Cindy Lange-Kubick: The blessing of Mykeal's car

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Mykeal Pfeil is going to the doctor in his new car.

He’s buckled in the back, feet dangling, not quite long enough to reach the floor.

He’s an all-around chubby boy with cigar fingers and sausage ankles, gumdrop ear lobes and round cheeks his mom likes to cover with kisses.

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Mykeal loves to sit in his car, donated by St. Vincent DePaul. (William Lauer)

Mykeal loves to sit in his car, donated by St. Vincent DePaul. (William Lauer)

Today he rocks back and forth, grinning, while his dad, Pat, and his mom, Allison, settle in front.

“He gets pretty excited when Daddy drives,”  Allison explains.

When she turns around to say this, Mykeal pushes her face forward with one of his chubby hands.

He wants his parents to see what he sees.

Trees with yellow leaves.  A lady walking a black dog. A dump truck.

Mykeal is 9, a third grader at Everett Elementary School, a block away from his family’s apartment on B Street.

It’s nice they live close to school so they can walk, Allison says.

Before some nice people gave them this car, a 1987 Chrysler LeBaron with dark blue paint and grey seats, they walked everywhere.

And although Mykeal loves lots of things  — firetrucks, wrestling, watching “Cops” on Saturday nights — he doesn’t love walking.

“He’ll walk a few blocks and then he wants his dad to carry him,” explains Allison.

Pat raises his eyebrows.

It’s not easy carrying Mykeal.

He’s their 100-pound baby. They had three kids of their own when Mykeal came to live with them.

When she was 21 Allison had her tubes tied. Then she changed her mind. At their church, people were talking about the need for foster parents. And pretty soon here came this baby.

He had fetal alcohol syndrome, he had fetal drug syndrome, he was hooked up to an apnea monitor that beeped whenever he stopped breathing.

“He looked like Fester from the ‘Adams Family,’” says Allison. “I was kind of afraid of him at first.”

Nine months later they got a call from the state.  Would they consider adopting Mykeal?

Well, yeah, Allison told them. Like that was the dumbest question ever.

Early on, a doctor told them that Mykeal would “never amount to nothing.” They don’t see that doctor anymore.

Today, they are driving down A Street to see Dr. Michael McCoy for a check-up.

Last winter they took the bus to their appointment — 40 minutes waiting in the cold with a boy who doesn’t wait.

“It’s been such a blessing to get this car,” Allison says.

Here’s how it happened. A volunteer from St. Vincent De Paul had helped them get a couch this spring. Since Mykeal still wears diapers and sometimes has accidents, they go through a lot of couches.

The volunteer found out they didn’t have a car so he found a man to design an ad for the newspaper, and a man who had a 1987 LeBaron saw it. That man offered his car and another organization gave money to pay for the taxes and license.

On the day Mykeal and his family got the car, Allison’s legs were shaking she was so happy.

She hugged Tom Cabela, the volunteer from St. Vincent, and Pat shook hands with Dennis Kriz, the man who gave the car, and they thanked the woman from Woodman of the World who paid for the extras.

The car only had 84,000 miles on it and a little spot of peeling paint on the trunk.

Right away Mykeal climbed in the driver’s seat. “There you go, little dude,” his dad said.

Since then, Mykeal has been lots of places in the new car.

To his sister Chasity’s house. To the grocery store. To the park.

Wednesday night his mom and dad took him trick-or-treating at the fancy houses on Sheridan Boulevard, and he had a blast.

“And now that we have car, we can take him fishing,” says Allison.

Mykeal can say a few words and make signs for a few other words. Fish. Wait. Cookie. Cracker. Bathroom. Car.

Before they got the LeBaron, they took turns leaving the house, Alison says after Tuesday’s appointment is over.

“We don’t trust nobody to babysit him ‘cuz he can’t tell us things. If someone would hurt him, or hit him, we wouldn’t know.”

She plants four smooshed together kisses on Mykeal’s round cheeks.

Pat takes his chubby hand and walks him to the blue car.

“I’m glad we adopted him,” she says. “I don’t know what we’d do if we didn’t have him to keep us busy.”

On the ride home they pass a playground with a yellow slide.

A boy in a white shirt.

A man on a unicycle.

A firetruck with its lights flashing.

“Isn’t that super-dooper cool?” Allison says.

Mykeal grins and rocks from his place behind his dad in the back seat.

The new car heads for home, everyone facing forward.

Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.