Earl's Garage

(Content Warning: Violence, Blood, Gore, Language)

The Rattlesnake brothers blew into town like a midnight call from an unknown number. They pulled off Highway 32 too fast, missing the apron and jacking the left front of their sixth gen Charger over the curb. I watched it all from my place in the back. I remember thinking they’re gonna wanna get that looked at, but a fucked up alignment turned out to be only the start of their trouble.

They rolled over the pneumatic road snake, which Earlene always called the “dinger” as a kid and never stopped, and cut the engine next to pump three. We didn’t need that bell anymore, hadn’t provided full service for damn near fifty years, and anyway we had a bank of security cameras to monitor what’s happening out front. But I insisted on keeping it and Earlene placated her dad. Also, I think she’s nostalgic for that kind of shit, just like me.

I knew they were bad news before they exited the car. The driver first, blasting his door open so it hit one of the bollards the state made us install back in the eighties to protect the pumps from out-of-control trucks and dirtbags like Jake Rattlesnake. No respect for his vehicle or others’ property. On the other side, the passenger poked one lanky leg out, stood, stretched, and did a perimeter check: the vacant lot next door where they staged the high school band before the Frontier Days parade, and where we put our overflow when the garage was full; Wilson’s Grocery across the street, with the Old City Hall building looming darkly next to it; and the bank on our other side, I can’t remember which variety since it’s been bought a few times over the years. The kid’s face displayed the disdain, revulsion even, that many city folk felt for our small town. I recognized the look. It’d been directed at me, too, as far back as the seventies.

While Jake filled the tank with unleaded (of course, it’s all unleaded now, I have to remind myself), his brother Seth slunk around the back of the Charger, dragging a finger through the dust caked on the midnight blue pearlcoat. He said something whiny to Jake. I couldn’t hear cause the security cameras didn’t have sound, but I could just tell by looking at him. Jake shut him up with a look, and I knew then he was one to watch out for. I’d be glad to see his backside heading out of town.

Which didn’t happen, because the car wouldn’t start. They’d been sitting there for too long, so I rolled over and cracked the office door. Even across the whole shop and through the closed garage doors I could hear the telltale clicking of a dead battery.

Earlene heard it too. She poked her head out from under the hood of Shimmery Smith’s ‘09 Bronco, wiped her hands, and went out through what she called “the human door”; the big garage doors were keeping the heat in.

Jake’s door slammed back open. “--oddammit, fuckin piece of shit!”

“Howdy-doo, boys,” Earlene called, sauntering over.

Jake peered around the pump; Seth over the top of the car. Who was this middle-aged, androgynous small town hick coming at them? Everyone looked at Earlene like that at first. But not for long.

“Won’t start? Want me to take a look?”

“We can’t be stuck here–” Seth started, but Jake shushed him with a finger without even looking over his shoulder.

“That’d be great,” Jake said. “Thanks.” Even with the crappy security camera resolution I didn’t like the way he smiled at her.

“Pop the hood.”

After feeling around under the dash a bit, he did. Seth slumped back down in the car, his head lolling against the headrest like a child denied his dessert. Jake came around the front. “Jake Rattlesnake, my brother Seth. Thanks for the assist.”

“Earlene Biggins. No worries,” she said, smiling, and she meant it. She’s a kind soul. She lifted the hood and seated the support. “Rattlesnake, huh? You native?”

“Ha! No, no. I mean, I don’t think so. This your place?”

“Yup. Try to start ‘er up, wouldya?”

He jumped back in the driver’s seat. More clicking.

“Okay,” Earlene said. “You can stop. Well, for starters your battery’s dead, but that might not be all. This happen a lot?”

Jake didn’t answer right away. “No, not really.” His brother Seth said something I couldn’t hear, to which Jake responded, through audibly-gritted teeth, “Shut the fuck up.”

“Have you seen any engine lights on the dash lately?”

“Um, no.”

“Any weird noises or smells while you’re driving?”

“Other than Jake’s ass?” Seth guffawed. He was proud of that rejoinder.

Jake punched him in the shoulder and leaned his head out the window. “I don’t think so. We had the music pretty loud.”

“Okay, hang tight.” She came back in the garage through the human door and up to the bench on the other side of my office wall.

“Be careful with these two, baby,” I croaked through the crack in the door. The prosthesis valve installed in my throat had mostly restored the voice I’d had my whole life up until cancer whisked it away, much better than that damn robot buzzer I’d had for years. But it was still an effort to speak, and despite the heroic efforts of my unorthodox surgeon, I still sounded a little unearthly, like a radio station just out of tune.

“Daddy,” she said, clattering something on the bench. A Frankenstein reply, expertly cobbled from both capitulation and warning.

“Somethin not right.”

“Stop. They’ll hear you.” And she left.

Back on the security cameras, Earlene walked to the front of the Rattlesnake brothers’ car, unwound the cables on the chunky, red portable jump starter, and set it on the pavement. Christ did we ever battle over that purchase! She wanted the fancy, expensive one; my starting position was “shit, back in the day we pushed a couple batteries around on a cart and got by just fine”. I was pretty far gone at that point, I didn’t fight her too hard. I’ll admit she was right. That scarlet devil, with its twin stowed alligator clamps poking up like a couple of copper horns, has shocked life back into even the most stubborn of old rigs.

Once she had it hooked up, she called to Jake to crank it again. That V6 started right up, its throaty roar sounding pretty good for a twenty-year-old, but as soon as Earlene pulled the clamps, it died.

“Alternator,” Earlene and I said together.

“What does that mean?” Seth whined.

“Your alternator provides power to the car and recharges the battery while the engine’s running. You need to keep an eye out for engine lights and listen for weird noises, it probably gave you some warnings before crapping out.” The boys said nothing. “Hang tight, let me make a call.”

She came in to use the shop phone.

“That ain’t their car, baby,” I strained.

“They’re just young.”

“They don’t know shit about it, you don’t get a classic muscle car–”

“Daddy. People don’t know cars anymore.” Then, into the phone. “Hey there, Clancy. Earlene.”

A minute later she went out to deliver the bad news.

“You need a new alternator, but we don’t have one in town.” On the screen, I watched the brothers deflate. “I could rebuild it, but honestly it’d take longer and end up costing you more. I can get you a remanufactured 160 amp outta Jagger Lake, they’re making a run tomorrow morning. I could have you outta here by, say, noon.” She pulled out her phone and poked at it. “$436.99 parts and labor, plus tax…all told: $471.95.”

“Jesus,” said Jake.

“Fuck!” said Seth, still inside the car. He kicked the dash.

“Sorry,” Earlene said. “Welcome to Madson, I guess.”

Jake’s shoulders dropped. “Sorry, ma’am. We’re just trying to get to Seattle.” He shuffled a step closer to Earlene. “Our mom’s sick.”

Bullshit.

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Earlene said. “There’s a motel at the other end of town, I’m sure they have rooms…” She paused.

Jake looked up at her, pitifully.

No, no, no, don’t you do it, Earlene!

“Hell, we have a room above the shop you boys could stay in tonight, no charge. Save you some money.”

Christ, Earlene. She’d always been a poor judge of character. Me, I was a judge of poor character, and my gavel was pounding.

Jake clasped his hands earnestly. “Thank you, ma’am. Yes, great, let’s do it.”

After that, she helped them push the Charger into the open bay next to the Bronco. I switched to the inside monitors. The boys looked around the space, taking it all in.

“The room’s up the stairs there. You can use the bathroom here next to the office.” She pulled the office door shut and I quietly locked it from the inside. “I was just shutting down for the night, so you’ll have the place to yourselves. I’m just across the back alley. The drive-in’s open a couple more hours, down thataway a couple blocks. And the grocery’s across the street. You should be good.”

“Yes, ma’am, more than good,” Jake said. “Thanks again.”

“Don’t mention it,” Earlene said. She passed by the office door on her way out, rapped on it twice, lightly. Stay out of trouble, that knock said.

With the office door closed, I could hear only some of what the brothers said, even with my new ears. But their actions told me everything I needed to know. They moved up and down the workbenches, opening every cabinet and drawer, touching all the tools and equipment. Thousands of dollars worth. Seth yelped giddily. I wondered if they forgot their getaway car was tits up. Then again, they’d stolen the Charger, I guess they probably saw Earlene’s Chevy in the side lot and decided on a trade up.

At some point, Seth grabbed a handful of wrenches. Jake pointed back to the workbench and then hooked a thumb over his shoulder. Later, when it’s darker. In the meantime, let’s get something to eat. Seth clattered the tools down in a pile and they strolled out the human door like they owned the place.

I knew Earlene wouldn’t be back tonight. She surely didn’t want to hear my thoughts on her act of kindness. By morning, it would be too late. So be it. We were partners, but this was my department.

An hour passed. It being autumn, the sun set early, the smidgen of light coming through the mottled glass window in the office door dwindling away to nothing. It gave me time to ruminate. Too much time. What did they do to the Charger’s owner? Left them on the side of the road? Killed ‘em? Worse? The thought of these boys dragging their stain across our crumbling country, stealing and murdering and raping and…not that long ago, my heart would have been pounding, my lungs straining for oxygen. No more. Now my tempers were artificially regulated. Cold.

That said, I was still old. I fell asleep.

I woke to the rattling of the office door. One of the shop lights was on, casting human shadows through the window. I rolled back, tucked myself between the shelves. The lock popped and the door swung in.

“--be in here. We just have to find it and shut them down.”

They’d scoped the security cameras when they returned from dinner. As I knew they would, since I put ‘em in test mode, constantly scanning, red lights blinking in the black.

Jake flipped the light switch, but nothing happened. Lights don’t work too good when their bulb is resting gently on the desk below.

“Fuck this place,” Jake said, and shuffled his feet, feeling his way over to the desk in front of me. Seth came in, closing the door behind him, reducing the light to almost nothing. Which was fine for me. My new eyes didn’t require much light; they were a thousand times better than the starlight scopes we had in ‘Nam, and grayscale instead of that eerie green.

Jake found the computer and jiggled the mouse, but nothing happened. Unplugged.

“Jesus,” Jake said, his back to me.

I made my move, surging forward and driving a three foot carbon steel pry bar through his right kidney. The forked end burst out of his belly above just the belt and sent the keyboard skittering across the desk.

Jake screamed.

“What?” Seth cried.

I rotated and charged toward Seth, extending my right component arm. In the near darkness, other than a low, fast-moving shape, he would only have seen my glowing white eyes.

“What the fu–”

I mentally opened the oxygen and fuel valves and sparked the striker. The cutting torch attachment at the end of my arm roared to life, a blazing comet momentarily blinding us both. Seth shrieked and threw himself back against the door. I adjusted the oxygen preheat valve to settle into a nice, neutral, five-inch blade of fire, like Pop taught me, and shoved it through Seth’s teeth into his wailing mouth. His tongue burbled and hissed. For a brief moment, his cheeks glowed a violent red, and I thought of the beautiful, multicolored paper lanterns of the Full Moon Lantern Festival in Hoi An. Then flame erupted from his cheek, splatting blood and scorched tissue onto the adjacent wall. Seth convulsed back, tearing the torch free from his shredded cheek and shattering his head through the door window.

I spun in place to check on Jake. He was trying to pull the pry bar out, simultaneously committing two grave errors. First, you never remove the foreign object from a puncture wound, it may be the only thing keeping you alive. Years ago, working at the Schenkel place, that kid Mason Dart learned it the hard way when he fell off the back of a pickup onto a busted sprinkler riser. Second, Jake was yanking it forward, but the end sticking out his back had a gooseneck curve so the only thing he was accomplishing was poking himself repeatedly in the spine.

Something jolted me from the side and I rocked up on 3 wheels. Despite all his whining, Seth had some gumption. Mule-kicked me. For a moment I was weightless. Although extensively modified, my chassis started life as a six-wheeled motorized wheelchair, with some of its inherent disadvantages. Luckily, the accelerometer detected the tip, and two hydraulic arms shot out to right me before I crashed on my side.

I powered backward, out of reach of both brothers, to assess the situation. Two twenty-something male combatants, one critically wounded but still ambulatory, the other facially disfigured but otherwise healthy. In the dazzling blue and orange glare of my torch they beheld me in return: a patchwork creature of brushed steel and drooping flesh, twisted tubes coursing fluids organic and synthetic, circuits embedded in gristley knobs.

“Holy fuck!” Seth gurgled, both hands holding the flaps of his ruined cheek in place. Jake said nothing, but his face was a gothic novel. Sustained by adrenaline and rage, vomiting a primal roar, he leapt at me. The pry bar suspended in his torso clanged against my side. With his left arm, he batted away the torch that was my right hand. Probably broke a bone in the process, but it worked: the safety locks disengaged and the flame flickered out. We designed this rig for shopwork, not combat. Jake’s hot, wet breath fogged my eyes as he wrapped his hands around my throat, his thumbs pressing down on the hands-free voice prosthesis embedded there.

“Die motherfucker!” he spat.

With my left hand, a real, flesh and blood hand, I felt around the accessories cubby bolted to my side. I didn’t have much time; my lungs were one of the few systems Earlene hadn’t replaced. My flapping hand found what it sought, and squeezed. Moved. Squeezed again. My head grew heavy, but my sight, being digital, didn’t grow dim. I’d’ve chuckled if there’d been breath to expel. I’ll admit, maybe I was getting disoriented. I finished my preparations just in time.

“You ain’t no rattlesnake,” I wheezed. I gritted my teeth and flipped the switch.

Jack spasmed, bucked, and rolled to the floor, stretching out the cables connecting his involuntary steel body piercing to the portable jump starter at my hip. It’d taken some time to jury rig that red devil to bypass the safeties. Lucky for me these growing boys took a long dinner.

Seth, who couldn’t seem to figure out how to open the office door to flee, turned to see his brother, clothes aflame. The terror in his eyes morphed into wrath, and I knew his mind. I considered the other attachments embedded in my right arm, poised to be deployed with a thought. Wire strippers for pesky fingers? Steel brush versus sensitive skin? No. The cuff whirred and an industrial air blow gun nozzle emerged and locked into position. Let’s see how much he values those eyes.

“Daddy, no!” Earlene kicked in the door, 12-gauge wedged into her shoulder like I taught her, sending Seth sprawling to the grimy floor. She must have heard the screaming from across the alley and come running. Not a minute had passed since the start. “What have you done?”

Seth put up his hands and started crying.

“These boys were stealin’ our shit,” I rasped.

“That doesn’t mean you can kill ‘em, Daddy! Jesus!”

Agree to disagree.

“And now they’re all going to find out about you,” she said.

“Not if we’re careful.”

“We won’t tell nobody,” Seth whimpered. “I swear!”

“See?” I said.

Earlene’s eyes told me the story. Over thirty seconds they’d shifted from terror to anger to fear, then to love, and now, at last, to resolve.

“Oh, Daddy.”

That’s my girl.