6.

Reading filled my days. I’d close my eyes, reach towards the bookshelf and pull down whatever met my hand. Finishing or revisiting one rarely happened, but that wasn’t the point; it was a welcome distraction from the drink and I couldn’t watch television anymore. The people on there made me anxious with their white teeth and laugh tracks, and it made me want to drink. They all seemed like idiots to me, but they were idiots who managed to resolve their issues in neat, twenty-two-minute blocks. Mine had lived with me much longer than that. Their ease suggested I’d spent my life having the wrong conversations with the wrong people, or worse, that I was what was wrong.

If not reading or walking the slopes around the property with the dog, I scribbled drawings onto sheets of paper in my room or the kitchen. One of my works featured a stick figure in a little car with pop-up headlights – a horned stick figure in a bigger car engulfed in flames in pursuit.

‘What the heck is this supposed to be?’ Jack queried after uncovering the sketch one afternoon.

‘Just a nightmare I had,’ I answered.

By the fourth day, my withdrawals had peaked and begun tapering off. The shakiness in my hands improved, as did my sleep. Parts started trickling into the auto store. Jack would thank some ‘Marty’, hang up the phone and yell out that something-or-other had arrived for me. ‘Excellent,’ I would reply, turning another page or scribbling another line, having no idea what he’d just said.

We made the trip into Holbrook each day to run his errands, and my evenings wound down on the porch. The dog and I got into a routine on its bench: I would read and try to have only one or two cigarettes; the dog would shuffle an inch closer each time the mercury fell. Jack never told me the thing’s name and I never asked. The dog never mentioned it either. It was just a dog, but it would raise its ears and tail when it saw me and I liked that.

Diane forced me into a somewhat regular sleeping pattern, which I suspected was at Jack’s suggestion. He revelled in giving me a hard time, though I felt he didn’t want it to be all he gave. The three of us drank coffee on their porch in the early mornings. The dog took a diplomatic position on the floorboards between and nobody uttered a word, steam curling from our mugs and the rise and fall of our chests the only movement. Diane would leave for work at the same school Jack retired from years earlier. He was waiting for her retirement, but on the same day of each year following his own, she’d return home with tales of her new class of students.

‘This life’s no good spent waiting. It should be filled with nows, not soons,’ I said one morning after she’d departed. Jack stared into his mug then over the land. He always had some quip, but had nothing then.

Returning with the final haul of new car parts, Jack lent me an old shirt of his that looked like a girl’s sundress on me. He was a meticulous man, taking more pride in the cleaning and arranging of his tools at the end of a day’s work than I perhaps had about anything in life. We tore the Miata down even further – every piece removed accompanied by some long-winded explanation of its purpose. This slowed the process considerably and annoyed me at first. But as we went on and I listened to Jack speak with passion only so I might know more than I did, it grew on me.

I learnt the garage, tools and engine. Lying in bed at night, I’d become excited about the next day’s work, envisaging turning nuts and bolts. We’d finish at 3 p.m. sharp so Jack could be ready for Diane’s return. She was maybe the only thing he held dearer than his pride. They’d spend the afternoons and evenings together and I’d feel like merely a substitute for when there was nobody else around. Walking the hills, I looked to the dog and wondered if he ever thought the same of himself.

At the dinner table that night, Jack began speaking in code to Diane.

‘I’m gonna take him to see her,’ he said.

‘I really don’t think he’d be interested,’ she replied. I sat there with narrowed eyes, watching them speak about me like I wasn’t there. Jack shovelled another piece of steak into his mouth and worked words out around it.

‘It’ll be good for him.’

‘He doesn’t want to see her. He just wants to get his car fixed and go to California.’

‘There’s no rush. California will always be there; it can wait another day.’

‘If you say so, Jack.’

‘What’ll be good for whom?’ I interjected.

He smirked and cleared his plate from the table.

‘Jack wants to take you to –’

‘Hey now,’ he interrupted from the kitchen bench. ‘He doesn’t need to know yet.’

Jack had a strange air about him in general. Carefree but focused, like at all times he knew something you didn’t and might lose interest at the very moment you figured it out. Despite this, he’d also done no evil to me or to the world as far as I could see, and giving him the benefit of the doubt had only resulted in good things for me. The two of them went back and forth. An argument between people as in love as them was an unusual thing to watch. It was the longest I’d ever seen them remain in a state of disagreement, and it piqued my interest enough to want to know what they both deemed worth it.

‘I’ll go,’ I said, jumping between their parleying.

Diane seemed surprised by my response. Jack didn’t.

‘Good. Tomorrow morning then. Set an alarm for five and get a good night’s rest. We’ll be heading off before dawn,’ he said, walking from the kitchen. He stopped and turned back. ‘Wear those Converse shoes of yours and those shorts with the deep pockets,’ he added, and then was gone.

‘I really wish he hadn’t gone through my things,’ I said to Diane.

‘I didn’t agree with it, but I wouldn’t have agreed with him not doing it either.’

‘Is he always such a smug prick?’

‘Smug mightn’t be the right word.’

‘No issue with prick though?’

She smiled and winked as she stood and cleared our plates.

‘You have a more suitable word?’ I asked.

‘I’m not sure. Heck, I don’t know if they’ve even come up with one for Jack. He just doesn’t care much for any way other than his own.’

‘You don’t say …’

‘It doesn’t bother me none though. You’re going to find people like that all over the place. I’m just thankful he’s got a good heart to go along with the attitude.’

Diane finished tidying up then was gone too. I leant under the table to the dog resting at my feet. ‘I don’t suppose you’re coming tomorrow?’ I asked. He huffed and lowered his head back to the floor.