The right headlamp shines a little high in the fog as the 101 dips down toward the lagoon that separates Carlsbad from Oceanside. Little orange-yellow arcs wiggle in the dark as he silently revises his check list for the weekend.
Headlights… suspension, A/C, air cleaner, lighter, windshield washer motor…
He taps the floor switch for the high beams, they both shoot a blinding glow into the fog. Clicks them off again.
Well, that works.
Six years under a tarp can do terrible things to wires, rubber hoses, upholstery and engine fluids. Given enough time, mice can take care of the rest. Jake only hopes that time hasn’t come.
The car hasn’t moved since the old man stopped talking and was transferred to an assisted care facility. Since that day, the only people to hear anything out of the old man were the overnight staff at the home. Every few nights he’d bolt upright in bed, screaming something about losing his teeth. The nurses said he was probably grinding them in his sleep, a fairly common nightmare, since his own teeth were fully intact. The last time it happened, his screaming had stopped long before the nurses arrived. They found everything had stopped.
Jake swings onto Morse and parks on the street a half block from O’Reilly, rather than risk bottoming out again across these unforgiving California speed-bumps.
He snuffs his cigarette in the ash tray then freezes silent. Waits. Another familiar squeak. He slides his palm along the bench seat to the handle of a brand new framing hammer bought for just this purpose. Pest control.
He opens the door and slides out slowly, then crouches next to the rear fender and waits. Within half a minute a twitching, whiskered face peers out over the fifteen inch chasm between his perch on the base of the seat belt retractor and the pavement.
Jake holds the handle of the hammer between his finger and thumb as a fulcrum point, lifting the head with the opposite hand, ready to fall onto the rodent the moment it hits the street.
He thinks about the size of the mouse, how much more the twenty-two ounce framing hammer weighs in comparison, it must be like having a car dropped onto you from above.
At the last second the mouse lunges. Jake grips the handle and begins pummeling the cement back and forth, tossing rock chips and sparks all around as the rodent zig-zags until the hammer finally hits home.
With the curved end he flicks the carcass into the bushes. The remaining guts are then wiped off across the grass and he tosses it across the front seat and slams the door. Jake has never once wondered why killing mice came so easy to him, but it’s the one thing he could look forward to any time they visited the farm.
Once again, Jake feels a slight tinge of fulfillment.
Inside O’Reilly he grabs an air cleaner, a box of fuses and a three-pack of vanilla air fresheners, then swings back at the last minute for a glass bottle of Coke. Nostalgia. He considers asking if they carry traps or poison, but that would take the fun out of it.
One air freshener lands in the front seat, one in the back, and with his face inside his shirt collar, he tosses one into the trunk.
When he gets to his street he tries to aim the low slung headers between the speed-bumps but catches one anyway. The slightly greenish-white instrument panel light flicks off, then back on as the back wheels hit the bump. The orange needles for TEMP and FUEL slowly creep back up on their respective dials.
He rubs his hand along the dash empathetically.
It’s okay, old girl. We’ll sort this out.
He backs toward the open garage and begins unloading, making two piles; Good stuff and Garbage.
Two thick black tarps, a rusted, bare metal tool box, another black plastic tool kit, six cans of WD-40 in varying states of rust and corrosion, and three wooden cigar boxes, taped shut, that rattle against the cement. Then, tucked up against the back seat, one last brown plastic tool box, brittle and cracked with age.
He breaks the tape on one of the boxes, inside is a collection of nuts, bolts, screws and washers. All rusted and corroded. The whole box sails into the trash can.
As he starts working on the wing-nut that holds down the spare tire compartment another couple mice dart out of one of the tarps. The hammer out of reach he stomps squarely on the first, twisting his boot back and forth, giving the second time to scurry down a storm drain.
Yeah, you can drown down there you little shit…
Jake lights a cigarette off the last as a shadow moves across the light from the street lamp.
“You know you can’t park the pile of shit across the sidewalk overnight.”
The cigarette perks up as he grins, “I’d rather have twenty pieces of shit like this than have to drive around in that Japanese box of yours.”
They both laugh, but the other man’s laugh is cut short.
“Jesus Hussein Christ,” he covers his mouth with his sleeve, “What the fuck is that stench?”
“That,” he takes a drag, exhales to cover the smell, “…is six years worth of mouse shit and neglect.”
The other man leans against the work bench, fights his gag reflex.
“Smells like barn with a touch of death.”
Jake holds up the air freshener, “And vanilla.”
Nick grabs the air freshener and holds it in front of his face.
“So what do we have this time?”
Jake walks around to the front.
“This one’s special. Belonged to the old man.”
“Hey, sorry to hear about that, by the way. Heart attack?”
Jake nods imperceptibly as he runs his finger along the front of the hood, across the three holes where P-L-Y should be, across the remaining M-O-U-T-H.
“I figure I can move the table saw around to the shed, the bike too, then back it in. I hope.”
“I don’t care what you do so long as you close the thing up before someone calls … Hell, I don’t know who you’d call. Smell police.” He nudges the pile of debris. “That’s a lot of old tools.”
“Yeah, this was his daily driver and constant project. There’s actually two more going straight to scrap, not worth the effort. Took all the chrome, hubcaps, emblems, anything that might be hard to find. But the bodies and frames, seats… all of it’s far beyond gone.
“This is the only one I wasn’t sure about keeping, so I thought I’d have a look this weekend, see if it adds up to a restoration project or just another pile of parts. He kept it running well, no accidents, so I’m crossing my fingers.”
Jake shuts the trunk then flicks on a set of work-lights above the table saw.
“Let’s see what we have here.”
The latches of the oldest tool kit give off a rusty dust as they break open. Everything inside is at least fifty years old and lost to corrosion, rust or both. A few of the wrenches have long since fused together. It’s doubtful there’s anything of even sentimental value at this point.
Nick cracks open the brown plastic one, which turns out to be a fishing tackle box with some basic gear, hooks and a filet knife. Again, all very old and equally worthless.
That leaves the black plastic box, the largest of the set. The top tray is an array of screwdrivers and wrenches in fairly good shape, beneath that they find sockets and a mallet, some larger wrenches. His cigarette traces mumbled words as he silently lists off each tool followed by a qualifier; Good stuff or Garbage. The tools clank to one side or the other as Jake sorts through them.
The two bottom drawers are locked, so Jake grabs a pair of bolt cutters and snips the padlock.
“And that’s that.”
Nick rubs his hands together. “You know, any of those tools in the Garbage pile, I’d love to take a look at.”
“If you think I’d throw anything out worth keeping, then you-”
Jakes cigarette stops moving when the drawer breaks free. Inside is a medium sized stainless saw and some sort of calipers.
Nick leans over the box, “Now, does that strike you as odd?”
“I mean, the old man was always improvising things. If he didn’t have the right tool he’d make one. Maybe this-”
“I don’t know, man. Looks like a dentist’s… thingy… you know. What do you use that for?”
Jake slides the door shut, snuffs his cigarette against his heel. Waits.
“Seriously, man. You gotta open the next one down.”
He nods three times, convincing himself, thinking better of it, then losing out to simple curiosity and pulls the handle.
Knives.
Jake stands, lights two cigarettes, hands one to Nick who usually says he’s trying to quit. This time he says, “Under the circumstances…”
They’re both kneeling over the tool box, the bottom drawer open to an array of serious cutlery, and on the bottom looks to be another, larger saw.
“Now Nick, I don’t want to put you in a tough place, here, uh…”
“Shit man, maybe these are hunting knives.” But the cigarette shaking in his hand gives him away.
“This is why you never win on poker night.”
Nick rubs his palms together, shaking afterward as if to cast off evil thoughts.
Jake shuts the drawer.
“Why do you think that tackle box is almost empty? The old man stopped fishing years before that rest home. Couldn’t tie the knots, bait the hooks, anything. No way he picked up some other…” Jake couldn’t quite say the word ‘sport’, but the word did feel somehow appropriate.
Nick pulls himself up against the back fender, moves to step back but his shoe catches the edge of one of the tarps. Both shoes slide as the tarp breaks lose from beneath him. As he lands his elbow glances off one of the remaining cigar boxes. It bursts open, its contents scattering all over the floor of the garage, but the sound isn’t metallic. Nick scrambles to his feet, now with his left hand casting off little red drops as he tries to shake away a tinge of pain.
“Fuck me.”
Nick pulls something sharp and white out of his palm, holds it up to the light.
“Uh, hey man. What the fuck?”
But Jake is already reaching back into drawer number one, “What did you say this thing looked like. A dentist’s… thingy…”
Nick nods.
It’s perfect, granddad.
Nick shakes his head, “What was that?”
Jake is lost inside his head. “Unbelievable. And what do those,” he points to the garage floor, “What does all this look like?”
Nick nods again, “Knives, saws, tarps.”
“Teeth.”
“Shit, man.”
“So we’re on the same page?”
Nick is still nodding when Jake flicks the work lights off.
“So, I mean, you gotta call the… you know. You gotta call, right? That’s the right thing to do, right?”
Jake takes hold of Nick’s chin, they lock eyes.
“Nick, just help me get this in the garage. We can deal with this in the morning.”
“But Jake, how are you gonna sleep with-”
“Why don’t you start by putting these tool boxes back into the trunk, alright?”
“No problem, man. No problem at all. The sooner I get out of here.”
The next thing to run through Jake’s head was, I’ve always wondered where this … urge came from. This time, there are no little sparks tracing the silent motion of his lips.
In the stillness, Nick’s thoughts take him inside his head for a moment as well, he pauses with the tool box in his hands, then comes back.
“Hey man, how many grandmothers did you-”
And the last thing to run through Nick Thompson’s head was the claw end of a brand new, twenty-two ounce framing hammer.
* * *
© Anthony David Jacques MMX
