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The Mechanic

Bob Strother

    The window of Sherry Anne’s third-floor bedroom looked out on a wide concrete apron that stretched from the manicured grounds of the back yard to the garage. Hangar was more like it. The square footage of the garage was larger than the house she’d grown up in and boasted half a dozen retractable garage doors across the front. Her husband, Palmer, paced back and forth on the apron, gesticulating wildly while the Latino mechanic he’d hired six months ago stood quietly by. Sherry Anne couldn’t hear her husband’s words through the window but she could guess their nature by his obvious agitation; she’d suffered similar tirades all too often herself.
    Palmer Cory was a self-made multi-millionaire, transforming a small mail-order catalogue business into one of the country’s largest suppliers of educational materials. Theirs had been a fairy tale office romance—the peasant girl secretary swept off her feet by the charming and highly successful young prince. They’d been happy for a while; she’d been caught up in a world of riches she’d never dreamed of, and Palmer had himself a trophy wife. At least that’s how he’d referred to her with his friends and business colleagues.
    She’d been flattered in the beginning, but when the newness of it all had worn off she’d begun to feel simply another of Palmer’s possessions. Like one of his precious cars—one of the just over two dozen ridiculously expensive vehicles housed in the over-sized garage. He’d often bragged that he could drive a different car every day for two weeks. It was later on she’d followed him a few evenings and found out the same axiom applied to his female conquests.
    She’d been angry at first, and hurt, and had threatened divorce—only to be reminded of the prenuptial agreement she’d so willingly signed while the bloom was still on the rose. And, no matter what else she felt, she had to admit she’d come to enjoy the life Palmer’s wealth bought her. So, she’d stuck it out. Sometimes, though, she remembered the girl she once was, and wondered if it was truly worth it.
    She felt the air move and realized her husband was no longer berating the mechanic, but had entered the room behind her.
    “I’m going to the office,” he said, grabbing a garment bag and an overnight grip from the closet. “I’ll be staying in town tonight.”
    Of course you will, she thought, wondering which of the office girls was up in the rotation. It was Tuesday, so this might be the redhead from Accounting—or was that Wednesday? She looked out the window again. The mechanic was shirtless now, a red bandanna tied around his head, leaning into the engine compartment of a Jaguar XJ6.
    She turned back to her husband. “Did Renaldo do something wrong?”
    “Renaldo doesn’t do much right, if you ask me,” he said. “I’ve given him a week to shape up or he’s gone.”
    “He seems like such a nice young man,” she said. “He told me he sends money to his family every week.”
    “What the hell difference does that make if he can’t remember which car to have ready for me? Every car wash in Chattanooga is full of wetbacks. You’d think detailing is the one thing you could depend on them for.” Palmer stopped at the bedroom door. “I’ve got business in Atlanta Wednesday night and Thursday. Pack a bag for me, will you? I’ll stop off and pick it up sometime tomorrow afternoon.” Then he disappeared into the hallway.
    Sherry Anne heard his footsteps as he descended the stairs, heard the front door close, and then walked down the hall to the upstairs study. The view from the study was unmatched. Beyond the circular parking oval, hundred-year-old oaks marched triumphantly along either side of the long driveway to the road. As a little girl, she’d once come to Signal Mountain with her family. They’d picnicked on a rocky knoll and watched the Tennessee River winding lazily around Moccasin Bend. She never imagined she’d one day be living there among the city’s elite.
    A car engine rumbled below, and Palmer’s yellow Lamborghini sped away from the house and down the drive. The Lamborghini—or his choosing any other of the low-slung racing cars he owned—meant he’d be taking the “W” road, the original road carved up the mountain, built long before the more civilized Signal Mountain Boulevard. Almost no one used the “W” road anymore. It was too narrow, with sharp cutbacks, rock face on one side, and sheer drop-offs on the other. But to Palmer, the road was just another challenge, one more thing to conquer.
    Sherry Anne had ridden the road with him earlier in their marriage. She was no stranger to fast cars and aggressive driving, but she’d thought him reckless and overconfident, and she’d been afraid. With their growing estrangement, however, she’d felt a curious elation when Palmer chose one of the racing cars over the larger, more luxurious models he used on the Boulevard. Often, when he went down the “W”, she found herself picturing his car and body crumpled at the base of a mountain ravine.
    She wandered back to the bedroom window. Renaldo was still bent over the Jaguar, a thin patina of sweat glistening across his back. It really was wonderful, the way he sent money to his family in Mexico. She watched him for a few more minutes, then made her way downstairs to the den and poured herself a glass of Chardonnay.
    An hour later, she stepped off the back veranda, a second Chardonnay in one hand, a beer in the other. Renaldo had finished with the Jaguar and had the hood open on a beautifully restored Austin-Healy 3000. He looked up as she approached, picked up his shirt from a nearby shelf, and slipped it over his shoulders.
    “Good afternoon, Missus Cory.”
    She smiled. “It’s so hot this afternoon. I thought you might like a beer.”
    He wiped his hands on a rag and nodded. “That would be very nice. Thank you.” He tipped the beer and took a long swallow.
    Sherry Anne sipped the wine. “I’m sorry Palmer yelled at you this afternoon.”
    Renaldo shrugged. “I am used to it.” Then he grinned, showing even rows of white teeth. “He pays me enough that I don’t mind the yelling so much.”
    That, she knew, was a matter of perception. Palmer had paid his former mechanic twice as much as Renaldo. But not enough to make up for her husband’s constant verbal abuse; the man had quit without notice two weeks before Renaldo was hired.
    “I’m servicing the Healy for the Mister’s trip to Atlanta tomorrow,” Renaldo said.
    Sherry Anne moved closer and looked down into the car’s gleaming engine compartment. Palmer was as fastidious about the engines as he was the cars’ exteriors. “How’d you hook up with Palmer, anyway?”
    The young man drained the last of his beer and pointed across the garage to an older model gull-wing Mercedes coupe, one of Palmer’s latest acquisitions. “Mister Cory bought the Mercedes online from the shop where I was working in San Antonio. The shop owner, he gives me three hundred dollars and a bus ticket to drive the car cross country and deliver to Mister Cory. Fortunately for me, Mister Cory needs a mechanic. I am a mechanic. He calls for a reference, and I am hired.” Renaldo frowned and looked away. “I don’t know for how long, though. I am a good mechanic but Mister Cory now seems unhappy with my work.”
    “He’s not happy with much of anything for long, except his cars.” Sherry Anne caressed the long sleek fender of the Austin-Healy. “Palmer mentioned something earlier about letting you go.” She looked up at him. “I’d hate for that to happen. But you’d probably have no problem finding another job, right? I mean, even without a reference? You do have your green card, don’t you?”
    Renaldo stared at her silently, his lips drawn in a tight thin line. After a moment, he said, “My family depends on me. If I am fired they will have nothing.”
    “We can’t let that happen, can we, Renaldo? I know how much your family means to you.” She picked up his empty beer can. “Let me get you another beer. Then we can talk.”

.....

    A shaft of afternoon sunlight bathed the bedroom in a soft yellow glow. Sparkling dust motes drifted languidly across Sherry Anne’s field of vision. It was funny, she thought: two weeks ago she’d been snared in a web of her own making—bound to a loveless marriage, but unwilling to part with the trappings of opulence she’d grown accustomed to. Now she was both wealthy and free.
    Palmer’s funeral was well attended, lots of pomp, with eulogies from many of the city’s dignitaries, all extolling her late husband’s virtues as a businessman and civic leader. She’d held up very well, everyone said.
    It was closed casket; there hadn’t been much left after the fire. The Healy was a total loss, of course, and that was a shame. She’d really liked that car. Then again, there were plenty of others. She could take her pick.
    Renaldo hadn’t been a pushover. He was aghast in the beginning, then fearful, then more than a little hesitant. But Sherry Anne was persistent and persuasive, and in the end he had succumbed. It helped that she’d agreed to double his wages and gifted him the gull-wing Mercedes. It seemed only fair, after all; he’d driven the car all the way from Texas. She remembered the intense look on Renaldo’s face when he showed her the brake line he’d recovered from an old MGB at the junkyard. She could barely see the flaw, thought it must have been akin to an aneurysm—just ready to pop under pressure.
    At the moment, Renaldo’s face was beautiful in repose, his breathing slow and deep. And why not, she thought. He might know about servicing cars, but she knew something about servicing, too. She reached over and ran her forefinger down through the hairs on his chest. He smiled in his sleep and shifted slightly in her bed.
    Her father had been a dirt-track stock car racer during Sherry Anne’s youth. Nothing like NASCAR, it was small potatoes in comparison, but he’d loved it almost as much as he’d loved her. She’d been a regular at Boyd’s Stock Car Track every Saturday night of the season, leaving the stands with a heavy layer of red clay dust covering her from head to toe. Her father had had a good mechanic, too, and he’d once told her something she’d never forgotten.
    It’s a rare thing, he’d said, to come across a good mechanic. When you finally find one, you got to treat him right.

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