Christine (20 page)

Darnell sat down in a swivel chair with wooden arms. The cushion wheezed beneath him. It sounded tired but resigned. He leaned back. He took a match from the hollow head of a ceramic Negro jockey. He struck it on a strip of sandpaper that ran along one edge of his desk and fired up the wet stub of cigar. He coughed long and hard, his big, loose chest heaving up and down. Directly behind him, tacked to the wall, was a picture of Garfield the Cat. "Want a trip to Loose-Tooth City?" Garfield was enquiring over one cocked paw. It seemed to sum up Will Darnell, Wretch in Residence, perfectly.

"Want a Pepsi, kid?"

"No, thank you," I said, and sat down in the straight chair opposite him.

He looked at me—that cold look of appraisal again and then nodded. "How's your dad, Dennis? His ticker still okay?"

"He's fine. When I told him Arnie had his car here, he remembered you right off. He says Bill Upshaw's doing your figures now."

"Yeah. Good man. Good man. Not as good as your dad, but good."

I nodded. A silence fell between us, and I began to feel uneasy. Will Darnell didn't look uneasy; he didn't look anything at all. That cold look of appraisal never changed.

"Did your buddy send you to find out if Repperton was really gone?" he asked me, so suddenly that I jumped.

"No," I said. "Not at all."

"Well, you tell him he is," Darnell went on, ignoring what I'd just said. "Little wiseass. I tell 'em when they run their junk in here: get along or get out. He was working for me, doing a little of this and a little of that, and I guess he thought he had the gold key to the crapper or something. Little wiseass
punk
."

He started coughing again and it was a long time before he stopped. It was a sick sound, I was beginning to feel claustrophobic in the office, even with the window looking out on the garage.

"Arnie's a good boy," Darnell said presently, still measuring me with his eyes, Even while he was coughing, that expression hadn't changed. "He's picked up the slack real good."

Doing what? I wanted to ask, and just didn't dare.

Darnell told me anyway. Cold glance aside, he was apparently feeling expansive. "Sweeps the floor, takes the crap out of the garage bays at the end of the day, keeps the tools inventoried, along with Jimmy Sykes. Have to be careful with tools around here, Dennis. They got a way of walkin away when your back's turned." He laughed, and the laugh turned into a wheeze. "Got him started strippin parts out back, as well. He's got good hands. Good hands and bad taste in cars. I ain't seen such a dog as that '58 in years."

"Well, I guess he sees it as a hobby," I said.

"Sure," Darnell said expansively. "Sure he does. Just as long as he doesn't want to ramrod around with it like that punk, that Repperton. But not much chance of that for a while, huh?"

"I guess not. It looks pretty wasted."

"What the fuck is he doing to it?" Darnell asked. He leaned forward suddenly, his big shoulders going up all the way to his hairline. His brows pulled in, and his eyes disappeared except for small twin gleams. "What the fuck is he up to? I been in this business all my life, and I
never
seen anyone go at fixing a car up the crazy-ass way he is. Is it a joke? A game?"

"I'm not getting you," I said, although I was—I was getting him perfectly.

"Then I'll draw you a pitcher," Darnell said. "He brings it in, and at first he's doing all the things I'd expect him to do. What the fuck, he ain't got money falling out of his asshole, right? If he did, he wouldn't be here. He changes the oil. He changes the filter. Grease-job, lube, I see one day he's got two new Firestones for the front to go with the two on the back."

Two
on the back? I wondered, and then decided he'd just bought three new tires to go with the original new one I'd gotten the night we were bringing it over here.

"Then I come in one day and see he's replaced the windscreen wipers," Darnell continued "Not so strange, except that the car's not going to be going anywhere—rain
or
shine—for a long time. Then it's a new aerial for the radio, and I think, He's gonna listen to the radio while he's working on it and drain his battery. Now he's got one new seat cover and half a grille. So what is it? A game?"

"I don't know," I said. "Did he buy the replacement parts from you?"

"No," Darnell said, sounding aggravated. "I don't know where he gets them. That grille—there isn't a spot of rust on it. He must have ordered it from somewhere. Custom Chrysler in New Jersey or someplace like that, But where's the other half? Up his ass? I never even
heard
of a grille that came in two pieces."

"I don't know. Honest."

He jammed the cigar out, "Don't tell me you're not curious, though. I saw the way you was lookin at that car." I shrugged. "Arnie doesn't talk about it much," I said.

"No, I bet he doesn't. He's a close-mouthed sonofabitch. He's a fighter, though. That Repperton pushed the wrong button when he started in on Cunningham. If he works out okay this fall, I might find a steady job for him this winter. Jimmy Sykes is a good boy, but he ain't much in the brains department." His eyes measured me. "Think he's a pretty good worker, Dennis?"

"He's okay."

"I got lots of irons in the fire," he said. "Lot of irons. I rent out flatbeds to guys that need to haul their stockers up to Philadelphia City. I haul away the junkets after races. I can always use help. Good, trustworthy help."

I began to have a horrid suspicion that I was being asked to dance. I got up hurriedly, almost knocking over the straight chair. "I really ought to get going," I said. "And… Mr Darnell… I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention to Arnie that I was here. He's.. a little touchy about the car. To tell you the truth, his father was curious about how he was coming along."

"Took a little shit on the home front, did he?" Darnell's right eye closed shrewdly in something that was not quite a wink, "Folks ate a few pounds of Ex-Lax and then stood over him with their legs spread, did they?"

"Yeah, well, you know."

"You bet I know." He was up in one smooth motion and clapped me on the back hard enough to stagger me on my feet. Wheezy respiration and cough or not, he was strong.

"Wouldn't mention it," he said, walking me toward the door. His hand was still on my shoulder, and that also made me feet nervous—and a little disgusted.

"I tell you something else that bothers me," he said. "I must see a hundred thousand cars a year in this place well, not that many, but you know what I mean—and I got an eye for 'em. You know, I could swear I've seen that one before. When it wasn't such a dog. Where did he get it?"

"From a man named Roland LeBay," I said, thinking of LeBay's brother telling me that LeBay did all the maintenance himself at some do-it-yourself garage. "He's dead now."

Darnell stopped cold. "LeBay?
Rollie
LeBay?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Army? Retired?"

"Yes."

"Holy Christ, sure! He brought it in Here just as regular as clockwork for six maybe eight years, then he stopped coming. A long time ago. What a bastard that man was. If you poured boiling water down that whoremaster's throat, he would have peed ice cubes. He couldn't get along with a living soul." He gripped my shoulder harder. "Does your friend Cunningham know LeBay's wife committed suicide in that car?"

"What?" I said, acting surprised—I didn't want him to know I'd been interested enough to talk to LeBay's brother after the funeral. I was afraid Darnell might repeat the information to Arnie—complete with his source.

Darnell told me the whole story. First the daughter, then the mother.

"No," I said when he was done. "I'm pretty sure Arnie doesn't know that. Are you going to tell him?" The eyes, appraising again. "Are you?"

"No," I said. "I don't see any reason to.

"Then neither do I." He opened the door, and the greasy air of the garage smelled almost sweet after the cigar smoke in the office. "That sonofabitch LeBay, I'll be damned. I hope he's doing right-face-left-face and to-the-rear-march down in hell." His mouth turned down viciously for just a moment, and then he glanced over at where Christine sat in stall twenty with her old, rusting paint and her new radio aerial and half a grille. "
That
bitch back again," he said, and then he glanced at me. "Well, they say bad pennies always turn up, huh?"

"Yes," I said. "I guess they do."

"So long, kid," he said, sticking a fresh cigar in his mouth. "Say hi to your dad for me."

"I will."

"And tell Cunningham to keep an eye out for that punk Repperton. I got an idea he might be the sort who'd hold a grudge."

"Me too," I said.

I walked out of the garage, pausing once to glance back but looking in from the glare, Christine was little more than a shadow among shadows.
Bad pennies always turn up
, Darnell said. It was a phrase that followed me home.

15 FOOTBALL WOES

Learn to work the saxophone,

I play just what I feel,

Drink Scotch whisky

All night long,

And die behind the wheel

— Steely Dan

School started, and nothing much happened for a week or two. Arnie didn't find out I'd been down to the garage, and I was glad. I don't think he would have taken kindly to the news. Darnell kept his mouth shut as he had promised (probably for his own reasons). I called Michael one afternoon after school when I knew Arnie would be down at the garage. I told him Arnie had done some stuff to the car, but it was nowhere near street-legal. I told him my impression was that Arnie was mostly farting around. Michael greeted this news with a mixture of relief and surprise, but that ended it… for a while.

Arnie himself flickered in and out of my view, like something you see from the corner of your eye. He was around the halls, and we had three classes together, and he sometimes came over after school or on weekends. There were times when it really seemed as if nothing had changed. But he was at Darnell's a lot more than he was at my house, and on Friday nights he went out to Philly Plains—the stock-car track—with Darnell's half-bright handyman, Jimmy Sykes. They ran out sportsters and charger-class racers, mostly Camaros and Mustangs with all their glass knocked out and roll bars installed. They took them out on Darnell's flatbed and came back with fresh junk for the automobile graveyard.

It was around that time that Arnie hurt his back. It wasn't a serious injury—or so he claimed—but my mother noticed that something was wrong with him almost right away. He came over one Sunday to watch the Phillies, who were pounding down the home-stretch to moderate glory that year, and happened to get up during the third inning to pour us each a glass of orange juice. My mother was sitting on the couch with my father, reading a book. She glanced up when Arnie came back in and said, "You're limping, Arnie."

I thought I saw a surprising, unexpected expression on Arnie's face for a second or two—a furtive, almost guilty look. I could have been wrong. If it
was
there, it was gone a second later.

"I guess I strained my back out at the Plains last night," he said, giving me my orange juice. "Jimmy Sykes stalled out the last of the clunks we were loading just when it was almost up on the bed of the truck. I could see it rolling back down and then the two of us goofing around for another two hours, trying to get it started again. So I gave it a shove. Guess I shouldn't have."

It seemed like an elaborate explanation for a simple little limp, but I could have been wrong about that too.

"You have to be more careful of your back," my mother said severely. "The Lord—"

"Mom, could we watch the game now?" I asked.

"—only gives you one," she finished.

"Yes, Mrs Guilder," Arnie said dutifully.

Elaine wandered in. "Is there any more juice, or did you two coneheads drink it all?"

"Come on, give me a break!" I yelled. There had been some sort of disputed play at second and I had missed the whole thing.

"Don't shout at your sister, Dennis," my father muttered from the depths of
The Hobbyist
magazine he was reading.

"There's a lot left, Ellie," Arnie told her.

"Sometimes, Arnie," Elaine told him, "you strike as almost human." She flounced out to the kitchen.

"Almost human, Dennis!" Arnie whispered to me, apparently on the verge of grateful tears. "Did you hear that? Almost
hyooooman
."

And perhaps it is also only retrospection—or imagination—that makes me think his humor was forced, unreal, only a facade. False memory or true one, the subject of his back passed off, although that limp came and went all through the fall.

I was pretty busy in myself. The cheerleader and I had broken it off, but I could usually find someone to step out with on Saturday nights if I wasn't too tired from the constant football practice.

Coach Puffer wasn't a wretch like Will Darnell, but he was no rose; like half the smalltown high school coaches in America, he had patterned his coaching techniques on those of the late Vince Lombardi, whose chief scripture was that winning wasn't everything, it was the
only
thing. You'd be surprised how many people who should know better believe that half-baked horseshit.

A summer of working for Carson Brothers had left me in rugged shape and I think I could have cruised through the season—if it had been a winning season. But by the time Arnie and I had the ugly confrontation near the smoking area behind the shop with Buddy Repperton—and I think that was during the third week of classes—it was pretty clear we weren't going to have a Winning season. That made Coach Puffer extremely hard to live with, because in his ten years at LHS, he had
never
had a losing season. That was the year Coach Puffer had to learn a bitter humility. It was a hard lesson for him and it wasn't so easy for us, either.

Our first game, away against the Luneburg Tigers, was September 9th. Now, Luneburg is just that—a burg. It's a little piss-ant rural high school at the extreme west end of our district, and over my years at Libertyville, the usual battle cry after Luneburg's bumbling defense had allowed yet another touchdown was
TELL-US-HOW-IT-FEELSTO-HAVE-COWSHIT-ON-YOUR-HEELS!
Followed by a big, sarcastic cheer:
RAAAAYYYYYY, LUUUUNEBURG!