Last July

Chapter two

My Saturday morning started out the same as it had been for the past two years. A three mile run down to the lake and back, grabbing the morning newspaper from Vincent's shop on my way back home, hitting the shower, grabbing what I claimed to be breakfast on my way out and lastly heading to the garage as I was currently doing now. I bit down on the other side of the apple as I drove into the yard and parked the car. We still had three cars to overhaul and fix before the week's end and the week as I checked it to be; had already ended and another was about to start tomorrow. When I said we, it actually should have been I had three cars to fix, since my partner which I was considering heavily to just call an associate, since he never seem to be able to chip in with any of the fixing lately; wasn't doing a damn thing. Well, he did everything except the mechanic part of the business.

When I walked in Brian was elbow deep in engine oil which was dreadfully unusual, worst being he was at work on a Saturday, I checked my watch 8:30am, this early. Removing the jewelry from my hand I changed my shirt and grabbed a brown suit from the hanger in the other room and went back out to see what apocalypse was about to descend that I hadn't heard about.

"What's this about?" I said walking over to take a look at what he was messing with.

He looked up wiping a soiled hand against his damp face leaving black oily smudges across his brow.

"Nothing, I couldn't sleep. Figured I'd come in and put in a few hours"

"I wish you never sleep every night then" I said grabbing a few tools and walking over to the car I had been working on late last night.

He shrugged. "what the hell are you doing here this early anyways?" he called from under the hood.

"If you'd been to work for the last couple weeks or years, you'd know I'm always here at this time" I replied. "I'd be here earlier too if Mr. Henderson's dog didn't decide we had to play fetch this morning"

The irony to that situation was that I was the one, not the dog who was playing fetch since he had somehow gotten to my shoes before I did, exiting the house and ran two houses down before he thought he had enough exercise for the morning to stop running; of course that wasn't the end of that story. The little terrier went back to his house, through his dog door and I had to ring his owner's doorbell to retrieve my own possession.

"Sounds to me like someone's found a happy friend" Brian replied laughing at my demise.

They won't have him around for much longer if he kept taking my shoes every morning.

I went back into the shop about two hours after, writing down my conclusion of the problem. A new carburetor. The last time they seemed to have cleaned it was almost next to never, that should have been a tell-tale sign, the dirt was enough to plant a tree. Initially I thought maybe the stalling was due to oil being lean and also that a few spark plugs needed changing which mean it had problems regulating the amount of air to fuel ratio of the car. Yeah, the engine was in bad shape as well. I rubbed the back of my neck dialing the parts shop, made my order and decided when I was going to pick them up.

It was nine thirty eight when we both pulled away from the cars we had been working on all day. I finished washing my hand and drying my face and went to get a shower. I had missed happy hour every night since last week and I was in desperate need of a drink. We walked into Tino's going our separate ways while I headed to the bar.

"What's it gonna be tonight Andrew?" the bartender asked surprised to see me.

"Scotch. Whisky, the whole works"

He nodded and placed down a waiter and napkin before settling the glass and pouring the liquor.

"Rough week?" he asked cleaning another glass and setting it down.