15

Dottie Mulroy set her purse on the hallway table and dropped her car keys into the Reno-Tahoe souvenir ashtray that hadn’t been used for ashes since Connor stubbed the last of his cigar butts in there seven years before.

‘Dottie’ was what the folks all called her, but she didn’t much like the name. What she would have been called if she had her druthers was the moniker she’d been gave at birth; the one she gen’rally scribbld on her checks. But when your mom gets to hollerin’ for you to get your little backside in for supper—well, ‘Dorothy’ gets to be a pretty hefty mouthful if a parent’s got to yell it out lots and lots of times. So ‘Dorothy’ got shortened to ‘Dot’, or sometimes Dottie’—‘Dottie’ sounded apter, she figured, for a skinny, red-haired, freckled kid who’s always wanderin’ off, so that’s the one they’d generally called her by. Not ‘Dotsy’, though—She put her foot down to ‘Dotsy’ and simply wouldn’t come when they called her that.

Sometimes, though, the name ‘Dottie’ came in handy. One day, back maybe six years back or thereabouts—not long after Connor died, right around St. Patty’s Day, that much she could remember—Well, that St. Patty’s Day she’d come on into work with a green polka dot scarf to decorate her uniform; that’s the only thing she could find around the house that contained a little green, you see. So what happens when she ups and wears it in? Well, next thing, what do you know, but one of her reg’lars points it out, and laughs, and says: He says “Hey, there’s Dottie with the polka dots.” So then next thing you know, ‘Dottie with the dots’ gets to be a kind of joke around the diner. But a good joke, though. Good, meaning that people start to remember her like that—not just her smilin’ face, but her name gets stuck on too. “I want Dottie’s table,” they got to asking pretty quick, now that they know what name to call her, and that did wonders for her tips way over and above what they ever used to be a year or two before. So nowadays she was doin’ pretty good as far as money was concerned, and she kept the dotted scarfs a-goin’ as a sort of trademark, sometimes green dots, sometimes blue, red, whatever’s topmost in the drawer—And as a result of that, them hefty tips and all, well there was plenty of little extras for her and for the kids nowadays, way more than they needed to just get by. Of course with Tommy’s extra income he slipped her on the side to help things out—not that she’d ever asked him for nothin’, of course—and the free ride at school he’d earned—smart as a whip, that boy; he’d always been. Yep, the three of them were really pretty comf’terble with regard to money these days, even without a husband round to help.

Well, quarter after ten by now, so said her twelve buck watch: she oughta see about her little girl at least. Yeah, but right at the moment—whew!—just a-gettin’ home after fourteen hours on them miser’ble feet, she plain old felt the need to set her body down a bit.

So into the living room, leavin’ the bags she’d carried in from the diner on the floor, and plop! onto the old beat-up lounge chair facing the blank TV. Off went the shoes so’s she could rub them achin’ toes back the point of gettin’ some feelin’ in ‘em. All day trompin’ up and down—Up at quarter after five to get to the diner at six on the nose, then two hours cookin’ up the pies—a pretty decent bargain for bakin’ ‘em at two bucks a pop—thirty-somethin’ pies for sixty-somethin’ bucks—great money; everything came in handy—Then waitressin’ for the duration—first the breakfast crowd, half of ‘em askin’ for her by name, for ‘Dottie with the dots’—red dots today, yesterday blue—though she could pick and choose which of her reg’lars was the better tippers and decide to wait on them and leave the cheapskates to the younger girls who didn’t have no dots—Hah! Seven years seniority and Cosmo let her do what she liked. So then, startin’ at eleven, the lunch crowd came in, and after they cleared out she normally headed home. Gen’rally she did, yeah, but leave it to Angela to call in sick—Sick! Most likely one of her low-life boyfriends again takin’ up her time. And who else but Dottie to fill in when Angie wasn’t there?—So there you were.

OK, them miser’ble feet was gettin’ pretty well recovered by now, so up and back on with the shoes and down the hall towards…. Yep, Rachel was in her room, alright. You could see the light comin’ through the open doorway, and with no TV goin’ and none of that screwball music that kids was listenin’ to nowadays, that meant Rachel’s homework was likely gettin’ done. And when Dottie reached the open doorway, well, what do you know? There was her perky little daughter flat on her tummy with a book spread out on the floor, down below the foot of the bed, studyin’ hard.

“Hi there, sweetie-pie. You must have a test to be doin’ all ‘at studyin’ this late.”

“Oh, Mom! Hi!” Up she got, and off the bed, and over to the doorway where she gave her mommy a humongous hug. Rachel was as wonderful a daughter as any mom could want. Maybe not as smart as Tommy, maybe not as good a looker—but then who was? But Rachel worked hard at school, not like Tommy who used to thumb through his lessons and know every word. Yessir, Connor would have been proud of his kids if he’d lived to see ‘em all growed up. That’s where they got their brains from, ‘cause Connor was really the smart one, not her. Connor wasn’t educated like Tommy was gonna be, but he was smart in practical things, in fixin’ things. Even now, people always said how great a mechanic her darlin’ husband used to be.

“You hungry at all, sweetie? You kids get to eat?”

“Yeah, I had, like, a sandwich and stuff. Tommy picked up from Arby’s on his way home from the garage.”

“For the both of you then?”

“No, Mom, you know Tommy. He brought me a roast beef and just ate a couple of fries.”

“Oh that boy! What’s he tryin’ to do to himself? He’s tryin’ to kill himself like your dad did. Alright, anyways, how ‘bout some of the tasty stuff I brought home from Cosmo’s? Let’s see: What didn’t sell so good today was…. There’s a couple of stuffed pork chops in the bag and some shrimps—they’re really good fried shrimps. One of the last of my reg’lars before I left changed his mind on the shrimps after they got cooked, so Cosmo said for me to take ‘em along for you kids. Oh, and I got some pie like I always bring. Caramel apple—it’s really terrific, if I do say so myself.”

“OK, I might try a piece of the pie later on. That sounds pretty good. I bet Tommie’ll eat the some of the other stuff, though.”

“OK, sweetheart, I’ll run on out and check. He out back again?”

“Where else? I mean—Duh!—where else would Tommie be but in his precious garage?”

So back up the hallway and over towards the kitchen, then out the kitchen door into the yard, and across the sand and river rock, past the big saguaros Tommy had planted to either side of the flagstone walkway, and past them smelly oleanders which was kinda gettin’ overgrowed, to the big man-door in the metal building that Connor and Tommy had put up eight years ago, and, pushing it inward, Dotty passed through the door and stepped inside.

Tommy was grindin’. He didn’t hear her for the racket that he made. And so she waited, watchin’, just as she’d waited watchin’ Connor in the old days a million times and more before he up and died on her, still too young to leave his Dorothy a widow of only thirty-five years. Things was tough back then; he hadn’t left them much—how could he have known about that funny, long-named heart disease if he’d never ever seen a doctor before? But there they were anyways, all of ‘em. How can anybody plan? So they’d sold the main garage and a lot of the equipment, although Tommy had kept the tools that didn’t bring enough to make it worth their while to auction off.

And so it turned out better in the end that Tommy still had all this stuff, enough to do the work he lived for, just like his dad: The big old air compressor that chugged away powerin’ his dad’s old ratchets and sanders and grinders. And the hoist—Old John MacReedy had hauled it over to the metal building in his truck and helped Tommy to pour the concrete that would anchor it to the floor. Oh and Connor’s beat-up hand tools too—Tommy had those—the ones he hadn’t needed to replace; and the big old chest to keep ‘em in that he’d had to put new wheels on so’s the darn thing could move across the bumpy floor.

There—the grinding stopped all sudden like and Tommy turned around:

“Mom! I didn’t hear you come in. When did you get home?”

“Just a bit ago, sweetheart. Rachel told me I’d find you out here. She said you didn’t eat but a couple French fries is all. That’s not good for you, you know.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t all that hungry after lunch, and besides, I’ve got to get this Toronado done for Mr. Crane. You see so far? I’ve got the frame and body nearly ready for primer and paint—all since yesterday—all in five hours or less. And honestly, Mom, I didn’t even want the fries. I just ate a couple to keep Rachel company. So—How’s she doing on her studying for the test tomorrow? Did she say?”

“No, honey, she tells you a whole lot more than she tells me. But listen: That’s enough for today, you hear? It’s after ten, you know? I’ve brung you lots of tasty stuff to eat. I brung home shrimps and stuffed pork chops and some really good caramel apple pie the way I bake it—you know. How ‘bout I warm somethin’ up?”

“OK, Mom, in a bit. Just let me just finish looking things over—fifteen minutes maximum—and I’ll be in.”

He pulled off the latex gloves and wiped his brow: Three weeks of nights and weekends, no more, and the old Toronado was nearly good to go mechanically and all stripped down for paint—a full week ahead of what he’d planned. He’d finish up the engine and tranny in another week—Not too much to do on those, either; the tranny was OK, bands good, valves working smoothly. And the motor—just a set of rings and a rebuild of the carb was all the old gal needed, and she’d fire up and purr just fine. That Toronado parts car out at Coleman’s yard on Route 42—now there was a lucky find if there’d ever been one: chrome, stainless—just needed a bit of buffing and that was it; well worth the couple hundred bucks that Mr. Crane had paid for with a check.

Tommy pulled the air hose off the grinder and stepped back a couple of feet to take a careful look. The Olds was pretty doggone clean now, the undercarriage all degreased and rust-proofed and ready for paint, the sheet metal straight enough for sanding and final prep, then a couple of spots to fill before the base and clear coat got applied. He’d finish up with the engine and have the whole kit and caboodle bolted in by the following weekend. Good—Great! He wasn’t the least bit tired, not even the least bit hungry; he could have gone a couple of hours more, but he’d promised his mom, so….

Off went the compressor, back into the chest went the tools. Fifteen minutes, he’d told his mom; she’d have the oven heating up by now, and it would take a while for the food to be prepared, leaving a little time for him to close up shop. He stepped over to the car, three feet up on the hoist, and ran his fingers across the fenders and doors—Smooth, clean, perfect. A little more rust than Mr. Dworkin had thought: A couple of patch panels here and there he’d welded in—you could barely make out the seams, even before the filler got applied for a final cover up. A magnificent thing, this classic Olds, a piece of sculpture really. What must it have been like for the drafters and design team to create so wonderful a medley of leather, chrome, and steel? One more year of grad school—that was all—and maybe he’d be one of the lucky ones who helped produce such splendid products of the automotive art.

How he loved this work! Every part of it, every aspect, every routine, simple task: Metal fabrication, mechanics, brakes, trannies, the diagnostic challenge of an electrical system gone awry; and then the final finished product—a beauty to behold once it was done: flawless paint, correct upholstery, body panels perfectly aligned—just like the factory turned out—or better: Yes, if you did it well, it turned out better in the end. When you were done, and did your duties carefully, you had a wonder of aesthetic and mechanical creation there before you, a precisely moving sculpture gradually fashioned through the decades by a thousand brilliantly inventive minds. Think of them: The Fords, Lelands, Ketterings, each one incrementally adding to the cumulative beauty, safety, and reliability of this amazing object that moved the world from place to place. Had the fellows working on the line when this magnificent car was built exulted in the product of their labor as much as he did bringing that belabored product back to life? Ah, how could they have!—No way!

The fascination he had always felt for vehicles—How he loved this kind of work!— But why? What was it that drew him so irresistibly to such mindless tasks as brake jobs, engine overhauls, shaping metal and spraying paint? These were things he’d done since childhood, as familiar and routine as combing his hair or brushing his teeth. He did them without having to think, without expending too much energy, since he knew all the shortcuts of saving time and work. So why the fascination? Why so much pleasure in doing things you’d done a thousand times before? Was it those childhood memories that pleased him so? Those early years shadowing his dad, watching, learning, helping out? Or maybe the dozens of vehicles they’d worked on together, father and son, adolescent years when he’d gradually grown up. No way of forgetting those prideful words bestowed on him by an honored parent—“Good job, Tommy. I couldn’t have done it any better myself.” Dad could have done it better, though. Connor Mulroy could do anything with a car; he was a legend, everyone agreed; the kind of automotive wizard his son had always longed to be.

OK, but thanks to the scholarships, the straight-A grades, the sheaf of recommendations from his profs: now there was a terrific chance that he was getting there at last. A PhD in automotive engineering, and right at the top of his class from first grade up. Dad had had the skill but not the formal education, not the big-name contacts a fellow gathers going to a top-notch school. Why, even the legendary Professor Kendrick was in his camp now. “Tommy,” he’d said last year before the spring semester’s end, “I’m going to get you in with the big boys when you’re done.” And Allan Kendrick knew the big boys in Detroit as well as anybody did. He’d been a mover and shaker there for over twenty years before he’d tossed it all aside to teach, with all those managerial millions in the bank.

Yeah, but it wasn’t the millions that attracted Tommy Mulroy, no sirree. He wouldn’t turn them down, of course, if they happened to come his way—Gosh! look what he could do for Mom and Rachel if he had some decent money coming in—But the gratification of this passion of his for cars: that came not from the potential earnings, but from the process itself. The hands-on: Oh, sure, that was something he’d never totally give up. But there was more for him out there in the automotive world to work on if everything went just right.

Like his project now at school—the modular car. That was something that would revolutionize the industry if he could manage to get it built. And some ideas he had for efficiency too. Not many people realized it, but nearly eighty percent of the energy of fuel is lost in wasted heat. What if you could capture most or all of that and have it help to move the car? Thirty-five miles a gallon would become nearly two hundred. He’d thought about this long and hard and had some fascinating ideas toward that end. And if he got in with the big boys in Detroit one day, he’d love to try those new ideas out.

Someday. Someday in the not too distant future, Tommy thought, he might get to realize his dream.