The Clutch She Finished on the Gravel

“Go,” I said. “I’ve got it from here.”

“Call me if it fights you.”

“It’ll fight me,” I said. “I’ll still have it.”

He drove off, and then it was just me, the truck, and the highway. I hummed the hymns my mother used to sing on wash day, “I’ll Fly Away” and “Farther Along,” because it kept my hands steady.

I took the pressure plate bolts out a little at a time in a star pattern, so it would not warp, and let the old pressure plate and disc down into my hands.

The disc was worn to the rivets. You could see the shine on them.

I checked the flywheel next. It had some heat spots on it, blue and faint, but no cracks, and when I put the straightedge across it there was no warp I could find.

I scuffed the face with emery cloth so the new disc would seat.

The pilot bearing came out with a slide hammer, easy for once, and I tapped the new one in with a socket the right size.

Then I set the new disc on the flywheel with the alignment tool through the middle, the plastic one from the kit, and started the pressure plate bolts by hand.

I ran them down a turn at a time in the star pattern, then tightened them to spec with the torque wrench.

With the transmission sitting on the jack beside me, I unbolted the old slave cylinder from the bellhousing and bolted the new one on.

I put a little grease on the input shaft splines, just a film, the way Dean showed me the first year. Too much and it slings onto the new disc.

By then it was going on eleven. The sun had come around the end of the building and was warm on my legs. I could hear the highway the whole time, every truck that went by.

People slowed down. I want to tell you that. A cattle hauler came through northbound and honked twice, the long friendly kind.

A school bus went by on its late run and the kids pressed their faces on the windows.

A pickup I knew stopped on the shoulder, and Ennis, who farms on the other side of the highway, rolled his window down.

“Rhea,” he called. “You need a hand?”

“I’m about to put it back up,” I said from under the truck. “I appreciate it.”

He sat there a minute, looking at the shop, at the empty bay with the doors open. Then he nodded and pulled back on the highway. I did not know what he was thinking. I found out on Friday.

About noon, Lavonne from the cafe across the road walked over with a cheeseburger in wax paper and a Styrofoam cup of sweet tea.

She set them on the front bumper of the Ford, the only flat place in reach.

“I saw you out here at seven,” she said. “Nobody’s working past noon without eating on my side of the road.”

“I’m good, Lavonne.”

“I know you’re good,” she said. “Eat anyway.” She stood there with her arms folded until I slid out and took a bite. Then she went back across the highway without another word.

I ate that cheeseburger sitting on the creeper with my back against the front tire of the Ford, and it was the best meal I had eaten in six weeks.