I think I killed my first car. I might be wrong about this. After all, there is a lot about cars that remains mysterious to me. Like the way their engines can all of a sudden have no oil in them. A car's engine needs oil. I know this now. If it doesn't have oil to lubricate itself, the engine will tear itself apart and you will need a new car. This can happen very quickly on a dark winter afternoon.

You will be driving north on the interstate. You will be listening to Robert Cray performing "Smoking Gun" on the radio. Then a tremendous racket will commence. The explosive Whackwhackwhackwhackwhack!! of metal slamming against

metal. When you pull into the next gas station -- an agonizing half-mile away -- the attendant will open the hood and lean in to see what's wrong. A few seconds later, he'll stand upright, with the dipstick in one hand and a quizzical expression on his face. "Hey, mister," he'll cry. "You got no oil in here!"

Maybe it wasn't my fault. The car had obviously been developing a strong dependence on 10/40, even in the earliest days of our relationship. Perhaps it was self-destructive, and there was nothing I could have done to save it from itself. I wonder, because for all its faults, I did like that car. We deserved each other. I didn't know much about cars, and that was fine, because it wasn't much of a car.

It was a '77 Honda Civic, metallic blue, with a black leatherette interior. Short and thick in a particularly '70s way, the Honda didn't cut much of a figure in the late '80s. The nicest parts were the gray and red seat covers and black leather steering wheel cover -- both installed by a previous owner.

Just which previous owner, I never knew. The Honda had already traveled more than 80,000 miles before I put my foot on its gas pedal. Whoever had bought it first had picked it up from a dealer in Kansas, this much made obvious by a chrome plate screwed onto the back. The fellow I bought it from spoke vaguely about cross-country trips he'd enjoyed in the car. "She's real dependable," he said, patting her air intakes. I walked in circles around the Honda, pretending to look for something. I actually kicked a tire or two, for effect, then offered a few hundred dollars less than the advertised price. He counter-offered a hundred dollars higher than that, and like gentlemen, we met halfway, at something-and-50. The next day after work I came by with a cashier's check. He gave me two sets of keys and the registration, and I drove home in my car.

My car. Two lovely words, back then. Sure, it was just a little get-around. But it was my car, and I liked seeing it there, waiting for me right where I had left it. When I got inside and turned the key, the engine would start, after a fashion, and I could shift it into gear and go. Anywhere. Any time. And that was enough.

Internal combustion freedom. That first summer I tasted it every time I turned the key. To pick up the beer for the Fourth of July party. To go into the mountains for a weeklong hiking trip with a college buddy. To set out to meet an old girlfriend and a bunch of her friends for a picnic, but then have a change of heart and head in the opposite direction.

But there was a dark side, too. The finger-wagging part of the Dad lecture on freedom and responsibility, where things could go wrong, and you have to make damn sure to find a good mechanic, young man. The first time it happened that autumn, it wasn't too bad. Maybe a few hundred bucks for a new clutch. Then a routine tuneup turned into another $300 in parts and labor. But late that winter, when I first noticed the disappearing oil problem, disaster struck.

"We'll have to pull the head," my mechanic said, before lapsing into mechanic's tongues for a few minutes. When he came out of that, he said, "So it'll cost, oh, I dunno, $1,100. Parts and labor." Gee, just about exactly what I paid for the car in the first place. And I hadn't had that kind of money since . . . well, since I bought the car.

"Get a second opinion," a friend suggested. Yeah, I thought. That mechanic always made me feel like I was jousting with him, anyway. He knew I was helpless. I'd come in equipped with a few key words -- "I think it's the winklepicker, but could ya check the bearings in the katzenjammer?" -- and he'd smirk at me. "Sure thing, bub." Then he'd replace something else and charge me $300.

So the next morning I limped over to see Ken at Boulevard Imports. "I think I'm losing oil out of the hitzengoober," I explained. "Do you think I can get by with a new set of Q-rings?"

Ken said he'd take a look and let me know. With my other mechanic this would be the point where I'd have to transfer additional funds from savings into checking. But I had a feeling about Ken. He kept a copy of "The Catcher in the Rye" in his waiting room. And when he looked at me, there were no visible dollar signs dancing in his eyes. Later, when he called, it was like the governor phoning me at the gallows. "I put in a new oil pressure throw switch," Ken said. "And a quart of oil. So you owe me 47 bucks."

Forty-seven bucks? Oh yes, that will do just fine. Ken, you can take my $47 and enjoy them to the full extent of their legal tenderness. By 6 p.m., the Honda and I were reunited, and I was Born to Run, with green lights and open roads from there until . . . the next repair, three months later. And then again four months after that. And then . . .

Obviously, this was not an entirely healthy car. I suppose I didn't -- or couldn't -- admit it then. But I knew as well as anyone that in the mornings, the Honda would require minutes of cranking and cajoling and sweet talk and sometimes even curses and threats to send it coughing into life. Then it would stall once or twice, hiccuping back into a kind of momentary narcoleptic snooze. When I pulled out into the street -- and I lived on a fast four-lane highway back then -- the Honda would hesitate, seeming to doze off again, even as Subarus and BMWs were growing larger in the rear-view mirror. I'd pump the gas and cringe, watching the other drivers shriek and wave their fists, careening into the next lane to get past.

Through the next spring, summer and fall, the Honda and I continued our co-dependent routine. It slurped gas and oil, and I spent a lot of time driving to cash machines. I also went from here to there and back again, shifting gears, accelerating, probably running through at least one or two dinosaurs worth of petroleum products. And somewhere in the ozone layer, I'm sure there's a Honda-sized hole with my name on it.

Then a friend in trouble needed a quick lift. After he called, I jumped into the car. Going down the freeway, I could hear the engine missing a few beats here and there. But the gauges read normal, and I was in too much of a hurry to investigate.

It was raining, and when we hit the road, the January afternoon was fading fast. But there were rainbows over the hills, the radio was on, and we were cruising at the comparatively leisurely speed of 60 mph. Then Robert Cray came on, and we cranked up the volume.

"I get a constant busy signal when I call you on the phone, I've got a strong uneasy feeling you're not sitting there alone. . . ."

I don't care how old you are. Driving down the highway in your car with a friend and hot tunes roaring from the radio, you feel young and alive and ready to conquer the world. And then --

Whackwhackwhackwhackwhackwhack!

A death in the family.

A few days later, Ken's assistant towed the lifeless hulk away. By the end of the week, I sold the Honda's remains to a body shop, for parts.

So the Honda was no more. Was it murder or suicide? I suppose it really doesn't matter. I've got a new car now, one that starts up quickly and maintains a reasonable gas-to-oil blend. I keep my memories of the Honda, but I know enough about driving and about life to keep going, and to not look back. And to check the oil.

PETER CARLIN last wrote on telephones for the magazine.