The Nine Wrecks on a Rented Rack

Wednesday

By Wednesday Wes had gotten fast. I mean fast. He could set a clamp before I had the dimension sheet unfolded, and he had started calling out his own chain angles before Lu could.

“That’s good, son,” Lu said on the speaker, the first time Wes got one right. “That’s exactly what I’d have done.”

Wes did not say anything, but I saw his ears turn red, and I saw him stand a little straighter over the pump handle.

I do not think anybody had ever called him son in that tone of voice before.

We did three cars Wednesday. The retired schoolteacher’s station wagon, the church van, and one of the young couples’ cars.

Wes did most of the clamping. I did all the measuring. Lu did all the talking.

At lunch Wednesday a young man walked into the office I did not expect to see. It was Dorsey, Lu’s little brother.

He stood in the doorway in his work boots with his hat in his hands like he was at a funeral.

Dorsey

Dorsey is thirty-nine, seven years younger than Lu, and he has always been the one Orval worried about.

He works at a plant in Circleville, or he did. He sat down on the bench by the office door and did not look at me.

“Dad cosigned my camper,” he said. “Last spring. I told him I could make the payments. Then they cut my hours at the plant in August, and I fell behind, and the bank started calling him instead of me.”

I did not say anything. I just let him talk.

“He didn’t tell me what he was going to do,” Dorsey said. “I swear to God, Mallory. I found out Monday when he paid the camper off. I asked him where the money came from, and he wouldn’t look at me.”

“How much was the camper?” I asked.

“Thirty-four,” he said. His voice cracked on it. “He paid off thirty-four and he gave me the rest to catch up my truck note.”

I sat there with that. Orval had taken his older son’s tools, the son who was laid up and could not stop him, to bail out his younger son, who had not asked for it.

In his own mind, I suppose, he had been taking care of family.

“That’s a reason, Dorsey,” I said finally. “I understand it’s a reason. But it isn’t a right. He sold your brother’s livelihood while your brother couldn’t stand up.”

“I know,” Dorsey said. “I know it.” He wiped his face with the back of his hand. “Does Lu hate me?”

“Lu doesn’t hate anybody,” I said. “Go see him. He’s home. He’d want to see you.”

Dorsey went. Lu told me that night that they had sat in the living room for two hours and mostly talked about deer season. That is how the men in that family do it.

Thursday

Thursday was the worst car of the nine. It was the other young couple’s car, a two-year-old sedan the wife drove to the hospital in town, and it had been T-boned on the passenger side hard enough to push the floor pan up.

Lu did not like it from the photographs, and he did not like it more when I described what I was seeing.

He made me measure every point on the sheet before we pulled at all.

We pulled that car five times. Twice I let off and stood back and just looked at it, and once I walked outside and stood in the sunshine on the gravel with my hands on my knees because my heart was going too fast.

Wes came out after me. He did not say anything. He just stood next to me until I was ready, and then he went back in and reset the clamps without being told.

At four that afternoon the last measurement came in on the book.

I called it out to Lu, and there was this long quiet on the speaker, and then I heard him blow out a breath like he had been holding it all day.

“That’s straight, Mal,” he said. “That’s a straight car.”