The Complete Collection. William Wharton

He’s wearing the aircraft-carrier hat I gave him for his birthday with the bill slightly cocked to the left. He looks like a sixty-year-old Dennis the Menace. The point is he doesn’t look seventy-three. The boyish figure and grace have somehow come through the illness, the years, the awkwardness of self-consciousness. Mother gets her breath first.

      ‘My God, Jack. You make Lawrence Welk look like an old man.’

      Dad smiles and tries a little buck-and-wing, stumbles, catches himself.

      Nothing will do but that this is the costume he’ll wear the rest of the day. The Dodger game’s on at six and he wants a can of beer and some pretzels. He tells us he’s liable to do some loud cheering, so we’re not to get scared.

      Joan calls home. Mario says he’ll take the kids out to McDonald’s. Joan whips up hot dogs and potato salad. We have a great time watching the game. Dad turns down the sound and imitates an old-fashioned radio announcer recreating a baseball game, giving all the details – touching the resin bag, looking for the sign, all kinds of things that aren’t even happening. Joan and I laugh till it hurts but Mom’s quiet. She’s afraid of him. This man’s been away too long and came back too fast. I’m hoping it will work out all right.

       17

      We’re on the Pennsylvania Turnpike when we start hearing the noise. I think we’ve stripped a gear or maybe the transmission fluid’s low. Dad insists I shift out of drive to second and then to first. The sound’s the same in all gears. He thinks it’s the universal joint. How the hell would he know? As a mechanic, he makes a great painter. But what else can it be?

      ‘Bill, hold her in second and we’ll limp on to the next garage.’

      I keep her at a constant twenty-five for the next fifteen miles. The grinding gets louder so we’re beginning to sound like a cement mixer. Dad’s nervous as a mother cat, listening; opening a window, hanging his head out. He puts his ear onto the drive-shaft hump. He even climbs into the back, rips up the seat and jams his head in there.

      I’m beginning to think we’d be better off calling a tow truck. After all, the cost would be picked up by this Scarlietti we’re delivering to.

      We limp into a garage making such a racket it stops everything. It’s always fun seeing some bomb of a car crap out, and this clunker sounds as if it’s doing the death rattle.

      Dad goes looking for somebody. I’m afraid to turn off the motor, but I keep it in neutral to hold down the racket. Dad comes over with a mechanic. They signal me to roll her onto the grease rack. When I put her in first and start lugging, she sounds as if the bottom’s about to drop out. We just might need to phone and tell Mr Scarlietti to kiss off this bucket of bolts. But if we do that, they’re liable to send somebody here to kiss us off.

      I climb out and the mechanic pushes the hydraulic-lift button. Up she goes, an elephant in an elevator. The mechanic shakes his head.

      ‘Sounds like your universal’s shot to hell, all right. You fellas keep prayin’ that’s all it is.’

      When the car’s up, he stops the lift and walks under. He moves along pushing his hand on different parts, shaking his head and muttering. I’m ready for the worst. Even if it isn’t anything important, this clown could rob us. He sees us in this wagon, he’s sure we’re touring millionaires.

      He fetches a wrench. Doctors and mechanics like to be mysterious. He twirls off four bolts and starts struggling to pull clear the front end of the drive shaft. He works it out and lowers it to the floor; wipes his hand into the crotch of the differential and shows it to us. His hand is covered with small silver metal filings. He shakes his head but still doesn’t say anything. Then he pulls out the rest of the drive shaft, carries it over to his bench and knocks off the universal joint. It’s gored, silvered and generally chewed up. He wipes it with a grease cloth hanging from his back pocket.

      ‘Well, there she is. You ain’t goin’ much further with this baby.’

      We both stare. It’s an amazing chunk of metal sculpture; it looks like a giant pair of kids’ jacks, joined in a ball socket.

      After some palaver, it’s costing us a hundred fifty bucks. He needs to buy the joint in New Stanton. New Stanton is the name of this stop on the turnpike, but New Stanton, the town, is about ten miles away. There’s nothing else to do.

      We go into the hotel beside the garage and spend half an hour trying to reach the car owner, but can’t get an answer. We have to let the mechanic know right now so he’ll have time to get the piece tonight. Dad goes out and tells him to start, we’ll have to take the chance.

      The motel here’s in colonial style again, brick and white wooden columns again; there’s a restaurant attached. The mechanic says no matter what, we can’t have the car till tomorrow morning.

      ‘I’ll go check the prices, Bill. I think we’re in for an expensive night. You watch them take this thing apart so we can save ourself some money next time.’

      I go back in the garage and sit on a used oil drum. Two mechanics about my age are undoing the rest of the bolts, cleaning and greasing the drive-shaft seat for the yoke and joint.

      Dad comes back. He’s got us a room, twenty-five bucks. We sit there in the garage watching, and before I know it he starts.

      First he says something about how glad he is not to be a mechanic. Sounds simple enough, but I’m already suspicious. He’s leaning against a wall and I’m still sitting on the oil drum. These young guys are in front of us working. It’s one hell of a messy job. There’s oil dripping and crud from the bottom of the car keeps falling in their eyes.

      ‘But at least you’re doing something important and you get good pay, Dad.’

      I’m only being ornery; I could never be a mechanic, I’m not good enough. You watch a real mechanic at work and you know.

      ‘I’ll bet neither of these guys makes more than seven bucks an hour. If you work forty hours a week, fifty weeks a year, that’s less than fifteen thousand and you wouldn’t take home twelve after taxes and Social Security.

      ‘You can’t keep a family on that in America today, Bill, and there isn’t much chance of making more unless you open your own garage; then you’re a businessman.

      ‘And you’re always dirty, the kind of dirt you never get out of the cracks in your skin and under your nails; it gets driven into the cuticles. You’ve got banged fingers and hands all the time; and I’ll tell you, you’re dead tired at night. My dad used to come home nights filthy and absolutely bushed when he worked at G.E.’

      It’s coming all right; what did I say or do to bring it on? Maybe nothing. Maybe he’s been sitting back in his mind waiting.

      ‘Bill, what are you going to do in France this year?’

      There it is. OK.

      ‘Well, Dad, I’ll go down to the cabin, finish it off, then do some writing.’

      ‘How are you going to live? Do you have money saved up?’

      I tell him about the hundred fifty.

      ‘That’s nothing, Bill; a hundred and fifty dollars won’t last two weeks.’

      So I tell him Debby might come.

      He’s quiet a long time. We concentrate watching these poor bastards cleaning out the crap that got chewed off the universal joint. He’s not happy but he doesn’t know which way to go.

      ‘God, Bill, a hundred and fifty dollars won’t go anywhere at all with two of you.’

      ‘Her Dad’s chipping in. He doesn’t like her quitting school, but he’s giving her money so she won’t starve.’

      Dad’s quiet again. I’m hoping it’s finished.