Oldsmo-broken
I froze my ass on the way back to the car. Once I was inside, I started the motor and throttled it to get heat out of it faster. I damned the car for always being cold in the winter. The heater in the dashboard was too small for the giant mass of cold air inside the huge station wagon. The first winter we had it, I brought it back to the dealership to ask about an auxiliary heater like we had in our old Mercury. That car always had plenty of heat.
The child who was masquerading as a car salesman smirked his smug face and said they hadn’t offered auxiliary heaters in nearly ten years. He suggested that I would have better luck at a junkyard instead of a dealership. I cursed the memory of the weasel salesman. I wished I would have punched the smile from his face when I had the chance.
I talked myself down from my fit of temper. “It’s not that young man’s fault that I’m cold. It’s mine. I should have gotten my overcoat before I left the apartment. I also shouldn’t have let Walt talk me into agreeing to another station wagon. I should have insisted on a sedan.”
The very first car that we purchased as a couple was the 1949 Mercury wagon. Walt had wanted the car to haul produce over from Jersey. We used it for that purpose for years until we had to retire it in 1956. After that, we had another wagon. That one was a Ford. We used it to haul produce for the restaurant a few times. By 1956, Walt’s Special was doing well enough that we could afford to have daily produce delivered from the Garden State. There was no reason for Walt and me to waste the little free time we had by driving back and forth over the river.
Another factor in our decision to haul vegetables less often was that I had reconciled with my family in 1953. My brother and sisters all had children and some of them had children of their own. Those children were a blessing to Walt and me. They became nieces and nephews for us to spoil. The kids made our free time more valuable to us. That’s why in 1964, when we needed another new car, I’d argued against a wagon.
“Let’s get a sedan.” We were in the main showroom at the Ford dealership. I said what I did from the passenger seat of a midsize Ford Fairlane. It was a nice car; smaller than our old Ranch Wagon, easier to park and better on fuel. The car was also still large enough for Walt and me to be comfortable inside.
He frowned at the small trunk. “What about the farm fresh vegetables?”
“What about them? They come on a truck, remember?”
He said ‘but what if.’ He said it over and over until I surrendered to his logic. I let him have his way, like I usually did. I figured he was the primary driver anyway and I may as well ride in whatever he wanted to drive. Instead of the nimble and efficient Fairlane, we purchased the massive, top-of-the-line, Ford Galaxie station wagon.
The car was comfortable, and it had power to spare, but it barely fit in the little garage behind the restaurant. It also ate fuel like a fat man at a buffet. Walt liked it, though. Usually, when he was happy, I was happy too. “Too hell with it.” I said to quit my mental grumbling. I put the automatic transmission in gear. My next errand would take me to Hank Kellerman’s garage.
* * * *
I had to go to the garage to pay for the repair work I had done on Doc’s Oldsmobile wagon. The wagon was the reason I invited him to my home in the first place. When he and I finally finished our talk in the parking lot of the school on the day we met, Doc got into his car to drive away.
He put the key in the ignition and ground the starter. The motor turned over, but it didn’t even try to run. He cranked the engine anyway and pumped the gas pedal frantically, even as the starter drained the battery down to nothing. Eventually the engine stopped cranking and all hope was gone.
He rocked forward and rested his forehead on the top of the plastic steering wheel. I leaned down to peer into the car. “What do you think the matter is?”
“No idea. What do you think?”
“Not a clue. I don’t know the first thing about cars.”
He squinted my way with just his left eye. “I’m surprised. You strike me as the type who would know about mechanical things.”
I stood up and stepped back so I could speak without stooping over. My arthritic joints preferred to stand straight. “I grew up in the city. I didn’t even own a car until I was almost fifty. I never had any reason to know anything about them. What are you going to do?”
He closed his eyes and leaned back in the seat. He slid down to rest his head on the top of the cushion. “I think I’ll cry for a while. I can’t afford to fix this heap. I could barely afford to drive it here. When I’m done with my self-pity, I’ll walk out to the main road and stick my thumb in the air. What else can I do?”
I made a decision with almost no thought at all. The man in front of me needed help, and I was in a position to help. I yanked the driver’s door open and waved to the despondent young man. “Come on. Get whatever you need and come with me.”
He dragged himself from the car and stood with his head down. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe that after buying me lunch, and cigarettes, you’ve got to drive me home too. Just drop me on the other side of the bridge and I’ll walk from there.”
I got him into the car and drove towards the city. I asked him to stay with me and Walt for a while we were in the middle of the old Delaware River Bridge. I didn’t wait for an answer because I wanted to explain why I made the offer.
“You strike me as someone who needs someone to give a damn about them. I’m a guy who tends to give a damn about people. I like to give people a hand when their life has kicked them in the teeth. Everyone needs help sometimes. A long time ago, I was roughly where you are. I was lost and miserable and broke. I didn’t think there was anywhere to turn. When I needed help, someone was there to hold their hand out to me.”
“I can’t…”
I ignored him and kept talking. “I own half a restaurant, and I live above it. I work there as the maître d. We always need people. You could work in the kitchen. If you wanted to shave and cut your hair, you could work in the dining room. Either way, it’s got to be better than mopping the YMCA in the middle of the night.”
He was quick to question the logic of my suggestion. “What’s the point? I’ve got a place to stay. I’m not homeless.”
I realized I’d left out the most important part of my offer. “The point is, you don’t have anyone to give a shit. You don’t have anyone to tell your troubles to. You don’t have anyone who understands what you’re going through or why you’re stuck where you are. I could be that person. You and me talked a lot today. You told me things you probably never told anyone else. Maybe if you had someone to talk to on a more regular basis, you could get past whatever it is that’s got you stuck.”
He hemmed and hawed and sounded like someone who just needed to be convinced. I did my best to convince him. “Tell you what, we’ll stop at my apartment, and I’ll show you around. If you decide to stay, I’ll loan you the car and you can go get your stuff from the Y. If you don’t want to stay, I’ll drive you wherever you need to go. How’s that sound?”
He agreed, so I drove us to the apartment. I showed him the place and the sofa he could sleep on. I explained that I was queer and that my partner was a man. I didn’t offer the other apartment because I already had a draft dodger living there. He’d just arrived and would be with us for two full weeks.
My new friend wasn’t bothered about anything he learned while I showed him around. I even brought him downstairs and introduced him to Walt, who was in the middle of cooking up new menu items with Owen. Doc and I became tasters for a braised beef dish, a squash soup, and several kinds of vegetables in various reduction sauces. I liked everything except the soup. Doc liked everything.
“I’ll stay.” He said with his mouth full of braised beef. “It’s great here.”
He addressed himself to Walt and Owen. “And if you’ll have me, I’d be happy to help wherever you need.”
“Welcome!” Walt said and shook hands.
Owen agreed. “Glad to have you. We usually start the new guys washing dishes and scrubbing pots, but if you’re good with a knife, we could use another hand doing the rough prep. The prep shift is noon to eight. You’d peel potatoes and chop veggies, pluck chickens, trim meat, and that kind of thing. You’d also have to help unload the delivery trucks. If you’d rather wash, you’d start when we open at four and work ‘till midnight. Work days are Wednesday to Sunday.”
Doc showed that he was a team player. “I’m here for you.”
“I like him already.” Owen said to Walt. Owen addressed himself to Doc. “I usually post the schedule on Tuesday, which is tomorrow. I’ll let you know. Alright?”
Doc agreed and we were all friends.
A little while later, I tossed my car keys to him with the suggestion that he go collect his things from the YMCA. He turned the keys over in his hand and asked a question. “Law…this is embarrassing after all you’ve done for me today, but I need to get my car out of the school parking lot. I don’t want to leave it there and embarrass Mister Forsythe. It’ll get around that he invited some loser to his class and that loser abandoned his shit-box car in the school parking lot.”
I held my hand up to stop him from feeling bad about the car. “I’ll take care of it. I’ve got some good friends who run a garage. I’ll send them after it. Where are the keys?”
He checked his pockets but didn’t find what he was looking for. “I must have left them in the ignition.”
“Go get your stuff. I’ll see about having the car towed.”
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