Auto-De-Fe
Copyright 2011
Paul Hawkins
Smashwords Edition
*
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
*
He was my friend - he was everyone's friend. He was big and quick and his laughter was easy and contagious, but when we got that car running toward the end of summer, I knew he'd be leaving soon.
I remember the hot nights when we'd all get out of work late, after eleven, and mill around outside the warehouse beneath the unshielded streetlight which made the sky behind it look pitch black. The narrow sidewalk and the street proceeded past old businesses down further along rows of anonymous tall brownstone tenements and past those too up over the crest of a hill toward the intersection of two busy streets where the neon lights of late-night bars and all-night eateries began to congregate, and from there a murmur of activity edged itself upon the threshold of our hearing, far too faint to be understood but plenty loud enough to captivate the restless curiosity of our freshly liberated minds.
Bill was new, and these were the early weeks of summer when none of us knew quite what we wanted to do, but didn't want to just stand around and maybe miss the chance to do it, so nobody was particularly eager to simply head home, and so we stood singularly restless after our long shift in the warehouse, waiting for someone to toss out that scheme which would ignite the darkness for us and propel us through the welcome breezes temporarily intent upon some ridiculous adventure.
We all stood and waited, that is, except for two people. One of them, of course, was Mr. Walters, our night manager. He was short and kind of fat, gruff and impatient, emerging from his air-conditioned office only to bark orders at employees. He always ended his criticisms with the reminder that you could easily be replaced, and this truly scared a lot of the people who weren't like me and actually already had families to take care of. It used to worry me, too, because I kind of suspected the little butterball would actually do it. But just recently I'd realized that even if he did, I wouldn't mind.
He was always buttoned into a dark-colored suit that was too small. He drove an old car but he smoked expensive cigars and somebody said he was a second-string relative in the local mob interest, and he acted mean enough to make you think that he had something other than that size 5'4" body bucking for him. But every night as he left the warehouse and passed through our congregation he'd stuff his hat down on his head and mutter 'bunch of hoodlums,' so we figured that either he really wasn't in the family at all, or else he felt that being in it put him way out of our league.
He parted our company predictably enough, with the usual few brave obscene gestures being flashed defiantly behind him. But the other party-pooper's departure was less gladly received, though no supplication seemed able to dissuade her from heading home. She was Cathy Moore and I had known her from those few years my parents could afford to send me to parochial school, but back then she sure hadn't looked like this and I wouldn't have had a clue what to do about it even if she had, but now I watched her leave just wishing I could think of one clever and persuasive thing to say to keep her with us a little longer. Instead, I said:
"You're not going home so early, are you?"
To which she replied:
"Why, what were you planning on doing?"
I was stumped. She was like that, polite but proper, like she had some higher calling. Not snobby, but kind of like she had dying parents to take care of at home and we'd really just be wasting her time.
"I've got an idea," Bill said. They all looked at him - except me.
I looked at Cathy looking at him, and I'd glimpsed her glimpsing him like that before, and I had the sinking feeling that there was something glowing behind her eyes that I could never inspire, and I turned my attention to Bill, to hear his plan for the long summer.
"We could go to the beach," he said. "Past all the piers, down South, outside of town. It's not crowded there - just sand and quiet roads. My uncle used to take me to places like that when I was little. He'd say it was too hot to sleep but my mother'd say she could sleep just fine, so my uncle would take me and we'd go down to the beach and eat the food he'd packed - then he'd go to sleep and I'd sit there for hours afraid to wake him up, looking out the windows of the car at the deserted beach, and looking out over the dark ocean watching the lights of far-away ships appear and disappear again. It was kind of scary - that's part of the fun about it. We could bring lots of food, and blankets to sit on, and stay up scaring each other with ghost stories."
Mark and Betty, the current night crew romantics, nodded eagerly. If I'd been asked, I would have had to agree. But it was Cathy who spoke next.
I'd been watching her watching him, and Bill hadn't seen her coolness start to thaw but I had, and neither of them would know how much my future religious convictions would pivot on that critical moment when I gaped in genuine astonishment ready to hear her say "That sounds great!" only to witness her aloofness reestablished with a single shrug, followed by the question, "Where's the car?"
Bill's smile went into a slow decline.
"You'll need a car to do that," she continued. "Who's got one?"
We were silent. We knew the answer - so did she. Bill laughed for a moment, unable-to believe how such a little thing could spoil his plan. But of course it could. The rest of us began to rattle change and pace around, to break the quiet in our way of saying it was a nice try. And Cathy? Why of course she had to go.
We watched her walk away, and I don't suppose anyone was sadder to see her go than Bill was. His eyes followed her the longest time, almost hypnotically as though by staring at her retreating figure he could make her turn around. My skepticism had been reconfirmed, but I watched her too just to see if she might.
"C'mon you guys," Carlene said rowdily, "Let's go."
Carlene had a way of rallying people, and she was practically one of the guys in a friendly sort of way, so our group dropped into step behind her and began the journey toward the neon lights. She was a boisterous spirit and at the forefront of the group she'd already engaged Ricky and Eddie in that joking sort of conversation that escalates itself as its participants become absorbed in the crossfire of teasing one another. But as the volume, warmth, and tempo increased up front, I found Bill and myself trailing behind, lagging together in a brotherhood of spoiled adventurism. I turned and looked at him. He shrugged. "She always like that?" he asked.
"Always," I affirmed.
"There's gotta be something a guy could do about it," he pronounced, more to himself than to me, as though he were already plotting.
"I think she's just that way," I said, trying to seem sympathetic but also trying to discourage him because I'd known her so much longer - it'd hardly be fair.
He looked at me and vaguely smiled politely, as though he regarded my resignation as an understandable weakness meriting tolerance though not imitation. His mind was cooking now and I had to quicken my step to keep up with him. I regarded his assertive profile suspiciously, but when a grin flashed just for a second across his face in the course of contemplation I begrudgingly admitted to myself that I'd probably end up liking him, even though he apparently possessed that enviable, inimitable magnetism the ownership of which was usually sufficient to move me to classify another male as 'the enemy.'
We found our way down the narrow grey lane of sidewalk to a really small hamburger place, its bright red and white interior glowing through its wide front window. There was a long counter inside, and a few booths, and back in the back through a curtained doorway was a smoky poolroom. We walked in and the only people there were the cook and the waitress leaning across either side of the counter talking to one another. When we came in they looked up like we’d disturbed them. We came to this place a lot and they knew who we were - so they continued their conversation.
Eddie and Rick and Carlene sat together at some stools along the counter. "Whenever you get the time," Carlene sang, stacking the napkin holder, the ketchup, and the salt precariously.
"Yeah yeah," the cook said in thick accent, though his hand waved them off.
Betty and Mark were currently caught up with each other and they retreated to the diner's furthest booth to resume their affections - they were at that stage where they had to be kissing all the time. It was unclear whether they'd abandon their current preoccupation to eat, or even breath.
"Wanna shoot some pool?" Bill asked.
"Sure," I said, and we walked through the curtain into the dimly lit room where the smooth green felt and the notched dark wood of the table retired comfortably in the shadow. We chose our cues and played.
We played, and I actually got the better of him. I began to feel good. I was good at pool. The moment he suggested we play I'd commenced a cautious reverie that crescendoed as the game went on, and I observed his weaknesses and catalogued his mistakes. I didn't offer to help him out, of course. And as we played he began to talk - where he was from, what he liked and what he'd like to do. But I just nodded and mumbled for my part, lubricating the conversation just enough to keep it going and maybe keep him distracted, but wholly inattentive, concentrating instead on the game, figuring the angles and the shots and the strategies two and three shots in advance, making sure to win, and tuning him out increasingly as I did so. Finally his voice was just like the buzz of the lights, but after I made my final shot of our final game, and the balls had clicked one final solid time before dropping the eightball, it seemed too quiet, and I noticed that he'd stopped talking for the last few shots and had simply watched, leaning wearily on the cue stick.
"It's getting late," he said, "I'd better go."
"Well, all right," I replied, as reluctantly as I could, moved by my triumph to try and bleed a little penitence from him. But as I did so I realized it was the wrong thing, and some snatches of what he'd been saying during our games began to seep into my conscious mind.
We walked out of the poolroom back into the bright red and white diner. "Man, you're good at pool," Bill said.
I apologized hastily. "Naw, I was just lucky. I'm usually awful."
He cast a keen glance at me, cutting through the sentiment. "You're supposed to say that before you play. That way you can sucker bets." I admitted that I still needed to master the subtleties.
The diner was lonely. Eddie and Rick and Carlene were gone. An old guy sat at the bar, sipping coffee while the cook and the waitress let him alone. We saw Mark sitting in that furthest booth, looking ditched and pitiful.
"You guys leaving?" he asked sheepishly.
We nodded.
"Women!" he muttered as we three headed out into the night.
I sympathized but didn't waste my breath, and we exhibited our due respect for his condition, and commenced the appropriate ceremony, but I called off our observance after two beers and suggested that we all head home. Sympathy? It was just another facet of their game. I knew and Mark knew and Bill doubtlessly suspected that their quarrel was just an action of endearment, and that the two of them would be within grabbing distance of each other by noon tomorrow. No need to waste beer money on that.
Mark left first, then Bill departed, dashing across the wide but scarcely trafficked street down a close dark south-bound lane retreating toward the shady prominence of crowded cheap apartment houses. I kept on walking down the mainstreet for several blocks, alone.
The darkness deepened as I headed north among the smaller houses and the taller trees, preceding toward my house wading through the popular alarm of residential dogs up to our slightly sloping toy-strewn lawn, and on the porch trying to be quiet I stood working the key, then edging open the door the soft yellow light of one vigilant lamp welcomed me and I stepped comfortably inside. My dinner waited in the stove and moving to the kitchen table I opened the paper and gazed at it while eating, not absorbing a word. I finished my dinner and turned out the light and looked out the windows but nothing was happening so I went to bed, walking cat-like past my parents' room glad to see they were asleep. I climbed into bed but my head was full of frustrated energy, and it kept me dully awake, parading past me the images of all those things I'd tried not to think about all day, like a faithful but persistent hunting dog displaying its game.
My dad had tough times for a while. He had to get a new job when the factory closed down. It used to be when I was a kid he'd be yelling at me for things - for anything - and after he was fired he was down for a long time. But now his job was new and things were better, and he and mom all of a sudden had two new kids with me already out of highschool and things were different now, and he was actually nice to me like he'd like to help me some way because when I got mad I told him how I wished I could be gone. He seemed to know as much already, and I didn't want to work at the warehouse forever, and I planned "if nothing else came up" to join the Navy in the fall. I kept that clause in there because good things can happen, and not as an escape hatch, because I knew that disappointment wasn't just a way to get back at parents anymore. They'd been good enough to me and come this fall if nothing else turned up I knew I'd do it. My only real idea of the ocean was the dark tides and the pale bodies and the littered shores near the amusement park, but lying in bed and starting to dream it became the brighter, cleaner place I knew it had to be in places, and I knew those were the places that I'd like to be.
ii
Bill was born in Memphis, he'd told me that night playing pool, but living with his mother they'd moved to Raleigh, then Charlotte, then Baltimore, then Pittsburg, then Rochester, then Scranton before moving here. His mother popped gum when she talked and was currently employed as a foundations lady at Bingle's Department Store. And Bill worked where I did. They'd probably be moving again soon - the odds were in favor of it. But Bill wouldn't move again with her. The next move he made, he said, would be his own, and he was confident it would be a good move just because it was his.
The sun was bright at eight o'clock the next morning. Working the late shift had encouraged me to forget little facts like that, until the occasions arose that forced me to rudely rediscover their validity.
My mother poked me at eight in the morning and told me my friend was here. The word 'friend' did not jive with the idea of eight o'clock but I mumbled 'okay' and pulled on a shirt and mashed down my hair and wandered into the living room. And there was Bill.
"You don't look too good," Bill said.
There he was totally at ease in our living room, sitting on our couch watching cartoons over the shoulders of my four-year old sister and three-year-old brother, who were squatting in front of the tube holding bowls of cold cereal in their laps, acting like Bill was nothing new, the way dogs will take to certain people automatically.
"I'm gonna get something to eat," I said.
Bill agreed that this was a good idea and followed me into the kitchen. I didn't know Bill well back then so I had to ask if he liked cold cereal and he said he liked it fine. We ate and watched cartoons and afterwards he said he wanted to show me something, and I was relieved that was all there was to it so we put our bowls in the kitchen sink then went outside.
It was bright. He walked fast down the street and out of our neighborhood back toward the avenues of businesses and there the sun got really bright bouncing off all the austere shopfronts and the white concrete, and I winced and followed him my stomach appraising its breakfast unsatisfactorily throughout the exertion, and when I was just about to ask where we were going Bill relinquished his determined discipline just long enough to confide, "Just wait! Just wait'll you see it!" so I thought I'd wait a little longer. We went up to Fifth past the war surplus store and the mission down to the corner and crossed the street toward a filling station. As we approached I saw it, and seeing it I looked for something else, but that had to be what he was talking about. It was long with tailfins and three generations of paint - all visible. As we neared it Bill began to radiate a motherly glow then asked, "Whaddya think?"
What did I think? I didn't have a car, so I suppose I was impressed by the idea of it, and I walked around and around the behemoth, trying to establish some correlation between my fantasies of wheel-driven liberation and this artifact.
"Isn't it something?"
"Are you planning on buying it?"
He beamed. "I already have."
I should've known. Looking back at the garage I'd noticed a wicked little man in the shadows, counting through a grasping a wad of bills with an ‘all sales are final’ look in his eyes, seeming pleased enough to start his binge at nine o'clock.
"You can steer," Bill said, "I'll push."
My fantasies dissipated with a flash, and the lead sled from another era leered at me. I kicked a tire.
"It doesn't run?"
"Not yet."
"But it will?"
"Sure it will. It just needs a little something."
"And you can fix it?"
He looked surprised. "In no time. Now hop in. I'm pushing."
I didn't look forward to the awkward, conspicuous trek, but I sighed and climbed in, gripping the wheel. It felt as solid as a tank. "Hey," I called back to him, "I can push from up here, too."
"Naw," he declined magnanimously, "your house aint that far away, and some of it's downhill."
My house? Visions of my dad confronted me. Dad, as glaring pagan totem.
"Bill..." I began to object.
"I'll have it running by tonight," he said. "I'll drive us both to work in it! You got tools, don't ya?"
"Sure," I conceded. "Bill..." I began again.
"By tonight," he repeated.
We rolled awesomely out of the garage's lot, the tank's suspension complaining with ill-concealed glee, like a dog going for his first walk in ages.
I steered and Bill pushed and car after car passed us. It was embarrassing, but I resurrected my old altar-boy demeanor and just stared obliviously straight ahead. But then one car lingered beside us, and I finally looked over at it. It was Mr. Walters, driving a long black sedan, and I couldn't see as well as would have liked but I figured he had to be sitting on a phone book. He looked over, and his face curled into a frown. He rolled down the passenger window, took the cigar out of his mouth, and shouted:
"Hey! You kids stealin' that car?"
People overheard him, and I responded hastily.
"Naw, we bought it. We're gonna fix it up, make it run."
He scowled, scanning the car from bumper to bumper, and scowled again. "Sounds like a tall order to me."
I resisted the urge to jump on the comment with a tall joke.
He continued. "I hope it doesn't keep you boys too busy. I don't like my employees to have second interests. Second interests make second-rate workers."
"We'll do our jobs okay," Bill growled.
"I know you will. I'll make sure you do," Walters said, "because I fire second-rate workers just like that!" He snapped his fingers.
"Like that?" Bill said, repeating the gesture. Mr. Walters' eyes narrowed as he looked at Bill and I quickly intervened.
"You don't have to worry," I placated. "We know our responsibilities to our job come, first."
He glanced up at the traffic and then appraised us once more. "I still think you stole it," he said.
"Goodbye, Mr. Walters," Bill said.
He glared at Bill, and Bill stared back, and that exchange continued for half-a-minute, until Mr. Walters broke it off. His car lurched forward and rolled away.
"You better watch it with him," I said. "He'll fire you."
But Bill was calm. "No he won't. I know he won't. You saw us exchanging glances just then? Well, now he knows that if he crosses me, that some time, some way, outside of work, I'll beat the daylights out of him."
I pondered this as we rolled on.
"They say he's in the mob," I said at last.
"With a name like Walters?"
I shrugged. "Maybe he's an in-law."
We rolled past a grocery store, and I had resumed my altar boy demeanor only to be startled out of it by Bill's sudden exclamation of "Hey Cathy!"
I looked up and there she was, walking out of the store with a small package in her hand. She was surprised as we coasted by, and before she could control herself she'd gasped, "Oh, Bill!"
He grinned. "Aint she a beauty?"
And of course by that time her manner had reestablished itself. She acted like she hadn't said a thing, and Bill quite generously pretended that he'd heard nothing special. "Yes Bill," she said. "That's fine..." She sort of held up her package. "I've got to go," she said, "It's medicine..."
But we were cruising past her anyway, so Bill wished her a polite goodbye, and she responded with a careful wave. But I, the steerer, looking in the rear-view mirror, saw her blue eyes linger as we passed.
Eventually we made it home. By three o'clock that afternoon the car was strewn all over our driveway. We hadn't taken a break for lunch. Thinking that he'd have it running in an instant, Bill delved deeper and deeper into the engine, looking for the problem. By the time we had to leave for work Bill had discovered the real problem - he didn't know as much about cars as he'd thought. He helped me hide a lot of the parts in the garage. I looked up and saw my mother looking out the window, making the sign of the cross at us. It was awful. I left for work imagining what my dad would think when he got home.
Bill was only marginally deterred. That night at work everybody had a suggestion to make about fixing it, and Bill consulted cheerfully with everyone. I kept to my work and watching Bill chatting I'd worry about Walters coming by, though after our little morning encounter I was actually kind of curious to see it happen. I wasn't disappointed.
I was running the forklift - my favorite job - when I came to the end of this alley of boxes and there they were. Bill was lingering after his break, talking to Cathy near the time clock. I eased my forklift back into the corridor and watched. I don't know what he'd said, but obviously he'd been standing there and commented to her in transit. She was standing with papers in her hand. Bill's face was crossed with the smile of some recently imparted courtesy, and her expression mirrored his, somewhat demurely.
Then the butterball came by.
"Get back to work!" he shouted.
Bill reluctantly withdrew from Cathy's gaze while Cathy burst into hasty animation, shuffling and reshuffling the stack of papers in her hands, then departing.
Cathy walked away and Bill sighed, turning toward Walters very slowly. Mr. Walters' fists clenched and clenched again, but the red in his face sank slowly away, and he appeared to swallow the last of that color in one gulp, but he stood his ground.
"Sure thing, Boss," Bill replied, but he just stood there, and after they stared at each other a while it was Walters who abruptly spun and left first.
I almost backed over a whole row of boxes in my haste to tell somebody. The rest of the night went by quickly and somewhat pleasantly, but then I recalled the dormant hulk that occupied our driveway. My spirits sank like a rock. I left our little gathering with Bill's promise that he'd be by bright and early tomorrow. Swell. I plodded home.
I made my way up our dark street, barked at by every dog for miles, and then I saw a faint gleam of light up ahead. I approached it cautiously, ascertaining that it came from our garage. The door was open, someone was inside. In no hurry, I finally made it to our drive. It was my dad. He had somehow moved the hulk part-way inside, and was looking under the hood.
"Dad..." I said.
"Yes?"
"Uh, it's past midnight."
He made it known that he was aware of the time. "It's not a bad car," he said.
"It's not?"
"Of course the engine's shot," he continued. "That boy know anything about fixing it?"
I shook my head. "I don't think so."
"It won't be that hard a job," he commented. "All it'll take are money, brains, and time. We'll let your friend provide the money. And I suppose you'll end up putting in a lot of time, so I guess I could supply the brains."
I looked up from my perusal of the tank.
"I remember a few things about fixing engines," he said. "And I've got some old books."
"Well," I said. "It's an old car."
"Then we should be able to handle it," he asserted good-naturedly. "I'll be as glad to see it running again as your friend will."
I could believe that, but nonetheless the whole encounter with my father left me subtly impressed, and once again sleep only came reluctantly. If summer kept up like this, I knew it'd kill me.
iii
Of course the summer didn't slow its pace a bit. Day after day after day went by, always full and always hurried. With Bill's scarce money, and our spare time, progress on the car went slowly. But my dad did everything he could to make sure it wasn't a wasted effort. He planned things out for us, figured out what had to be replaced and what could stay, helping us through repairs when either my caution or Bill's fervor might've messed things up.
But as fall approached my early summer easiness began to ebb. My commitment to join the Navy began to loom before me in my dreams, and it was with some sullenness that I realized I'd been hoping fall would never come. I'd been hoping something good would happen and some great opportunity would throw itself before me, ushering me away to a comfortable future, with my pledge to join the Navy becoming a cherished memory of how stoutheartedly I'd faced my unsure fate. But glumly I now realized that no good thing had come. I hadn't been saved, or blessed, or however you want to say it. The inevitability, the irreproachability of the whole situation started to eat at me. I guess I really dragged around when I started thinking like that, but everybody seemed too caught up in something else to notice.
For one thing, Cathy finally began to be affectionate towards Bill. Everybody noticed that. How could you help it? It was as suspenseful as watching an iceman thaw, as magnificent and forceful as the march of a glacier. Every feint and blush and posture they exchanged was charged with awesome energy, and gave off little sparks as tell-tale of enormous force as the twitching needles of a seismograph.
One day it happened. I didn't see the first time, nobody'd seen it, and there were no scorch-marks on the floor or on the ceiling to tell where it had taken place, but somewhere sometime behind some mile-high mile-wide stack of boxes their eyes had met, and held, and confirmed their mutuality. And afterward their brushing glances became evocative of blissful smiles, and their sighs were synchronized indicative of some beatific shared ambition.
The energy of their glowing affection was so strong that the whole atmosphere of the warehouse was vitalized, charged with vernal force as though the spring were just beginning. Minor romances began to establish their own orbits, and everybody seemed to receive a sweet aesthetic spirit that urged serene contemplation of every box and bolt. It was the sort of thing that makes normal industrialists uneasy, and it drove Mr. Walters nuts.
After Cathy had become more of a confederate, an interesting fact about the boss came out. He had a crush on her! She revealed the secret with a nervous, guilty giggle. We all knew she was his office helper - his paper-filer, coffee fetcher and typist. He never tried anything with her, and anyway we never suspected him of anything like that. But the curious thing was that most of the time he was actually nice to her. He gave her a desk of her own, and she could take breaks whenever she liked. Now and then, can you imagine it, fresh flowers would adorn her desk. And then, one day, he showed her a picture of his mother. Cathy had felt extremely awkward during this moment of supreme sentimentality. 'It would have been her birthday' old Walters mused sadly. Cathy looked at the picture, and she knew she should be very touched - that's what made her feel guilty - she could hardly keep from laughing. The mother looked like Walters in a wig. She nearly went into hysterics telling it. Cathy laughed and laughed. It made her feel so terrible.
We realized that this crush, if you could call it that, probably explained why the boss got onto Bill as much as he did. Over the course of the past few weeks some defiance had been building inside the little man, in spite of Bill’s standing tacit threat of violence. Bill's job assignments became more and more menial. He took it, always remembering the money needed to fix the car. But the contention appeared to grow more powerful between them.
Not that Bill seemed to notice it. Being a participant you'd think he'd be an authority on the mounting rivalry, but ask him about it and he'd just laugh, saying: "What, him? He's nuts." Then he'd go back to work on the car.
It made you want to tell him something - I don't know what, and come to think of it I wouldn't've told him even if I did. In catechism we learned that we shouldn't emperil the faith, and since those ideal days I've abstracted that directive down through all levels of pettiness to include a prohibition against the disillusioning of trusting squirrels and faithful dogs. I'm sure Bill would fit in there someplace.
One day when the car was almost finished I guess he noticed my less than thrilled expression and he asked me what was the matter. What could I tell him? That he'd stolen my girl, that I didn't feel right in my family any more, that I had bad luck and nothing good seemed to be happening for me now that I need it? I told him I was worried about the Navy in the fall.
"The Navy? Is that all? I had an uncle in the Navy. It wasn’t so bad. He made a lot of good friends and besides, he came back from his tour experienced. Naw," he said, "the Navy's nothing to be afraid of. You're just worried about finally doing it. You need to stop worrying." His eyes began to glow as he tightened a bolt. "I know what - we'll have a party. Outdoors. Yes sir, when we get this old car fixed, you and me and all our friends from work, we’ll all go down to the beach. Maybe we'll ditch work and just decide to have a party. We can buy some beer and food – it’ll be fun," he asserted.
I wanted to believe him and I almost did. It would be great just to get away for once, just to be in the sun and have everything you worry about be nowhere in sight, if only for one bright afternoon.
Bill monitored my response and was encouraged, and I stifled my disbelief though I could think of one good reason why this scheme would remain unreal, and suspending disbelief I just listened to him dreaming out loud undauntedly as he always did, always convincing himself. With every bolt he tightened he added a new embellishment to his design, always concluding with 'that's what we'd do.' It sounded good, and it was nice to think so.
One day Bill pushed the boss too far. Of course I don't think he realized it. He'd stared down old Walters before. The problem was that this time he did it in front of a crowd.
A whole gang was coming back from break, Bill included. They were in a spirited mood, which didn't help any. Carlene took it upon herself to shove Eddie into a stack of boxes just as Mr. Walters appeared. He shook his head. Carlene had always been hopeless. The group's enthusiasm evaporated beneath the boss's stare.
"Break-time's over!" he snarled.
Exhibiting appropriate brow-beatenness, they prepared to slink away. Then Walters called to Bill. "You - get over here,” he said.
The rest of the group reduced their slink to an incredibly slow pace to ensure that they'd hear every word.
"Your work's been lousy lately," Walters said.
"Yeah?" Bill replied.
The boss continued. "But it's always been lousy. I'm used to it. The trouble is, now my secretary's work is starting to get lousy too, and I can't stand that."
"So..?" Bill pronounced slowly.
"So," Mr. Walters concluded, running a hand over his slicked black hair and pointing at Bill with his cigar angrily, "I want you to leave her alone!"
The slinkers had long since stopped dead in their tracks.
The two stared at each other, and the boss's glare was, even for him, exceptionally fierce. He wasn't giving an inch. Bill, still staring, asked: "Who's gonna make me?"
The boss's only response was to pull his upper lip up sinisterly above his little sharp teeth. And the stare-out went out, and they stood facing each other so long you'd think somebody was painting their picture. Only when the boss's cigar had smoldered down so low as to burn his fingers did the stalemate end. He cursed and shook his hand, and as he did so Bill excused himself, saying, "I've got to get back to work."
Later that night, after work, as we hung around the burger joint, Bill decided that, based on the depth and breadth of the boss’s cursing, that Walters must've been in the navy, too.
"He'll put his goons on you," somebody warned.
Bill shrugged this off, reexpressing his skepticism in the whole 'godfather' theory.
Some nights Bill walked home with me so as to take a last appreciative glance at his automobile before calling it a day, or else to attend to some aspect of repair that'd been bugging him during work. With the vehicle's rehabilitation imminent, and Bill's enthusiasm cued to near its peak, he started coming over to my house after work all the time, performing whatever miniscule operation that late hour would accommodate, in order to coax his dream a little closer to his grasp. We came home one night to find my father tightening the last bolt of the water pump. Just as we came up the drive he lowered the hood and looked at us.
"Well," he said, "that's it."
He'd pronounced it like a death sentence, but Bill somehow managed to glean the statement's true significance. "You mean," he inquired with wide-eyed, reverence, "that it'll run? It's fixed?"
My dad was wiping off his hands. "I suppose it'll run," he said. "If we've done everything right, that is. All she needs is a battery and a fan belt."
Bill began to scan the cars parked up and down the street. My dad clapped him on the shoulder, laughing. "It'll wait," he said. "You stop by the store early tomorrow morning and buy those things, bring'em over here, and I imagine before long you'll have yourself a 'road machine'."
'Road machine'? Dad could still embarrass me.
Bill left in a daze, and we walked back to the house.
"Aren't you excited?" my dad asked, sort of squinting in the darkness to see my reaction.
"I should be," I shrugged, "I've put my whole Summer into it." "We'll see what happens tomorrow," he said. "I think we've done good work."
Bill returned, still in a reverent daze, at five-thirty the next morning. I don't know where he got the parts, but if stolen fanbelts made the headlines I would have had a fair idea.
He worked without breakfast, and of course I worked with him. There was still a lot of work to do - loosening this to put on that then retightening it and finding something else, then putting in the battery and getting shocked, only to hear the other person laugh about it and start you wondering if it had really hurt you as much as you'd thought at the time (it had). And then you try to start it but there's no gas, so someone runs and buys some and you crank it ... and it coughs. You crank it and prime it and it coughs violently as though upset at having its eternal sleep disturbed, but you crank it some more and just when the battery sounds like it's about to fail something catches, and the coughing keeps going, and starts to sound smoother. Before you know it the darned thing's actually running - that's it! that's what it's supposed to do! - and the jubilant owner says 'get in' and you do and you back out of the driveway at maybe eight o'clock in the morning and naturally you go screaming down the street around the block.
Bill was ecstatic. I couldn't help feeling a little proud. It ran! We were geniuses. We were gods. I was still half-asleep, and the air rushing past my face felt good.
"Man!" Bill said. "Oh man!"
I had to agree.
We sped around, passing places we'd had to walk to a hundred times in the past, places we'd walked to getting parts. Then we cruised down the street with the bars and the diners, and they looked sort of pale and flaccid in the daylight, and we were sailing past them in an instant and all of a sudden everything about them seemed sort of embarrassing and small.
Bill roared through turns and any other time I'd've felt unsafe, but right now I just didn't care. I was surprised at how detached I felt, just sitting there and witnessing. We were heading steadily uphill. He made another turn and we wound through a residential area I was totally unfamiliar with, passing frowning sleepy-eyeds then shooting out of it again, still higher up. We went into another, plusher, residential area only to circle around it, and coming around its other side a spectacular view began to open up before me. It was the Shoreline. In one part, near the piers, it was crowded and busy. But that wasn't the Ocean. The Ocean was a patient, majestic thing, bouncing silver and gold off of its many waves, journeying patiently toward the horizon, spreading out patiently in all directions - too vast too inquisitive too wonder-full too young to get caught up in the pier activity and its little games.
"Whaddya think?" Bill asked.
"Cool," I said.
We drove back down, I nearly oblivious, just feeling the motions, the turns, the speed the stops and starts as a welcome symbiosis. Then suddenly we were back at my house. It was maybe nine o'clock. I looked at him. He was grinning like the cat who's found the cream.
"I got some visiting to do," he told me with a roguish, confidential look. I wasn't in on it, but I knew enough to climb out of the seat. "Have fun," I said.
He began to back into the street. I turned toward my house. Then he honked. I turned around.
"Thanks for all the help," he called. "Thank your dad!"
"I will," I said. Then he left.
Three hours of the morning left, then the afternoon - for the first time in months with so much free time to myself, not working on the car. I felt strange and looked at the vacant driveway. I went inside. My younger brother and sister were watching cartoons. I went past them to my room. It was funny how fast I fell asleep.
I woke up late. My mother was shaking my feet.
"You'll be late for work!" she said.
I sat up with a start - but then I checked my pace.
"You'll be late!" she alarmed again.
"I'm going, I'm going," I responded lazily.
She must've decided I was feeling sick because I just proceeded at a leisurely pace. It must've started to make her feel guilty.
"You come home if you feel sick!" she shouted after me as I went out the front door.
"I sure will," I said, waving a hand, not even turning around. I'm sure she watched me all the way down the block.
I got to work late and the first person I saw was Cathy. She looked real nervous - when she saw me she made a nervous little laugh, then clammed right up, as though I knew some joke. But I didn't know a thing. She skipped away (skipped!), and I ducked into the bathroom to check in the mirror and make sure I wasn't the joke.
That was the most eventful thing for hours. I work lazily, and everyone who noticed me noticed it, because I usually worked hard, and if they asked I answered 'Yeah I'm feeling kinda sick' and that satisfied them. I tried to work for a while, but finally I just gave up and sat on a box, not bothering to ask anyone to cover for me. I just sat there for a long time.
And some time later, a little buzz of electricity began to circulate about the place. Slowly it got stronger, and eventually everyone was whispering about something to everyone - but not to me because I was sick - and after a while I couldn't resist the agitation so I got up to see what it was about.
I walked down one aisle then another, in our giant maze of boxes coming from and heading to nowhere, and finally, monotonously, I turned a corner and there they were.
Walters stood in the hall near our exit, with two huge men in purple pinstripe suit towering at either side of him. They were staring at the door, and Walters' neck was livid. But they were too late. Bill and Cathy were already out in the car. I heard a shout, then an outrageous laugh, and then the auto sped away into the night. I never saw either of them again.
The goons appeared dumbfounded. Then they turned and saw me. Walters' face began to regain some of its color as I slowly approached.
"And you," he said, his face contorting. "You came in late today! You, you think you can just ... Why I ought to ..."
"Aw hell," I told him. "You don't have to say anything. I quit."
His pinstriped apes looked at one another mutely, and I just walked right past them. As I made it through the door I heard one of the gorillas to Walter, "It's no trouble. We like it when the problems fix themselves."
It was a long dark walk home. The dogs were barking, as always. Something about me always made them bark insanely.
Like that night so many weeks ago, there was a light waiting for me at home when I arrived. There was my dad, seated at the kitchen table. He had a notepad out, sketching on the edge of some plans for some home-repair project he'd been considering before our car project had come up. He looked up as I entered. I sat down.
There was some dinner for me, but I couldn't eat it. After just a few bites I pushed it away. He didn't say anything, just looked at the project he planned to do.
"Dad," I groaned after a long silence, "Is life always rotten?"
"It was rotten for me," he said, "for a long time."
I remembered that. "What did you do about it?"
"You mean what did I do to make things better? Not a thing. They got better, but I didn't have anything to do with it."
"What did you do until things got better?" I asked.
He took a deep breath. "I kept going," he said. "It's as simple as that. I didn't even hope. That hurt too much. I just went on."
I nodded.
"You've had a long summer," he said. “It’s lightning struck, but not for you.”
I agreed. "It's almost fall," I said. We both knew what that meant.
"I'm ready for it," I said at last.
He looked up. "Yes," he said. "You're doing the right thing. The thing to do now is to follow through - make it yours, let everybody know it's yours, and make the best of it you can."
I agreed.
"And of course, while you’re doing this one thing, you can always hope - you've got no choice about it. Even though you’ll be training so hard you’ll think you haven’t got a spare moment or ounce of energy left, your mind will be chasing down every chance, considering every possibility, spinning dreams and ambitions in every pretty face and every far-off corner, and one of those," he said, “one of those will be something far, far better than you’d ever dreamed.”
I smiled. He got up to go to bed.
"Thanks dad," I said.
He mumbled some appropriate sentiment. I went to bed and slept soundly.
iv
I followed through and plunged into the world as part of a most efficient machine, surrounded and alone, and I wandered far and the world changed, and in some place and in some manner I completed the ritual injury that was required so that the “who I was” could become the “who I would be.” When I came back my brother and my sister did not recognize me; my mother looked older; my father cried and tried to hide it by admiring my medals. After that I left -- indeed, I could not stay -- and finally, truly, I went out into the world for real and found the one I most desired, and became who I really was.