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My younger self had liked reading at first, but had come to hate it with a passion as teachers and the school system forced me to read for grades, to read stupid books that I didn’t connect with or understand. It had only been in the Army that I’d come to appreciate reading again. The internet wasn’t really something readily available to us and I didn’t have anyone to really chat with from back home, so that just left books. I’d read whatever struck my fancy, and discovered that I actually really enjoyed it again, to my surprise.
I was pretty sure it was another thing that everyone would be shocked to learn about me now that I was older. I had been raising Cain my entire teenage and college years, and everyone in Canyon, Texas knew it. Hell, people not even in our damn town probably knew it.
Hopefully that wouldn’t work against me when trying to get a decent job around here. I knew exactly where I wanted to work, but I’d have to see if I could actually nail it or if Old Man Jones would run me out. I figured it was about a fifty-fifty shot.
I had one good set of clothes—a dress shirt and slacks—for the rare formal occasions that I needed them. I’d buy more, if the occasion called for it. But I figured, Jones wasn’t going to mind if I just showed up in a shirt and jeans, given the nature of the work.
The car garage was the same as when I’d left. I’d hung out here in high school when I wasn’t causing trouble around town or hanging out at the Adams house. Cars were the one thing that had always spoken to me. Even when I hadn’t known who I was, or what I wanted to do with my life, even when I’d felt angry and lost all the time, there had been cars. I would go in and work on one of them, and I’d felt like I was actually doing something productive, like I knew what to do. I couldn’t fix my life but I could fix cars, make them purr like kittens. I could look at a car engine and understand the problem. And there was just something about working with my hands that felt good, that felt right.
There was just something soothing to the whole thing. The grease on my hands, the warmth of the car, the parts that could fit together just right, just so.
The garage was open, as always. Old Man Jones always had it open every day except Sunday, but if you were in a jam you could call his house number and he’d get a tow truck and take care of you. Rain, shine, snow, or sleet. He was as reliable as the post office.
I rapped on the side of the wall as I entered. There was someone underneath the pickup truck that was sitting in the middle, dirty jeans with boots sticking out. I could hear the sound of tinkering and a wrench, music to my ears. I grinned.
“What’s an old geezer like you doing still working on cars?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be retired?”
Jones shot out from under the hood of the car and sat up so fast he nearly banged his head on the underbed. I grinned at him, thumbs in my belt loops, hoping I looked confident and laid back rather than nervous as all hell.
Old Man Jones hadn’t exactly been an old man when I’d known him before. Or at least, it hadn’t really felt like it. Morgan and I, and pretty much all the other teenagers, had called him that just to give him shit, but he’d been in his late 50s, not all that old. Now, though, he was in his late 60s and he really was starting to officially be ‘old’. It had only been four years but already age was sitting on his shoulders in a way that it definitely hadn’t been when I’d last seen him.
“You son of a bitch,” Jones said, and to my relief he grinned at me, broad as anything, and then grabbed me, pulling me into a hug. “We thought for sure we’d never see your ugly mug around here again.”
“Ouch, hey, I’ll have you know some people like my looks.”
I had been taller than Jones (and it occurred to me just then that I’d never actually learned his first name—in fact I wasn’t sure anyone in town knew what it was) since junior year of high school when I’d had my second-to-last major growth spurt, but I was reminded all over again of just how tall I was now compared to him, staring at him. His pale blue eyes were as sharp as ever though despite the wrinkles and his grin was wide.
