Paul's idea, but in those days bad ideas occurred to both of us pretty much at the same time. We decided to have races. Model car races.

Each of us took a car to our room. On a signal, we bowled them into the hall, through Stephen's doorway, across the waxed hardwood floor, and straight into the wall. We weren't bored anymore: who could be bored watching beautiful plastic cars explode against the baseboard?

It took a long time to go through all his cars-- the Yellow Cab with its tiny fare meter, the Dodge police car with the tiny black billy club glued to the front seat, the Ford roadster with flames coming out the side, even the Gangbuster Packard, its trunk stuffed with miniature boodle.

At some point, half a dozen cars in, we both knew we were up to something wicked. But we didn't stop. We were caught up in a destructive frenzy. We were getting back at our neat-nik firstborn brother, who was always too good at everything, too responsible, too smart, too in-charge.

At last the carnage was complete-- the room was strewn with broken plastic parts and little plastic bodies. Some of the wheels had rolled under the bed, behind the dresser. The bookcase was empty.

And then Stephen came home. He took one horrified look and did the instinctive, brotherly thing: he whaled us both. We didn't resist very hard-- we knew we deserved it.

But after only a couple of punches, my mother appeared in the doorway. And what happened next has baffled all three of us for years: she punished Stephen-- for striking his brothers.

Paul and I were off the hook, scot-free.

Stephen eventually forgave us, but I don't remember that he ever built another model. A dozen years later, I spent three months building him a replica of the Budweiser beer wagon, for a Christmas present. I painted all the Clydesdale horses, rigged all the miniature harness, even painted spots on the dalmatian mascot. I made a cobblestoned wooden platform, using pea-stone. He kept it on his office desk for awhile to be polite. Now I think it lives in a box in his garage.

I finally figured out that it wasn't having the models that mattered. It was building them, naively believing in perfection. That's what we smashed against the wall that mean, rainy day.

Stephen is now a very successful businessman.

Paul became a lieutenant with the State Troopers, with a professional interest in right and wrong..

I spend my time in a little room making "models," stories, trying to get the details right. Sometimes I borrow from one to spiff up another. The hardest part is making sure the wheels turn. I leave them lying around for people to find and play with, and maybe smash into a wall. It's risky. Sometimes they don't last long. But once in awhile-- once in awhile, I build one that just goes and goes.