Cune Magazine
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Cune Magazine |
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Mike's Motor Scott C. Davis These are the events that brought us to Mike one hour before quitting time on Monday afternoon, hard by the interstate, 200 miles from home. We were driving at 55 when the engine began talking to us, tunk,
tunk. We reached an exit and found a gas station, a national franchise with which I have a credit card. “It’s a busted head gasket,” the mechanic said. “We don’t do that work. Go see Marv up the street.” We came to a low building with a flat roof. Inside, the office walls were bare plywood, covered with grease. A heavy man sat behind the desk. He smiled. “Cain’t check it out for least a week,” said Marv. “Why
don’t you go see that place seven blocks up, behind the tire store.” Seven blocks up we came to a cement–block building with a mansard
roof. The roof was covered with molded, aluminum shakes painted yellow. Plywood letters, hand–cut and painted blue,
stood out against the yellow roof: AUTO REPAIR. A chunk was missing from an R. “Probably the water pump,” said Mike’s boss. “Bearings are going out.” Mike drove the car into the garage and lifted the hood. He had a red rose tattooed on the inside of his right forearm. “To me, it’s a broke radiator thermostat,” he said,
“from the sound of it.” Mike did not need my help, so I went into the office to wait. I sat on a reclining chair covered in vinyl. From beneath it came an electric cord. The chair was old, the cord was not plugged in. I
read a newspaper while a soap opera played on the color TV. Mike entered the office, talked to his boss, then returned to the
garage. I entered the garage. Mike was under the hood prying at a piece of the engine with a screwdriver. A seal was cut and mashed. “The bolt broke,” he said. “I got to get this bolt outa here without breaking the
housing.” He still didn’t need my help. Outside, cars were parked diagonally against a chain–link fence. I saw a truck and a white, 1960 Thunderbird. It could be purchased for $3,500, according to a cardboard sign taped inside the
rear window. The hood of the T–bird was up, a mechanic leaned under the hood,
and the owner—like me—was pacing back and forth. He was tall and had gray hair. “You know,” he said, “the man
who got rid of horses and brought in these things lost the whole battle.” Half an hour later we were back on the interstate, heading home,
giving no thought to the new radiator thermostat, cooled by air rushing in the grill, or to the housing in which it was mounted, or the new bolts that fastened the housing, or the new seal between the two
halves of the housing, or to Mike who had freed the rusted bolt and repaired our car without my help. If you like this article, post it on your favorite website or e-mail it to your friends.
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