I couldn’t do it again. Auto Adventure had not renewed their subscription to Car & Driver since 2014. I could not reread the article about the Enneagram types of Subaru loyalists. I could not face the face of Shaq, selling me a detergent that no longer exists. I could not look into his kind eyes, knowing so many things that he did not know. I could not sit in that Fritos-scented waiting room again.

“Do I have to break it to them?” I turn to my mother with all etiquette questions.

“They are not your hairstylist. You are free to move on.”

“Without so much as a goodbye?” It felt wrong.

“Buy them a gift subscription to Cat Fancy if you want closure. But first, go to Valvoline.”

My mother had been trying to sell me on Valvoline since I got my driver’s license at age twenty-four. In a world of unctuous hucksters and automotive Mephistopheles, Valvoline was a cottage of Lincolns and Gandhis. Valvoline had a five-star Yelp review from Jesus. Valvoline’s first question for every prospective employee was, “is Atticus Finch your personal hero?”

My mother does not make a habit of trusting humans. If you press her on this, she will only say the word, “Brooklyn.” My mother has lived in the margarine heart of suburbia for four decades, but she still glistens with the borough of her birth. My mother believes unsavory characters smack their lips down your cul de sac. My mother believes every Target is full of terrors. My mother believes I am a dandelion.

My mother believes Valvoline is ground zero for valor, honor, and splendor. The only explanation is that this must be true.

I hesitated over the premise. “They change your oil while you are sitting in the car?”

“Best of all, it only takes fifteen minutes.”

“But don’t you feel all jostled about?”

“Trust me.”

I trusted my mother when she said I would get over Steve Minto, lothario of the seventh grade. I trusted my mother when she said other mothers would judge her, not me, if I wore crop tops to church. I trusted my mother when she said the Student Council presidency would not be my last opportunity to be the voice of the dispossessed. I trusted my mother when she said it was irrelevant that Isabella Rossellini never learned to drive, because Isabella Rossellini did not need to get to her job at the cat shelter.

“OK. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

Like most sacred places, Valvoline hides in plain sight. Earth’s pilgrim children are made of bread and cosmos, and they need McMuffins as much as epiphanies. Valvoline humbles itself between the purveyor of hamburgers and the fireworks store. If you are not in step with the Holy Spirit, or using GPS, you will drive right by Brigadoon.

But I turned in time, and the jumpsuit man was expecting me. Shamans, saints, and bodhisattvas always live in intimacy with the present moment. Dwayne X. was no different. The sight of my hatchback lit him like a torch, and he raised his arms overhead. He treated me to a Psalm I had not heard. “BAY THREE, BAY THREE, BAY THREE!”

I began pulling into the portal. The fellowship of the jumpsuited grew. I pulled forward. They were distressed. “BAY THREE! THREE! THREE!”

I did not understand. No doubt this was a koan. This was a parable. This was necessary for my development. I depressed the brake, by which I mean the gas. Jumpsuits leapt out of my way.

Hector manifested.

Hector’s hands were regulation-sized, but I am telling you they grew to dinner plates before my eyes. “BACK BACK BACK.” Hector was loud but laughing. I don’t think I put my car in reverse. Hector and the hot breath of the Almighty generated a jet stream to turn my wheels.

“Ohhhkay, m’dear.” Hector lowered his hands. “Bay Three.” He pointed to the gateway labeled THREE.

“Ohhhhhh.” I was somehow not ashamed, even though “this one says ONE, doesn’t it?”

Hector squinched the holiest wink in the history of eyelashes. “Don’t sweat it. They’re both numbers.”

It took four jumpsuits to coax my car over a chasm in the floor. “Easy, easy.” Dwayne X. applauded. “You did it!”

“I’m a dingus.” Confession is good for one’s health. “I didn’t learn to drive until I was twenty-four. I am still learning not to fall down holes.” I looked out my window. “What’s down there, anyway?”

Dwayne X.’s eyebrows conferred. “Dinosaurs. Orcs.”

“That’s what I guessed.”

“And Randy.” Dwayne X. pointed. A merry man waved from the abyss below.

“This is a special place.” I pulled out my credit card.

“Better than Disneyland.” Dwayne X. nodded. “Would you like Full Synthetic or Half Synthetic?”

“What’s the difference?”

“I’m supposed to talk you into Full Synthetic.”

A voice rose from the abyss. “Save your money for orange soda!”

“I work at a cat shelter,” I told Dwayne X.

“Half Synthetic it is!” Dwayne X. shook my hand. “I like your yellow shirt. People should wear more yellow. It would make everyone glad.”

“LIGHTS ON!” I could not tell if Hector was speaking to me or observing some transfiguration over the street, by the Applebee’s. “LIGHTS! ON!”

I turned on my windshield wipers. “Oh, sorry, I—”

“—no ‘sorry.’” Dwayne X. shook his head. “We all forget what we know when someone tells us to do it.”

“LIGHTS ON!”

“Why is he asking me—”

“—free basic inspection with every oil change,” Dwayne X. explained. “We want our folks to be safe.” I remembered how to operate my lights.

“I’m your folk?”

“You’re total folk.”

“GOOOOOD! Pop that hood!”

I opened my gas tank. I turned on the radio. “I swear I am not usually a dotard.”

“No, we’ve established that you’re a dingus.” Dwayne X. reached in to pop the hood. “That’s a higher life form.”

A man without a nametag held two filters like the tablets of the Law. “Would you like these replaced?”

I looked at Dwayne X. “Do I need them replaced?”

“You know what I’m supposed to say.”

“I work at a cat shelter.”

Dwayne X. motioned to the man whose name could not be known. “Nope.”

“Thanks.”

“Cats are family.” Dwayne X. pulled a photo the size of a Wheat Thin from his wallet. “That’s Carl.”

Carl was a marine mammal in a golden coat. “That’s the most magnificent cat I’ve ever seen.”

“He’s like a son. I put clam juice in his food.”

“You should write to Parents with that tip.”

“You got kids?”

“Just cats.”

“Cats are family.” Dwayne X. kissed Carl’s photo.

“GAS GAS GAS!” Hector demonstrated his trust in angels.

I pressed the gas.

“LESS GAS! MY GOD!”

“You said, ‘gas gas gas!’”

Dwayne X. and Randy laughed from both sides of the abyss. “Don’t worry, girl.” Dwayne X. patted my roof. “You will remember how to drive the minute you get out of here.”

“I like it here.” You are more honest than you intend in a holy place.

“We all like it here. Come back in 5,000 miles, alright?”

I looked up. “The sticker says 3,000.”

“I’m supposed to tell you that. Get a magic marker. Five is fine.”

“HOME HOME HOME!” Hector delivered the benediction. He leapt twenty feet away from my car in one quantum hop.

“Bring me an orange soda next time!” Randy yelped from the gorge.

I called my mother on the way home. “You didn’t tell me.”

“You wouldn’t have believed me.”

“There’s a man in a hole with no discernible task.”

“I know.” Of course she knew. “I think he keeps the world safe from demons.”

“They’re cheaper than Auto Adventure. I’ll never go back there.”

“I never trusted them anyway,” my mother admitted.

There was just one thing to clarify. “I did feel jostled about.”

“I never said you wouldn’t.”