Ladies and Gentlemen, I thought I’d give
you a brief explanation about my new column before I embark on it. One
of the greatest gifts that joining PCA has bestowed upon me is a renewed
sense that to live life well its important to challenge one’s self. Having
been seduced by the allure of the track, it is a lesson I relearn with
each new season. Knowing when and how far to push is a skill I’m constantly
struggling to develop. In the words of Schumacher, “No risk, no fun!” While
I’ll never likely have either the occasion or the fortitude to push the
envelope in the sense that he meant, I thought that having a spot in this
magazine each month for whatever I cared to write about presented an opportunity
for failure that I could not pass up.
And so I thought I might try an experiment.
Rather than blather on about the world as I happen to see it at any given
moment, as I’ve been know to do in the past, I thought I might try to produce
a story or two over a series of months, occasionally taking a break from
time to time to return to chronicling aspects of club life. But in doing
so, given that this is a radical shift in style for me, I’m asking you
to participate. This month, I’ve penned the first installment of a story
that is likely to unfold over the course of at least half a dozen months,
but I have no desire to write what you’ve no desire to read. So, I’d simply
ask that you send a simple email to my address, rjmann@yahoo.com. Feel
free to write a critical essay if you like, but all you need do is to send
a message entitled “Go’ or ‘Stop’. No further text is necessary. If the
‘Stops’ out vote the ‘Goes’, I’ll move on, kill the story and head off
in another direction. If there’s no response at all, well, I’ll feel free
to simply continue or leave you hanging. Apathy is its own reward. If a
story gets a thumbs down, it’s dead, no reprieve, no resurrection. Each
month I write, you can vote or ignore it. I’ll do your bidding. Democracy
in action.
Scrap Yard Lullabies
Chapter I.
J. J. glanced up from his desk. It was
already nearly quarter to three and he hadn’t yet eaten. His stomach, as
usual, was bothering him, but as this part of the afternoon usually signaled
the onset of his declining interest in the business, he began to consider
the prospect of food. Most days, he would have simply drifted off, leaning
back his creaky Darlington & Co. desk chair to close his eyes and dream
of other worlds. But Andrea had vaguely predicted a visitation today and
given how poorly their last case had gone, he wanted to at least pretend
he was interested.
Andrea had already begun tidying things.
She never actually accomplished much beyond relocating a layer or two of
grime, but it was her way of preparing. A sarabande she performed in anticipation
of each new undertaking, seemingly more prank than office chore. Her girlish
figure cut slowly through the room, shuffling papers, removing the half
filled cups containing the now sickly cold brownish liquid. Any passerby,
not that there ever would or could be any, had they stole a glance through
the oil stained windows, might have been reminded of a teenager, furtive,
intent on stealth, gently slapping a finger to the back window of a filthy
station wagon to quickly scribble ‘clean me’ before moving on to other
mischief. J. J. barely stirred in these moments, for although he found
her ritual maddening, he’d long since given up glaring at her. The work,
after all, bound them far too tightly. He could no longer find any anger
for it. Besides, Andrea had long since stopped caring about his expression,
let alone heeding his wish that the office remain unmolested.
The roller chair squeaked as he swung
round to peer out the back window. Light filtering through its greasy glass
never provided much actual information about the state of the yard, but
that wasn’t particularly what he was interested in at the moment. He wanted
to wander out back. He wished to move through the rows, touching bent fenders
and half open hoods, alternately hearing the bang of metal or pretending
that the face that had etched the spider webs into a smashed windshield
had survived. He could sense the instantaneous dulled agony that a moment’s
indecision had caused. Row upon row, story after story. In his mind, as
he leafed through the catalog of the yards contents, he wondered which
might be the chosen one, what would be cleaved from it and how traumatic
it might be, both for him and Andrea, but most especially its receiver.
He leaned a bit further back, shut tight
his eyes and managed to grind out the words, “Anything to eat?”
“What’s that darling?” She cooed mockingly
and after the slightest pause turned back to continue her danse macabre.
“I’m hungry. Haven’t really eaten all day.
Be nice for a change, run down to Iggy’s and get me a c-dog and maybe some
fries, huh? Take the Caddy, if you like.”
Andrea turned to stare over the desk at
the back of his balding head. She was instantly annoyed. Her bliss had
been broken and the wreckage spilled onto her face. ‘He’s so damn important,
he’s the arbiter, he’s got the final word. Idiot, what the hell good is
that asshole anyway.’ Knowing what the next hour could bring, she tried
to manage the red fire that was building within her, but controlling emotion
was among the few natural gifts she failed to possess.
“I’m not your God damn slave J! You can
take care of yourself. Go find a new mommy. I’m busy, I might miss…”, she
paused to gathered herself, but continued sternly. “Have Sin feed you.
I need to be ready.”
Mentioning Cynthia was a mistake which
she instantly regretted. Mrs. Cynthia Odell-Waldrin, J. J.’s wife, was
a rare visitor to the scrap yard. “Third times the charm”, he used to say
after they were newly married. Unfortunately, Sin, as she had come to be
known around her familiars, was only on her second, although certainly
the notion of a third had crossed her mind on several occasions. When she
and J. J. first met, she professed fascination for all things occult; astrology,
numerology, vampires, but as the unreality of the yard began to exert itself
upon her, she increasingly began to see it and her husband as oddities
she might be better off without. She had entertained several boyfriends
in the years since they wed, it was no real secret to anyone, least of
all J. J. But the yard, if it had taught J. J. anything, it was that fate
follows closely on you, bearing smiles and teeth, and whether you liked
it or not, whether you thought you deserved it or not, there was very little
that could be done to alter what it had in store for you. You could wrestle
it, sob piteously over it, but either way there was no choice but to accept
the judgment of Atropos and move on if you happened to be lucky enough
to survive. And in that way, his third wife was indeed a charm, but one
he preferred kept at a safe distance, far away from the hazy view out his
back window.
Andrea didn’t give him any chance to respond.
She didn’t want the clients to suffer for their faults. The past had made
it quite clear that the cases could go horribly wrong whenever the two
of them hadn’t been getting along. And it wasn’t as if there were no personal
consequences for her. She was desperate to avoid any further pain. Her
most recent failure was lingering with her even now. What a client felt
was a burden to her as well, not metaphorically, but physically. Andrea
had known the misery of broken bone, the tingle of anesthetic, the incision
carved of a surgeon’s knife. Far worse was the emotional trauma, for in
the extreme, she bore a measure of that as well. Recoiling from the possibility
she had set them on the path to yet another failure, she recognized the
danger and managed to gather herself. “Walt ’ll be back any minute. You
want me to get him on the dispatch and tell him to get you something on
the way back?”
“Yeah sure, whatever.” He hadn’t particularly
noticed her outburst; he too was preoccupied with the thought of their
next commission. He rubbed his forehead, turned back to his desk and stood
up quickly as if to stretch. The blood was still in his belly as he rose.
His vision grayed and his head swayed slightly. It was all too tiring.
He had neither intended nor asked to be a slave to the scrap. Somehow it
had just enveloped him when he hadn’t been paying attention. One minute,
a child playing in the warm sunshine, an adult snared in life’s sticky
web, the next. The spiders had been feeding on his flesh for as long as
he could remember. Each morning when he arrived, he could hear their legs
and mandibles rubbing together in anticipation. As blood began to refill
his skull, his thoughts flashed back through the faces of the clientele
he and Andrea had tried to serve over the years. As the images flew past,
occasionally one would loiter for him to examine more closely. A young
blond recently relocated from Phoenix, the elderly widow of the former
state rep, the orthopedic surgeon and his cousin, all having nothing in
common, save that fate had bought them to the yard. As he looked deeply
into their imaginary eyes, he noted a faint glow from the depths of their
pupils. It was as if the blackness held fast a wisp of an ancient headlight
filament faintly lit by a nearly dead 6 volt lead acid battery. It made
him shiver.
Truth be told, most of the work entrusted
to them had been concluded cheerfully. But over the past few months the
outcomes had turned darker, some had been quite disturbing. Their most
recent succession of customers had, though unintended on the proprietor’s
part, been introduced to a taste of the ill will the yard had on offer.
There had been times in the past, where they both had felt that some who
came to them where indeed deserving of a negative outcome, but experience
had taught it was neither worthwhile, nor actually in their power to judge
a client. The yard had a way of forging a path for all it took in, it would
resolve matters with or without their input. To be sure, their vision had
guided more than a few souls to a better place, but they acted more as
advocates or councilors; they might shape an outcome, but never control
or determine it.
“Andrea, ” he said with what little authority
he could muster. “I’m going to bolt the front gate and never come back.”
He walked around the desk and stiffened his backside up against it. “Right
this damn second. What the hell did either of us ever do? I need to get
out of here, you need to get out of here. I’ve given enough,” He desperately
wanted her to agree with him, but wrong words have a mind of their own,
“Its not your burden anyway, you can go and come as your please, you…”
She let out a laugh. It wasn’t his words,
had she actually be paying attention, her anger might have returned, but
seeing his face, she couldn’t help finding J. J’s expression refreshingly
comical in its seriousness. “You idiot,” she smiled. “Stop being such a
little drama queen. Where could you possibly go, honey? Even if you could
leave, even if it would let you leave, how could that ever change anything?”
Andrea had begun to suspect quite a long
time ago that they were tainted, that some unseen force had twisted and
recast their DNA. On those rare occasions where she found herself in front
of a mirror, she barely could recognize herself. The reflection was of
someone metamorphosed, misshapen, in some ways superior, in others more
like one of the guard dogs out back, svelte, hungry, intimidating, reasonably
well taken care of, but chained fast to a fence. She was quite aware there
wasn’t much possibility of reversing the course of her life. Perhaps she
might fiddle with the particulars, but the burden would undoubtedly have
followed her wherever she dared go. If she left J. J. behind to find a
job serving coffee at a truck stop, driving a school bus or apprenticing
in a tattoo parlor, the yard would still find ways of sending clients to
her.
J.J felt the distance between them at
that moment. He had wanted to take her hand. He had wanted to gently stroke
her arm, entwine it with his and together walk quietly out of the office.
It was only a vague belief leaking from his subconscious, but he had begun
to cling to the notion that if they both wished hard enough, sincerely
enough, in unison, perfectly synchronized, they might be released from
their burden. This was not to be that moment. He strode quickly across
the room straight though the swing out door without uttering a syllable.
As it snapped back shut, he stood motionless under the faded green and
yellow striped awning that draped over the front office entrance of J.J.
Waldrin Automotive Parts and Salvage. He fixed his gaze across the muddy
drive towards the now open gates. The chain link was tolling randomly as
a cool wind blew through it. He wondered if he could do it, just walk away,
and leave the yard and everyone and everything in it. Before he could follow
his impulse, he heard the unmistakable sound of the old Cummins diesel
clattering up the road. Walt was coming and everything he wanted no part
of was riding with him.
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