"There I am"

Just before Thanksgiving one of my market helpers came out to help erect the shed. This is a miserable structure—one of those low-lying storage cubes you see in people’s yards sometimes. This is the one I’d bought from Sears, spent an afternoon doing some preliminary work on it, then put it aside. That was over six months ago. The instructions had been explicit: “If you don’t have the time to finish this today, DO NOT CONTINUE,” it said. I heeded the advice.

Now the rusted and discolored and dirty panels, made from ultra-thin sheet steel, were ready to be put in place. They’d attracted dirt and weeds and vines from the time spent lying out of doors. Some of the vines had even grown THROUGH the plastic tarp that I’d haphazardly placed over the shed’s parts when I’d abandoned the project. My helper had brought some of his own tools, which turned out to be of no small benefit. First the corners went up, the flimsy metal waving uncertainly in the slightest breeze. As soon as these were in place, it was possible to put some bracing in between—which helped stabilize the sides. I was able to breathe easier now. We worked pretty well as a team, feeling out each other’s strengths and getting a time-saving rhythm going. When all of the sides and most of the roof were installed, we called it quits. It now remains to finish up some trim on the roof and to install the doors. The whole thing cost around three hundred dollars, if I recall correctly, and that money might have been better spent just putting together a “stick-built” building from scratch. It would have taken longer, but the results would have looked better. The shed will do for the time being, housing my riding mower and assorted tools that I have lying about in the yard.

With darkness shrouding the backyard, we put away the tools and loaded up some of the firewood I am giving the young man as partial payment for his efforts. Then we went up the street to the corner restaurant and took away some Thai food. Altogether, we’d been at it since about ten-thirty in the morning.

Early on Thanksgiving I went over to the other house to work a bit on the bathroom. This is work that should have been done long ago, has fallen victim to those lapses when I don’t enter the house, don’t want to think about it. Nothing gets done during those lapses. I chipped away at the remaining wallboard, sending bits and chunks onto a green canvas tarp I’d spread out on the floor. A conservative voice of the people was shouting things over the am radio—the only station that comes in decently. He would yell and yell, lambasting the liberals, the injustice of it all. Then someone would call in and applaud all his yelling and he’d be off again. I chipped away at the poor bathroom, having imposed this sentence of drudgery on myself, knowing that the voice on the radio would go home to a lavish estate with palm trees, swimming pools, a private spa, and so on. All of this paid for a little bit at a time by the anonymous and hard-working dwellers of cornfields, the men with weather-lined faces and neat denim shirts, their wives knowing just what their men need, just what the kids need, just what their world needs. They didn’t like so much to go around yelling all the time, were happy that this voice, this calculating persona on the radio, so deft at exchanging shouts and jabs and insincere bluster for hard cold cash on the barrelhead, would do more than enough yelling to last their lifetime. In turn, they would go out and buy his pomades, his hair gel, the stuff that he says can drastically improve their lives but that he wouldn’t be caught dead with. Not at his place, not with the lavish pools, the tennis courts, the palm trees. No sirree.

I boxed up the debris, now not as voluminous as before, got it ready to put out with the trash, and cleaned up a bit before joining my family for thanksgiving dinner.

This morning I got a few small things accomplished, called a woman who had contacted me about the little station wagon I want to be rid of. A nice, economical car, I thought it would make someone a good, dependable vehicle. With the convertible sports car now in the stable, I didn’t need another car cluttering up the place. She wanted it for her daughter, a new mother of a four-month old baby. Living in the western part of the state, I pictured the new mother with the handsome little car, going out to start it on a cold morning, motoring about the rugged and wild landscape in the sturdy wagon. With dual airbags she would be well-protected, her little daughter strapped into her car seat in the back. I’ve driven it on these roads, know that it is right at home, even on unpaved highways. It has never broken down or left me stranded, I told the concerned mother—the one who was now in the area visiting with family. She and her husband thought that maybe such a car would benefit their daughter, give her an occasional vehicle to use or in the event of an emergency.

I got the car cleaned up a bit, had already vacuumed the interior on a previous occasion. On this cold morning I went out and put twenty bucks worth of gas in it, making the needle rise to about the halfway mark. I drove the quiet and smooth-running car into the wash bay, put in ten quarters, and followed the instructions for the various wash cycles. The cold spray was bitter on this frosty morning, but the car looked fantastic—the alloy wheels gleamed, the paint was shiny and even a little lustrous. We would meet at noon, about an hour hence—the new mother’s parents and I.

On the way home, maybe four or five miles from the house, the car stopped dead. It was finished—had driven its last mile. One minute it was rolling along at a brisk sixty, the engine putting out a comforting warmth from the car’s heater, everything working smoothly and as it should. Now this clunk, a small clunk, and the instant loss of speed as the engine stopped simultaneously with the sound.

I called the mother, the one who had so thoughtfully and generously wanted to make life easier for her daughter and her new grandchild.
“You can cross this off your “to-do” list,” I said. “The car is dead.”
We were to have met in about forty-five minutes.
I offered by way of consolation: “at least it didn’t happen on YOUR watch.” I would have felt terrible if they’d driven the thing away, had it fail on them immediately or even in the near future. At least this was my loss and I could deal with it as I saw fit. A trip to the metal-salvage yard is not out of the question. I should mention that I have not determined what caused the breakdown, but I suspect that the problem is costly and most likely terminal.

Later I was to meet the man who wanted to buy my van. He was going to be late, he said. Yesterday he couldn’t make it, either; his landlord had wanted to talk to him, had wanted to see him in person. He explained that he didn’t have a choice; the landlord wanted to see him and he HAD TO GO. I thought that maybe using the phone for such a matter would save both him and the landlord time and money—gas being ridiculously expensive these days.

I cleaned out the van on the cold afternoon, the stuff mostly going into the new truck I’d brought back from Ohio. Some of it will go back home or into the trash, but for now it went into the spacious new truck. The van’s buyer called from the road, said he’d been involved in a “fender-bender” in a nearby town, that the police were there and that he would be delayed for about an hour. I continued with the truck, finished up what I had set out to do, and headed to the big-box store for some eye-hooks to screw into the wooden slats along the truck’s sides. These would help secure some of the heavier items I would be putting in there. At the hardware store I walked along the row of mostly-empty aisles-- hardly anyone shopping on this Friday after thanksgiving. I came to the aisle where I knew the eye-bolts to be; these were things I’d bought on many other occasions. They’re very useful, you see. The aisle was closed off, with two men getting ready to operate some machinery that would lift them up into the air. I tried not to explode, held myself steady, got it through to them that I needed eye-bolts, didn’t mind waiting if they could maybe get them for me.
“They’re down at that end,” I said, pointing.
They let me in, I got a couple of bags of the things, and let myself back out of the aisle—thanking the two young men for their cooperation. This was one of those days—the breakdown, the near-sale of the car that collapsed precipitously, the “fender-bender,” the seller delayed in a nearby town while I waited for him to come and take the van away. Now this.

I drove back to the van with my purchase, not really able to put the screws to use on this cold evening. It would have to wait, would need the help of a power drill, an extension cord and so on. Presently the man and his friend arrived in a luxury SUV. Now there was a problem with the money, as I’d assumed there would be. The man was short one hundred dollars. He had the rest of the sum in cash, had hundred-dollar bills there to show me, and could I just settle for that, please? It was his landlord, see—the one who’d wanted to talk to him, had needed to tell him in person, not on the phone, that he was raising the rent, that things weren’t going well for him financially, that now the mortgage cost more because of the higher taxes.

I just wanted to sell the van, wanted it out of my life. But on this day, there were other factors at play. Things were starting to have a cumulative effect on me, and now one hundred dollars sounded more and more like a lot of money—like it was just about the most important sum in the world. I’d had the sale of the other car so brutally yanked out from under my feet, with little in the way of warning. I’d been counting the money I’d anticipated from that sale—a paltry fourteen hundred dollars; had seen myself flipping through the crisp bills, fluffing them up a bit, maybe going back to make sure they were still there, still real, and not just a dream. I would pay some bills, would pay for the horrific repairs that the new truck needed. It would all fall into place for once—the extra green easing the way just a little.

“I’ll just give you your deposit back,” I said. I actually had one hundred dollars with me—the amount he’d given me as a deposit. With little fanfare, I called his bluff—took out the bills and handed them to him.
“Good luck,” I said. I was selling the van for a giveaway price, knew that he would not find another vehicle as good as this one.
He managed to produce the additional one hundred dollars. His friend came up with the money, handed it to him. I signed the back of the title and watched as the two drove off.

On the way home I slowed a little on the high-speed road that leads to and from the airport. I was passing my broken-down car there in the breakdown lane—two wheels in the dirt, and two wheels on the more stable and crumbly blacktop.

“There I am,” I thought to myself.