a/n: originally written october 2018


Detroit
1957

Lunch started at exactly noon. By ten minutes after all the men were either sitting in their own cars outside, or leaning against the workbenches with their paper bags—lovingly packed by their wives—or straddling the iron scaffolding. For once the buzz of equipment was silent. Even the foreman wasn't speaking—he took lunch in his office, door locked, so he could call who some men claimed was his wife and others claimed was the pretty young owner of the nail salon a block to the west.

Mark and Henry sat side by side at the edge of what the workmen called the "ditch"—the place wherein they climbed down by ladder every morning and began working on the undercarriages of the cars as they ran down the assembly line. Together they unwrapped their sandwiches—pimento for Mark, liverwurst for Henry—and tipped together the edges of their Coke bottles. Briefly Mark let the back of his hand skim the back of Henry's. Then they began to eat.

Talk for a while was scarce—Henry was a quiet man, and Mark as always was focused on not embarrassing himself by eating too quickly and getting food all over his work uniform. But then gradually Henry began to open up—his son was set to present in the science fair next week, and his wife was going out of town for a full three days, which opened up all kinds of possibilities. From there the conversation meandered into work territory—how's the floor? how's welding?—and then, at last, Mark wiped his mouth and said what he'd been aiming to say since the bell had rung half an hour ago:

"Have you done any work on those new Chryslers?"

Henry didn't quite glance at Mark, but the set of his shoulders went very still. "You mean the DeSotos?"

"No," shaking his head, watching Henry's face carefully. "The Plymouths. Those Furies, the new models. The ones set to release next September."

Henry set the remains of his sandwich down in his lap and took a swig of Coke. "Yeah," he said, after a slight pause. "Might've worked a little on some here'n there. Why?"

Mark shifted his shoulders. "No reason," he said.

"Not knockin' my work, are you?" Henry asked, and bumped their elbows together.

"No, no," Mark said hastily, which made Henry laugh, and the tension in his shoulders alleviated somewhat—enough that Mark could relax, and look out over the ditch, instead of at that strange twist to his mouth. "The welding's perfect, like always. We both know how good you are with your hands," in a lowered tone. Henry's neck went red under the blue collar and he busied himself with crumpling the plastic in which his wife had wrapped his sandwich.

"So what're you askin' for, then," Henry asked, "if not for what I did myself?"

Mark cleared his throat. "It's—you're gonna think I'm being stupid."

"Nah," Henry said.

"Okay." Mark scrubbed the back of his neck. He swept the lingering taste of pimento off his teeth. "It's about that one—that red one."

Now the stiffening in Henry's shoulders was unmistakable. "That one was a custom job," he said. "Man named Roland LeBay ordered it special from some shithole town in Pennsylvania."

"Yeah," said Mark, "I remember hearing that."

"So what about it?"

"Have you—done any particular work on it?"

Henry tossed the last bits of his sandwich back into his bag and set it crumpled at his side. Mark tried not to watch too obviously at the way his mouth folded over the rim of his Coke. For several seconds Mark was sure he wasn't going to answer—Henry often just let a conversation die if he didn't want to continue it. But then Henry said,

"I did some. I put together the bumper. Most seamless job I ever done. Swear I…" He hesitated. "I ain't even sure how I got it done like I did. But if LeBay ain't happy with it then I'm gonna rent me a fuckin' tow truck, drive out to Whateverthefuckville myself, and just take it right back here."

Mark laughed dutifully. "Okay," he said. "So you've been around it a bit."

"Yeah," said Henry. "That's not the question you wanted to ask, is it? 'cause that's not a dumb question, but you're a dumbass for thinking it would be—"

"No, shut up, I'm not finished," said Mark. "Listen. When you did your work, did you notice anything—strange?"

Henry tapped his finger against his bottle. It made a strange hollow sound in the relative quiet of the workshop. "Yeah," he said, finally. "Like I said, that bumper was sure put together nice. Even by my standards. And I, uh—" He glanced over his shoulder. "Now you're gonna think I'm crazy, but that radio's come on a couple times by itself."

"Faulty wiring," suggested Mark, despite the jolt he'd felt in his chest.

"Yeah, 's what I thought too. But I've reported it to Cal and Reggie in mechanical about ten times, and it just keeps happening."

Mark took the last swig of his own Coke, trying to swallow down the sudden dryness in his mouth. "I've noticed it too," he said, quietly, and Henry looked at him. "That and other things. Just some weird shit I won't even get into 'cause it's just too—odd. I'm sure I must just have Halloween on my mind."

Neither of them mentioned Halloween was still two and a half months away.

"Cars can't think on their own," Mark said.

"No," Henry said.

"They're just cars. They're just there to transport us places."

"Right," Henry said. He wiped his own mouth and stood as the ten minute-warning bell sounded. "Let's get back to work, huh?"

Mark also stood, nodding, folding up his paper bag. As they started walking together towards the trashcan Henry said, "You know, that car kinda reminds me of someone."

"Who?" Mark asked.

Henry grinned. "My wife."

Mark began laughing. It was a slight, nervous laugh, underneath the humor—Henry's wife, Christine, was a suspicious, shrewd woman, and Henry had hit it on the nose without even meaning to: the strange, tight energy Mark had felt from the car, every time he walked around it, near it, in front of it. If he had to sit in it to check something. When the radio snapped on randomly. Those strange humming noises the engine made sometimes, with no key in the ignition.

They walked to the trashcan, threw away their lunches, made quick affirmations of when Mark could arrive at Henry's after his wife had left for her three-day excursion. Then they clapped each other on the arms and headed off in separate directions.


Libertyville
1978

Roland had his hand wrapped around his chaffed cock, legs bent up painfully on the molding sheets. He was picturing a blend of faces—Veronica choking on that burger, Rita flushed and silent with exhaust fumes still clinging to her clothes, Georgie screaming with his arm shoved through from the fence. And underneath it all the fresh glide of Christine as she streaked down the highway. If he could just get his fucking back working again he could fix her up like that again. If he could just get out of this brace he could make her really fly—

He came, hardly feeling it, picturing her as she had been the day he'd driven out to Detroit to pick her up. Those two fucks had sold her to him at the dealership with six miles on the odometer—the Dago shitter and his queer friend, pockmarked face, who first told him the car's name was Christine. She's a vengeful bitch, he'd said, laughing. Dumb shitters, what had they known? Christine had never treated him less than perfectly. She'd killed off every fuck in his life he wanted gone, hadn't she? So what that he'd ended up in a brace trying to fix her, so what that he'd felt like shit for the past six years since he'd been forced to put her in that garage. Chris was his girl, and dammit, he was gonna get better—treat her right—

She revved her engine. He felt it more than heard it—his hearing was less than perfect these days—but it was enough to get him off the bed and waddling outside, cock still hanging out, to the garage. Christine hadn't spoken to him in so long he'd thought she wasn't gonna do it again. He pulled up the door—it made a horrible rasping sound, not unlike the sound Veronica had made while choking—and found Christine sitting exactly where he'd left her. She was rusting, badly, sunken down a little where her tires had gone flat with disuse, and there was dirt caked on her windows, but she was speaking to him, in that same non-voice she'd used from Detroit on:

It's time, Rollie.

He felt something drain from his face. Maybe the last of whatever color was left. "No."

Yes. She revved her engine again—weak, puttering sound. Why should I want you to keep me around? All you do is hide me away.

He swallowed a sudden rush of saliva—don't get sick don't get sick she hates that. "It's my back," he said. He hated how weak his voice sounded—the years had stripped that away too. "When I get well—"

I don't think you're ever going to get well, Christine said. He noticed her windshield wipers were crooked, like they'd been broken at some unremembered juncture. I think you'll just waste away in that house.

"No."

And let me waste away too, in here. Bury me with you like you buried those two cunts.

"No."

I won't have it, Rollie. I won't.

He wiped cold sweat off his forehead. His hand was shaking so badly he had trouble lifting it. "Christine—"

I want to be out there, thrusting a picture in his mind, his piebald lawn, the yellowing grass thrust up around the dirt and the rocks. I want to be out there by next week with a For Sale sign.

"Please," Roland said, "please don't do this—"

Don't cry, you shitter.

He reached up again to touch his face. The slick wet on his cheeks was indeed tears—he'd thought it was oil; that she was leaking out of him already.

Put me out on your lawn. I can feel someone in this town is just about ready to take me.

"Who?" Roland licked his lips; they were dry. "What shitter would dare—"

I'M NOT TELLING YOU THE NAME. Another choked-off engine rev. Flash of teeth in the grille. The headlights like eyes. Roland shuddered all over—then he straightened up as much as he could with his back pinging and weeping.

You'll do as you're told, Christine said. You won't fuck this up for me.

Roland cleared his throat. "All right," he said, at last. "All right." Then, back still aching, he loped to the shelves—coated with an inch and a half of dust—and began looking, not daring to glance at Christine, for the oil and gasoline.