The Clutch She Finished on the Gravel

He came alone, in his truck, around ten in the morning. He parked at the edge of the gravel near the highway, right about where the green Ford had sat on its stands, and got out and stood there.

The four men looked at me. I shook my head a little, and they went back to work. I wiped my hands and walked out across the gravel to him.

He looked older than he had on Monday. He had not shaved. He was holding his keys in his hand and turning them over, like a boy.

“Somebody put something in my window,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “I didn’t put it there. But I won’t lie to you. I didn’t stop it either.”

He looked at the shop for a while, at the men measuring, at the posts on the floor.

“I was going to sell it,” he said finally. “The lift. I had a buyer in Rolla. I need the money, Rhea. The lot’s done. I’m going to have to close it.”

“I’m sorry about the lot,” I said, and I was.

“Dean always came out ahead,” he said. “Ever since we were kids. Mother gave him everything. I just thought, one time.” He did not finish.

“Curtis,” I said, “your stepmother has been gone eleven years. And Dean is gone six weeks. There’s nobody left to come out ahead of.”

He looked down at the gravel.

“You can keep it,” I said. “Sell it if you have to. I’m not going to fight you over it. But you know what was in that window, and you know it’s true, and so does everybody in town now. You’ll have to carry that, not me.”

He did not say anything.

“And if you ever want to bring it back,” I said, “the other bay’s going to be empty again someday. Nobody here will say one word to you about it. I’ll see to that. That door’s open, Curtis. It’s always going to be open.”

He stood there for a long time. Then he nodded once, not at me, at the ground, and got in his truck and pulled back on the highway toward town.

He did sell the lift, I heard, to the man in Rolla. He closed the car lot the week before Thanksgiving.

I have not seen him since, except once across the parking lot at the grocery store, and he lifted one hand off the steering wheel, and I lifted mine.

I pray for him on Sundays. I did not do it at first. I do now.

We spent the rest of that Friday setting the borrowed lift. Ennis’s son-in-law had brought a rotary hammer, and we drilled each anchor hole three-quarters of an inch wide and deep into that six-inch slab, then blew it out with the air hose.

We stood the posts up with the engine hoist, one at a time, and plumbed them with a level. We ran the cables and the hydraulic line.

We set the arms. Toby showed up at four, after his shift, and helped me fill and bleed the power unit.

Before the last anchors went in, I stood in the middle of bay one and looked down one more time at the letters in the concrete.

The new floor plate was lying beside them, ready to go over the hoses.

R + D 2011.

Then I set the wedge anchors in their holes, ran the nuts down, and torqued every one of them myself.

I bolted the borrowed lift down right over those initials.