Unraveling

by Owen Thomas

  “He says he’s getting complaints from teachers about the way I teach.”

  “Which is how, exactly.”

  “No bullshit.”

  “Come again?”

  “Columbus killed Indians. George Bush is no hero. Jesus was a black Jew.”

  “Gotcha. Shit, this just ain’t your year, kiddo.”

  “I want to sue them. This isn’t right.”

  “Atta boy, David. Don’t lie down for this.”

  “I need a referral.”

  “A referral? Glenda Laveau is your fuckin’ referral, Dave. I definitely want a piece of this. You hear me?”

  “Seriously? I thought you did mostly criminal …”

  “Kickin’ ass is kickin’ ass, Dave. What’s his name?”

  “Who? Bob? Principal Robertson?”

  “I’ve got some time. I’ll start working something up this afternoon.”

  Glenda peppers me with questions about my work history and the Columbus City School Board and the union and I give the name of Warren Buntz and warn her that he is probably playing golf.

  “Fine by me, Dave. I’ll show him where the fuckin’ hole is. We’re gonna get through the grievance process in about three strokes then you and I are gonna take care of business. Now go get some paint on that shit can. I’ll call you when I need you.”

  “Okay, Glenda. I really appre…”

  “And in the meantime, Dave….”

  “I know. No talking to anyone about anything.”

  “Good boy. Not a fuckin’ word, Dave.”

  Glenda hangs up and for the rest of the drive it is her voice in my head beating the crap out of Principal Bob’s voice and I feel ever so much better. This is partly because Glenda’s voice is using words that Glenda herself never actually said, but which I imagine she must have said. Words like, Principal Bob…dead! The school board…dead!

  My destination is conveniently at the far end of Brook Park where my northward route slices across the mighty I-80, gushing westward from Hackensack to San Francisco and back again. My last pass through this area was with Mae on our way to visit her parents’ glossy monstrosity on the lake; a weekend of sail boating and precisely the sun-soaked, waved-tossed, Kennedyesque debauchery that Rhonda Davenport has imagined. It was the weekend on which the photograph now hanging in my hallway was taken; back when my life was buoyant and true in its course towards a picture-perfect point on the horizon; back when I was a teacher, with a job, and a girlfriend whose affections did not require interpretive assistance, and a humble but unsullied automobile, and no risk whatsoever of bankrupting legal fees, felony convictions or violently amorous cellmates.

  I see the sign for McMillan Auto Body and pull off the road, steering towards a brown cinder block of a building. A brick island floating in a gray sea of parking lot, it floats just off the shores of an outlet paradise for those inclined toward cheap shoes, knock-off cosmetics and, Belts-N-Things.

  I park and walk around the corner to an open bay door. Two men in greasy blue coveralls are bent down into the cavernous maw of an SUV. Another two are in a pit beneath a pick-up truck impaled on the hydraulic lift rising out of the floor in the adjacent bay. A wall of thickly sheeted plastic separates the far bay. I can just discern humanoid shapes moving rhythmically on the other side. An odor of oil and paint and a great hissing sound from the far bay washing over the sound of Hank Williams.

  “Excuse me,” I say. The men extract themselves from the SUV and look around a little dazed, searching for the voice. “I’m looking for Eddy Mac?”

  The one with a salt-and-pepper beard wipes his hands on his pants.

  “That’s me,” he says.

  “I’m David Johns.” He looks puzzled. “I called?” Nothing. “Rapist?”

  “Ah!” He is all smiles now. He looks back at the other guy, who is also suddenly amused. “I was wondering if I’d see you today.”

  “I had some things to do.”

  “No worries. We’ll work you in.” He turns to the other guy. “Keep at it Mike, let me write this up and I’ll be right back.”

  We walk outside to take a look at my car. Eddy Mac has such a pronounced limp that I wonder if his right leg is real. When we round the corner he gives a short laugh and shakes his head pitifully. He bends down and rubs his thumb back and forth over the “R” that snakes over the seam of my passenger door. He takes a step back and crosses his arms and stares appraisingly as though contemplating a museum exhibit.

  “How long you been drivin’ this thing around like this, Dave?”

  “Too long.”

  “‘Could’a used some duct tape or something. Just…you know, covered it up.”

  I reddened. “Never thought of that, I guess.”

  “Mmm. Well, next time you’ll know.” He gives me a backhanded swat to the shoulder and laughs. “I can’t match the paint though,” he says without missing a beat.

  “Oh. Really? You can’t even…just…”

  “Nope.” He burrows his darkened fingers into his beard and scratches his face.

  “Isn’t it just your basic silver?”

  “Basic silver I got. This is factory silver. Won’t match. Better off painting the whole thing. May as well do a different color entirely. Got a nice cobalt.”

  “Cobalt.”

  “Yeah, blue.”

  “I’m a silver Civic kind of guy.”

  He looks at me with a wry dubiousness in his eyes. “What,” I say.

  “Seems to me…what’s your name?”

  “David.”

  “Seems to me, Dave, that all this,” he gestures vaguely at the recrimination splashed across my car, “happened to a silver Civic sort of guy. Maybe your life will turn around if you stopped being a silver Civic sort of guy. Maybe be a different sort of guy. A cobalt sort of guy.”

  “Life is fine,” I say. “It’s just the car.”

  He does a quarter turn and gives me a look. “You did say that Sissy sent you.”

  “Yeah. I mean, I don’t know her or anything, she just drove up next to me and told me you could get me a good deal. That was before I even knew I had a problem.”

  “That’s Sissy alright. Woman’s got a radar for misery.”

  I am trying to understand, but Eddy Mac is suddenly ready to move on. He steps up and gives the top of the car a slap and starts another tour, dragging his leg behind him as he goes, bending in for closer looks at dents and scratches. “You could use a paint job anyway, Dave. So whatcha’ think? Cobalt, right?”

  “Silver.”

  He laughs. “Okay, okay. Suit yourself.”

  “How much?”

  There is the sound of an engine and a honk and I turn to see the ambulance that is no longer an ambulance pulling around to the other side of the garage. I recognize her – she of the “it’s gotta’ get better sometime” prediction – just before she disappears.

  “Speak of the Devil,” says Eddy Mac. “Don’t worry about the how much, Dave. You get the Sissy Lewis Special.”

  “Which is?”

  “Thirty percent.”

  “Off?”

  “No. Just plain ol’ thirty-percent.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  “Jesus. Who is this woman?”

  He inclines his head and is either smiling or squinting into the sun as the woman from the erstwhile ambulance rounds the corner.

  “Hey Mac.” Her accent is like an aroma.

  “Hey Sissy,” says Eddy Mac.

  “Mike says y’all out of air filters.”

  “No, I saved one for you. Told you I would. It’s under the front counter”

  “You’re a good man.”

  “We were just talkin’ about how you’re puttin’ me outta business.”

  “Now Eddy. Doin’ a good turn now and then never put anyone outta business.”

  She is wearing jeans, a white button-down rolled up at the sleeves, and a green baseball hat that she takes off and repositions, tucki
ng her hair behind an ear.

  “I recognize you,” she says, and then nods in the direction of the Civic.

  “This here is Dave. Dave wants me to paint his car a nice shiny cobalt blue.”

  “Silver,” I say. “Nice to meet you. Kind of hard not to recognize the car.”

  “I’m Cee Cee Lewis.”

  “Oh, I thought it was Sissy.”

  “It is. Caitlyn Carson Lewis. Cait. Cee Cee. Lew. Sissy. All me.” She extends a hand and we shake. Eddy Mac pivots on his good leg and heads off.

  “Let’s go write this up, Dave, so I can get back to paying customers.”

  “Now Mac…,” scolds Cee Cee Lewis.

  We fall in line and follow him to the office inside the garage. He prepares a work order and I sign it. Cee Cee rummages around behind the counter for an air filter.

  “When will it be ready?”

  “Oh, day after tomorrow. Say, after 3:00.”

  “Day after tomorrow? I…” Eddy Mac gives me a look calculated to remind me that I’m getting a seventy percent price break and that he is squeezing me in as it is. “I just…I wasn’t thinking. I live two hours away, and…”

  “Well, you can bring it back next week. Or hell, Dave, just take the bus.”

  Cee Cee pops up from behind the counter holding a flat orange box.

  “You deliberately hid this from me, didn’t you?”

  “Did no such thing, Sissy. I was hiding it from everyone else in the world so I don’t disappoint you. God knows I don’t want to do that.”

  “You’re a good man, Eddy McMillan.” Cee Cee smiles at me conspiratorially and squeezes Eddy Mac’s arm. “Forget the bus, Dave. I’ll give you a ride. I’m on my way back to Columbus now anyway.”

  “Seriously? I can take the bus.”

  “I don’t mind. If you’re nice, I’ll pick you up on Wednesday and bring you back.”

  “I don’t want to put you out, I can get back. But if you can get me home…”

  “Let me pop this filter in and we’re off. See you, Mac.” She stands on her toes, placing her face very close to his and pinching his bearded cheek. “Who’s a good man?”

  “I’m a good man, Sissy.”

  “Damn right you are, Eddy.”

  She swats him on the backside with the box and heads out the open bay door, waving to one of the mechanics as she goes.

  “Wow,” I say to Eddy Mac, who is trying to hand me a copy of the work order.

  “My friend,” he says, clicking his pen, “you don’t know the half of it.”

  * * *

  She calls it her vanbulance. It’s a decommissioned ambulance that she purchased at an auction in Akron. A scanner and radio are bolted to the underside of a dashboard that sports knobs and switches, which I assume at one time connected to lights and sirens. She tells me things about the undercarriage and the engine that I do not understand, but nod approvingly because I am a man and should know the principles of automotive construction and internal combustion like I know my own penis.

  The vanbulance is wider than a normal van. There is a wall behind each of the front bucket seats that is made of smooth, heavily lacquered, white metal cabinetry. There is just enough room to pass between the cabinets into the back of the vehicle. The rear is lined with padded vinyl benches. Along the passenger side is a canvas stretcher on a metal frame that is folded up and secured against the wall of the van.

  “There’s a latch on the side,” she says into her rear view mirror, watching me explore as she drives. We are already twenty minutes out of Cleveland. “Pull the red cord, but just keep a hold of the frame when you do it.”

  I do and the stretcher falls tautly into place a few inches over the bench. I push down against the metal frame, testing its strength. She changes lanes and I grab a handhold to steady myself. There is a seat belt across the middle of the stretcher, which I unclasp and move aside. I recline, looking at the traffic behind us for a police tail. Finding none, I lay all the way back and fold my hands across my abdomen as though I am on some kind of hammock. She says she used to be an EMT. I have other concerns.

  “It’s got a moon roof?”

  “I added that. Eddy Mac did that for me, in fact.”

  “He seems rather taken with you.”

  “Aw, Eddy’s ‘bout as good as they come. He has trouble knowin’ that about himself sometimes. I remind him when I can; keep him out of the bottle, that’s all.”

  “So you’re not an EMT any more?”

  “Just wasn’t enough for me. CSP work is more my speed.”

  “I always thought EMT pay was pretty good.”

  “Oh, pay is okay. But … I dunno Dave. We go where we’re needed. Know what I mean? There’s plenty of EMT’s. Too many, that’s why they let me go in the first place. Well, not enough for the need, but too many to pay ‘em all.”

  I roll over on my side and prop my head up an elbow. “What’s in the cabinets?”

  “Food. Water. Lots of water. Oxygen. Basic first aid. Bandages. Blankets. Stuff.”

  “Aren’t you a little over-qualified for the CSP? I mean, don’t they mostly pick up the drunks and homeless and deliver them places.”

  “I’m not even really CSP. I tried that for awhile in Cincinnati, then I signed up in Columbus. But those programs are always getting cut to the bone and everyone is so afraid of getting sued for doin’ something wrong that the rules start to choke the life out of the mission. I’m more effective freelance.”

  “Freelance. Freelance what exactly?”

  “I’m not sure what you’d call it.” She tucks her hair behind her ear and gestures casually to a tricked-out yellow pick-up that wants to merge. “Well, go on, go on. There’s a big homeboy.” The pick–up merges. Caitlin tightens her lips and looks at me in the mirror, squinting a little, as if my question is hard to see. “Urban lifeguard, maybe.”

  “Okay…”

  “Mostly I just try to be there to throw people a line. You know?” I don’t have any idea what she is talking about, but keep this to myself. “Because when you’re goin’ down for the last time, there should at least be a rope in the water, don’t you think?”

  “I guess.”

  “Someone should be there to throw out a rope and to bear witness to what happens next. If nothing else, then at least that. Every now and again I get the chance to do something that lasts.”

  “Teach people to swim?” I hazard, running with a metaphor I do not understand.

  “Swim? No. Got to float before you can swim. We were made to float. But it’s like anything else, Dave. It all comes down to faith.”

  I nod my head in agreement, suddenly fearing the invocation of Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior with an hour and a half left in the trip. I send out a silent prayer that she will just move on. I lie back and can see jet contrails lining the sky.

  “A man’ll sink to the bottom of his life like a chunk of granite ‘less he has some faith in his own buoyancy. I try to remind people of that. Call yourself a rock and you will sink. Guaranteed.”

  “Man, you can always tell the psych majors.”

  “I majored in public health, smartass. I come by this thinkin’ honest.”

  “Hand-me-down pearls, huh?”

  “In a way, I guess.”

  “I get a lot of that kind of wisdom myself.”

  “Mother or father?”

  “Dad.”

  “Smart man, is he?”

  “Wisest man he knows. He suffers us all.”

  “My Daddy was the smartest man I ever knew. Ate his gun when I was fifteen.”

  I sit upright on the stretcher and look at her reflected expression, which has not changed. “Happened ten days after he was promoted to regional vice president of the largest grocery chain in the state. Had everything goin’ for him. He was an attractive cuss too. But that’s not how daddy saw himself and life was just gettin’ in the way. How can you be a loser if you keep succeeding?”

  “Jesus,” I say under my breath. �
��That’s really terrible. Your poor mother.”

  “Oh, she didn’t suffer his death. Daddy took her out first. Back of the head.” She reaches back and taps herself twice in the opening in the back of her baseball hat. “She was a good woman, Dave, she really was. Not the smartest or the prettiest, but she didn’t have any problem believin’ she could float. She was like a cork, my mom. What did her in was believing the same of daddy. That was like stickin’ her head right in the mouth of the lion. Know what I mean? I think her believin’ in him was more than he could bear.”

  I am so uncomfortable that I want to open the back doors and leap onto the hood of the car behind us. I sit and stare at my hands, gripping the rail of the stretcher.

  “So, anyway, I try to pass those pearls along when they let me. Mostly they just take the food and water and a ride to the shelter, but every now and again...”

  “Like Eddy Mac,” I say, taking a leap. She smiles a little but does not answer.

  “So then you’re independently wealthy.”

  “No. Just independently minded and stubborn to a fault. I work days as a nursing contractor. Some hospice work.” She gestures into the back with a thumb over her shoulder. “All of this is just kind of a hobby I guess.”

  “A hobby? Stamp collecting is a hobby, Cait. Star mapping is a hobby.”

  “To each her own I ‘spose. What about you? How d’you spend your time?”

  I climb off of the stretcher and re-latch it to the side of the vanbulance, taking my time, thinking about how I want to answer her question; for lately I spend my time in so many interesting ways. I slip back between the front seats and strap myself in.

  “I teach high school.”

  “There’s a noble calling.”

  “Shepherding the future of America… right off a cliff.”

  “Oh, now, Dave,” she reaches over and grips me on the shoulder. “I’m sure you’re a fine teacher.”

  “I am a fine teacher, and the cliff thing is the best idea I’ve had in a long time. See, it’s the students that are the problem.”

  “DA-VID!” Her mouth is agape and she bangs the steering wheel with the heel of her hand. There is something about her mouth. Her face is somehow not symmetrical. “You’re a teacher!”

  “They’re all lemmings anyway. We should just get rid of the kids. That would fix our education system in this country.”