splat chapter sixteen

The garage was jamming when she pulled into the back parking lot and left her Doohickey just shy of the Lake of Doom, which was sludging up in the heat. The top was antifreeze green, with beautiful, rich shades of teal blue in the depths. There were club moss-looking things growing around the shore.

Nelson came rushing up to her at once. 'Hey, Baby, I'm glad you came by,' he said quickly, giving her a squeeze. Suzie cringed at the pressure of his grasp. 'You know I love having you around all the time. But we're real busy round here right now, so you can't stay long.' He cocked an eye down at her and asked, worriedly. 'How's the car doing?'

'It's fine.' She said, reflexively. She had rehearsed the litany air conditioning, brakes, that new squeak in the front end. But when she was asked she got stupid. Every time.

'Oh, good.' He pretend-slumped against her in relief. 'I'm so overworked, Baby. Well, stay a couple minutes and we'll go for a ride.' He bumped his hip against her playfully. And then he rushed off, and Suzie was left standing with her butt resting on the hood of the Goat.

She'd never seen it so busy. The front parking lot was full. Customers were pacing around outside under the pine trees. Glenda was racing in and out with tickets for oil changes and emissions tests. Allen was invisible because he stayed down in the pit and changed the oil while Abercrombie rolled the cars in and out on top of both sides of the pit, and sat there smoking cigarettes in between. They wouldn't let him work, really. Not yet.

Abercrombie was the gopher. He was just out of high school, and wore his hair in a buzz cut. He stood just over five feet tall, and at nineteen years old, he still had his baby fat. His parents aspired to the middle class, but in his neighborhood, middle class meant three pickups in the driveway and a plasma TV. All his clothes came from one of two stores, he was proud to say, Abercrombie and Fitch, and American Eagle, but he didn't look like the typical mall rats who shopped at these stores. They were all spoiled rich kids with perfect teeth and their mom's credit cards. He had his mom's credit card, all right, but he still looked like a high school dropout, even though he dressed in eighty dollar jeans and fifty dollar T-shirts.

His Abercrombie T-shirt was bought with the sleeves already ripped out, and he'd added a slash at the bottom of the v-neck, and a smear of permanent grime from the shop. It was at this point difficult to tell what color the shirt started out. Maybe a rusty blue; it was gunge colored now. His shorts came from American Eagle. It added up to over a hundred and fifty dollars of his parents' money. Spent on work clothes.

According to the suburban creed, he should have gone to college, but he was not cut out for school, and gravitated toward manual labor, work that made ample use of his muscles and energy. At this point he didn't know anything at all about cars, and was very quick to say so, in his defense, any time anyone asked anything of him; his eyes wide and a big self-deprecating smile on his face, plastered on tight enough to make the cords stand out on his neck. His attitude was that if he didn't know anything, then he wouldn't get in trouble for doing the wrong thing, because all he was going to do was what Nelson or the others told him.

Nubby was doing something to an engine in the southwest bay, as usual, and there was a car parked behind that one getting air conditioning. The south bay had a car up on the lift with its wheels off. There was one behind that with its hood up. There was a new emissions test every ten minutes, Abercrombie running the cars in and out, Nathan relentlessly testing. The Goat was where it always was, taking up the entire north bay, calm. The zero point of the shop. Suzie's favorite spot. And she had her choice of leaning, perching, standing, sitting, lounging, loitering, lingering, or leaving. As always.

Despite potential scrutiny from customers on the scene, Suzie was watching the boys ignore numerous laws, conventions, and social considerations. Pretty much everything they were doing in the shop at that moment was illegal, unethical, or immoral.

Suzie watched as Nathan did a bunch of emissions tests. In and out, in and out, in and out, as fast as he could go. He had his shirt open and was pouring sweat, his EPA license pinned to the pocket and flapping every time he jogged over to get into another car. He looked like the bleach-blond valet of your nightmares.

They were all small cars he was testing. They were kind of hard to tell apart. They were all the same weight; cheap and aging subcompacts too old to easily pass inspection. Suzie took a while to notice that Nathan kept retesting the little maroon car. Not every time. Every other time. It took her only moments to realize that this was because the red car would pass, so Nathan was using it to take the test for whatever car had just been in the bay, giving its ID to the computer. Each newly-passed driver paid twenty five dollars to Glenda for the certificate, of which the shop kept eighteen, and slipped something extra to Nelson. 'Thanks, man. Appreciate ya.'

Nubby was changing out an alternator, swapping it out from under the hood of a similar car out back. The customer, chilling in the waiting room, was in full confidence of getting a new car part, delivered from a trusted car part distributor. His bill would most certainly confirm this. But Nelson said he was kind of short in the till at the moment, despite the constant ringing of the cash register, and he thought it best to go with a tried and true replacement rather than a brand new part that might have defects.

He was being resourceful. He'd make do with the one from out back for right now, and put a new alternator in the other customer's car the day the guy called to find out why it wasn't ready. Right at the moment, he was fixing to tell Glenda to go ahead and charge the customer full price for the job. So as not to attract attention.

They sell brakes at Stoner's. Special $89 lifetime warranty for top quality, semi-metal brakes. But what customers got were the cheap composite ones. After Glenda wrote up a proper ticket for the job, and collected payment, and gave the customer their receipt, she'd go back into the computer and change the account record to show that the customer paid for the cheapo brakes. And pulled the difference out in cash when she and Nelson closed out the register.

Abercrombie pulled another car into the south bay. He drove it in to the center of the bay, then got out and pushed a set of yellow steel arms out under the car. The arms were attached to four columns, and Nubby came over to double check Abercrombie's placement of the arms, then flipped a switch to raise the car. Chunk chunk chunk. He raised it about three feet off the ground.

Nelson called Nathan over to take off the wheels. He picked up the air hammer and started undoing lugnuts on the wheels. Zirrrr zirrrr. Zziiiiiiiiiiiiing. The nuts were stuck fast. Nathan adjusted the fit of the hose to the ratchet, and the fit of the ratchet onto the nut, and tried again, zinging it for a whole minute, standing there watching the air hammer in his hand like he was watching himself pee.

Allen came by and had a try loosening it. Then Nelson came up and stood around to see what was going on. All together, lined up against the light, they looked like a bunch of action dolls, posed with their auto mechanic accessory set (purchased separately). Zzziiiiiir zit zit zziiiiiiiiiiiiiing. Nelson watched Allen, Nathan watched Nelson, Allen watched the drill.

It wouldn't budge. Then Nelson brought out the pick, a home made shop tool consisting of a long steel rod with a bolt screwed onto one end, fitted inside of a length of steel pipe. He got someone to lower the car to the ground, and fixed the end of the pick to a lugnut-sized socket wrench, then fitted the whole thing on the end of the stuck lugnut. His body twisted as he used all his strength to pull the lever slowly counterclockwise, pushing it with his arm and then his foot when he got it all the way over. The guys all stopped what they were doing to come over and watch the acrobatics.

'That does that,' Allen said, twirling his greasy rag and turning away to go back to work on the other car's alternator.

'Yay, Nelson,' said Nathan, backing up and turning to lunge away. He wasn't looking, and tripped over the cord of the hang light that had been lying on the edge of the car's engine compartment. It crashed to the ground with a loud pop as the bulb shattered inside its metal cage. The boys made fun of Nathan once they got over the slight shock - the bulb sounded like a 9-mm gun, a sound they all knew.

Nelson jacked up the car again. Abercrombie pulled off the wheel. Then Nathan reached in through the wheel well with a ratchet and loosened a couple of bolts in the engine compartment. They lifted the car down and Nathan bent over top of it and started in on the middle part of the engine with his wrench, then with an electrical tool, then with a breaker bar and a hammer. Cursing softly the whole time. 'Bullshit. fuck.. goddamn. shit. bullshit.' Whatever it was, it wasn't coming loose.

He called Nelson over. Nelson piled in there with tools, and once again saved the day while everyone watched. He mouthed, 'Who's the man?' as he broke the bolt free and a chunk of the engine came loose in Nathan's hands. There was general cheering and short speeches ensued. 'Not at all, not at all,' Nelson said, bowing slightly, then rushed off to wash his hands and remind everyone loudly to get back to work.

Suzie picked a super-sized coke cup out of the trash and began carving holes in it.

Nelson saw her standing there and called her over. 'Hey Baby, you good at rolling?

She snorted a laugh. 'No.'

'Listen. I got me some pot in the bathroom, just waiting for rolling papers. Why don't you start breaking it up so we can roll a big one when the papers get here.' He showed her into the bathroom, where there was a folded up section of newspaper in the sink, half an ounce of buds in the fold. Nelson left her there and went over to pull Abercrombie off his chauffeuring and send him out for papers.

Suzie stood in front of the sink, watching herself breaking up buds, feeling sweaty and tired and bored. Her feet were swelling already, and she had to work that night. She gazed at the headlines as she worked. Chain gangs. Bird flu. Domestic terrorism. She looked around on the floor. She could see pot seeds beginning to pile up along the edge of the room. There were newspapers going back a couple of days. There were stroke books - Over 40 and Hustler. There was an empty pack of EZ Wider rolling papers.

She left the ground-up pot in a little pile inside the sports section, and went back out into the breeze. Nathan was standing under the car again, attacking a place halfway in on the right with a ratchet, then a large screwdriver, then a hammer. And then Nelson came over to see what the noise was all about. 'Nathan, I wouldn't give anything for you,' he said, wrenching the hammer out of his hands. He whanged on the spot himself for a few moments, then walked over to the tool chest and picked up the breaker bar. 'Nathan, you always fuck things up.'

Nelson was in the middle of using leverage to separate the offending car part from the body of the engine when a big black dude with muscles walked in the back way. He was wearing a neat white cap with a black swoosh on it; a red tank shirt extra tanked to reveal his pumped-up, muscular chest; black exercise baggies; and expensive sneakers. Nelson was under the car, twisting and wrenching. 'Hey, Nelson.'

Nelson peeked out from under the car, then gave Nathan the breaker bar and walked off with the dude to stand between cars. 'Hey.'

'Hey.' The greeting could be heard above the shop noise. Then they moved closer together and spoke quietly, Nelson animatedly wheeling about, gesturing, the guy standing still and scratching his chest. Then Nelson raised two fingers and the guy nodded, satisfied. They shook on it, fists together, and the muscle dude went back to his car parked out back. Nelson yelled out after him, 'We'll get that part and we'll go in and try it again.' Suzie wondered momentarily if he could be working on the guy's car to make it pass inspection. Nah.

Dishonesty, scams, illegal activities everywhere. Your basic oil change was just about the only thing the boys couldn't overcharge on. The only really honest part about the job were the oil changes. Oil changes were oil changes. Since there was only one level of oil change, the price on the marquee was the price they had to put in the computer. Oh well. And besides, the business probably needed a genuine trail of actual work done for actual money in case anyone asked questions.

Abercrombie was back with rolling papers, peeling some customer's car back into the parking lot to let everyone know he was back. Nelson pocketed the papers, and sent Abercrombie off into the back parking lot with a screwdriver and a wrench. Nelson went over to Suzie, pulling the papers out of his pocket like he was a magician. 'Here they are, baby, just like I promised. Now roll us a fat one and we'll go off and take a break, just you and me.' He didn't hear her protest.

Suzie went into the bathroom and stood in front of the sink trying to roll up as much pot as possible into a single paper. The joint was lumpy and uneven, and spilled out of one end. She cursed, and started over with a fresh paper. Looking at herself in the mirror, exasperated by her lack of dexterity, she saw Abercrombie go by looking for Nelson. He was carrying his tools and a license plate from some car out back. Nelson took it from him and disappeared into the office with it. Suzie continued trying to roll. After several tries, she had something that looked like a dried up hairball, lumpy and uneven, but wrapped tightly and not about to spill.

Then, she went out and leaned on the bumper of her car to wait for Nelson to tear himself away from work for a few minutes, so they could talk. Suzie squinted against the sun and the pale white sky . She eyed the vapors rising from the day-glo green swamp while she waited for Nelson. She watched Nubby underneath a car with a wrench, his feet twisting back and forth, thrashing out his struggle with something most likely rusted on. She noticed the bumper sticker on the car. It was a square black 'W the President' sticker. She remembered seeing a website selling 'F The President' stickers that looked just like them. Classy.

That set her thinking. She could get creative with customer cars. Replace the fish with Darwins. Move the soccer balls around. Turn the magnetic signs upside down. Make replica paper stickers and alter the wording. Her contribution to the art of free speech. Like graffiti, only smaller. And a little more high tech.

Nelson came rushing over to her car and said, 'I've been looking all over for you. We got to dash out and run right back in so we can get all this work done before six. I got to be out of here on time tonight.' He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her off the bumper to hustle her along. 'Got that thing?'

'I need a computer, Nelson,' she said.

'Sure, baby, I'll have you one tomorrow.' He raced off to get something.

Suzie knew he'd forget the moment she left, and decided to drive down to the Last Chance Thrift Store in Decatur for half-price Mondays. A computer would end up costing her thirty bucks. And a modem for five. A monitor, keyboard and mouse off the street early on trash day morning. Nothing fancy, a Pentium III, but three gigs of memory, which would be more than she needed. Not bad for a little effort. Better than being beholden to Nelson for yet another stolen item. Alex knew someone with illegal copies of all the software she wanted, including Photoshop. She'd find sheet labels that made convincing bumper stickers. She'd be set up inside of a week.

'Aight. Let's go.' Nelson came running out of the shop, heading for a customer car in the back lot, a silver PT Cruiser. Allen came hustling right behind him and jumped into the back. Nelson started the car and headed to the nearest neighborhood.

Allen went through the back seat methodically, bending over to pick up a credit card receipt off the floor that he peered at, grinned, and stuck in his pocket.

Suzie marveled at their styles. Nathan went through every car he sat in with gusto, exclaiming over every little thing he found. He collected McDonald's kid's meal toys, and was a sucker for shiny things that people hung from their mirrors and stuck to their dashboards.

Abercrombie was absent minded, and mostly forgot to ransack unless he was riding around with Nelson getting high, and then he only rummaged through the CDs. Nubby was only interested in lottery tickets.

The master of practically everything automotive, Nelson made an art of the search. Glove compartments and console hatches, seat bottoms and sun visors. Trunks. All sorts of interesting things turned up on even the most casual inspection.

What kind of things? Nifty custom decorations unscrewed from old fashioned door locks and gear shifts. Money. CDs. Magazines. Sunglasses. Cigarettes. Walkmen. Cellphones. Drugs. Anything in the back seat. Anything in out of immediate sight of the driver upon reentering the vehicle.

Nelson drove down the road. The joint looked pitifully small in his catcher's-mitt hand. 'Baby, when you going to learn how to roll right?' he asked, then lit it, inhaled, and began choking out thick smoke,

He turned to Suzie and passed her the joint. She shrugged; it was not her intention to be a good joint roller, but she was trying to help. His eyebrows lifted and came together as he choked, making a play of emotions: serious, angry, but informative and ultimately benevolent. Suzie thought he was going to lay into her for being a clumsy drug moll. But he was possessed by an idea and full of intensity.

 'Do you know what the government of this state is doing now?' he said, turning to her with great energy. 'They're bringing back chain gangs in Georgia.' He spoke with such passion that it sounded like he had a personal interest in the topic.

'I don't remember seeing anything about that in the paper,' Suzie observed.

Nelson continued, taking the joint from Allen. 'You know the old Atlanta Corrections Center, down at the bottom of Intrenchment Creek over there in East Atlanta? Used to be the prison farm?' He took a deep drag and passed it to Suzie, his fingers shaking as he held back a cough.

Allen grunted. 'Yeah, the farm. I did community service there when I was 14. For hotwiring a car. It was a Camaro,' he smiled proudly as he took the joint.

'I saw something about the Intrenchment Creek sewage project on the news,' Suzie offered.

Nelson ignored her. 'Well now, after they arrest you for being homeless a couple of times, they release you to 30 days labor at the Farm. Only now they're not calling it no prison farm, they're calling it The Right Path.' He nodded wisely. 'Some fancy program they just started. But I'm reading through the lines. It's just a damn labor camp.'

'I've heard about that,' Suzie said as she passed the joint to Allen, trying to remember what she'd heard on the news.

'Hey, I been through the Right Path place when I first got back into Atlanta,' Allen said. 'Got picked up for sleeping rough. They gave me new clothes and stuff. An ID card. It was pretty wild being in there with all the fixing up they done.' He was on a roll, waving the joint in the air as he remembered. 'It sure has changed from when I used to spend the night there sometimes for various things. They done a good job with it. Cleaned it up a lot. I liked it. It's got carpets and TVs and stuff. The rugs really keep the noise down, you know? And they put doors on the cells. It really does looks nice.'

'This is worse,' Nelson insisted. 'I'm talking about legalized slavery. What they did when you was in there, that's harmless. That's a side thing, just an intake program, where they fix you up and give you new clothes and send you back out on the street to commit more crimes.'

'Yeah,' Allen said. 'Well, listen to me. That place was a hell of a lot better than a homeless shelter. You got to go through a weapons search before they let you into the new city place, for one thing. So it's safer'n being in a shelter. And they give you meds. And there's Internet. And HBO.'

'Let me tell you something,' Nelson interrupted, hitting the wheel hard with the heel of his hand, knocking ash off the joint. 'This Right Path place is diabolical. This new homeless law? On your third offense, they give you thirty days and slap you with a thousand dollar fine. How many homeless guys do you know got that kind of money, tell me that? So what they do is, they roll your sentence over for another month, and charge you interest. And there's no limit to how long they can keep you in there. God's honest truth, most of those guys will die before they get out.'

'Yeah my buddies been warning me about a new wrinkle in the system,' Allen mumbled through his thick, dark walrus mustache. 'Hard labor. But they do pay you. And a man's got to work, even in jail.'

'Guess what. It's just like credit cards. These guys' salaries make the minimum payment on the interest on their fine, and that's about it.

'Hey man, it's not like prisoners don't deserve to be punished for their crimes,' Allen snorted. 'I should know. The vast majority of them choose to be bad. Each and every one of my buddies deserves to be in jail, and most of them are totally unrepentant until they find the Lord. Even then.'

'No, I'm telling you,' Nelson insisted. 'It's the system. The cops either set you up, or you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, or you're minding your own business and just happen to look guilty. Victim of circumstance. Oh yeah, unless you're just plain stupid, and then you belong in jail. Everyone I know doing time was set up, or got mistaken for somebody else, or didn't deserve to be punished for what they did.'

'Well,' Allen agreed, ''we all feel that way. But here's what I'm saying, everyone's guilty. Even if you're not in there for what you're accused of, you're there for something. Maybe just for being a misfit. Or having a criminal mind. And that ought to be reason enough.' Nelson waved his hands to cut in, but was overcome by a coughing fit.

'Hey man, these are dangerous times,' Allen went on, 'I heard some strange shit when I was in. You just never know. I wouldn't have any trouble believing that some of these homeless guys are really domestic terrorists, plotting against our way of life. Hell, I been in jail, but I also served my country in the Army. I believe we need to do whatever it takes to protect it.' He took a big drag of the joint and held it in for twenty seconds. His words came out in shooting cloud of smoke. 'Better safe than sorry, that's what I say.'

They rolled into the back parking lot. Nelson pulled up with a screech, and he and Allen emerged from the car as if they were on a raid. Suzie sat in the passenger seat in a daze. Way too much weed. It was almost time to go to work.

Nubby had the wheels back on the brake job in the south bay. Nelson jacked the car higher so he'd fit underneath. He poked around for a few moments, then went over to the tool chest and took out a rasp, went back in, and used it on something up underneath the engine. He came back with the rasp, winked at Suzie as he put it back on top of the tool chest, and lowered the car with the lift. Chunk chunk chunk.

Glenda came out to Nelson with a ticket on another car. Suzie heard the word hesitation. Possibly a tune up. Maybe a filter.

'We'll look at it, but I ain't promising nothing,' he yelled after her as she went back into the office. He waved to Allen and Abercrombie to help him move the car that was sitting in the southwest bay, and all three of them pushed it up the little hill to a parking space. They heaved and grunted like stoned soldiers at Iwo Jima.

Abercrombie wheeled the hesitation job in and they looked at it, and watched it run for awhile. Nelson poked and prodded. The customer had been lurking at the end of the bay door, short, fat, balding, a black man in black pants and a white shirt waddling past the door like he was target practice. Nelson went over to have a consultation.

'It's your fuel filter. It's starving the engine.' So they replaced the fuel filter.

Then, after a few minutes. 'It needs a tune up, plugs and points, too.'

The customer didn't know anything about cars. 'Okay.'

Later. 'And a new air filter.'

The mechanic knows best. 'Fine.' The customer paced faster beyond the bay door.

'A new set of wires.'

The poor bastard thought about his wallet. But the car was already in pieces. He might as well get it all fixed at once. He winced. 'Just do it.'

'I see you're having trouble with your water pump.'

He broke out into a sweat. 'Ack.'

The bill came to $478. The guy, obviously fond of beer and chips and weekend football, was giving a good impression of John Belushi about to stroke out and die. Nelson was all smiles and talk about all the work he'd done and how much effort he'd personally put into working on the customer's car, and his business sure was appreciated, and he shouldn't hesitate to come back whenever there was a hint of trouble.

The customer took his receipt and got into his car, satisfied that it was fixed even if it cost the earth. It certainly ran better than when he came in. But his car wasn't fixed. What he'd paid for was a receipt for parts and labor - a bunch of new parts, half of which remained in their boxes, uninstalled; and the labor of three men taking their time, fucking up, and having to do it again. The car was by no means fixed. It just ran better. The only thing Nelson did to make a difference in the dude's car was to dump a bottle of fairy dust into the guy's oil fill.

Abercrombie took a break from fetching cars for Allen and Nubby, and spent five minutes disposing of Allen's oil filters. He stooped over the dolly that rolled from one side of the pit to the other, and one by one grabbed the filters Allen had been piling on it. He tossed them twenty feet like they were softballs, aiming at the fifty gallon trash cans lining the south bay, drinking a coke with his free hand. He landed most of them in the trash cans, making booming noises every time as metal hit metal. Once in awhile he'd miss, and one would bounce on the shop floor, spewing out filthy black oil in an arc across the car in the south bay, for instance, or leaving a long slick on the floor where Nathan would later slip while removing a lug nut.

Suzie was not very amused by his circus antics with the oil filters. She thought it childish. She didn't much like Abercrombie, and Nelson had disappeared again. She hadn't seen him leave and didn't remember how long it had been since he'd vanished. So she grabbed her carved-up coke cup, got into her car and left. Nobody noticed.

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next, stuck with reruns of the ed and jerry show