The Mechanic Takes On
Language Here, it is springtime, which is more a passing
thought than a recognition of the weather. From the room’s threshold, the mechanic watches his son roll matchbox cars over the
blanket’s soft hills. His voice stalls in his
throat as he leans against the
doorjamb, hands stuffed into stained
overalls, boots unlaced and worn. He wavers between his boy’s world and his own; between a voice
that Vrooms and one that bumps its own
gutteral syllables. He waits for the right moment
to enter, to invade the plug in
deodorant with his smell of grease and
antifreeze. Years ago, he caught a man with a wiry beard and soft
eyes tucking a gallon of Prestone under his
tattered tweed coat. The man didn’t run, didn’t say a word, just
handed it back, and walked away. Later, the mechanic learned
that the local drunks strain the green juice
through stale bread for a taste of something he
couldn’t fully understand. That extent of want, that
need worth dying for. He walks in behind his
son. When two cars clash, the boy throws them up into
the air, his arms wide arcs opening to
the ceiling as if wild in prayer. He smiles for a second, then places one fat hand on
the boy’s head. Son, he stutters, I have something to say. Downstairs, his wife prepares
chicken. The raw breast smells of
spices and beatings. She sips her seven and seven, watches
the wind’s fists swing at the camellias. Smells like rain, she says, surprised by her own
voice. Then she begins crying. She knows she’ll remember
this moment of wind and lemon pepper and
red blooms tumbling over one another
outside while her husband wrenches his words into
position. Even this, he wanted to do alone, she thinks rinsing her fingers in the sink. Originally published in Faultline |
