by Eric Hodges
CHAPTER 3
THE NEW TOWN
Wheeler awoke with the dawn just barely showing through the bland striped curtains in the bus. He put them up when he first started his traveling so he could convert the old bus into a sleeper car and have at least a bit of privacy. It was not his modesty so much as it was the need to make the old VW look like it was just a parked vehicle. He was pleased with the old bus as he lay on the wood flat, comfortable on the foam and crowded by his array of blankets and comforter. He mused over some of his colder encampments spent most comfortably until he realized it was time to get up now, to do the needful. A quick roll, stuff and lift and he was back at the diner, relieved and sipping his morning coffee.
It was near dawn when he finished his crisp bacon and loose eggs, and headed back over to the Y to join the early morning exercise crowd. His visit was not for the rowing machine or treadmill today, it was just for the shower and fresh change of clothes before heading over to Keefer Fab to his new career as a, what, helper? Assistant Fabricator? He was there to do what was usually a re-balancing of someone’s life or shrinking a bigger-than-life problem to a manageable size, and then move on. He liked moving on. He liked fixing things, like a mechanic.
Wheeler found Keefer Fabrication proudly lettered, fading noticeably, on the front of a chipped brick storefront that shared a wall with an electrical supply outlet long since closed. They were past the good part of the main street, surprisingly named Main Street, several blocks beyond the ‘good’ stores that had updated facades and new display windows with goods inside that people actually purchased. The front door on Keefer Fabrication looked like it was installed in the 1950’s, painted several times and rarely used. Wheeler drove around the back, along a short alley and turned in toward an oversize rollup door that was open with noises coming out already. Bob was in. He parked off to the side and walked up to the door and waited just inside, until the noise stopped. Wheeler didn’t know if Bob was jumpy and did not want him to run wild with a power tool.
The wait was only a moment and Wheeler said “Good morning Bob” and entered the shop noticing the clock on the front wall. It was just 7:30 and Bob appeared to have been there a while.
“Good morning Wheeler, I wasn’t sure you’d show up.” The words were abrupt but the appreciative look on Bob’s face betrayed his pleasure, or maybe relief. The shop was 20’ wide and 40’ deep with steel topped work benches up against the walls and a larger square table toward the front in the center of the room. Bob had something clamped to the larger table that he seemed to be grinding. The generator was centered just inside the back rollup door and looked like it had been backed in and disconnected. The generator was a small size trailer with a sheet metal enclosure five feet tall three feet wide and eight feet long, battered with years of service that faded the paint and dented the sides.
Bob joined Wheeler at the generator, unlatching one of the side doors and pointed inside. He didn’t waste a heartbeat before showing Wheeler the repair routine. “Look here, the cross bar under the Hemi is cracked and the engine is angled down pulling on the drive shaft to the generator. It’s right on top of the axle so I can’t get to it with the welder without setting the whole thing on fire. All you have to do” Bob said with a chuckle “is lift the Hemi out so I can get in there.”
“It’s just a bunch of bolts; do you have tools I can use?” Wheeler said with all the animation of saying ‘pass the salt.’ Bob pointed over to one of the side benches with a tool box next to it and the two of them pushed the generator close to it. Bob left him to the task and went back to grinding.
Wheeler opened all the access doors to let some light in and get a better look. What he saw were hoses, wires, brackets and all the necessities required to convert a car engine to the mundane labors of turning a generator, an unglamorous job compared to powering Dodge Chargers and Plymouth Road Runners from the 1960’s. He was just barely a toddler then but read about the glory days when he was older, dreaming of what it must have been like back then. As he was daydreaming, he was gathering the soul impressions of the machinery before him, tuning into its mechanical consciousness for lack of a better description. He didn’t have a real description of what he did, but he had a distinct feel and a ‘mode’ of listening that was like asking the mind to remember something that was in someone else’s distant memory.
He was moved to lie down on his back and pull himself under it to get a look and was drawn to a point where the heavy metal formed an intersection. A trail to follow was forming in his mind and he went back up to the top to continue peering into the mystery of the 50 year old machine to see where the trail led. Wheeler deliberately looked here and there and it all came together. He started removing the back cover, the top cover, the rear doors and the driveshaft, ending up with two innocuous looking bolts holding the frame together. It took him under an hour.
He walked over to the big table opposite to where Bob was finishing up his grinding and asked “How would you like to show me how your crane works, Bob?”
“What? You’re done?” Bob exclaimed as he put down his face shield and gloves and walked over to the generator. “Is it disconnected already? I can’t believe it!”
“I think so” Wheeler replied. “Go drop the hook right here and I will attach it.”
Bob grabbed the controls, lowering the hook and chain. Wheeler met the hook, guiding it into newly exposed lift hole right above the Hemi.
“Okay, that’s good. Now lift a little.” The weight came off the frame but the Hemi didn't release. “Stop there. Now come around here and help me” Wheeler said.
Bob joined Wheeler and they pushed and wiggled together, coaxing the big Hemi out of the frame on its own frame! “Lift it a bit more with the crane, Bob.”
It slid right out the back with its radiator, starter and mechanical paraphernalia intact, swinging in mid-air, three feet above the trailer frame on the lift hook.
“Well I’ll be damned” said the astonished Bob. “I was sure you would be wrenching that old thing for two or three days to get it out and then three or four days more to get it back together. Now look right there” he pointed at the front mount “the broken crossbar is right there. I can fix it with the Hemi hanging on the crane and we can just slide it back in. We’ll be done today.”
Bob ducked down to get a better look. “Won’t old Lee Gregor be pleased? I won’t have to give him a repair bill for a week’s work and he can get to the house framing right away.” Bob positively beamed. Wheeler was pleased as well but the mornings’ effort was not what called him to Eaton, there was more out there somewhere.
It was before 10:00am and Wheeler was getting the pulling sensation that was gently telling him he needed to be somewhere else, close but not here.
“Is your sister at the store this early?” Wheeler inquired casually, “I could go see about her moving while you are welding up the generator.” His tone was easy and pleasant as he was trying to manage Bob without him realizing. It was certainly possible the reason to be in Eaton had nothing to do with Bob or his sister, so Wheeler was only providing an opening to see if it was to be filled here this way.
“She is sure to be in, you go on over and I’ll call her to let her know I sent you.”
Bob went to the front of the shop and Wheeler headed out the back to the bus. Old Glorys was across the street from the diner so in minutes he had arrived and was walking across the sidewalk, turning the new door handle that was antiqued to look old on a similar new, sturdy door made in the style of some bygone era.
Wheeler entered the store and was surrounded by antique furniture of every description: dining table sets, hutches, desks, rockers, lamps and bedposts all posed with the odd vase or doily artfully placed to suggest a proper setting. There was a queer smell that struck him as the door moved the air at the front of the shop, rather like a combination of dead cat, fermented grass and lemon. It was not overwhelming but it was plain to Wheeler. He wondered if it was just a bypro
duct of musty and ripe quilts that have been around longer than him.
“You must be Wheeler, Bob just called.” Wheeler turned toward the sound of the voice and located a head peeking out over a rather tall dresser at the back of the store. It was a pretty head with its green eyes peeking out under medium brown bangs that showed a hint of red. The head walked out from behind the dresser and a petite body joined the head presenting a lovely young woman about 30 years old in a peasant blouse, slim jeans and tennis shoes. It was a working shopkeeper look. Bob was the older bother the same age as Wheeler so she was the baby sister. No wonder Bob still looked after her.
“Wheeler it is” he said she clasped his hand in a firm and respectful shake. Not too much up and down, that was a good sign. Up and down movement belied something phony.
“My name is Alice, Alice Keefer. Bob said you would be willing to help me out a bit here” she said sweeping an open palm across the expanse of the store.
“Sure, I’m doing the same for Bob, looking to replenish my supplies while I’m here and keep me going for a while.” Wheeler had followed the sweep of her hand surveying the showroom and noticed it was not all that crowded. The pieces were placed such that the displays of furniture looked like little islands throughout the space.
“Why don’t you come to the back and I’ll get us some coffee, do you like coffee, I could make tea if that’s better for you, just sit at the table here, what would you like?” Alice was a nervous whirlwind that took his breath away. He could see how she stayed so slim.
“Coffee would be fine, just black please.” The antique smell from the front of the shop was now in competition with the smell of the coffee at the back. Alice put down two mugs that were thankfully normal size, not the dainty antique ones that look cute but only hold one gulp. Wheeler’s 6’2” frame had rather large hands attached that could completely wrap around one of those cups.
Alice sat down with more calm than the ramble would suggest. Wheeler wasn’t sure if it was new person nervousness, normal bird-like personality or if he caused the flutter himself. He laughed to himself; there is a part of all guys that think they can flutter a woman’s heart just by saying ‘hi’. Get over yourself, he chastised himself and put that thought out to pasture.
“I have a pair of end tables that I promised to deliver to Mrs. Morton just out of town. She is a widower living off the insurance and buys a piece from me now then. Usually she will collect the stuff when she’s here, but last trip she would barely enter the store. She just pointed across the floor to the two pieces, asked me to deliver them and she would pay me then, and nearly ran back to her car. That was last Friday and they won’t fit in my Honda. I really should get a truck.” Her delivery was a slower rapid fire staccato than with the coffee, but there was something nagging at the back of Wheeler’s mind about it, the memory bank thing. While she was speaking, her eyes kept darting toward the front like she was expecting a delivery and Wheeler realized it was the first hint of his purpose for being there.
“I have an old VW bus the stuff might fit in. We could measure when we’re finished here” Wheeler said, encouraging them to get into action. She didn’t need any encouragement; she was up like a shot headed over to the dresser he first saw her behind and she disappeared. Wheeler left half his coffee and followed her over to two matching tables that had two foot square tops and were only a bit taller.
“These will fit in the bus I'm sure, shall I bring it around back?”
“Are you parked right in front? These will go through easily, that’s how I brought them in.” The rapid fire delivery was back.
“All right then, I’ll just grab one and put it out in the bus. Be back for the other one in a flash.” He lifted it easily and noticed the musty, meaty smell strengthen as he approached the front door. It was more than the smell of old comforters and antiques that put his internal sensors on alert that made him think there was something lurking at the front of the store.
Wheeler did not let himself be open to stray energies or communications. He directed his openings and usually allowed only relevant inputs, discovering long ago he could pick up on other people’s ramblings and didn’t like it. He called in head static.
He put the small table down to prop the door open and wondered about the smell. Was it really a smell or something else? He opened himself a bit and the smell became a host of emotions: dread, anger, fear, worry and more all jumbled into a messy blob. It was not a smell. He pushed the door with his foot and carefully maneuvered the table out without bumping the door or the jamb. Just across the threshold the blob disappeared, it stayed inside the store: curious. Alice brought the other table out right behind Wheeler and the loading only took a moment. Alice locked the door and they were off.
