He looked at his watch: a tinkling bell sounded in his ear. His stomach curdled. "My dear God," he said aloud. He'd forgotten the time while his thoughts sucked him away. He sprinted for the bus, and for a tiny-tick of the clock he thought he would make it; panic branched through him like veins. He ran hard heat swirled through the car on a sweltering summer night; he wheeled out onto the highway and pressed his foot on the gas pedal and the car muscled and jumped; he raced down the blacktop—free!— until he saw the pinprick of a pulsating blue police light in the rearview mirror, a tiny glittering diamond and he emerged from the street he loved so much, running; and though he was a distance of no more than a quarter of a block from the intersecting Billings Road, he watched the bus move across the screen of his vision as though it were a rocket ship shooting past and away. Jesus Christ, he thought. Oh, Jesus save me. He slowed then stopped, listened to the diminishment of the bus's engine fold into the din of traffic.
Numb, he stood planted to the spot while another bus roared into sight. It arrived heroically as if in a dream. He shouted. It creased past him, receding in a high wheezing sound. He ran after it, but traffic cleared and it charged ahead. He ran into the stream of cars, screamed for the bus driver to stop, ran until his raging, bursting lungs scorched white-hot. He'd got up early so that he would have plenty of time to make it to the shop, and now they wouldn't take him, he knew it, now they would get someone else. What can you say about a person who shows up for work late the first day? He stood by the curb, still in the street, and watched cars. A policeman drove toward him so he turned away and began walking. What could he do? He went on one knee on the sidewalk. "No," he said aloud. "No." I won't eat lunch today, he thought. I have enough money to take a taxi then I'll walk home, it's only eight miles. I'll do that, I'll get there.
Jake Banks saw a cab pull into the lot. He'd had a lot of people bring in their cars today to get them reconditioned, and one of his guys hadn't shown up. He hired youngsters to clean interiors and wash them after he and his brother replaced seat-covers, carpeting, and roof fabric. He watched Phil get out of the cab and pay the driver and look around. Jake stepped to the open doorway and whistled and saw Phil jump as though hearing a cannon go off. Ain't no kid, either, Jake thought.
"Up here, buddy," Jake yelled.
Phil sprinted the twenty yards that separated them.
"You the one who called me?" Jake asked.
"Well, Mr. James was the one..." memory of himself within the confines of the 4x10 newspaper shack where he'd slept for two years; people thought he only worked selling papers from 6 a.m. till 8 p.m. but he crumpled into himself like a bat when night came, collapsed around the bad memory of that one night in Ohio which in itself was the final outcome of...
"Son, are you listening to me?"
"Sir," Phil said, "I've had a lot on my mind lately."
Jake Banks laughed. "Son," he said, slapping Phil on the back, "I know what you mean. I've had a lot on my mind lately, too. Follow me."
Twenty cars needed to be washed, windows cleaned, floors vacuumed. Most had keys in the ignition. Phil would drive them around to the vacuum hose, make them sparkle, then drive them back to their proper parking spaces.
His nerves crawled from his hands, up his arms, into his throat. It had been a long, long time since he'd had a job outside the paper shack, and now a gun was pointed at him and he had to get it right. Run! He went to the men's room, locked the door, slipped down onto his knees, and rested his head on the lip of the toilet seat. He tried to pray, but raised his head from supplication and regurgitated.
He started the first car, put it in gear, and drove across the driveway into the slot by the stationary vacuum cleaner with a fire engine-sized hose which hooked to the side of the garage door. After he turned off the car, he, for some reason, took the key out of the ignition and laid it up on the dashboard; he watched himself do that and knew he shouldn't have then retrieved it and got out of the car. He hoisted the hose from its hook and pulled. He needed to move the car up three feet. He dropped the hose and searched his pockets for the key. He searched the ground for it. He stared at his hands. He couldn't believe it had disappeared. He closed his eyes and breathed; he felt blood draining from his lips; he felt his head becoming light. What can I do? he thought. Everyone will find out. He sat in the driver's seat. He wanted to go to sleep and die.
Anything wrong?" Jack Banks asked; his large head, as big as a lion's, appeared in the window to Phil's left.
"I lost the key, sir."
"Well," Jake said, examining Phil, "I just so happen to have an extra one to this car. I'll go and get it for you and later on we'll make a copy. All right? Don't worry about it."
"Thank you, sir. I'll be more careful next time around."
he knows he knows he knows he
"Okay, take her easy now."
Phil finished cleaning the car then drove it back to the lot. He wished that his nerves would stop buzzing; his mouth was dry. He needed to climb into another car and bring it over. He stood in the bright sunlight, feeling the heat of the day bearing down on his neck, wishing that God would let him die. He tried to open the car door. Jesus shit it won't open… He jammed at the button with his thumb while clutching the handle. Then he yanked on it as though trying to tear it off. Seen from afar he looked like a man in a cartoon being electrocuted, hand clamped to the metal. The door wouldn't open and he felt the nerves in his stomach calcify into a lump and begin to bleed. God, what could he do now? He heard himself shout: "Is there a key to this one, sir?" And a response, "Yeah, it's inside." He said, "I'll get it," then he ran fast to the office and asked the mechanic where it was then plucked it off the wall and bolted back to the car. His heart pounded and the nerves reached up into his throat and he thought, I've got to get through this day, seven more hours. He pushed the key in the lock and tried to turn it. He jiggled it, pulled it out, reinserted it, tried turning it to the left and right. A little slower, he thought, easy, and if you don't turn I'm going to bash your fucking windshield in just to fucking show you I don't give a fucking shit about you. The key broke in the lock.
Jake Banks looked across the lot and saw Phil standing by a navy blue Ford Monte Carlo. Phil's head was bent down and his arms were flat against his sides. He shouted at him: "How's it going, partner?" Phil looked up. He walked over and saw the problem, and again, as he'd done before because he liked Phil, told him to forget about it, to go on to the next one and they'd take care of it later.
Phil walked to the lot fighting his greedy, murderous life: inside the cell of another car, crawling, inching it over to the hose, he fought with his life as though it were coming at him like a falcon. He caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror and saw his white lips and disheveled hair. when just 15 and looked at himself right before pressing hard on the gas pedal in a desperate attempt to leave behind the swiftly approaching The falcon flew away. He turned the ignition off and stepped out of the car and stood next to it shaking. He put his hands into his pockets and touched with his moist fingers an oblong, glutinous pill and Oh, Jesus, I didn't take my medicine this morning. He popped it in his mouth and swallowed and it felt like a cold pebble in the back of his throat. He ran to the bathroom and put his lips to the faucet at the sink and drank. He breathed several times to calm himself and felt that he would be all right now.
He returned to the car and started the vacuum cleaner. He held the bright green, fifteen-foot accordion hose, which was suspended by retracting guy wires, as though he were an honorary fireman, wishing to God he didn't feel so awkward, but after the machine revved to its full power Phil smiled to himself. Everything would be all right. He felt the pill release in his stomach. He opened the back door of the car and plunged into it with the hose and it sucked up the dirt magnificently. He did the back ledge beneath the window then the seat then the floor then the front. He did a better job on this second car. He remembered to pound the seats to shake up all the dust and dirt and he vacuumed everything twice. Afterwards, he smoked a cigarette before doing the windows. He stood between the open door and the car and before he left to search for the Windex he flicked his cigarette away. Back, he looked with horror at the burning cigarette on the carpet of the car, dove for it and crushed it out in his palm, and to his unbelieving eyes there was no mark. Nothing. Thank you, God. And he laughed until his stomach hurt. Oh, goddamn all of this, and, again, he started in the back; he sprayed a mist of liquid on the window and wiped it until he could see no more dirt, then he did the side windows then jumped to the front. Everything was finished. God, he felt good. He started the car but saw that he'd left a dirty rag on the seat; he jumped out with it to put it in the box and looking into the car he noticed two parallel streaks right up the center of the windshield so he ran back to get the Windex and the nerves were bad in his stomach again. The world bolted to the left and nearly tossed him off his feet; he went down on one knee. The ground tilted crazily off its level. Waiting until it achieved true position again, he bowed his head. In a few minutes it righted itself, but he'd lost strength. He dragged himself into the car and stretched to wipe off the streaks but the falcon came at him and he convulsed to protect himself. His elbow cracked against the gearshift lever and the car lurched backwards and before he could find the brake it swung left and with great force the side door mashed into the corner of the brick garage.
He saw Jake running toward him, and from inside the shop a man with a full, brush mustache appeared holding a wrench. Phil heard the engine of the car die and the buzzer start up. He threw himself out the door, dodged through the lot of cars, and ran until his head throbbed with pain. Finally he quit, dropped on someone's front lawn. He lay there, breathing, entombed in exhaustion, and saw enter within the rim of his vision three teenagers. One of them said, "Yo, whiteboy, you know where you at?" Which made him laugh hard and the boys left him alone.
