Forever Innocent
Page 19

The motor clunked on starting up, a telltale sign of a misaligned engine. I glanced back at the work order to make sure they’d checked to make sure nothing else had been damaged. Fans could get chipped, hoses torked, a whole host of problems. I’d go over it all again after everything was back in place.
I pulled into the bay, starting to feel grateful for the task, work that would require more concentration than changing a filter, maybe get Corabelle out of my head for a while. Mario came up with the box containing the mount bracket and waited for me to step out. “Lemme know if you need a hand on the realign.”
“Will do.”
The hood popped up smoothly, and I peered into the Camaro’s guts. The inside of the motor mount was cracked clean through, but the bracket was easy to access. I just had to jack the block for support. The job would take less than an hour, if it all went well.
The clang of other mechanics working this end of the garage was a soothing sound. I rolled a jack under the car and steadied the engine. Everyone did their jobs with competence and skill. I could see the appeal of this sort of work. Finite, black and white, cut and dried. Unlike studying in school, where it seemed half the time you were spinning your wheels, memorizing something you’d never need to know again, or writing the same essay on Milton that a million other undergrads had done before.
I should just quit, lie to Bud about it, and pretend to go to class. I could keep up the ruse until December and if Bud kept feeding me real work, I’d be qualified for a better job. Mom might not like it, but hell, I wasn’t around them anymore. And my asshole father never approved of anything I did anyway. Screw that. After that scene with Corabelle, maybe I was turning out to be just like him.
The socket wrench fit neatly on the bolt. I remembered watching other boys with their dads, fixing bikes or playing ball with easy camaraderie. Mine had always been intense, angry, disapproving.
Once when we worked on my mother’s overheating Oldsmobile, I thought I was being so smart by using a towel to open the hot radiator. But when it spewed boiling water and antifreeze, Dad backhanded me so hard that I fell over my sister’s bike, breaking the wheel.
My life seemed like a series of missteps that pissed off my father. Now that I’d been around the block a few times, I knew some kids had it worse. They got in the line of fire just for existing.
When I was little, I felt like I deserved it, punishment for doing something stupid or wrong. Only later did I start to push back. If I went home now, we’d probably kill each other within five minutes.
The bracket came off easily, and I set it aside. Now to remove the long bolt to the mount.
Even when we got old enough to walk around the neighborhood without our parents, I never let Corabelle come over to my house, preferring the quiet simplicity of her family — mother, father, one little girl. But in that middle space when I was small enough to push around, but big enough to take a harder lick, the asshole sometimes really unleashed, like the day I got knocked across the driveway.
Corabelle had seen those bruises and looked up at me with wide sympathetic eyes. She started showing up and hanging out when my dad insisted I help him, reading or poking at the straggly flowers my mother tried to plant by the front steps. Her presence kept my dad in check, just one of the many ways that she saved me.
The mount was out, and I had to do the tricky part, get the new one to align.
Dad caught on pretty quick to when Corabelle and I shifted from little-kid friends to a boy and girl who were messing around. Early on, when I was thirteen, he grabbed me by the collar and flung me into the wall, telling me I better not go around knocking up any girls, or he’d throw my ass out.
By the time I was in high school, and Corabelle and I were crazy tight, I hardly stayed home at all. Her parents saw the handwriting on the wall and got her on that birth-control shot. Once that barrier was crossed we were insane, at each other every minute, and I couldn’t get enough of her. Now, sweating over the engine, I could picture every inch of her body.
Finding out about the baby was a huge blow. Because of the shot, we didn’t know what was going on for several weeks. She thought she had the flu, then that she was tired from staying up too late. I bought the test and stood over her while she peed on the stick. The sight of her astonished face as the two lines appeared is one of those moments seared into my memory.
We never bothered telling my parents about the baby, letting the town gossip handle it. I moved in with her and vowed never to let my father cast an eye on my son.
The new bracket wouldn’t align, so I shifted the jack up a notch, trying to find the sweet spot. I could call Mario over, get him to eyeball it while I worked the lever, but only if it took too long. I’d done it by myself before.
Clearly the work wasn’t occupying my mind well enough. I tried to shake off the past, how I worried about what sort of dad I could possibly be, having the worst possible example. When the baby was sick, and then when they told us he wouldn’t make it, I figured the score. The universe knew I wouldn’t do any better. The bad-father gene would end with me. After the funeral, I went to Mexico to make sure of it, even though I knew it meant I had to give up Corabelle.
Bud came out of the office. “How’s it coming?”
I walked around the side to check the screw mounts. They were aligned. “Just putting the last bolts in.”
“Good, ’cause the owner’s here to pick it up already, and I don’t think I can endure that woman one more minute.”
I chuckled. “Bud menaced by a woman. Never thought I’d see it.”