SPLAT CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Suzie was anxious to see how her artwork looked in the daylight. She had a quick peek at her freshly painted heads as she drove around the side of the building into the back parking lot. She was not happy. Someone had defaced her work, trying to spray it off and rub it out. The faces were smeared, the details ruined.

Suzie felt dissed. Someone had deliberately insulted her, destroyed her personal contribution to art. She was, momentarily, very angry. But Suzie couldn’t stay in one mood for more than a few minutes. That’s why the life of an embittered terrorist just wouldn’t work for her. She lacked constancy.

She didn’t notice a car pulling out of the front lot as she parked. It was that black woman with the afro who was hanging out in her spot the other day. But she wouldn’t have really remembered what the woman looked like, anyway, and so wouldn’t have thought anything of it.

The first thing that attracted her attention was a black dude with the Ford version of her Doohickey sitting on the racks in the emissions bay. The car had temporary plates, and the dude was anxiously pacing outside, watching his new car run the gauntlet. It was not his day. He’d bought this lemon off of some guy, and had to get an emissions certificate before he could get tags. He knew he wasn’t going to pass the emissions test, so he was all worried about what it was going to cost him to make it pass, and then, on top of that, he got a flat tire on the way in to the shop.

He was sorry-looking, moping around nervously, his head hung low, waiting for the bad news. Nelson noticed the flat tire and called for Nathan. Nathan snaked the hose back and put air in. The guy had been driving on it; Suzie could tell by the almost-shredded sidewall and the fucked up rim. ‘Hey, Nelson,’ Nathan called gaily. ‘He’s got a really flat tire. It leaks the air out as fast as I can put it in.’

The guy looked helpless, a face Suzie made often when she was hanging around the shop. Like he wanted to be rescued. Like he wanted Nelson to magically create an emissions certificate and a new tire. Someone probably told the guy Nelson could fix anything, but forgot to tell him that unless you were a pretty girl or a personal friend, it would cost you. Not as much as the State would make you spend, but enough to keep Nelson surfing in the cashflow.

Nathan cranked the car over and ran the standard tests. It was obviously just a benchmark, because the exhaust smelled up the whole shop with that non-air smoke that gets you real high as it starves your brain of oxygen.

They shut the car down, and Nelson called the guy over to huddle by the driver’s side door and arrange to bring it back tomorrow and he’d see what he could do about it. The guy nodded gratefully. Then Nelson told Nathan to put the car out in the lot so the guy could change his tire.

The guy said ‘No, don’t bother,’ he said, resigned. ‘I’ll just drive it on home like that, and change it later.’

Nelson looked at him like he was an idiot. ‘If I were you, I’d change it right now.’

There was a long moment when the guy looked at Nelson and wondered why he wouldn’t just change it for him, since he had all the tools and it would just take a second, and Nelson stared back at him thinking Don’t come here asking me to tie your damn shoes for you. Fix your own goddamned tire. Then the guy gave up, and fished in his pocket for his keys to get into the trunk and see if he had a spare. Nelson headed off to the front of the shop and disappeared around the corner.

Suzie hung out around the wooden worktable, her butt resting up against the door of the GTO. It was hot in the shop. There was a hot breeze blowing from the southwest, curling through the garage and blowing on her hot, sweaty skin.

Nelson appeared suddenly from outside, walking quickly toward the back. He was on a mission, and avoiding eye contact with everybody. A black guy and a white guy in rap clothes followed him, strutting, making large movements with their heads and hands and feet as they sauntered back to the back. Nelson held the door to the parts room open for them, and disappeared through it behind them, turning to wink at Suzie. Nobody in the shop gave it any notice.

They came back out a few minutes later, and Nelson escorted them to the front of the shop with big smiles and laughter, where the guys got into their car and drove away. Still nobody noticed.

‘Nelson, was that just a drug deal?’ she asked quietly as he walked past her.

He looked around in a panic. ‘Shush, Baby, what you got to go drawing attention to it for? Jesus, try to be discreet, will you?’

Nelson had food sitting on the counter in a styrofoam box. ‘Hey, Sweetie,’ he said, giving her a brief squeeze to show he still loved her. ‘Have as much of that as you want. You know I can’t eat in the summer. Somebody brought me that. Help me out, will you?’ He hugged her, and she could feel nothing but bones and sinews through his sticky shirt.

She noticed a distinct pungency coming off him. A rancid, burning smell of car grease sautéing his clothes. And other pongs. She backed off. ‘It must be hell working in this heat,’ she said sympathetically, to show she didn’t take his body odors personally.

‘Yeah,’ he swept the back of his hand across his noble brow and lifted his eyes. ‘I’m miserable. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep at night. It’s just too hot.’

‘Me neither,’ she commiserated.

‘I’ve lost ten pounds this summer.’ He pulled up his shirt and showed her his ribs. Then he looked around the shop quickly, and grabbed her hand and stuck it down his pants, and worked his mouth into an O when she touched his dick. It was clammy. She patted it reassuringly and withdrew her hand.

Nelson marched off to see to his fucked up kingdom, and spent some time yelling at Nathan under a white van that was up on the racks. Nathan stood back and watched Nelson work a starter loose with a breaker bar. It dropped to the floor with a clunk, and while Nathan picked it up and checked for damage, Nelson did a little dance with the crowbar. That’s Why I’m The Boss, he mouthed silently.

Then he noticed a car pulling up outside, and went to meet it, bending double to stick his head in the window and converse with the occupants. After a few moments he straightened up and whirled on his heels to go back into the shop. ‘Abercrombie,’ he called. A bland face popped around a tool chest where he’d been sitting smoking a cigarette. He trotted over in his Abercrombie t-shirt, today accessorized by expensive canvas shorts, once canary yellow, now construction yellow scrubbed over with black grease, looking like ancient lederhosen. Suzie yodeled softly.

‘Go get me a car tag out the back.’ Abercrombie looked confused. Nelson looked around for support. ‘Am I the only smart person here?’ He dragged Abercrombie out to the back parking lot. ‘That one,’ he said, pointing to an SUV in the first row. Abercrombie went looking for a screwdriver.

A customer pulled into the front in a Saturn, tires squealing, and blocking Nelson’s friends in. A woman got out of the car, leaving the engine running, and went into the office. They could hear shouting. A moment later, Glenda and the customer came out into the garage area through the office door, looking for Nelson.

Nelson was out talking to the people in the car again, bent over like an ostrich. He delayed straightening up, wiggling his bony butt while he spoke. The customer stared at the back of his legs, waiting for him to turn around and face the music. Nelson preferred to show his ass. He concluded his conversation leisurely, and reluctantly left whoever it was sitting in their car, waiting.

The customer was red faced and agitated. ‘Someone,’ she glared at Nelson, ‘stole some things out of my car.’

Nelson wore an innocent face, a skeptical face. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘How long have you had your car back?’ Though he was trying to be insinuating, the truth was that he forgot all of his customers and their cars the moment they left the shop.

She got redder. ‘Look. There’s nobody but me drives that car. I went to look for some music this morning, and noticed that everything was in a different place than I always keep it. And some things are just plain missing. I want them all back.’

Nelson started to speculate that stuff must have shifted when they were putting the car up on the racks or road testing it.

She nearly spat out her disbelief. ‘Bullshit,’ she thundered. ‘I’ve been violated. You and your boys went through every inch of my car, didn’t you?’

Nelson backed, off, protesting. ‘The engine only. Why, we never touch the inside of the customers’ cars.’ He looked shockingly innocent and raised his hands to placate her. ‘Now, if you say something’s missing, then I believe you.’

He looked around, his hand to his chest in wounded pride. ‘Nathan,’ he barked. ‘Get over here.’ He turned to the woman. ‘Nathan here is the one who worked on your car.’

Nathan began to protest that he wasn’t.

‘Nathan,’ Nelson said sternly. ‘This lady says someone took some items from her vehicle. I want you to straighten this whole thing out with her.’

Then he charged out the back to see what was keeping Abercrombie, and disappeared around the outside of the shop nonchAllently carrying the plate.

Nathan was standing there, red in the face, spluttering, his cheeks puffy, like a rabid squirrel with dyed-blond hair. He tried to regain his usual sedated composure, but he hated being yelled at, and hated taking the fall, and felt anger and resentment surging up inside of him. He got more red-faced.

Nelson reappeared at the front, bending inside the car telling the occupants they had to have the license plate back right away. He straightened up and said goodbye in a businesslike way, and the driver of the car maneuvered around the Saturn to get out. He drove right over a dwarf azalea that hadn’t been doing very well anyway. Nelson had disappeared and didn’t notice.

The woman listed all the things that had been done to her car. Her Luther Vandross CD was missing (Allen had thrown it out the window). And her magnetic cross. Nathan nodded miserably. She had five dollars in the console, and it was gone. (Nelson bought lottery tickets with it). Some bills and other papers were gone. (Allen had friends in the identity theft business.) Her glove compartment had been rifled. She didn’t come right out and say it, but she had a small gun in her glove compartment, for her own safety. She was afraid to mention it because it wasn’t registered. (Allen gave it to his girlfriend.)

‘I found drugs in my car.’

At once Nelson was back, sidling up next to Nathan and looking concerned. He put his head down next to hers and spoke with her for a few moments, then drew back and rose to his full height. ‘No, Ma’m, that was cigar ash. I can assure you. I’m the one took your car for a test drive, after Nathan here did the work on it. And I smoke cigars. That’s what it was, I’ll swear to it,’ he finished sternly.

He fished a stinky cigar butt out of his chest pocket with grimy fingers and rolled it under her nose. She gave him a look that said she knew damn well what pot looked and smelled like. ‘As for the money,’ he continued, bowing and nodding benevolently. ‘I had to drive it awhile to make sure it was fixed, so I put that in the tank so that you’d have enough gas to get home. I apologize for forgetting to tell you.’

The customer raised her fists in the air and started toward him. Nelson backed off. She began screaming incoherently, and he cowered in front of her saying calming things. In the end, he made a big deal of going to the cash register and refunding her the entire amount of her bill (the $89 brake job), and fishing thirty bucks out of a greasy roll in his pocket for the CD and gas money, insisting that she should bring her car back again for any little thing, assuring her that he would take personal care of everything in the future. The woman left as scowly and angry as she had arrived, still incoherent and loud. Suzie heard her shouting through closed windows as she pulled away.

Nelson appeared out of the bathroom a few moments later with a rolled joint in his hand, and for once they jumped right into his Trooper to go for a ride. Suzie opened the door and piled into the front seat of his ancient, dusty Isuzu, with cracks in the windshield, full of car parts and containers, covered with dried mud.

He kept the windows down during the day, but the car still reeked. It smelled like her friends’ cars smelled when they were in high school. ‘It smells like dope in here. Weed and cigarettes,’ she observed, sticking her feet up on the dashboard and getting comfortable, careful not to rest any weight against the fragmented windshield.

Nelson grinned his wiseass grin as he got in. ‘I got pulled over a couple of nights ago, and the cop smelled dope. I smell dope, he said. It’s real strong.’ He started the Trooper with a smirk on his face, holding up the joint like a Cuban cigar. ‘They took the seats out and went up under the carpets. And the cop’s asking me if they’re going to find any dope in the car and I said Nosir. I told him I just bought the car.’ He slipped it into reverse and started backing out. ‘He said, Well the guy who sold it to you was hauling a whole lot of pot in this thing right before he sold it to you.’ Nelson smiled confidently, as if he’d just fooled the teacher.

‘And did you have anything in the car?’ Suzie asked.

He smiled triumphantly. ‘Nope. I’d just gone through and cleaned it all out, every roach, every seed. Good thing he hadn’t pulled me over a day earlier.’ He patted the steering wheel fondly, and pulled around the building. ‘We sure do smoke a lot of dope in this thing.’

As they passed the side of the building, Suzie saw the mess that had been made of her artwork and felt herself getting angry again. She pointed to the ruined drawings as Nelson drove by. ‘How did that happen?’ Meaning the defacement. She was going to reveal it as her artwork, as a gift.

Nelson promptly threw a fit. ‘God damned graffiti,’ he started as he pulled out of the parking lot. ‘Let me tell you about graffiti. It’s nothing but vandalism, pure and simple. It’s a violation of property rights, and it says Fuck You Society every time someone puts it up. I can’t stand graffiti. It lowers the tone of the neighborhood.’

Suzie looked around at stripmall parking lots and outbuildings and abandoned warehouses close to the Interstate. ‘Tone.’

‘I ask you,’ he said, sounding wounded. ‘Why would somebody mark up my shop?’

‘Graffiti can be for decoration, or advertisement?’ Suzie began.

He turned to her, furious. ‘Gang people use those marks as signals. For all I know, they could be fixing to hit my shop.’ He was scared. ‘At the very least, it draws attention. People in my line of work need to keep a low profile.’ He thought of one more reason. ‘Graffiti is just plain ugly, anyway. Walls should be white and spotless, not all full of scribbles like a public bathroom.’ She’d never seen him so mad.

Suzie resented having all her planning and effort called a scribble, but said nothing. She didn’t want to tell him it was her because he would turn all that fury on her. He would never hit her, but he would certainly pound her into the earth with his scorn and anger, and slice her into a million pieces with his sharp tongue.

Nelson turned into an old neighborhood of ranch houses and pine trees. ‘I made Nathan go out, first thing, and throw a couple of cans of cleaner over the mess. Try and scrub it off. We’ll probly have to paint over it.’ He sounded like it was the most trouble he’d ever had to take over someone’s pure spitefulness.

Suzie hated him for a moment. Those portraits came out so accurate, too.

‘Looked like mugshots,’ he said. ‘Gave me the creeps.’

He drove down the road, and suddenly remembered the unlit joint. Fumbling for a lighter, he busied himself with the first toke while Suzie stared out the window. They passed an apartment complex. She saw a pathetic string of parking lot trees, starved for nutrients and blasted with reflected heat during the endless summer days. The trees had already started turning an anemic yellow, anxiously shedding their leaves for the bliss of early dormancy. Nelson began to cough and passed the joint to her.

Suzie remembered a printout she’d made. Something she’d found on the Internet the night before. It was from the diagnostic manual used by psych doctors. One set of diagnoses in particular caught her eye. Psychopathic. Aggressive Narcissism. Socially Deviant Lifestyle.

She pulled it out of her back pocket, and read it out like a personality quiz. It was all him. ‘Are you superficially charming?’ she asked. Nelson flashed her a beaming smile. ‘Uh, grandiose sense of self-worth?’ He puffed himself up. ‘Are you a pathological liar?’

‘No.’

‘Manipulative,’ she stopped reading out loud for a moment. Lack of remorse. She didn’t want to hear him respond to these questions. He was making fun of each character trait, wobbling the joint to his mouth and leering like a dangerous Groucho Marx. It was almost real. It scared her.

‘Do you have a lack of realistic long-term goals?’ She said, resuming.

‘Hell no,’ he said righteously, taking a hit. ‘I’ve got a million plans for my life.’ He began hacking, and shoved the joint at her so he could hold his belly while he convulsed.

She read further. Proneness to boredom, poor impulse control, antisocial behavior. ‘What’s Revocation of Conditional Release?’

‘Parole violation,’ he muttered as he handed the joint over and tried to stifle a cough.

‘Ever had one?’

‘Yeah, but it worked out okay.’ He started off into a story about his parole officer who operated a ring of criminals who’d do burglaries and car thefts and such on demand. She realized she wasn’t listening to him.

She finished reading the list, wondering about the label promiscuous, and the suggestion of many short-term relationships. That part didn’t seem to fit his lifestyle at all. He was too busy even for her, never mind a bunch of other women.

She thought back to the woman in the shop. ‘Nelson, why are all your customers black?’

‘Because we live in a black part of town, Honey.’ She felt silly the way he said Honey. Like she was so much younger than everybody else. ‘Black people around here need their cars fixed, just like everybody else. Besides, I get a lot of White customers. There’s you,’ he leaned into her and winked. ‘There’s all my friends, and people who’ve heard about me. Hell, I got plenty of Asian customers, and Mexicans too. I’m not prejudiced. I’ll fix anybody’s car. I’m versatile.’ He smiled at her, a leering grin. She could see drying spit stretching between his teeth and his lips. She looked at the bottom of the list. Criminal Versatility.

Suzie was stoned now, and thinking about lots of different things. ‘Nelson, I’m scared they’re going to find me,’ she blurted out, but had to pause while Nelson coughed. ‘And they’ll charge me with all sorts of terrorist shit I didn’t do,’ and had to pause some more. ‘And they’ll put me away and nobody’ll ever see me again.’

She slumped into the seat and accepted the joint while Nelson continued to cough. She was looking for reassurance, but she wasn’t sure he’d even heard her through his hacking. Nelson was probably the last place she really wanted to be if she needed reassurance. He bruised her every time he gave her a hug. There was nothing comforting about him except in the abstract. Nelson was good for quick fixes and the real scoop on something, and in other ways he was sadly deficient.

But he was good with advice. ‘You got to stash all your stuff so it’s completely invisible in case a cop pulls you over,’ he told her, picking the joint out of her fingers.

Or sees me from the next lane, Suzie thought.

‘You’ve got to be able to say But Officer I didn’t know it was there, and besides this is not my car. You got to find hiding places for all your stuff. And it can’t just be the glove compartment. That’s too easy.’ He started coughing, and passed her the joint. She accepted reluctantly, wishing it would go out, and decided to sit and hold it for awhile.

‘The main thing is,’ he continued, ‘is that you’ve got to deny whatever it is they accuse you of, and yell for a lawyer. You can use mine,’ he said graciously, reaching over to give her leg a quick squeeze, and take the joint from her.

‘Yeah,’ he continued. ‘I know all about secret compartments. You’d be surprised where you can hide shit in a car.’ He waved his arms around his Trooper, pointing. ‘Under the seat, in the seat, behind the seat, in the console, behind the dash, under the carpets, in the doors, in the frame. Plenty of places in the engine. The fuel tanks, even inside the battery. Why, I got a favorite compartment under my seat you can’t even get to without unbolting the frame. Nobody finds that kind of thing on casual inspection.’

Suzie looked around his car, and all she saw was filthy carpets and a lot of greasy junk. Nelson took a deep drag and began a cough that he couldn’t stop for several lungfuls of air.

‘I had a Windstar once,’ he said, passing her the joint. ‘Let me tell you about Windstars. Those vans have the most hiding places of any vehicle on the road. Of course, SUVs have taken a lot of the thunder out of the Windstar. That plus everybody and their uncle was using them to smuggle drugs and money and the cops got wise to it.’

He took another drag, and pantomimed for a bit while he tried to choke off a gut-wrencher. ‘My daddy ran shine,’ he continued, his face red behind a lungful of smoke. ‘He taught me all about hiding stuff in cars. Places you wouldn’t believe.’

Suzie was puzzled. ‘Wasn’t your dad a Mason? Weren’t they supposed to be above all that? Drinking, Carousing. Being outlaws.’

He looked at her strangely. She didn’t understand nothing. ‘Honey, people are all the same. Just because they belong to a respectable organization and live righteous lives, don’t mean they don’t run off to get drunk and laid and shoot the shit with each other when they get the chance.’ He shook his head and turned a random corner, homing in on the shop.

Suzie took a small hit and held the joint again. It was getting hot and resiny. ‘I just don’t know what I’m going to do,’ she said. ‘I’m so unhappy with everything. I hate my job…’ She trailed off.

He adopted a downcast expression. ‘Yeah, my roommates are driving me crazy, and I’m sick to death of Cindy breathing down my neck and being suspicious all the time.’

Suzie looked at him. ‘She worships you.’

He frowned. ‘Don’t believe it. She’s just as greedy and mean spirited as they get. All she’s doing is she’s waiting for me to make a mistake.’ He ran his fingers through his hair in distress, and reached for the joint. ‘That’s why I keep playing the lottery. I’m just waiting for enough money to move away from all my troubles and start again somewheres else. Anywhere.’

Suzie saw an opening. ‘Oh, couldn’t we start over somewhere else? That’d fix everything.’

He gave her a sidelong look that she missed. ‘I sure do hate the way my life’s turned out. I got an ex wife I hate, she’s the bane of my existence. She’s like a poison toad. I got so many scars from being with that woman that I don’t know if I’ll ever chance it again.’

Suzie’s heart jumped into her mouth. Oh yes, it said, I’ll be your pillow, I’ll be your comfort. I’ll make you forget that you’ve ever been hurt. Suzie, herself, said nothing. She was fantasizing, feeling the pressure of his eyes on her, his hands on her, his long snaky tongue, his long snaky dick. As long as she didn’t listen to his words, it was a strong, delightful fantasy.

But he went right on complaining, and soon she heard, ‘And all these friends who come down here just to hang out and get high off my weed.’ She felt like he was referring to her.

‘But I don’t come here just to get high,’ she protested. ‘I come down here to spend time with you, because we never get any other time to visit.’ To court, is what she wanted to say. But she was glad she didn’t.

‘Yes, I always love seeing you,’ he said reassuringly, patting her hand. ‘I always love seeing you, Sweetie. You’re the one bright spot in my day. It’s a wonderful thing when we can go off for awhile and make love.’ He leaned in toward her. ‘You drive me crazy, you know that.’

And then he went right back to complaining about the shop, his roommates, his ex wife. Suzie got the distinct impression that he thought of her as someone who came around once in awhile, and now and then went off to fuck him, and otherwise he never thought about her. Whereas, in Suzie’s head, Nelson anchored every thought she had, as if he represented home, the steady state. The fact that he had no intention of marrying again, or having more kids to raise, or even settling down with a woman, never occurred to her. When he’d flap those long eyelashes at her and sigh meaningfully, she warmed inside like a slow electrical shock building up.

As he was turning into the parking lot, he looked over and took her hand, his face a study in responsibility. Feel sorry for me, it ached, because I’m not able to be what you want me to be right now. He looked pained, sorrowful, hangdog. ‘I swore when my wife left me that I’d never date again. But you came along, Sweetie, and changed my mind. If only I’d of met you in another couple of years when my kids were grown. Then I’d be able to do what I want, start life over again, make a complete break. Move away. I was thinking. Remember that place by the river where we made love that time?’

He parked and they got out and scurried to the shade of the building. Suzie remembered. A rambling old farmhouse. Overgrown trees and bushes. A view of the mountains in the distance. A stream that ran behind the house across a farm road. They’d stopped at the edge of the water in his big old car and piled into the back seat, and when they were done making love, Suzie came out and squatted down to wash herself in the stream, feeling the cool sting of the water, feeling the sunshine on her naked body, looking up at the trees and listening to hawks crying over the fields.

‘I drove by it the other day. It’s still for sale. I should buy it. It’s where my heart’s desire is,’ he said, walking away from her, lingering on her with his eyes. ‘It really is my heart’s desire.’

Suzie was filled with possibilities. She felt grateful. Maybe we’ll move in together, she thought. What would I do in the country? She saw the house all fixed up and a garden in the back. We’ll settle down and he’ll fix cars in his own shop down the road. Shade Tree Mechanics, Nowhere Near, Georgia. Maybe I’ll drive a truck until the kids come.

They noticed, when they came back, that Nathan was using the shop roly-jack on the guy’s Doohickey with the flat tire. He’d jacked the car up, and was taking the wheel off, doing all the dirty work while the guy was standing around acting like a girl. Nelson began to mutter. ‘I got customers, and he’s out back helping someone change his own tire. I’m going to kill him when he’s finished.’

Nathan came surfing the closed up jack back up the hill into the shop like it was a skateboard. ‘The handle comes off if I try to drag it,’ he said, coasting by. Nelson kicked at his back, but forgot to pick at him like he said he would.

Suzie looked around for her Doohickey, sitting blocked by other cars in the back parking lot. The blue paint had gotten dusty, and the car was close to the Lake of Doom. She worried about it. It was a piece of shit, but it was hers, and it did anything she asked of it.

The parts guy walked by on his way from the office back to his truck, a middle-aged black guy, small, with a cap and glasses and a graying beard. He had a back brace around his waist for all the heavy stuff he had to lift. Today he’d brought Nelson gaskets in a paper bag.

Nubby came over with a clipboard. ‘The customer wants this,’ he said, pointing.

Nelson thought a minute. ‘We’ve got a match for that out back,’ he said. ‘What does he want to pay for it? Nubby pointed at a circled number. Nelson nodded. ‘Tell him fine. I’ll call him when it’s ready’ He turned to look around the shop. ‘Abercrombie,’ he called, and saw the little head bobbing around the corner. ‘I want you to pull a part for me. Come on, I’ll show you.’

They walked out into the back parking lot, over to a gray Ford sedan sitting behind another car, and popped the hood. Suzie saw the backs of their legs against the front end. Abercrombie’s butt was pudgy and low to the ground. Nelson’s butt was six feet in the air, and nonexistent, just leg bones connected to hip bones.

Suzie found herself trailing after Nelson, standing at a distance to watch all the interesting things he found to occupy the time he never spent with her. For the moment, he was involved with an old car that was pulled up behind the bay where the freon machine sat. She stood next to him as he got the keys from Nathan and fitted all four of them to the gas lock of an ancient blue Cadillac with peeling leather armrests and seats, splintered wood paneling, and missing accessories. He tossed the keys onto the trunk, and put his head down on his arm, whimpering for effect. His shirt rode up on his back, revealing a pair of BVDs with dark smudges at the waistband.

He gestured with the key ring. ‘Hey, Nathan, how do I open the gas cap?’

‘I don’t know,’ he shouted back. ‘The guy just handed them to me.’ The customer was long gone. Nelson would have liked to put some fuel in it, because he’d been driving around in it. There were roaches on the spacious hump between the seats. There was sweet tea in the carpet. ‘I’m going to kill that boy.’

A few minutes later, a new customer came into the shop. It was a salesman type, a white guy with white shirts and black pants, white socks and a stringy tie. Sunglasses. Balding. Fat. A guy just begging to be taken advantage of.

‘My friend said, Nelson, go see Nelson, so here I am,’ he started, his hand stretched out boldly.

Nelson greeted him, ‘Any friend of mine is a friend of mine. Tell me what’s bothering you, and I’ll take care of it.’

The guy was eager. ‘The check engine light came on and I thought maybe it was the gas cap.’ Because he’d been reading about emissions tests and late model cars.

Nelson wagged a bony finger in agreement. ‘It often is.’

The guy went on, full of nervous energy, looking for ways to break the silence. ‘I mean, it’s probly simple. Maybe I should just replace it mys…’ Then Suzie watched him wonder if he’d just dissed Nelson. She could see the guy had decided he liked Nelson, and trusted Nelson. And Nelson was acting like his new best friend. They were absurdly happy to be doing business with each other.

‘Don’t worry,’ Nelson said, slinging an arm over the guy’s shoulder. ‘I’ll treat you right.’ It sounded like he said Cheat you right. ‘I’ll take just as good care of your car as I do my own.’ The guy lapped it up. It was pathetic seeing him so anxious to like The Great Nelson, Master Mechanic.

‘No,’ he says, as if still arguing with himself. ‘I want you to have a look at it, and maybe tell me if it needs something else.’ He was nervous, and spilled out his car story. ‘See, the check engine light came on about a week ago, and then it went off again. And I didn’t see it again for a week. But now it’s back on.’ He rubbed his hands on his shirt to dry the sweat. ‘Any light comes on at all, I get nervous,’ he continued. ‘You just can’t tell what’s going on behind those idiot lights.’ He was looking around the shop and sputtering away. ‘I used to have a car had a lot of dials, you knew exactly what was happening in the engine. Great car.’

Suzie was very amused when the guy asked Nelson to find something else that needed working on. From that point, Nelson only had to decide how much the guy was good for and how badly he’d want his car back.

‘Okay, so I need to know when I can bring it in, and when you can have it back to me. I’m flexible, but I have a whole lot of running around I have to do, and I’d like to work around it if I can.’

‘Why don’t you bring it around first thing tomorrow. We’ll have it right back out of here just a couple of hours,’ he assured him, turning to go on to the next thing. ‘Go on and bring it by tomorrow.’ It was all the same to Nelson when he brought it by. He was just agreeing with the guy so he’d shut up and go away and let him get back to his work.

The salesman guy kept trying to pin Nelson down about how exactly long the job would take and what precisely it was going to run, and what he didn’t understand was that the mechanic business wasn’t precise. You couldn’t schedule anything. You couldn’t say, I’ll fix your car between one and three next Thursday. It all happened whenever it happened to happen at Stoner’s garage. If you tried to schedule something, a million and one things would come up to disrupt that schedule.

Suzie was betting that the guy would bring his car back the next morning, and there would be a bunch of emergency repairs and desperate owners before him, staring daggers at him for coming in with scheduled maintenance.

No matter when he brought his car in, he was going to have to wait until Nelson could take care of him. Just like at the doctor’s office. Only the waiting room at Stoner’s had much less carpet and fabrics, and more stuff you could hit with a hose when it got disgusting.

Suzie was more than bored watching the salesman trying to be popular with Nelson. She walked back to the wooden worktable and poked around for the paper, something to read, something. She found a bunch of wax lying on the table, torn off something the way you’d tear off the waxy rind on a Gouda cheese. She collected up a bunch of the soft yellow stuff and shaped it into a ball, poked her fingernails into the surface in neat patterns, squished it smaller in her hands, and looked about for more pieces. Once she had a good sized ball, she began to smell the beeswax and honey, the rich earthy, resiny smell of condensed flowers. She decided to take it home with her and make a candle out of it. Someday. She glanced over as the salesman guy was giving Nelson his card, and it suddenly struck her that he looked like a cop. His hair was too short. He was creepy.

Glenda slid open the office window and yelled out, ‘Nelson, line one.’

He bounded to the back wall where the phone hung just outside the parts room, and picked it up. ‘Stone’s Auto,’ he said pleasantly. ‘How may I help you?’ Then he found out who was calling him, and his voice dropped. He stared at his toes, his feet started moving, he began bugging with the phone cord out to the extent of its reach.

This was Nelson conducting business over the phone. Suzie had the repertoire down. Calls from a customer had him standing with a hand on his hip, lecturing and reassuring. Calls where he dug his toe into the floor and twisted it were from his sister. Calls about drugs were like talking to a lover: Yeah, you got to get you some of this. Mmm, so sweet. Really soft and juicy. Hot. You can’t keep away from it. Lasts so long. Got to get you some.

This particular call was business. ‘Late model, powerful,’ he said, nodding briskly, looking around the shop with ever watchful eyes. ‘What kind of capacity you need? Where? How long? Uh huh. Uh huh. Aight,’ he was in charge. ‘Tell you what to do. Yeah, we can get you that. By tonight, late. Aight. I’ll give you a call when it’s ready.’

He hung up the phone and wiped his hands on his shirt, then sauntered over to where Suzie was standing playing with the wax. ‘Hey, Baby, why don’t you slip into the bathroom and roll us a joint, and we’ll take off out of here in a minute for a ride around. I know a shady spot.’ He bumped her shoulder playfully with his hip, Scandinavian giant foreplay. Suzie glanced at the clock. He knew it was time for her to go to work. ‘Nelson, that guy was kind of suspicious,’ she said.

He waved it away. ‘Oh, don’t worry about that.’ He stood a ways off so she could admire him and turned this way and that. ‘Did you see about that bust the other day, over in Alabama?’ He gestured grandly. She hadn’t. ‘That was my main connection.’

He was proud. ‘They found a hundred acres sowed with pot plants. The fellow had raised them in paper cups and planted them out in the field himself, and the DEA guys discovered it from the air and set up a lookout. But nobody came and nobody came, and finally they swooped on the guy who owned the farm.’

Nelson chuckled. ‘The poor bastard didn’t know anything about it.’ He shook his head. ‘It was his dad. They got millions of dollars worth. I always get really great pot from him.’

Suzie hazarded a guess. ‘So you’re down to nothing.’

Nelson winked and looked superior. ‘Don’t believe it. When will I ever run out of weed?’

Suzie remembered, for once, that she needed him to look at something for her. Usually she only remembered when she was leaving. ‘Oh, hey, Nelson? The loaner you gave me? Well, it’s been overheating? And now the Check Engine Soon light comes on when I’m driving? Could you look at it for me?’ she asked sweetly.

He exploded. ‘Damn it to hell, I don’t have time for this piddling shit, Honey.’ His expression was of intense anguish, like she’d asked him to cut off his finger right then for her. He stalked off.

Suzie looked at Nubby, who shrugged silently. After standing around for a moment, he went out to check her loaner himself, with some chip that plugged in under the dashboard. He was back in moments, saying he couldn’t get it to work at all, and maybe he’d go ahead and ask Nelson to see for himself some day soon. Nelson understood these devices better than Nubby did. He could always get them to work.

Suzie nodded thanks, and when Nelson came out of the office, she mentioned that Nubby had tried the chip on the car.

He was incensed. He turned on her with bitter scorn. ‘Why in the world would you ask Nubby to deal with anything so stupid as a light? Especially that particular light, which any idiot knows is for getting you to come in here and pay me to turn it off for you.’

She stood there, cowering behind a bland shell of insensitivity. ‘He saw her shock, and softened, came forward to put an arm around her and hug her to his waist. ‘Bring it to me when the car is broken,’ he said gently, ‘and I’ll fix it. You know I’ll do anything for you, Sweetie.’

Suzie felt stunned, but grateful, and allowed him to walk her to the car and put her in, and grab a quick smooch with tongues sticky from the heat.

She didn’t start thinking again until she was on I-75, going to work, assessing the traffic conditions and looking to see if there was the slightest chance of rain.

* * *

next, shit hits the fan at work