Ed Krambles drives a convertible, a permanent convertible, rain or shine, even through Chicago winters. His 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass is a local legend, and a sighting of the pale green drop-top is enough to generate an inner thumbs-up, especially on an overcast winter day. Most people know him by his car, and refer to him as “Convertible Guy.” But his friends know him as simply “Krambles.” Krambles is immersed in an era of his own making, a time when men built things by hand with actual hand tools. Whizzing by at the wheel of his convertible, with his long black hair blowing in the wind, he could be mistaken for a disheveled Elvis.
Krambles’ convertible didn’t start out as a convertible. It began life as a shiny green station wagon with lifelike wood paneling on the doors.... until the night he rolled it doing doughnuts along the canal. The Cutlass landed upright on all four tires, but the roof was badly crumpled, and a majority of the glass was busted out. But Krambles managed to drive it back to his garage where the transformation slowly took shape. Using only a hacksaw, crowbar, and some assorted tools, Krambles cut the entire top off the Cutlass Station Wagon, leaving only the windshield. And so, in the middle of a garage strewn with piles of spare parts from one project or another, a permanent convertible was born....along with a lifestyle few would venture to emulate.
Keeping the Cutlass in shape is a never-ending task, and Krambles doesn’t allow anyone to tinker with the wagon. He does all the work himself and wears the grease under his fingernails like tiny quarter-moon badges of honor. “Chicks dig a guy who can fix things,” he likes to say, along with, “And the luxurious naugahyde bench seat seals the deal.” Apparently it’s true because very often there’s a woman cuddled up close to him, her hair swirling around in the wind. A summer wind. But come winter, the novelty wears off. The fickle ones succumb to romantic Darwinism and find warmer shoulders to lean on, leaving Krambles to roam the boulevards alone.
Though the fierce winter winds sweep Kramble’s relationships clean, this year he found himself a shotgun-riding companion. Anna. She’s from Norway, and the two of them have been seen all over town whisking their way through blizzard after blizzard, her red hair spinning like a miniature tornado. Their courtship remains unfazed while the rear portion of the wagon fills up with snow. A rolling glacier. Taking her car is not an option. Taking anyone’s car is not an option. Krambles doesn’t ride, he drives, seated in what he calls “the wheel-house.”
Anna was raised in the Nordic cold and has little-to-no truck with people who complain about it. She enjoys Chicago’s cold, quiet winter nights, saying, “The night air is best left to the spirited skjaldmærs” (I looked it up and it means anything but maker-of-soup). She shakes her fist at houses with blue light coming from the windows. “The fragile ones whose delicate bottoms need powdering are home watching TV.” Her eyes flash with ancient fire when she says these things, and I think she might be an honest-to-goodness Viking. Maybe a shield-maiden. But, she’s devoted to, and endures, the companionship of Krambles.
Krambles and I have a good friend who’s getting married. The wedding is thirty miles away in Aurora, Illinois, and I planned on driving alone. Until Anna-the-Frozen called. “Hey, Ed and I were thinking about the three of us going to the wedding together.”
Hoping to avoid a re-enactment of “Ice Station Zebra,” I quickly replied, “Great, idea. I’ll drive.”
“Don’t bother. The ride’s on us. We’ve got a new set of snow tires, and Ed’ll be in the wheel-house. Ed is a snow-warrior.”
She calls him Ed. And all of a sudden uses “wheel-house” like its been in her lexicon all along. There’s no doubt Krambles is handy, but a snow-warrior? It seems the Vikings have landed and have conquered the land of Krambles. I pointed to an imaginary Arctic cold front she couldn’t see. “You know it’s supposed to be fifteen degrees on Saturday.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem unless you’re..”
I interrupted her before she had the chance to reference my delicate bottom. “I’ll be ready at five.”
I’m wondering if the fabled Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, had a red-haired woman goading him into taking his fatal Antarctic venture, when all he really wanted to do was stay home, slip on some comfortable shoes, and pickle some herring. Perhaps the Vikings pillaged not with swords, but with a subtle form of humiliation and are not yet finished with their quest. Maybe it’s true what they say about a lid for every pot, and Krambles has found his lid. But I’d like to stay home with a comfortable pair of shoes. And it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that my bottom might, indeed, need some powdering.
