The Nine Wrecks on a Rented Rack

Monday

Monday morning Wes and I were at the shop at seven. The sun was just coming up over the trees east of the lot, and the gravel was wet with dew.

The first car was the dairy hand’s hatchback. It was a rear hit, the back frame rails pushed forward about an inch on the driver’s side.

Lu said it was a good one to start on because it was simple and the damage was all in one direction.

We clamped it at the pinch welds. I set the chain off the tower at the angle Lu called out, and Wes worked the pump handle while I watched the gap and the gauge.

“Slow,” Lu said on the speaker. “Slow. Let it sit. Metal needs time to think. Now let off and measure.”

I measured with the tram gauge, point to point, against the numbers on the dimension sheet. We were off by about five millimeters. I told Lu.

“Pull again,” he said. “Same angle. Little less pressure. And put a little heat on that kink in the rail, just enough to relax it, not enough to change the color.”

We pulled again. I measured again. Two millimeters. Lu said that was inside the tolerance on that car, and I measured it three more times anyway because my hands would not stop shaking.

By noon the hatchback was off the rack. By three, the second car, Gwen’s minivan, was straight too.

Wes and I sat on the tailgate of the rental trailer and ate peanut butter crackers in the sunshine and did not say much.

That afternoon Orval’s truck went by on the county road. He slowed down in front of the shop. I saw him look in through the open door. He did not stop.

Tuesday

Tuesday was harder. The mail carrier’s sedan had a front hit that had pushed the right front strut tower back, and the right rail had a kink that Lu did not like the look of in the photographs I sent him.

We did that one in three pulls, with heat, and measured after every one. It took until two in the afternoon.

My shoulders ached all the way down into my back, and I thought about Lu and his thirty years, and I understood him better than I ever had.

The farm wife’s crossover went faster. It was a side hit, and the frame was barely tweaked. We had it off the rack by five, while the light was still good.

Orval drove by again Tuesday. This time he pulled over across the road by the grain elevator and sat there for maybe ten minutes with the engine running. Then he drove off.