Even without the prospect of becoming the new owner of the wrecked coupe in the yard, Bobby lucks out getting hired on by Charley Walker. The garage is the best equipped in town and probably all of Wilkes County. Along with the gas pumps out front, there is a large shop featuring a single pole hoist and a mechanic’s pit, with a five-horsepower compressor and modern pneumatic tools. There are complete socket sets and torque wrenches and acetylene torches. Bobby is used to working on cars in backyards and alleys, pulling engines with a rope draped over a tree limb or laying on his back in the dirt, swapping out transmissions or rear differentials. Walker’s is high cotton compared to those yards. Not only that, but Duff’s Diner is just down the block from Walker’s Texaco. Bobby picks up his lunch there every day, usually a cheeseburger and French fries, along with a Coke. He’s never liked to brown bag it, even when working for the railroad years ago.
The work is a snap for Bobby, mostly tune-ups or oil changes. The odd engine rebuild or brake job. Old man Walker can be on the cranky side but in general he is a good boss. He has gone from working on buckboards and spring buggies to bicycles and electric cars and now the modern stuff. He still does mechanical work himself, although he is out on the road a lot, hauling cars with the Mac wrecker or making service calls on farmers who have implements in need of repair and no way of getting them into town.
Charley keeps a tight watch on Bobby for the first few days. He knows Bobby is fresh out of jail, and not for the first time. Charley is concerned that Bobby shows up for work every day, for one thing, and that when he leaves the premises at night, no tools leave with him. He needn’t have worried. There is no way Bobby is going to mess this up.
On the Wednesday of the second week, Charley returns from Fairplains, where he’d gone to install a new drive chain on a hay baler. Bobby has a Chevy stake truck up on the hoist, changing the clutch plate. Charley gets a soda from the cooler out front, then walks into the shop as Bobby is lifting the transmission back into place.
“Need a hand with that?” he asks.
Bobby hasn’t heard him come in. “Sure,” he says.
Charley puts his soda on the rail of the hoist and ducks under the truck to grab the tail stock of the transmission. He supports it while Bobby aligns the clutch and pressure plate to the shaft and slides the transmission into place onto the back of the engine. He then reaches for the rear cross member and slips it beneath the tail stock for support.
Charley is able to let go then. He takes his soda and leans against the workbench and watches as Bobby begins to thread the bellhousing bolts into place. When Charley finishes the pop, he puts the bottle in the crate by the door.
“Mother’s waiting supper on me,” he says. “You can lock up when you’re done, Bobby.”
“Will do.”
Charley goes out the rear door, to where his truck is parked. A moment later, he returns.
“I’ve been thinking,” he says. “The deal was you can have the coupe once you’ve worked it off. Which means as of right now, you don’t own the vehicle. But if you’ve a mind to start fixing it, go on ahead.”
Bobby comes out from under the truck, wiping his hands on a rag. “All right then,” is all he says.
The funeral parlor owned by Edgar’s father is a couple of blocks away. Most days Edgar wanders over to Walker’s Texaco after getting off work to drink a pop and see what is going on. There was an afternoon funeral today so the garage is closed when he comes by but he spots movement through the front window and goes in. He is wearing his standard outfit for work—a dark blue suit with a bow tie and matching handkerchief just showing in the breast pocket of the jacket.
The ’32 Ford is inside the shop. Bobby has already removed the damaged front fender and leaned it against the wall. Now he is laying on the floor beneath the car, unbolting the running board. The driver’s door is open and Myrna Lee Saunders is sitting on the seat, sideways, with one foot on the running board and the other extended. She is wearing her uniform from the drugstore, a pink dress with blue trim, and the way she is sitting she is showing a fair amount of leg, although not as much as she was showing twenty minutes earlier, when she and Bobby had screwed in the front seat of the car, the cotton dress hiked up around her waist and Bobby’s pants at his ankles. The tussle had been Myrna Lee’s idea; Bobby was intent on tearing the car down. He hadn’t protested though, not even a little bit.
None of this is apparent to Edgar as he walks in. It might have been to a more perceptive person, but that doesn’t describe Edgar. And Myrna Lee, for her part, is sitting as cool as a cucumber at the moment.
“Started on her, have you?” Edgar asks, kneeling down to look at Bobby.
Bobby, working the ratchet, grunts an affirmative.
“Hello, Edgar,” Myrna Lee says. “Don’t you say hello?”
Edgar glances over at her, trying not to look at her legs, or at least trying not to get caught looking at her legs. “Hey Myrna Lee,” he says.
“What you gawking at?” she asks.
“Nothing,” he says. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“It’s a free country, ain’t it?” She laughs and reaches into her purse for a cigarette.
Edgar doesn’t reply. He walks around to inspect the front fender against the wall. It had been crunched pretty badly, the steel folded back on itself. “This here is a right mess, Bobby,” he says. “How do you figure to fix it?”
Bobby removes the last of the bolts and lowers the running board to the cement floor. Standing up, he carries it over to place it beside the fender.
“Who needs fenders?” he asks. “Or running boards either. That’s just extra weight.”
“You fixing to strip her down then?” Edgar asks.
“I am.”
“That means you’re fixing to race her.”
“What else would I do with the car?” Bobby asks. “If I wanted a Sunday driver, I’d find a big old sedan like your Studebaker. Your daddy’s Studebaker, I should say.”
“Studebaker makes a good automobile,” Edgar says.
“Sure, if you want to haul around a wife and a bunch of kids,” Bobby says. “That is not my intention with this here coupe.”
He drags a floor jack over and slides it beneath the rear axle of the car and pumps the handle until the rear wheels are off the floor. He removes the passenger wheel and then begins to unfasten the fender bolts. The rear fender isn’t as badly damaged as the front, but it doesn’t matter to Bobby anyway. Once it was off the car, it was staying off.
“You going to buy me a Dr Pepper, Edgar?” Myrna Lee asks then.
“I guess I could,” Edgar replies. “Bobby, you want a pop?”
“No.”
Edgar goes into the front of the shop and puts two nickels in the machine and takes out an RC Cola and a Dr Pepper. When he comes back, he gives the soda to Myrna Lee then wipes the workbench clean with a rag before jumping up there to sit.
“So how come you’re hanging around here, Myrna Lee?” he asks.
“That’s a good question,” she replies, raising her voice to make sure Bobby hears. “I am supposed to be at the movies with a certain somebody.”
“What picture are they showing?” Edgar asks.
“A new one with Barbara Stanwyck,” Myrna Lee says. “I can’t recall the title just now. What picture don’t matter. What matters is that I’m not at the movies. I’m sitting here while that certain somebody fools around with this wrecked-up automobile.”
“You saying you’re not having any fun?” Bobby asks.
“No, I’m not,” she says.
“Were you having fun a little bit ago?”
“Shut up, Bobby!”
Bobby smiles, working the ratchet.
“I’d give you a hand, Bobby, but I’m not exactly dressed for it,” Edgar says.
“What would you do to help?” Bobby asks from under the car. “Hey, I’m pretty handy with cars.”
“You couldn’t fix a sandwich,” Bobby tells him.
“Well, I guess we all can’t be wizards like you, Bobby,” Edgar says. He has a drink of the soda and begins to hum a tune.
“Why do you wear that bow tie?” Myrna Lee asks.
“It’s for work,” Edgar says. “A man in my business has to mind his appearance.”
“But you’re not at work now,” she says.
“You want me to take my tie off?”
She shrugs. “You can do what you like.”
The tie is a clip on and now Edgar takes it off. He’s had little experience with women and as a rule tries to do what is asked of him by the fairer sex. Not that there’s been a lot of requests from the distaff side.
“I have an idea,” Bobby says then. “Why don’t you take Myrna Lee to the movies, Edgar?”
The mere thought of being that close to Myrna Lee for an entire two hours causes Edgar to break into a sweat. She saves him though.
“I don’t want to go to the picture show with Edgar,” Myrna Lee says.
“Why not?” Bobby asks.
“You know why not, Bobby Barlow.”
Underneath the car, Bobby is smiling. Edgar decides he needs to change the subject.
“Hey Bobby—you know they’re racing at the Hollow Saturday night? Boss Harvey says it’s going to be the biggest field yet.”
“Good for Boss Harvey,” Bobby says. “More money in his greasy pocket.”
“You gonna go watch?”
“Nope,” Bobby says, sliding out from under the Ford coupe. He takes hold of the fender with both hands and pulls it away from the body. “I got no interest in spectating.”
Luther takes to being in charge like a goose to a grain field. He is the only one involved with any experience in making corn liquor so Ava gives him his head. It takes them the better part of a week to set up the plant for cooking. There are vats already there from the molasses making but also required is a large amount of tubing for the condenser and a few cords of hardwood for the fire. It is decided they would build one still to start. Luther is of the opinion that any trace of molasses in the vats might spoil the mash so they boil spring water and baking soda in the tanks for an entire day before he declares them clean enough for the manufacture of what he calls panther’s breath.
Morgan and Ava make a half-dozen trips in the double-T Ford truck to the Parnell farm south of Wilkesboro to pick up the corn they’d purchased. Stub doesn’t ask any questions as to why someone in the molasses business would all of a sudden be interested in large quantities of corn. Ava is pretty damn sure that Stub, although not overly-educated, is capable of putting two and two together. The two of them have a brief and cryptic conversation on the subject while shoveling corn into bushel baskets.
“How’s old Ben these days?” Ava asks. They are using large wooden grain shovels, filling the baskets and then lifting them into the back of the stake truck.
“Old Ben is the same,” Stub replies. “Matter of fact, old Ben is pretty much exactly like young Ben was.”
“A little on the dense side?” Ava suggests.
“I’d say that describes it.”
“Has he ferreted out any more communists lately?”
Stan laughs. “I wouldn’t be surprised. According to Ben, they’re as thick as flies on a shit pile and about to take over the country.”
Ava hoists a bushel up onto her knee to load it on the truck. She pauses to wipe her brow before turning back to Stan. “I don’t know that I’d ever want to tell him anything that I didn’t want to become common knowledge across five or six counties.”
Stub is no slouch when it comes to hints, be they subtle or otherwise. “I wouldn’t tell Ben if I stubbed my big toe. By day’s end, he’d be telling folks I got my leg amputated.”
“Fair enough,” Ava says.
Back at Flagg’s Hollow, they stockpile the corn inside, to avoid detection. As to not attract undue attention, they buy sugar from a dozen general stores, all from small towns and villages within twenty miles or so of home. They have an abundance of clean gallon jugs and stoppers from the molasses production.
By Monday of the second week, they are ready to begin. Luther brings his nephew, Jodie, with him that morning, and another youngster named Cal. They are both sixteen and had grown up together in Darkytown. Luther assures Ava and Morgan that the two boys have been advised of the secretive nature of the work.
“They also been advised what will happen to them if they was to tell such secrets,” he says.
Luther is again in alpha dog mode and he makes a production that morning of examining the facilities in the plant, walking around with his hands behind his back, checking the vats and the corn in the bushels, the bagged sugar on pallets.
“We need a cat,” he tells Ava. “All that corn and sugar, we’re gonna have us a rat problem right quick.”
“There’s always a half dozen hanging around the house, looking for scraps,” Ava says. “I’ll recruit a couple.”
Luther nods. “Then we’re ready to make us some shine, Miss Ava.”
“How long will it take?” she asks. “I mean, until we have a finished product?”
“That’s the beauty of busthead,” Luther says. “It ain’t bourbon or rye, it don’t need no aging. Person can make it one day and drink it the next. Or sell it the next. Course selling means we need some customers.”
“I’ve been putting out some feelers,” Morgan says. “It’s not like selling molasses. I can’t exactly put an ad in the newspaper.”
“We were thinking we might have to travel a bit to find a market that is safe,” Ava says.
“That would be wise,” Luther says. “Don’t fret none on that just now. If we make some good shine, it will sell.”
“Amen to that,” Morgan says.
Luther claps his hands, like a little kid just let out of school and anxious for a summer of fun. “First off, we need to pump us some water from the spring. I expect we’ll need five hundred gallons just to start. And five hundred more by day’s end.”
The diesel pump won’t start. Morgan tries it until the battery dies and then he continues to turn it over, using the hand crank. There is not as much as a sputter from the engine. Luther stands by watching, clearly annoyed. Morgan cranks the engine by hand until he is winded, then looks at Ava.
“This thing was always Ezra’s department.”
“Where is he?” Luther asks.
“At the house,” Ava says. “Playing the part of conscientious objector.”
The two teenaged boys are standing by, awaiting instructions from Luther. He looks at them and then at Ava.
“Gonna require a lot of toting, carrying a thousand gallons of water from that spring by bucket,” he says.
“Wait here,” Ava says.
She finds Ezra drinking coffee and reading the newspaper in the kitchen. Rebecca isn’t around, nor the kids. Ava sits across from him.
“What did you do to the pump?” she asks.
Ezra keeps reading. Or pretending to anyway. “What pump?”
“Don’t do that,” Ava says. “So far I’ve put up with your pouting over this whole enterprise but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you sabotage it. So I don’t care what you did to the pump. All I want is for you to come down and undo it.”
Ezra puts the paper down. “When did I agree to any of this? It’s being shoved down my throat.”
“The family voted.”
“And I voted against,” Ezra says. “Maybe that excuses me from participating in your criminal activities.”
“Then say so,” Ava says. “I don’t have time for your nonsense. If you’re not going to fix that pump, then I’ll hire somebody who can. He will get paid, and you will not. You can sit here and sulk.” “For crying out loud, Ava. I’m trying to do what’s right.”
“It’s not up to you and me to decide what’s right,” Ava says.
“Now that is a ridiculous thing to say.”
“Well, these are ridiculous times, brother. I won’t bother you further. I have work to do. If the boys have to tote the water by hand, then they will tote it. This isn’t some fancy of mine. This is something we’re going to do, with or without you. If you think you can support Rebecca and the children by selling six or seven gallons of molasses a month, then good luck to you.”
She gets up and crosses the room, pushes the screen door open and goes outside. She is down the steps and halfway across the lawn when she hears the door creak again and then he calls to her.
“Yeah?” she replies turning.
“Tell Morgan there’s a valve on the fuel line needs to be open, underneath the engine,” he says.
“Who put that there?” Ava asks.
Ezra turns and goes back inside. Ava smiles as she heads to the plant.