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Matthew
The Greasy Wrenchlooks exactly how I remember it. From the second Leo pulls us into the familiar parking lot I’m back in high school, young and free. It’s a good feeling, but the cynical part of me knows it’s only an illusion. Still, it was good of him to bring me here. I’d rather be covered in dirty motor oil than spend time at home thinking about more fucking desert.
Leo parks around back in the same exact spot he’s been parking in since the day he opened this place up. He could be a prick and take up one of the spaces near the door, but that’s not how Leo works. He puts his customers first and that’s something I always respected.
The door to the old Dodge truck swings open smooth as butter when I lift the handle. It might be a late 80s work truck, but Leo keeps this thing in damn good shape. There’s not a single ding or scratch on the exterior and enough parts had been swapped out over the years that it’d probably still be driving around thirty years from now. It’s just one more thing that hasn’t changed. Small, sleepy towns like this one rarely do.
“Now remember son, you don’t have to jump right back in,” Leo’s been saying the same thing since we left the house. “I promised your Mother I’d go easy on you, so the first few days are gonna be slow. You’ll be manning the office with me and then I’ll start easing you back into the shop. Sound good?”
“Yes sir,” I answer, the same way I’d answered six times already. Normally I might be annoyed, but I had too many other things going on in my head to waste time and brain power being irritated by the redundant chatter of my new stepfather.
As we walk around the building to the front of the shop, the cold, winter air chilling my lungs with each inhale, my gaze takes in the familiar sight. The landscape isn’t different at all. There’s still an empty lot to the right of GW (what the locals have taken to calling Leo’s ole mechanic shop here), a McDonald’s behind us and a gas station between that and the supermarket to the left. Across the street is the same rickety, run down shack that’s been condemned since I was about fourteen… I have fond memories of sneaking into that shitty hovel when I was a teenager. A six pack and a few good friends made quite the little party. If we weren’t hanging out together, one of us usually had a girl in there.
But never Piper…
She was focused, dedicated, and a little stuck up. That didn’t stop the guys from trying. We rode the bus here together, but we rarely spoke. She was just too preoccupied. At the time it drove me crazy, but looking back I admire her resolve. It set her apart. She had big dreams, and nothing was going to slow her down.
Thinking about it makes me wonder what changed.
I never expected to find her here if I ever made it home. She was supposed to leave this shitty little town behind and never look back. She had the ambition and smarts and talent to do anything she wanted. Not just college-wise either. I saw her dance in high school. She used to practice ballet after hours in the empty bays while her dad cleaned and locked up and I knew she had an audition or two lined up in New York after I shipped out. I don’t know jack shit about dancing, but I’m still dead certain she could have done something with her talent.
I could almost see her again, stretching and twirling through the shop like a flower petal drifting to the ground…
Suddenly I’m thankful that Leo has hurried a few steps ahead as I feel the crotch of my pants tighten. If I was going to get through today, I needed to stop thinking about Piper. Forcing her out of my mind, I follow Leo the last couple feet to the front door and stand behind him, waiting for him to get it unlocked. He leads the way inside a second or two later, holding the door open for me to follow. On the way by I flip the sign so the orange OPEN is visible through the glassed pane.
The scent of engine grease and oil hits me, lifting a little piece of my soul upward. Stepping into this place makes reality sink in. I’m home. I’m actually fucking home. I stand here, lost in this perfect moment of clarity, a grin quirking the corner of my mouth. It’s better than I remember and just like everything else, nothing at all has changed.
* * *
Leo takesme around the office and into the bays to “refresh my memory”, but the tour is unnecessary. I don’t think anything has moved in twenty years. Everything is arranged just as I remember - from the air compressor tanks to the industrial tool box. The ‘68 Plymouth Barracuda that Leo restored is still sitting in the far bay, cherry red paint gleaming in the overhead lights…
Being here again is better than waking up on Christmas to a tree loaded with presents.
There’s not a lot of time for basking in the moment before the other mechanic, Frank, shows up. A few minutes later, the customers follow. Leo sets me up in the office just like he said he would. I feel like a kid sitting on a stool beside him at the desk, asking questions about every little thing he does. It might almost be sweet, if I wasn’t so damn sick of being coddled.
No sooner does this thought leave my mind that Mrs. Jameson comes through the front door. The second she sees me the woman lets out this squeal that makes my blood curdle. In the last four years I don’t think I’ve been more terrified of anything than I am of her strutting quickly up to the desk. A cougar if there ever was one, Cindy Jameson was well known around town for the kinds of things that could make a grown man blush.
The story goes that she got married right out of high school to Buck Jameson, a nice guy with some family money. Everyone in town was shocked, because it was no secret that Cindy was sleeping around. They had three kids in three years before she ran him through the wringer in a messy divorce. She took him for half his inheritance, his house, and child support payments that went on until Buck’s untimely and unfortunate death. I’m not sure of all the details, or even how true any of it actually was, but Mom used to use it as a cautionary tale.
‘And that, Matty, is why you shouldn’t have sex until you’re thirty!’
Maybe she should have kept talking and told me “that’s why you never, ever sleep with a desperate cougar”. My buddy Dave never got that message. He lost his virginity in the back of a Ford Focus to Cindy Jameson, and I’m pretty sure she gave him the clap.
“Matty! Oh you poor, brave thing!” She leans over the desk, her large breasts practically falling out of the small, leopard skin blouse clinging to her voluptuous torso. Her gold, glittery spandex pants are painted onto her round hips and thighs, showing every inch of plump curves. She’s an attractive woman, but even in my wild days I wouldn’t go there. Hell, it’s been almost half a decade since the last time I held a woman in my arms and I’d need four more years in the desert before I’d consider it.
“I heard all about what happened on the news! How did you ever manage to survive?!” she flips her bottle blond, permed hair over a bare shoulder and reaches over to grip my arm. I see her eyes light up when she feels the thick, sinewy muscle beneath my flannel jacket.
“Oh sugar, you’re in such greatshape!”
I resist the impulse to pull my arm away and offer her a polite, half smile. “Thanks, ma’am.”
“Ma’am?!” She looks affronted as she leans away from me, folding her arms under her tits and striking a pose that I think is supposed to look sassy. “Honey boy, that might be what you call your mother, but I insist you call me Cindy.”
To my relief, Leo steps in, holding out his hand for the keys to her car. “Come on now, Cindy, give the poor boy a break, he’s only being respectful. That’s rare nowadays, you should be grateful.”
She relinquishes the jumbled mess of keys and key chains before sighing with a roll of her eyes as she relaxes her stance. “Jesus Leo, you’re still no fun at all,” she mutters, earning herself a grin from him. Thankfully that’s the end of the conversation and after a few minutes we get Mrs. Jameson all set up to have the oil in her Ford Focus changed.
Throughout the morning we get a steady trickle of customers, all of them going out of their way to bring up “my tragic disappearance”. Some are better about it than others, but even simple condolences put me on edge. Doesn’t anyone realize this is the last thing I want to talk about? It’s not the sort of thing you discuss in passing conversation anyway. I didn’t just get back from a vacation; I don’t have pictures or great stories to tell.
What I went through was a daily struggle of pain and despair. For three and a half years I stared death in the face and now these people expect me to turn it into some grand tale like Cindy Jameson’s. Something they can tack a cautionary message on the end of. I can’t even imagine what sort of lesson could be gleaned from the hell I’ve been through…
“That’s why you need to get good grades in school, kids. If you don’t, your only option will be to join the military and then you’ll end up tortured in the desert just like poor Matt Pierce!”
What a crock of shit.
“Hey, Matt!” Leo’s voice snaps me out of my contemplations. “Your Mom’s on the phone, son. She’s gonna bring us Micky D’s for lunch, what you want?”
What do I want? The first thing that pops into my mind is Piper. In all of this, all I want is to storm out of here, find Piper and hold her in my arms until this whole thing blows over. But all I say is, “Big Mac, hold the pickle.”
