Pretty Eddy's

Over at Pretty Eddy’s, the puddles were forming small lagoons in the lanes between the junked cars. You pay a dollar to get into this place, which offsets—I imagine—the pilferage that must surely go on, as customers rummage through the dead automobiles and trucks, scavenging for a part that doesn’t necessarily have to be new. Just so long as it fits, and works a bit longer, everything should be okay. I walked through the main avenue, down to the rest of the yard, where they kept the vans and trucks. I was headed to the area where I could find a few miscellaneous things for my precious Dodge pickup. Having spent a pittance on the truck itself, I was now determined not to be excessive about further expenditures where it was concerned. A spare tire would be nice, maybe a jack and tools to change it with, some other miscellaneous things and a radio to fill in the space in the dashboard. These things were all there, waiting to be removed. A woman came out from the left side of the main avenue of dead cars, waving a pen and pencil-holder. She didn’t look like the kind of woman you’d see there, and she said this as I passed: “You can never have too many pens and pencils!” She was enthusiastic and happy about her find, probably having just discovered it in someone’s car. Not really expecting this, but wanting to be polite and observe somewhat normal etiquette there in the salvage yard, I replied, “Madam, the pen is mightier than the sword.” I didn’t really say that, but wished I had. What I really said was, “Oof, where? Oh lord now you’ve gone and done it.”

So I wheeled away a spare tire complete with a steel rim, both in brand-new condition—or almost. Also a radio and a heater control, although the one in the truck was fine, just a little cracked on one side. To my salvage yard shopping cart I added a shiny new jack from a late-model truck and a tire iron to remove the lug nuts with. It was a good haul, and this place charges very little for these items. While out there rummaging about, I came across a man of about my age, from Colombia but speaking excellent English. He was after a part on a Dodge van, so I helped with its removal, the whole piece being not too difficult to extract, but needing really the hands of two people. In return, he helped identify a very good tire and rim and a jack for my truck, which of course I’d told him all about. It’s what you do out there in the mud and the muck, with the puddles receding in the afternoon sun, and the woman with her pens and pencils popping out from a row of cars.

Both trucks are now stuck in the mud. The one truck is awaiting its purchaser, who recently came by to deposit more money towards its price. I’d wheeled the old Mercury down to the bottom of the driveway and out onto the dirt area where the Bobcat men had been working. It will stay there for a while, until someone pulls it out. Now the Dodge is also stuck, having been parked on the dirt, then having some heavy rains make the area too soft to drive out of. For the moment I have given up, will simply wait until the weather dries things out and makes it possible to get the Dodge unstuck, at the very least. It would be nice to make a run to the lumberyard to fetch some materials for the deck, as J.O. and I have recently put up most of its supporting structure. It now remains to finish up a few odds and ends and start fastening the deck boards down. I don’t have any deck boards, however.

Later I drove over to Sancho’s Vision Tarp to pick up my glasses. Sancho was still out front, with his enormous pink sombrero, and inside was a young woman helping a customer who was peppering her with a thousand questions about his glasses.
“Will the lenses be clear?”
“Yes, we sell clear lenses.”
“Will they make me see better?” he asked.
“If it’s a stronger prescription, your vision should be improved,” said the young woman.
“Do you have another style of frame? This one doesn’t look right.”
And on and on like this, with the woman telling the customer that he could choose from any of the frames on the walls. He went immediately to the women’s frames, picked one out, held it to his face and put it on, turning this way and that in front of the mirror. He looked at the store clerk, asked, “Is Sancho here? I saw a man with a pink sombrero out front.”

I told the store-woman that I’d been called this morning, was there to pick up my glasses.
When I put them on, it was like the brilliance of a theatre’s cinema screen suddenly coming to life in a darkened movie-house. The detail and sharp edges of everything came into focus, the colors looked more pure, more real than life, everything was imbued with an unimagined and forgotten brilliance and vigor. Everyone looked happier.
“God, what an idiot I’ve been!” I cursed to myself, “Walking around with those hideously fogged-up glasses, with an outdated prescription.” I did a little more mental self-flagellation, then headed out to the parking lot, where the mid-April sky surely had little wisps of clouds I couldn’t see before, where the different shades out over the end-of-day horizon were like an award-winning photograph.
“I CAN SEE! I CAN SEE!” I cried, my arms outstretched in the parking lot, with Sancho’s Vision Tarp sign a few feet away. A donut truck slowed, honked its horn for me to get out of the way. A small child with a box of candied popcorn silently drifted by with his mother, every crumb and kernel visible in the greatest of detail. His expression was commited to nothing, no thoughts could you discern there in his eyes. But mechanically, like a robot, his hand fed the sugared snack into his mouth like a coal-tender of old keeping the furnace stoked.

“This is just great,” I thought.

To celebrate my new eyes, I went home and sketched some ideas for bathroom and kitchen installations. Included in the kitchen is the unique and innovative “Cabinet of Burgers,” which will make having a burger at any time much more practical. It works on the same principle as your refrigerator’s ice dispenser. In the bathroom, I would like to see a “Wall of Faucets.” It just seems like a nice idea. I think these two features will set the house apart from all the others out there. As a bonus, I no longer have to take off my glasses for up-close work, so making this sketch was easy and fun.