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James Carpenter
Mechanics
He fixed things. It was quite amazing, his ability to heal the automobile in particular. We stood in awe at the tilt of his head, the furrowed brow . . . listening for unseated valves, the gentle slip of clutch, the ventriloquism of the mischievous universal joint. Lined, weary and waiting, cars limped, were coaxed, or pushed at the rally of neighborhood boys into the fluorescence of his surgery. What necessary hobby -- the day shift done, a change of coverall, meat loaf and potato, more coffee, and more coffee.
But I knew more. I knew the path worn of steel-toed evasiveness and virile charm; discovered the tended garden that flourished among stacked retreads and rusty rampart. Perhaps no clearer path -- void of the poet's voice, the prophet's unearthly desire. All removed, he walked along that path, among those burdens, with singular focus. And in submission to wisdom, he taught.
They came like disciples -- proud young men behind the wheels of '55 Chevys, sullen in the passenger seats of flatbed trucks, cowering in the Pacer dome with the Edsel's ghost -- all within the guise of failed machinery.
But I knew.
There is no god . . . not here. There is reflection in plate glass and chrome; prayers on the breath of carburetion; visions of blue exhaust. There is resemblance in boys whose oil-stained hands and scarred knuckles grow numb with cold beneath the work light. There is faith in the eyes of the woman who makes more coffee, "black," for the greasy thermos. She is weary, but patient for the boil, for the wry of his admiration, the lullaby of his breath on her neck in the vast bed.
But there are no words, not here; he had taught her that.
She misses him most.
Those sanctified mechanics operated in sterile garages -- hot light and cold steel. Beneath the ether mask, he tilted his head, furrowed his brow, and listened with innate stethoscope; and heard the broken breath that spread the halting sigh throughout his body. No longer to visualize therapeutic lava, green like antifreeze, destroying everything in its path -- "a lessor evil" she had said. She is a nurse afterall.
It was the practical incision and extracted mass that he preferred. It had made him smile to think about it. "Nuts and bolts," he sallied, as surgeons, haloed in halogen, stood poised before their own tray of tools -- anticipating the gas -- proposing a miracle.
But there are no gods . . . not here.
"I'm totaled," he said only once. And she smiled sadly in the morning shade, barefoot in the cool black dirt, lost to the surreal peace of his little garden.
It would be to die for if chrome chariots careened atop clouds of endless blacktop. If gardens rose unattended as children performed before their mother's gracious eyes. And it was.
There is no sorrow that love has not wrought. As precise the torque, the gap, the mixture; as intent the anger, the lonely, the hollow before forgiveness. He grew her roses and let them die on the vine. Perhaps they would have been his healing. Calloused and oiled, his hands upon her skin was hers; simple as rain on earth and sun on rain. Still, she walks the overgrown path and mourns over the rusting skeletons of automobiles . . . as she should. There is no god, here.
Love deepens, like aimless paths in spring fields. She knows. And through her, shall they: little mechanics standing before boxes of Father's tools; with furrowed brows and green thumbs deep in the pockets of their coveralls -- listening.
But there are no words . . . not here; he taught her that.
She misses him most.
FOR RONNIE PENNELL
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