The Highway Kind(31)

They got to it, both their heads under the hood, wrenches and sockets going in, coming out. Every few pages I’d look through the holes in the cinder blocks. Half an hour later Daddy said the man didn’t need him and he had other cars to see to. So the visitor went on working as Daddy moved along to a ’62 Caddy.

After a while the visitor climbed in the car, started it, revved the engine hard, let it spin down, revved it again. Got back under the hood and not long after that said he could use some help. Said would it be okay to ask me and Daddy grunted okay. “Boy’s name is Leonard.”

“You mind coming down here to give me a hand with this engine, Leonard?” the man said.

I was at a good part of the book, the part where Lou Ford talks about his childhood and what he did with the housekeeper, but the book would always be there waiting. When I went over, the man shook my hand like I was grown and helped me climb in.

“I’m setting the timing now,” he said. “When I tell you, I need for you to rev the engine.” He held up the timing light. “I’ll be using this to—”

I nodded just as Daddy said, “He knows.”

To reach the accelerator I had to slide as far forward in the seat as I could, right onto the edge of it, and stretch my leg out straight. I revved when he said, waited as he rotated the distributor, revved again. Once more and we were done.

“What do you think?” the man asked Daddy.

“Sounding good.”

“Always good to have good help.”

“Even for a loner, yeah.”

The man looked back at me. “Maybe we should take a ride, make sure everything’s tight.”

“Or take a couple of beers and let the boy get to his work.”

Daddy snagged two bottles from the cooler. Condensation came off them and made tiny footprints on the floor. I was supposed to be doing extra homework per my teachers, but what was boring and obvious the first time around didn’t get any better with age. Lou and the housekeeper were glad to have me back.

Daddy and the man sat quietly, sipping their beers, looking out the bay door where heat rose in waves, turning the world wonky.

“Kind of a surprise, seeing you here.” That was Daddy, not given to talk much at all and never one for hyperbole.

“Both of us.”

Some more quiet leaned back against the wall waiting.

“Still in the same line of work?”

“Not anymore, no.”

“Glad to hear that. Never thought you were cut out for it.”

“Thing is, I didn’t seem to be cut out for much else.”

“Except driving.”

“Except driving.” Our visitor motioned with his bottle, a swing that took in the car, the rack, the tools he’d put back where they came from. “Appreciate this.”

“Any time. So, where are you headed?”

“Thought I might go down to Mexico.”

“And do what?”

“More of the same, I guess.”

“The same being what?”

Things wound down then. The quiet that had been leaning against the wall earlier came back. They finished their beers. Daddy stood and said he figured it to be time to get on home, asked the man if he planned on heading out now the car was looking good. “You could stay a while, you know,” Daddy said.

“Nowhere I have to be.”

“Don’t guess you have a place...”

“Car’s fine.”

“That your preference?”

“It’s what I’m used to.”

“You want, you can pull in out back, then. Plenty of privacy. Nothing but the arroyo and scrub trees all the way to the highway.”

Daddy raised the rattling bay doors and the visitor pulled out, drove around. We put the day’s used rags in the barrel, threw sawdust on the floor and swept up, swabbed the sink and toilet, everything in place and ready to hit the ground running tomorrow morn. Daddy locked up the Caddy and swung a tarp over it. Said while he finished up I should go be sure the man didn’t need anything else.

He had the driver’s door open, the seat kicked back, and he was lying there with eyes open. Propped on the dash, a transistor radio the size of a pack of cigarettes, the kind I’d seen in movies, played something in equal parts shrill and percussive.

“Daddy says to tell you the diner over on Mulberry’s open till nine and the food’s edible if you’re hungry enough.”

“Don’t eat a lot these days.”

He held a beer bottle in his left hand, down on his thigh. The beer must have been warm since it wasn’t sweating. Crickets had started up their songs for the night. You’d catch movement out the corner of your eye but when you looked you couldn’t see them. The sun was sinking in its slot.

“Saw the book in your pocket earlier,” he said, “wondered what you’re reading,” and when I showed him he said he liked those too, even had a friend out in California that wrote a few. Everything about California is damn cool, I was convinced of that back then, so I asked a lot of questions. He told me about the Hispanic neighborhood he’d lived in. Billboards in Spanish, murals on walls, bright colors. Stalls and street food and festivals.

Years later I lived out there in a neighborhood just like that before I had to come back to take care of Daddy. It all started with him pronouncing words wrong. Holdover would be “hol’over,” or noise somehow turn to “nose.” No one thought much about it at first, but before long he was losing words completely. His mouth would open, and you’d watch his eyes searching for them, but the words just weren’t there.