poke his head into my room growing up and say, "What ya doing, boy? Wanna go for a drive?" He never told me where we were going. It was always a surprise. Sometimes there was ice cream at the end of it. Or sometimes we were visiting a relative. Or offering free mechanic services for a shut in. But it didn't matter to me back then. I just loved going for the joy of the journey.
I can picture Dad now, one hand draped across the wheel casually, a setting sun tinting his hair gold. He's absently tapping the lid of his nearly empty Styrofoam coffee cup while telling me a story about the work day. Traffic is swirling around us at 75 miles per hour despite the posted 65 signs, but we seem to be frozen in time as cars whiz by.
"Oh shit!" I see it a split second before Dad does. The semi in front of us stops suddenly and the "how's my driving?" ad on the hinged back door rushes up to eye level. I hear a horrific crunching sound and watch helplessly in horror as the tailgate of the semi smashes through the windshield. Glass flies everywhere.
Adrenaline takes over and I'm out of the car the next instant. I realize my Dad has also made it out. He gives me a look as if to say, "Holy crap! Did that just happen?" But we don't say anything out loud. Our pick-up is totaled. There is no conceivable way anyone could have made it out of that alive, yet here we both are, standing beside the wreck with not a scratch on us.
I woke up instantly, relieved this was only a dream, but stunned at how vivid it was. It was the kind of dream that leaves an emotion behind even as the image fades.
I found myself missing the times when Dad and I worked together. We sometimes could go for most of the day in the shop and not talk to each other. I would be working the front desk, talking with customers, scheduling the mechanics shifts while Dad would be back in the shop with the guys, getting his hands dirty, busting his hump to make sure we got a customer's car ready by the end of the day. We might pass each other briefly in the hall and he'd nod his head and say, "Son." Other days when the orders were slow, we'd hang out in the office playing stupid office games and drinking coffee.
Ah the smell of the shop . . . smell memories suddenly permeated the air. Slightly burnt coffee was always at the base mixed in with used oil and the chalky dustiness of Oil-Dri. Food smells from the guys' ever-present brown-bag lunches wafted in and out, in particular Dad's fried bologna and raw onion sandwiches. It was rare for the mechanics to bring fast food in. They saved money by bringing in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a bag of chips. Dad always had a box of donuts in the kitchen, and by the afternoon one or two of the stale ones that had sat out added their doughy sweetness to the aroma party. We always hazed the new guys by telling them it was their responsibility to bring in donuts in the morning--the good ones from Dunkin with chocolate icing and sprinkles. Before long they would figure out they were being duped and we reverted back to the plain gas-station bargain donuts that Dad could justify bringing in.
And Old Spice. Charlie always seemed to steep himself in it. He was old school that way and it might have been off-putting if Charlie weren't so darn funny. If there were outbursts of laughter floating above the clank of the tools in the shop, you could be sure Charlie was behind it. Charlie was as old as the shop itself--the first employee Dad had officially hired. He had worked as a mechanic in the Army and was always ready with a story about his time spent in the service.
Charlie was a talker, but one who could take apart a carburetor or flush out a radiator while regaling me with a story and he'd never skip a beat with either. He was no slacker, just very energetic and jovial.
"See you later," we'd say at the end of a shift.
"Not if I see you first," was Charlie's constant reply. Even though we knew it was coming and had heard it a thousand times, it still seemed funny coming from him.
It was always fun to be around Charlie. One got the sense that instead of damaging him, his years in the Army had shaped him and given him purpose and made him happy. While I couldn't fully relate to his war stories, I shared a corny sense of humor with him. Some of the jokes I still tell to this day came from Charlie. His personal favorite:
"Man goes to the doctor and says, 'Doctor, you gotta help me. Every time I drink a cup of coffee, I get a stabbing pain in my eye. What should I do?' The doctor says, 'Take the spoon out first.'"
On slow days, we'd sit around the shop and pitch lug nuts into Styrofoam cups while Charlie gave us his best imitation of his barrack's sergeant or walked us through a battle. Dad sponsored a snack tray that sat out in the afternoons: chips, cookies, jerky, sodas, and the like, provided by an outside vendor. Payment worked on the "honor system." Little did Dad know his son was eating up the profits by sneaking snacks. I always felt guilty later and would secretly pay back the balance in cash when the vendor noted how much they were short.
Of course, Mitch put an end to all that. Dad brought Mitch on initially as a temporary mechanic to help with overflow, but soon Mitch proved to be indispensible and Dad offered him a full time position. I always felt that Mitch kissed up to Dad and only put his best foot forward when Dad was there to see it. In moments of real honesty, though, I knew it was because Mitch was damn good at his job. Mitch was twice as fast and three times as knowledgeable as anyone else on staff, except maybe Charlie and Dad himself. Mitch and I didn't see eye to eye on anything. Dad moved me to an office role shortly after Mitch went full time, which meant I spent less time hob-nobbing with the guys. It was the beginning of my dissatisfaction with working at the shop and made me long for the good ol' days.
Shop Talk
The morning commute was only 15 minutes for me--plenty of time to get a cup of coffee and listen to the radio in preparation for the day. Most days, I would listen to ESPN radio, but if I was in a music mood I'd go with The Mix. I liked to think of the DJs as my radio family.
I usually parked next to my dad and would peek into his car to see how messy it was. It was a type of twisted mental competition I had with him—in my mind only--to see who was more disorganized. I prided myself in usually winning the contest. My dad was smart enough to schedule me to come in around 9 or even 10 o'clock most days, partly because he knew I liked to sleep in, but more because he recognized that a bit of separation between our work and home life might do me some good.
I was still living at home and not ashamed of it, but was also trying to assert my independence wherever I could. Some mornings I'd come straight to the shop from a friend's house where I had crashed on the couch after a night of drinking. My parents gave me plenty of independence and seldom played the "if you're going to live under my roof" card.
At the shop, there was a small kitchen and dining area, and some storage lockers and a changing room behind that. I didn't have my own official embroidered mechanic shirt like my dad and Charlie did, but I did fit into some of my dad's old shirts and sometimes wore them. The guys would call me Don and mock salute me on those days, and I would pretend to boss them around.
After changing, I would punch in and check in to see what Dad needed. At first, it was pretty much janitorial stuff, but after a few months, I went straight to the shop and shadowed either Dad or Charlie. I preferred the days I got to work with Charlie, mainly because I didn't want to be perceived as the boss's kid and get special treatment, even though that's pretty much what I got.
Charlie would take an appraising look at me on those mornings and shake his head slowly back and forth and say something like "I can see I've really got my work cut out for me today. Well, get over here, soldier!"
His drill sergeant routine might include phrases like, "I said 5/8ths, Maggot!" or "Drop and give me the components of a carburetor!" and I would have to shout out the parts with a hearty "Sir, Yes, Sir!" at the end.
Charlie had no qualms with dirt and even less with getting me dirty. There were days when I would stand at the changing room sink and try to wash the grease off my hands for ten minutes straight and still leave feeling greasy and gross. I could live with a messy car or let the laundry pile up in my bedroom, but when the dirt got on me or my clothes, I had a tougher time dealing with it. Charlie would grill me for my "clean as I go" approach, but I couldn't help it.
In the afternoons, my brother John would stop by after school to help with odd jobs around the shop. I tried to wear my dirty