The Fix

Douglas Langley owned a little sandwich shop at the intersection of Fourteenth and T streets in the District. Beside his shop was a seldom-used alley and above his shop lived a man by the name of Sherman Olney, whom Douglas had seen beaten to near extinction one night by a couple of silky-looking men who seemed to know Sherman and wanted something in particular from him. Douglas had been drawn outside from cleaning up the storeroom by a rhythmic thumping sound, like someone dropping a telephone book onto a table over and over. He stepped out into the November chill and discovered that the sound was actually that of the larger man’s fists finding again and again the belly of Sherman Olney, who was being kept on his feet by the second assailant. Douglas ran back inside and grabbed the pistol he kept in the rolltop desk in his business office. He returned to the scene with the powerful flashlight his son had given him and shone the light into the faces of the two villains.

The men were not overly impressed by the light, the bigger one saying, “Hey, man, you better get that light out of my face!”

They did however show proper respect for the discharging of the .32 by running away. Sherman Olney crumpled to the ground, moaning and clutching at his middle, saying he didn’t have it anymore.

“Are you all right?” Douglas asked, realizing how stupid the question was before it was fully out.

But Sherman’s response was equally insipid as he said, “Yes.”

“Come, let’s get you inside.” Douglas helped the man to his feet and into the shop. He locked the glass door behind them, then took Sherman over to the counter and helped him onto a stool.

“Thanks,” Sherman said.

“You want me to call the cops?” Douglas asked.

Sherman Olney shook his head. “They’re long gone by now.”

“I’ll make you a sandwich,” Douglas said as he stepped behind the counter.

“Really, that’s not necessary.”

“You’ll like it. I don’t know first aid, but I can make a sandwich.” Douglas made the man a pastrami and Muenster on rye sandwich and poured him a glass of barely cold milk, then took him to sit in one of the three booths in the shop. Douglas sat across the table from the man, watched him take a bite of the sandwich.

“What did they want?” Douglas put to him.

“To hurt me,” Sherman said, his mouth working on the tough bread. He picked a seed from his teeth and put it on his plate. “They wanted to hurt me.”

“My name is Douglas Langley.”

“Sherman Olney.”

“What were they after, Sherman?” Douglas asked, but he didn’t get an answer.

As they sat there, the quiet of the room was disturbed by the loud refrigerator motor kicking on. Douglas felt the vibration of it through the soles of his shoes.

“Your compressor is a little shot,” Sherman said.

Douglas looked at him, not knowing what he was talking about.

“Your fridge. The compressor is bad.”

“Oh, yes,” Douglas said. “It’s loud.”

“I can fix it.”

Douglas just looked at him.

“You want me to fix it?”

Douglas didn’t know what to say. Certainly he wanted the machine fixed, but what if this man just liked to take things apart? What if he made it worse? Douglas imagined the kitchen floor strewn with refrigerator parts. But he said, “Sure.”

With that, Sherman got up and walked back into the kitchen, Douglas on his heels. The skinny man removed the plate from the bottom of the big and embarrassingly old machine and looked around. “Do you have any chewing gum?” Sherman asked.

As it turned out, Douglas had, in his pocket, the last stick of a pack of Juicy Fruit, which he promptly handed over. Sherman unwrapped the stick, folded it into his mouth, then lay there on the floor chewing.

“What are you doing?” Douglas asked.

Sherman paused him with a finger, then, as if feeling the texture of the gum with his tongue, he took it from his mouth and stuck it into the workings of the refrigerator. And just like that the machine ran with a quiet steady hum, just like it had when it was new.

“How’d you do that?” Douglas asked.

Sherman, now on his feet, shrugged.

“Thank you, this is terrific. All you used was chewing gum. Can you fix other things?”

Sherman nodded.

“What are you? Are you a repairman or an electrician?” Douglas asked.

“I can fix things.”

“Would you like another sandwich?”

Sherman shook his head again and said. “I should be going. Thanks for the food and all your help.”

“Those men might be waiting for you,” Douglas said. He suddenly remembered his pistol. He could feel the weight of it in his pocket. “Just sit in here awhile.” Douglas felt a great deal of sympathy for the underfed man who had just repaired his refrigerator. “Where do you live? I could drive you.”

“Actually, I don’t have a place to live.” Sherman stared down at the floor.

“Come over here.” Douglas led the man to the big metal sink across the kitchen. He turned the ancient lever and the pipes started with a thin whistle and then screeched as the water came out. “Tell me, can you fix that?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes.” Douglas turned off the water.

“Do you have a wrench?”

Douglas stepped away and into his business office, where he dug his way through a pile of sweaters and newspapers until he found a twelve-inch crescent wrench and a pipe wrench. He took them back to Sherman. “Will these do?”

“Yes.” Sherman took the wrench and got down under the sink.

Douglas bent low to try and see what the man was doing, but before he could figure anything out, Sherman was getting up.

“There you go,” Sherman said.

Incredulous, Douglas reached over to the faucet and turned on the water. The water came out smoothly and quietly. He turned it off, then tried it again. “You did it.”

“It’s nothing. An easy repair.”

“You know, I could really use somebody like you around here,” Douglas said. “Do you need a job? I mean, do you want a job? I can’t pay much. Just minimum wage, but I can let you stay in the apartment upstairs. Actually, it’s just a room. Are you interested?”

“You don’t even know me,” Sherman said.

Douglas stopped. Of course the man was right. He didn’t know anything about him. But he had a strong feeling that Sherman Olney was an honest man. An honest man who could fix things. “You’re right,” Douglas admitted. “But I’m a good judge of character.”

“I don’t know,” Sherman said.

“You said you don’t have a place to go. You can live here and work until you find another place or another job.” Douglas was unsure why he was pleading so with the stranger and, in fact, had a terribly uneasy feeling about the whole business, but, for some reason, he really wanted him to stay.

“Okay,” Sherman said.

Douglas took the man up the back stairs and showed him the little room. The single bulb hung from a cord in the middle of the ceiling and its dim light revealed the single bed made up with a yellow chenille spread. Douglas had taken many naps there.

‘This is it,” Douglas said.

“It’s perfect.” Sherman stepped fully into the room and looked around.

“The bathroom is down the hall. There’s a narrow shower stall in it.”

“I’m sure I’ll be comfortable.”

“There’s food downstairs. Help yourself.”

“Thank you.”

Douglas stood in awkward silence for a while wondering what else there was to say. Then he said, “Well, I guess I should go on home to my wife.”

“And I should get some sleep.”

Douglas nodded and left the shop.

Douglas’s wife said, “Are you crazy?”

Douglas sat at the kitchen table and held his face in his hands. He could smell the ham, salami, turkey, Muenster, cheddar, and Swiss from his day’s work. He peeked through his fingers and watched his short, plump wife reach over and turn down the volume of the television on the counter. The muted mouths of the news anchors were still moving.

“I asked you a question,” she said.

“It sounded more like an assertion.” He looked at her eyes, which were narrowed and burning into him. “He’s a fine fellow. Just a little down on his luck, Sheila.”

Sheila laughed, then stopped cold. “And he’s in the shop all alone.” She shook her head, her lips tightening across her teeth. “You have lost your mind. Now, you go right back down there and you get rid of that guy.”

“I don’t feel like driving,” Douglas said.

“I’ll drive you.”

He sighed. Sheila was obviously right. Even he hadn’t understood his impulse to offer the man a job and invite him to use the room above the shop. So, he would let her drive him back down there and he’d tell Sherman Olney he’d have to go.

They got into the old, forest green Buick LeSabre, Sheila behind the wheel and Douglas sunk down into the passenger seat that Sheila’s concentrated weight had through the years mashed so flat. He usually hated when she drove, but especially right at that moment, as she was angry and with a mission. She took their corner at Underwood on two wheels and sped through the city and moderately heavy traffic back toward the shop.

“You really should slow down,” Douglas said. He watched a man in a blue suit toss his briefcase between two parked cars and dive after it out of the way.

“You’re one to give advice. You? An old fool who takes in a stray human being and leaves him alone in your place of business is giving advice? He’s probably cleaned us out already.”

Douglas considered the situation and felt incredibly stupid. He could not, in fact, assure Sheila that she was wrong. Sherman might be halfway to Philadelphia with twelve pounds of Genoa salami. For all he knew Sherman Olney had turned on the gas of the oven, grilled his dinner, and blown the restaurant to smithereens. He rolled down his window just a crack and listened for sirens.

“If anything bad has happened, I’m having you committed,” Sheila said. She let out a brief scream and rattled the steering wheel. “Then I’ll sell what little we have left and spend the rest of my life in Bermuda. That’s what I’ll do.”

When Sheila made marks on the street braking to a stop, the store was still there and not ablaze. All the lights were off and the only people on the street were a couple of hookers on the far corner. Douglas unlocked and opened the front door of the shop, then followed Sheila inside. They walked past the tables and counter and into the kitchen where Douglas switched on the bright overhead lights. The fluorescent tubes flickered, then filled the place with a steady buzz.

“Go check the safe,” Sheila said.

“There was no money in it,” Douglas said. “There never is.” She knew that. He had taken the money home and was going to drop it at the bank on his way to work the next day. He always did that.

“Check it anyway.”

He walked into his business office and switched on the standing lamp by the door. He looked across the room to see that the safe was still closed and that the stack of newspapers was still in front of it. “Hasn’t been touched,” he said.

“What’s his name?” Sheila asked.

“Sherman.”

“Sherman!” she called up the stairs. “Sherman!”

In short order, Sherman came walking down the stairs in his trousers and sleeveless undershirt. He was rubbing his eyes, trying to adjust to the bright light.

“Sherman,” Douglas said, “it’s me, Douglas.”

“Douglas? What are you doing back?” He stood in front of them in his stocking feet. “By the way, I fixed the toilet and also that funny massager thing.”

“You mean, my foot massager?” Sheila asked.

“If you say so.”

“I told you, Sherman can fix things,” Douglas said to Sheila. “That’s why I hired him.” Sheila had purchased the foot massager from a fancy store in Georgetown. On the days when she worked in the shop she used to disappear every couple of hours for about fifteen minutes and then return happy and refreshed. She would be upstairs in the bathroom, sitting on the closed toilet with her feet stationed on her machine. Then the thing stopped working. Sheila loved that machine.

“The man at the store said my foot massager couldn’t be repaired,” Sheila said.

Sherman shrugged. “Well, it works now.”

“I’ll be right back,” Sheila said and she walked away from the men and up the stairs.

Sherman watched her, then turned to Douglas. “Why did you come back?”

“Well, you see, Sheila doesn’t think it’s a good idea that you stay here. You know, alone and everything. Since we don’t know you or anything about you.” Douglas blew out a long slow breath. “I’m really sorry.”

Upstairs, Sheila screamed, then came running back to the top of the stairs. “It works! It works! He did fix it.” She came down, smiling at Sherman. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” Sherman said.

“I was just telling Sherman that we’re sorry but he’s going to have to leave.”

“Don’t be silly,” Sheila said.

Douglas stared at her and rubbed a hand over his face. He gave Sheila a baffled look.

“No, no, it’s certainly all right if Sherman sleeps here. And tomorrow, he can get to work.” She grabbed Sherman’s arm and turned him toward the stairs. “Now, you get on back up there and get some rest.”

Sherman said nothing, but followed her directions. Douglas and Sheila watched him disappear upstairs.

Douglas looked at his wife. “What happened to you?”

“He fixed my foot rubber.”

“So, that makes him a good guy? Just like that?”

“I don’t know,” she said, uncertainly. She seemed to reconsider for a second. “I guess. Come on, let’s go home.”

Two weeks later, Sherman had said nothing more about himself, responding only to trivial questions put to him. He did however repair or make better every machine in the restaurant. He had fixed the toaster oven, the gas lines of the big griddle, the dishwasher, the phone, the neon OPEN sign, the electric-eye buzzer on the front door, the meat slicer, the coffee machine, the manual mustard dispenser, and the cash register. Douglas found the man’s skills invaluable and wondered how he had ever managed without him. Still, his presence was disconcerting as he never spoke of his past or family or friends and he never went out, not even to the store, his food being already there, and so Douglas began to worry that he might be a fugitive from the law.

“He never leaves the shop,” Sheila complained. She was sitting in the passenger seat while Douglas drove them to the movie theater.

“That’s where he lives,” Douglas said. “All the food he needs is right there. I’m hardly paying him anything.”

“You pay him plenty. He doesn’t have to pay rent and he doesn’t have to buy food.”

“I don’t see what the trouble is,” he said. “After all, he’s fixed your massage thingamajig. And he fixed your curling iron and your VCR and your watch and he even got the squeak out of your shoes.”

“I know. I know.” Sheila sighed. “Still, just what do we know about this man?”

“He’s honest, I know that. He never even glances at the till. I’ve never seen anyone who cares less about money.” Douglas turned right onto Connecticut.

“That’s exactly how a crook wants to come across.”

“Well, Sherman’s no crook. Why, I’d trust the man with my life. There are very few people I can say that about.”

Sheila laughed softly and disbelievingly. “Well, don’t you sound melodramatic.”

Douglas really couldn’t argue with her. Everything she had said was correct and he was at a loss to explain his tenacious defense of a man who was, after all, a relative stranger. He pulled the car into a parallel space and killed the engine.

“The car didn’t do that thing,” Sheila said. She was referring to the way the car usually refused to shut off, the stubborn engine firing a couple of extra times.

Douglas glanced over at her.

“Sherman,” she said.

“This morning. He opened the hood, grabbed this and jiggled that and then slammed it shut.”

The fact of the matter was finally that Sherman hadn’t stolen anything and hadn’t come across in any way threatening and so Douglas kept his fears and suspicions in check and counted his savings. No more electricians. No more plumbers. No more repairmen of any kind. Sherman’s handiness, however, did not remain a secret, in spite of Douglas’s best efforts.

It began when Sherman offered and then repaired a small radio-controlled automobile owned by a fat boy.

The fat boy, who wore his hair in braids, came into the shop with two of his skinny friends. They sat at the counter and ordered a large soda to split.

“This thing is a piece of crap,” the fat boy said. His name was Loomis Rump.

“I told you not to spend your money on that thing,” one of the skinny kids said.

“Shut up,” said Loomis.

“Timmy’s right, Loomis,” the third boy said. He sucked the last of the soda through the straw. “That’s a cheap one. The good remote controls aren’t made of that thin plastic.”

“What do you know?” Loomis said. Loomis pushed his toy another few inches away from him across the counter, toward Sherman. Sherman looked at it, then picked it up.

Douglas was watching from the register. He observed as Sherman held the car up to the light and seemed to smile.

“Just stopped working, eh?” Sherman said to the boys.

“It’s a piece of crap,” Loomis said.

“Would you like me to fix it?” Sherman asked.

Douglas stepped closer, thinking this time he might see how the repair was done. Loomis handed the remote to Sherman. Douglas stared intently at the man’s hands. Sherman took out his pocketknife and used the small blade to undo the Phillips-head screws in order to remove the back panel from the remote control. Then it was all a blur. Douglas saw nothing and then Sherman was replacing the panel.

“There you go,” Sherman said and gave the car and controller back to Loomis.

Loomis Rump laughed. “You didn’t even do nothing,” he said.

“Anything,” Sherman corrected him.

Loomis put the car on the floor and switched on the remote. The car rolled away, nearly tripping a postal worker, and crashed to a stop at the door. It capsized, but its wheels kept spinning.

“Hey, hey,” the skinny boys shouted.

“Thanks, mister,” Loomis said.

The boys left.

Fat Loomis Rump and his skinny pals told their friends and they brought in their broken toys. Sherman fixed them. The fat boy’s friends told their parents and Douglas found his shop increasingly crowded with customers and their small appliances.

“The Rump boy told me that you fixed his toy car and the Johnson woman told me that you repaired her radio,” the short man who wore the waterworks uniform said.

Sherman was wiping down the counter.

“Is that true?”

Sherman nodded.

“Well, you see these cuts on my face?”

Douglas could see the cuts under the man’s three-day growth of stubble from the door to the kitchen. Sherman leaned forward and studied the wounds.

“They seem to be healing nicely,” Sherman said.

“It’s this damn razor,” the man said and he pulled the small unit from his trousers pocket. “It cuts me bad every time I try to shave.”

“You’d like me to fix your razor?”

“If you wouldn’t mind. But I don’t have any money.”

“That’s okay.” Sherman took the razor and began taking it apart. Douglas, as always, moved closer and tried to see. He smiled at the waterworks man who smiled back. Other people gathered around and watched Sherman’s hands. Then they watched him hand the reassembled little machine back to the waterworks man. The man turned on the shaver and put it to his face.

“Hey,” he said. “This is wonderful. It works just like it did when it was new. This is wonderful. Thank you. Can I bring you some money tomorrow?”

“Not necessary,” Sherman said.

“This is wonderful.”

Everyone in the restaurant oohed and aahed.

“Look,” the waterworks man said. “I’m not bleeding.”

Sherman sat quietly at the end of the counter and fixed whatever was put in front of him. He repaired hair dryers and calculators and watches and cellular phones and carburetors. And while people waited for the repairs, they ate sandwiches and this appealed to Sherman, though he didn’t like his handyman’s time so consumed. But the fact of the matter was that there was little more to fix in the shop.

One day a woman who believed her husband was having an affair came in and complained over a turkey and provolone on wheat. Sherman sat next to her at the counter and listened as she finished, “… and then he comes home hours after he’s gotten off from work, smelling of beer and perfume and he doesn’t want to talk or anything and says he has a sinus headache and I’m wondering if I ought to follow him or check the mileage on his car before he leaves in the morning. What should I do?”

“Tell him it’s his turn to cook and that you’ll be late and don’t tell him where you’re going,” Sherman said.

Everyone in the shop nodded, more in shared confusion than in agreement.

“Where should I go?” the woman asked.

“Go to the library and read about the praying mantis,” Sherman said.

Douglas came up to Sherman after the woman had left and asked, “Do you think that was a good idea?”

Sherman shrugged.

The woman came in the next week, her face full with a smile and announced that her home life was now perfect.

“Everything at home is perfect now,” she said. “Thanks to Sherman.”

Customers slapped Sherman on the back.

So began a new dimension of fixing in the shop as people came in, along with their electric pencil sharpeners, pacemakers, and microwaves, their relationship woes, and their tax problems. Sherman saved the man who owned the automotive-supply business across the street twelve thousand dollars and got him some fifty-seven dollars in refund.

One night after the shop was closed, Douglas and Sherman sat at the counter and ate the stale leftover doughnuts and drank coffee. Douglas looked at his handyman and shook his head. “That was really something the way you straightened the Rhinehart boy’s teeth.”

“Physics,” Sherman said.

Douglas washed down a dry bite and set his cup on the counter. “I know I’ve asked you before, but we’ve known each other longer now. How did you learn to fix things?”

“Fixing things is easy. You just have to know how things work.”

“That’s it,” Douglas said more than asked.

Sherman nodded.

“Doesn’t it make you happy to do it?”

Sherman looked at Douglas, questioning.

“I ask because you never smile.”

“Oh,” Sherman said and took another bite of doughnut.

The next day Sherman fixed a chain saw and a laptop computer and thirty-two parking tickets. Sherman, who had always been quiet, became increasingly more so. He would listen, nod, and fix the problem. That evening, a few minutes before closing, just after Sherman had solved the Morado woman’s sexual-identity problem, two paramedics came in with a patient on a stretcher.

“This is my wife,” the more distressed of the ambulance men said of the supine woman. “She’s been hit by a car and she died in our rig on the way to the hospital,” he cried.

Sherman looked at the woman, pulling back the blanket.

“She had massive internal—”

Sherman stopped the man with a raised hand, pulled the blanket off and then threw it over himself and the dead woman. Douglas stepped over to stand with the paramedics.

Sherman worked under the blanket, moving this way and that way, and then he and the woman emerged, alive and well. The paramedic hugged her.

“You’re alive,” the man said to his wife.

The other paramedic shook Sherman’s hand. Douglas just stared at his handyman.

“Thank you, thank you,” the husband said, crying.

The woman was confused, but she, too, offered Sherman thanks.

Sherman nodded and walked quietly away, disappearing into the kitchen.

The paramedics and the restored woman left. Douglas locked the shop and walked into the kitchen where he found Sherman sitting on the floor with his back against the refrigerator.

“I don’t know what to say,” Douglas said. His head was swimming. “You just brought that woman back to life.”

Sherman’s face looked lifeless. He seemed drained of all energy. He lifted his sad face up to look at Douglas.

“How did you do that?” Douglas asked.

Sherman shrugged.

“You just brought a woman back to life and you give me a shrug?” Douglas could hear the fear in his voice. “Who are you? What are you? Are you from outer space or something?”

“No,” Sherman said.

“Then what’s going on?”

“I can fix things.”

“That wasn’t a thing,” Douglas pointed out. “That was a human being.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Douglas ran a hand over his face and just stared down at Sherman. “I wonder what Sheila will say.”

“Please don’t tell anyone about this,” Sherman said.

Douglas snorted out a laugh. “Don’t tell anyone. I don’t have to tell anyone. Everyone probably knows by now. What do you think those paramedics are out doing right now? They’re telling anybody and everybody that there’s some freak in Langley’s Sandwich Shop who can revive the dead.”

Sherman held his face in his hands.

“Who are you?”

News spread. Television-news trucks and teams camped outside the front door of the sandwich shop. They were waiting with cameras ready when Douglas showed up to open for business the day following the resurrection.

“Yes, this is my shop,” he said. “No, I don’t know how it was done,” he said. “No, you can’t come in just yet,” he said.

Sherman was sitting at the counter waiting, his face long, his eyes red as if from crying.

“This is crazy,” Douglas said.

Sherman nodded.

“They want to talk to you.” Douglas looked closely at Sherman. “Are you all right?”

But Sherman was looking past Douglas and through the front window where the crowd was growing ever larger.

“Are you going to talk to them?” Douglas asked.

Sherman shook his sad face. “I have to run away,” he said. “Everyone knows where I am now.”

Douglas at first thought Sherman was making cryptic reference to the men who had been beating him that night long ago, but then realized that Sherman meant simply everyone.

Sherman stood and walked into the back of the shop. Douglas followed him, not knowing why, unable to stop himself. He followed the man out of the store and down the alley, away from the shop and the horde of people.

Sherman watched the change come over Douglas and said, “Of course not.”

“But you—” The rest of Douglas’s sentence didn’t have a chance to find air as he was once again repeating Sherman’s steps.

They ran up this street and across that avenue, crossed bridges and scurried through tunnels and no matter how far away from the shop they seemed to get, the chanting remained, however faint. Douglas finally asked where there were going and confessed that he was afraid. They were sitting on a bench in the park and it was by now just after sundown.

“You don’t have to come with me,” Sherman said. “I only need to get away from all of them.” He shook his head and said, more to himself, “I knew this would happen.”

“If you knew this would happen, why did you fix all of those things?”

“Because I can. Because I was asked.”

Douglas gave nervous glances this way and that across the park. “This has something to do with why the men were beating you that night, doesn’t it?”

“They were from the government or some businesses, I’m not completely sure,” Sherman said. “They wanted me to fix a bunch of things and I said no.”

“But they asked you,” Douglas said. “You just told me—”

“You have to be careful about what you fix. If you fix the valves in an engine, but the bearings are shot, you’ll get more compression, but the engine will still burn up.” Sherman looked at Douglas’s puzzled face. “If you irrigate a desert, you might empty a sea. It’s a complicated business, fixing things.”

Douglas said, “So, what do we do now?”

Sherman was now weeping, tears streaming down his face and curving just under his chin before falling to the open collar of his light blue shirt. Douglas watched him, not believing that he was seeing the same man who had fixed so many machines and so many relationships and so many businesses and concerns and even fixed a dead woman.

Sherman raised his tear-filled eyes to Douglas. “I am the empty sea,” he said.

The chanting became louder and Douglas turned to see the night dotted with yellow-orange torches. The quality of the chanting had become strained and there was an urgency in the intonation that did not sound affable.

The two men ran, Douglas pushing Sherman, as he was now so engaged in sobbing that he had trouble keeping on his feet. They made it to the big bridge that crossed the bay and stopped in the middle, discovering that at either end thousands of people waited. They sang their dirge into the dark sky, their flames winking.

“Fix us!” they shouted. “Fix us! Fix us!”

Sherman looked down at the peaceful water below. It was a long drop that no one could hope to survive. He looked at Douglas.

Douglas nodded.

The masses of people pressed in from either side.

Sherman stepped over the railing and stood on the brink, the toes of his shoes pushed well over the edge.

“Don’t!” they all screamed. “Fix us! Fix us!”