Better Hallway Vision
by: UnicornPammy
A/N: I had so much trouble with this chapter. Blah... I hope you guys enjoy it, because I worked hard. : þ Anyway, tell me what you think. Thanks so much to Kendall for her wonderful beta-ing. She's been a big help lately. I'm just sad I didn't have her to look over my stuff from the beginning. Thanks also to everyone who has reviewed so far, and to everyone who reviewed me the first time around. Hugs and kisses all around.
Chapter 11: Red Hot
Sunday after lunch, it started raining. Dante wanted to get some work done when he wasn't being rushed by customers, so after they returned to the garage he opened the rear bay doors to let in some air and started working. After a lot badgering and name-calling and whining, John finally talked Dante into letting him do something.
"Go," Dante finally said, handing John some paperwork. "Work on that car." Then he pointed to a red and black late-model Mustang up on a lift in the bay farthest from Dante's office. John checked the paperwork. It was an '84 GT, needing an inspection, oil change, and tune-up. He just shook his head as he looked up at it. What he wouldn't give to have a car like that, although his taste lay more in the muscle cars from the late sixties to early seventies.
John went into Dante's store room and grabbed the right kind of oil and oil filter for the car. Dante specialized in sports cars, and actually had a following among local street racers, so he almost always had the right kind of replacement and maintenance parts for more exotic cars. He placed a pan under the car and let the old oil drain out, then snooped around a little. It seemed that someone had gone for the full package on this car. It was a five speed V8, red with blacked out trim and a wide matte black stripe on the hood from the grille to the windshield. The T-top was okay, but he probably would have preferred a sunroof. It just made more sense from a practical standpoint. Still, all in all it was a bad ass car. He wondered if the owner realized what he had.
He stopped when he saw the license plate: RED HOT. He glanced at the work order, trying to read the customer's name, but Dante's handwriting was indecipherable, although he thought he saw an "St," and maybe it ended in "-ish."
"Who's car is this?" he yelled over top of KISS's Destroyer album.
Dante had a car up on the lift in the next bay over, assessing some damage to the undercarriage, occasionally writing notes on the clipboard in his hand. He looked over at John with a worried expression. "Why, what'd you do to it?"
"Nothing, Roger. Unbunch your panties. I was just curious." He finished letting the oil drain and then twisted on a new filter. Then he lowered the car to the ground and tipped a five gallon jug of dark amber oil into the funnel he'd already placed in the top of the motor. When it was gone he checked the dipstick. Full. He checked all the other fluids and moved on to the tune-up. He tested the battery and the spark plugs. "Did she have any complaints about how it's been running?"
Dante glanced up briefly from his notes then looked back down. "Yeah, she said it was–" He jerked his head up. "How do you know it belongs to a woman?"
John raised an eyebrow. "There's a Pat Benetar tape in the passenger seat."
Dante stared at him for a few seconds, and John thought he saw a relieved expression briefly pass across the older man's face. "I like Pat Benetar."
"Yeah, you would. So, who does it belong to?" John pestered.
Dante started writing again and wouldn't look at him. "No one you know." He placed a slight emphasis on the you.
For some reason Andy's words came back to him then. You may as well not even exist. They pissed him off all over again. But Dante was right. He never would have met her if he hadn't pulled the fire alarm and she hadn't gone shopping, both in the same week. He shouldn't know her.
John shook his head, pushing away the anger. He knew her now. The circumstances of their meeting could not make it any less legitimate. "Anyway, it's probably trying to stall out on her a lot. She needs new spark plug wires. Probably a factory defect."
"That's what I thought, too. Good catch. I knew I paid you for a reason."
"Maybe cuz you know I'd just steal it from you if you didn't."
Dante gave a derisive snort. "I'd beat you with my cane if you tried."
They fell into a companionable silence after that, working on their respective cars. John completed the tune-up, trying not to imagine her in the driver's seat with black sunglasses on her face and her red hair tossed by the wind, her right hand curved easily around the shift knob. The thought of Claire driving a car like this should have surprised him. It didn't. And it shouldn't have affected him so much to think that he might be taking care of her car, keeping her safe.
It did.
OoOoOoOoOo
John stood beside the red Mustang, wiping the excess grease off his hands with a shop rag. He'd finished the Mustang a long time ago, and had been working on the car with the damaged undercarriage. He'd done about as much as he could do to that car without further consent from the customer, so he was going back to start up the Mustang again. It idled beautifully now, not like before, where the needle of the tachometer would jump up and down constantly while the engine sounded like it wanted to die any minute. Satisfied, he turned the car off and patted the dashboard fondly. Then he got out and went to see what his friend was doing.
Dante was tightening the lugnuts on an old Chevy pickup he had on a lift. The staccato ratcheting sound of the air wrench echoed throughout the garage, beating at John's eardrums.
"Don't you ever take a day off?" John said when he was done. Dante put the air wrench away and pressed the button to lower the lift. The 1959 Chevy Apache touched down gently on the ground. It was powder blue with a few rust splotches on the bed. Dante patted the fender fondly, like he would a faithful steed.
"This isn't business. This is pleasure," he said.
"That's yours?"
"Yep, my brand new baby." John started forward, then walked around the truck, inspecting it. "Don't get any fingerprints on her. That paint is new."
"When did you get it?"
"Last week. Some old guy passed away, and his kids didn't want it, so they sold her to me."
"How much did you pay?"
"Five hundred."
John looked skeptical. "Wow. She's worth at least ten times that amount."
Dante missed the sarcasm. "Yeah, but she sat in a garage for five years. Needed all new gaskets, the tires were dry-rotted, and first gear was stripped."
John snorted. "What a bargain."
Dante ran loving eyes over the truck. "She's worth it." He patted the fender again, then grabbed his cane from where it was leaning against his work cart. "C'mon, let's go get some dinner."
They went up the outside stairs into the apartment above the garage to get cleaned up. Dante had only used the apartment for about a year after he bought the garage, until he felt comfortable enough to buy a house. He still kept it stocked with a few spare changes of clothes, some food and toiletries. Sometimes John stayed there, but not too often. It made him uncomfortable to be surrounded by Dante's life, since there were still boxes of stuff that Dante had yet to transfer to his house. John didn't like the happy family portraits, or the racing trophies, or the yearbooks filled with so many signatures that he could barely tell what color the paper was underneath the ink. It made him angry to look at all that stuff, but sometimes he didn't have anywhere else to go.
They took turns washing up in the small bathroom, then went back downstairs. Dante limped his way into the office and grabbed his amber-handled cane, the one he used only when he wasn't up to his vocal chords in grease.
He'd grabbed something else, too, and suddenly it was flying in the air towards John. He heard a musical clink and saw a flash of metal; instinctively he reached up and caught what Dante had thrown to him. When he opened his hand, he saw it was a set of keys. The Chevy bowtie symbol hung on a chain from the keyring. For a brief second John though Dante was going to say, "Take her, she's yours." He quickly squashed the accompanying emotion. Not a chance.
"Hungry?" Dante said, confirming John cynicism. Dante would never just give him a car. He'd definitely have to earn it.
But this was the first time Dante ever suggested that John should drive.
He unlocked the driver's side door and slid onto the split white vinyl-covered bench seat, then reached across the cab and pulled up on the other lock so Dante could get in. He did so slowly, painfully, and John was really starting to worry about his friend. He stared at him for a long moment, until Dante looked up. "What?" he said, his expression and his voice conveying annoyance and frustration.
John shook his head. "Nothin." He reached down and turned the key. The engine took a little sweet-talking and a little priming with the gas pedal, but John got her fired up, and they backed out of the bay into the back lot. Dante handed him the keys so he could do the whole routine with unlocking and relocking the back gate.
They were silent during the short trip to the diner. John could feel Dante's irritation, but he didn't quite know the cause of it. He could understand how it could be frustrating to have a certain part of you body hurt every time it rained, but he wasn't usually this pissy.
He also didn't usually use his cane so much.
They had a quiet dinner, then returned to the garage. They talked for a while about the few adjustments Dante would need to make to the truck before it would be gloat-worthy. Then they went upstairs and Dante pulled down his newest bottle of Jim Beam Black, which just happened to be John's favorite whiskey. They sat down in Dante's old, over-stuffed armchairs and took turns taking swigs. John felt the warmth settle through his body after a while, making him light-headed and sleepy. When he looked over at Dante, he noticed that the older man seemed morose and a bit broody.
"What'sa fuck's the matter with you, man? You been PMSin' all day," John slurred.
"Shut up, kid. Drink your fuckin' whiskey." Dante handed the bottle back to John, and he took another swig.
"I love bourbon, man. Goes down smoother than regular whiskey, but it still gets you just as drunk."
Dante reached over and snatched the bottle away. "Give me that. You're too young. Don't want to wind up a fucking drunk like your old man."
"C'mon, Pollyanna, give it back." John took a swipe at the black-labeled bottle and missed, almost falling face-first out of his chair. While John was fighting to keep his balance, Dante tipped his head back and swallowed the last of the liquor.
OoOoOoOoOo
When John woke up, it was dark. He lifted his head from the back of the chair, and regretted it. His vision swam, and there was a dull ache in his neck, a rythmic throbbing that was echoed by the pain behind his eyes. He rested his head in his hands for a few moments, and wound up falling back to sleep. When he woke up again, he couldn't tell how much later it was, but the digital clock across the room said 4:30 am. He had to get up now if he wanted to go home and get changed before school.
Without turning on any lights, John felt his way to the bathroom. After closing the door he flipped on the light switch, wincing as the glare from the bare bulb stabbed at his eyes. He leaned heavily on the sink, turning on the cold water and rinsing out his mouth. It tasted like the inside of a football player's cleat. When he felt a little more awake, he turned on the shower and began undressing. One hot shower later, he still felt like shit, but at least he was clean shit. He put on his old clothes, and caught a whiff of Weasel's apartment.
Dante's loud snores accompanied him out the door.
It was very dark outside, but he knew his way home. He'd wandered this part of town enough that he could navigate it with his eyes shut. It took him about an hour to get home. He let himself in through the front door and moved quietly through the living room and down the hall.
When he got to his bedroom door he pushed it open. It hadn't shut right since his dad had knocked it off the hinges three years ago. That was a memorable fight. It had been the first time he'd ever gotten the better of Bill Bender.
The door swung in, and he stopped it just before it creaked. He looked in. Barely discernible among the charcoal shadows was the vague outline of a dingy wife-beater. John stood in the doorway, not moving, barely breathing. Hoping that he himself was just a vague shadow. Hoping that Big Bender was dead. But then he heard the slow, even rattle that told him his old man was asleep or passed out. John prayed that he was too drunk to fake it.
Creeping into the room, he moved over to his dresser, which stood with half the drawers pulled out and piled high with ratty jeans and old band t-shirts, a few flannel shirts and some sweat pants. He rummaged through them as silently as possible, not really caring what he found as long as it was different from the clothes he'd been wearing for the past two days.
John found a pair of jeans and a random shirt, then reached in the top drawer for clean underwear and socks. When he thought he had some of both in his hand, he crept back out of his room and across the hall into the bathroom. Locking the door, he changed quickly, not even turning the light on. He felt around for the toothbrush he'd hidden under the sink. He found it and held it briefly under the tap then hurriedly scrubbed his teeth. He had to hide it from Big Bender, or the old man would use it for unpleasant things and then put it back like it was untouched.
That was the best he could do in the dark. Slowly, he unlocked the bathroom door. Slowly, he turned the knob. He moved to the side of the doorway so that when he opened the door he wouldn't be an immediate target. Just in case. John inched the door open, and slowly peered out into the hallway. And there was Big Bender, standing in the doorway to John's room.
"Where do you think you're going?" His old man's voice was low and gravelly, harsh from many years of cheap liquor and cheap cigars, and very close in the darkness.
"School."
"You think I'm stupid, don't you? It's fucking Saturday. What are you doing at school on a fucking Saturday?"
"It's Monday, retard."
There was a long pause from his father. Then, "Think you're fucking better than everybody else because you go to school? Think I can't fuck you up just because you go to school?"
John didn't say anything. He just stood there, his body tensed, waiting. Big Bender moved forward and John took a step back, but his dad turned suddenly and shambled off down the hall toward his own bedroom. John allowed himself to breathe again, then went back into his bedroom with all the clothes he had just taken off. Those he shoved into the bottom of his closet.
John made his way to school after that, wandering through the pre-dawn neighborhoods. A few dogs barked at him, and maybe one or two cars passed by on the road, but otherwise he was alone.
And then he stood at the edge of the woods surrounding the football field, a half-smoked cigarette in his hand and his sunglasses in place as the vague gray non-color which preceded dawn slowly leaked away, revealing the brighter, though still limited hues of an early spring morning in a Chicago suburb.
The first bell had yet to ring. He'd never been to school this early before. He blew out a white stream of smoke and looked down at his cigarette. It was mostly gone, almost down to the filter. He got as much as he could out of it, then sighed and flicked it away, shoving both hands into the deep pockets of his old tweed trench coat. He tried to squelch the unfamiliar feelings of excitement and nervousness, didn't understand the anxious flutterings in his chest and stomach.
He lit up another cigarette, hoping it would ease his nerves. It pissed him off. He hated feeling afraid. What the hell was he afraid of? And what the hell was he doing at schoolso goddamn early? John wandered over to the football field and climbed the bleachers, all the way to the top. He stared at the ugly concrete box that was Shermer High School, feeling so many mixed emotions about the place. He hated it, and at the same time, it was a place he had escaped to more times than he could count.
The faint ringing echo of the first bell reverberated across the football field, then died as it hit the trees. John just sat there on the bleachers, smoking his cigarette. It helped a little, calmed his nerves. He flicked some ash off the tip. He couldn't believe he was there. And all because of a girl.