The Highway Kind(80)

“I missed you starting it,” the boy said.

“It wasn’t much,” said Eddie. “I just put a little gas in it and bam. I got lucky. She’s an old engine but she sounds pretty good.”

“I think she sounds good too,” he said and went to sit down in the lawn chair but it clearly pained him to do so.

“You’re hurt?” asked Eddie.

Russell looked at him and tears welled in his eyes.

“Curtis?”

Russell nodded.

“Did you tell your grandmother and your mom?”

Russell nodded vaguely.

“Do you want me to talk to him?”

Russell shook his head.

“Where’s your mom?”

“She’s at work.”

“Where’s Curtis?”

“I don’t know.”

“You think you need a doctor?”

“No,” Russell said quietly.

Eddie paused for a time and took a cigarette from a pack on the hood of the car.

“You did a good job washing the car.”

“I couldn’t get the hood,” the boy said.

“Don’t worry about the hood. I’ll get it. I’m going to change the tranny filter and if that does the trick and the transmission works, we’ll take her for a little spin. Maybe go get pizza.” He lit the cigarette, inhaled deeply, and blew the smoke out. “But you don’t like pizza, do you?”

“Pizza’s my favorite,” the boy said and smiled.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” he said.

“I thought you didn’t like pizza.”

“You know pizza’s my favorite,” he said and laughed.

“But I got a question to ask you first, Russell. Do you know anything about the missing batteries?”

Tears welled suddenly in the boy’s eyes. He tried to speak but couldn’t.

“It’s all right,” said Eddie. “I’m not mad at you. It’s just that four of the batteries are missing.”

Russell began sobbing.

Eddie went to him and patted him gently on the shoulder. “We’ll talk about it later. I’m gonna put this thing up on blocks, change out the tranny filter, and see if we can get it to move.”

Russell brought him two beers and a new pack of cigarettes before Eddie finished. He then started the car and put it in reverse, and the car went in reverse. He put it in forward and it went forward.

“We’re getting lucky,” said Eddie. “The tranny’s all right and the engine’s all right. I’m going to do one more thing and then we’ll take her for a spin.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m putting in a kill switch.”

“What’s that?” asked the boy.

Eddie showed him a small electrical switch. “I’ll set it up so you’ll just hit this switch and the car won’t start. It’s for safety. These old cars are easy as shit to steal. My brother had his van stolen once; I had a Dodge Dart stolen twice, and I had an old Ford pickup stolen too. That one cost me. I had a lot of tools in it. After that, I started putting in kill switches.”

“Then they can’t steal it?”

“Not unless they tow it or figure out where the switch is,” said Eddie. He spliced the coil wire and ran two wires from each side of it through a hole he’d drilled below the glove box. He lay on his back on the floor of the passenger side connecting the wires to the switch he had hidden there. Russell leaned over the backseat and watched until Eddie finished.

“I think we’re done now,” he said and sat up. He started the car and then hit the kill switch and the engine stopped. He looked at Russell and smiled. “Now call your mom and tell her we’re going to get pizza, okay?”

Russell crawled out over the front seat and walked back to his house. He came back two minutes later while Eddie was cleaning up in the kitchen sink.

“I can go,” he said.

“You called her?”

Russell nodded.

“You ever waxed a car?”

Russell shook his head.

“Waxing a car is one of my least favorite things to do. My dad used to make me wax his car, and if I didn’t do it right he’d be an asshole about it for a week. So I won’t wax my own car. I just won’t. But if I call your mom and she says she didn’t talk to you, I’m going to make you wax the Le Mans, all right?”

Russell looked at the ground but didn’t say anything.

“All right?”

The boy nodded slowly.

Eddie called Russell’s mother, spoke to her for a minute, and hung up.

“You shouldn’t lie,” said Eddie and lit a cigarette. “Lying is a bad habit and no one likes liars. Your mom says you never called. Is she lying or are you?”

“But she doesn’t care,” the boy told him. “She said she doesn’t care what I do as long as I’m home when she gets home.”

Eddie looked at Russell. “That might be the case, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that you lied to me. We’re friends and you lied to me. I know you know about the batteries too. And you wouldn’t even tell me about that. It doesn’t look good. It looks like you’re a bad kid. Now, I know you’re not bad but you gotta start acting like a man once in a while and not like a little dude.”