by Patti Abbott
“Maybe I can help,” I said, quickly crossing the room. But the document was lost and when Mr. Sprague came in a few minutes later, there was hell to pay.
“You’ve been working on that damned contract all morning. I could type it myself in ten minutes.”
And he did just that—pushed her out of the chair, sat down, and finished the contract in twelve minutes flat. Nancy stood there watching, not even reacting when her sweater slipped off her shoulders and fell to the floor. When Sprague was done with the task, he jumped up, took the page from the printer and stalked out.
“He’s just a jerk,” I said, standing up and retrieving her sweater, wishing I’d said it five minutes earlier. “Don’t let him get to you.”
“Well, he’s right, you know. I’m a terrible secretary.” Nancy took her sweater from me and hung it on the hook. “But it could take me months to find something else in this economy.” She looked at me, eyes wide. “Especially with no reference letters to show after working here for two years.”
“Hey, I’ll write a great one if it comes to that.”
But even as I said it I knew it wouldn’t help her. Sprague’s was the name that meant something in Boswell. I was as anonymous as Keith or Butch, hardly ever leaving the office except for the occasional trip to the bank. I almost never even went out for lunch. None of us did. Nancy and I ate at our desks; Keith and Butch, in the garage. Sprague didn’t even provide us with a microwave or dorm room fridge. The soda and chip machines outside were for the convenience of the customers.
“What if a customer comes in and wants that can of soda?” he asked me once, waving a hand at the can of Sprite I held.
Nancy smiled after I’d made my offer that day—too nice to draw attention to my uselessness. “Thanks, Randy.”
“What brought you here in the first place? To Sprague’s?” I asked suddenly, surprising myself.
I’d never asked her this before. I looked out the window then—wanting to be sure Sprague wouldn’t walk in on our conversation. But his car was already gone. He liked to hand-deliver his contracts whenever he could—trying to get a signature on the spot—before the other party had time to think it over.
She sighed heavily. “I’d hoped for a job as a mechanic. That was the ad I called about. My older brother taught me everything he knew about fixing cars before he left home for the Army. I can take the washing machine apart in an hour. I’m a regular grease monkey.” She raked a hand through her hair, still trying to recover her poise.
“Never said you could fix cars when I interviewed you.”
I thought back to that day and was certain she hadn’t although it was kind of a blur—me looking at her like I’d found a jewel in the crackerjack box. Instead, she’d mentioned her high school typing classes and a few business courses she took at Boswell Community College.
“Mr. Sprague nixed that idea on the phone. Laughed and told me he’d never met a woman who could change a light bulb let alone a transmission.” A flush of anger spread across her face. “Then he said he’d another job that needed filling. Told me to come in and see Randy Packer.” She chuckled a little. “I was very relieved when you didn’t make me take a typing test.”
“Sprague could use a good mechanic.” I looked toward the service area again. “Things are piling up out there while he’s driving around town like some potentate.”
We both watched as Keith’s head appeared from under a hood. As usual, he was shaking it and looking puzzled. Keith’s work was fine as long as someone was there to direct him, but Sprague was absent more and more. I wondered if he kept a mistress stashed somewhere. But I would know about that even before his wife did. I saw every check he wrote along with the bills from all his credit cards. He was too lazy to be cautious.
“Why don’t you remind him you can fix cars?” I said, turning back to Nancy.
“Now that he has more respect for me, you mean? Anyway, he said he wanted me right where I was.”
“So you did mention it again?”
She nodded. “A few weeks ago. The day Keith didn’t show up and we had that city garbage truck to fix.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say. My financial interest in the business, a percentage that had increased in tiny increments over the years, didn’t give me much say in hiring mechanics. He might have listened to my thoughts on hiring an office worker, but I knew nothing about repairing cars.
“Don’t worry,” Sprague said, every time I raised the subject of my meager salary. “When I croak, the new owner will have to buy you out. Or maybe you can save your pennies up and buy the place yourself. My wife’s sweet on you. She’d probably give you favorable terms.”
He winked, believe it or not, and I thought of his wife then, with her low-cut blouses, short skirts, and backless shoes. It was hard not picturing her fat heels bulging over the backs, the crimson painted toes that poked out in the front. Funny how a thin woman could still have fat feet.
“Of course, that’ll be down the road, Randy.”
He raised a fist as if to give me a trial punch and, involuntarily I stepped back, delighting him.
“I bet he’d hire you if he saw you in action,” I told Nancy.
I wasn’t that sure Nancy could actually fix cars. It was possible her brother had tried to instill some confidence in her by letting her hold a flashlight for him or by doing some of the minor repairs. I thumbed through the service orders on my desk. “Even a repair on my car might show him. I think my tank could use some work on the brakes. Or maybe a lube job?”
She laughed. “Forget it, Randy. He’s likely to fire me if I mess with his city vehicles and your car’s just fine.” She flashed me a quick smile. “Don’t you get it? He likes keeping me at a job where I look bad every day.” She slid back under her desk, opened another document, and began typing.
About a week later, I came into the office and found Nancy crying. Steeling myself for the worst, I strode in, setting my brownbag down on my desk and slipping out of my jacket. Finally, I looked over at her obliquely; she was trying to pull herself together. Her eyes were on fire; her face dead white with streaks of pink.
I yearned to put a hand on her shoulder, to take her into my arms. Instead, I sat down at my desk as if nothing unusual was going on. I wanted to ask what’d happened, but something stopped me. Perhaps it was the stiffness in her back; she looked completely unapproachable.
“Mr. Sprague sort of raped me last night.”
She said this in a staccato burst half a minute later. I wish I could report otherwise, but the first thing I did was look around, checking the yard as furtively as I could.
“He’s not here,” she said, wiping her eyes. “You don’t have to worry.” She sank into her chair. “Guess it wore him out, too.”
“I wasn’t worried about that,” I started to protest. “What did you mean when you said ‘sort of?’” It seemed like the kind of thing that had either happened or hadn’t.
“Oh, I don’t know why I said sort of. I guess I’m hoping it didn’t really happen.” She paused, drawing a deep breath. “Anyway, he pushed me into his office and onto his desk.”
Both of our eyes lit on his office door, picturing the big mahogany desk inside with its piles of paperwork, the picture of his wife, the trophy from a softball league tournament five years ago. I couldn’t help but wonder if he swept those things onto the floor—the way you saw in the movies.
“Did you go to the police?”
Of course, I knew she hadn’t. If she had, she wouldn’t be telling her story to me. The police would’ve advised against it and she’d probably still be in their orbit, getting swabbed, questioned, probed. Instead she was at Sprague’s Auto Work, crying quietly into a mint-green Kleenex. It was only my role as confidant in her life that made her pour out her story. Had I been something else—like her boyfriend— she may not have told me, fearing my reaction.
“Sheriff Conway’s car’s out in the yard right now, waiting for a brake job.”
She looked out the window and I followed her eyes. It took me a second to get her gist. “They play poker every Friday night. The six of them do.” She opened her appointment book, flipping through it as the tears fell. “And Officer Diehl, he hosted Mr. Sprague’s sixtieth birthday last month at the Kiwanis Hall.” She continued to turn pages while I stood mute. “My doctor gets his car serviced free here three times a year. He’s Mrs. Sprague’s ob-gyn too.” She looked up. “Judge Mercer, at the county courthouse, is married to Mrs. Sprague’s sister. Should I go on?”
I cleared my throat, mostly giving myself a chance to think. “There are other towns, other police officers. Judges. It’s not too late to tell someone. Someone official.” I paused. “There’s DNA nowadays.”
She shook her head. “Mr. Sprague has a long reach. There were no witnesses. The rest of you’d already gone.” She continued as if recounting a nightmare, her eyes fluttering as if she could still see it. “He stopped me halfway to the bus stop, came running after me, asking if I could take a quick letter for him. Said he’d just made a deal with a distributor and needed to get it in writing.” She laughed and it sounded like she had pebbles in her throat. “I should have been suspicious, Randy. He knows my shorthand’s even worse than my typing.”
“And then what?” I dreaded hearing what would come next.
“We came back inside and I started to hunt through my desk drawer for my steno pad.” She stopped a minute and took a deep breath. “Then I felt him behind me. Felt his breath on my neck. Felt him.”
“I’m so sorry.” And I was. Sorry to be a man who let things like this happen. Why hadn’t I anticipated such a thing after seeing his hands on her every time he had a chance.
“Took my arm and led me into his office. I just—just—went with him. It all seemed unreal.”
“You couldn’t have stopped him,” I said. “He’s got seventy pounds on you.”
“I could have screamed.” She waited for me to say something and when I didn’t, continued. “And that’s about it. When he was done, he just got himself together and walked out. Maybe his wife is used to seeing him come home with his shirttail out, looking rumpled, because he didn’t bother much. When he got to the street door, he finally looked back into the office and said, “Nancy, you’ll be getting a small raise in your next check.”
“Jeez.”
Nancy nodded. “And you know what I said?”
“What?” I dreaded hearing it.
“I said, ‘Thank you.’ I thanked Jack Sprague for raping me.”
“No, you didn’t, Nancy,” I protested. “It was just an automatic response. You were in shock.” I paced a bit. “There has to be something we can do.” I couldn’t think of what it could be though.
She waited for a second or two, then sat down and turned on her computer. “If you think of something, let me know.”
She seemed to be passing the baton to me, saying, “Do something, Randy. Do something for once.”
“I still think you should report it. I can go to the station with you….”
This clearly wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She shrugged, not even bothering to answer, and we retreated to our work, both of us disappointed in me, in how ineffectual, cowardly and timid I was. I stayed late that night, waiting until I knew she was on the bus. That night and every night for a long time.
The long drive home gave me time for a lot of thinking. For several days, I went over and over the situation and how it might be remedied. It sickened me to see Nancy at her desk every morning, yet I worried incessantly that one day she wouldn’t turn up. Meanwhile, Sprague walked around, oblivious to it all.
“Did you like your little raise?” I heard him ask her a week later.
She nodded slightly, not raising her eyes. I knew very well what he’d added to her paycheck. I’d been too ashamed by its paltriness to warn her.
June turned into July suddenly, and one day, I saw that the Boswell School buses were scheduled for their annual maintenance work. They were about the heaviest vehicles we put up on our mobile column. We did them one after the other every summer. Nobody wanted their kids riding on unsafe buses through those mountains, especially when the roads were stippled with ice. Mr. Sprague prided himself on their condition. There’d never been an accident due to faulty work from us. He knew what such a thing would mean to his future income.
Usually Keith did the buses with Mr. Sprague standing over him, yelling and calling him names. But Keith came down with a ferocious case of poison ivy between the second and third buses.
“Where the hell did you pick that up?” Mr. Sprague was on his phone and we could hear him through the closed door. “Church picnic?” he shouted, a minute later. “Since when do you go to church?” He came out, shaking his head and swearing. “Keith won’t be in until midweek. His hands are so swollen with poison ivy, he can’t even hold a fork. Can we put off Bus 3 until then?”
Nancy looked at the schedule. “We’ve got a lot of jobs coming up, Mr. Sprague. One right on top of the other. It’d be better to get it out of the way. We can send for a mechanic from Patterson. We did that last year.”
“And paid that goon a small fortune. Remember—two of my best wrenches disappeared with him? I told you then I’d never hire outside help again. Well, never mind. I’ll start on it myself tomorrow. Damned nitwit. Poison ivy, at his age!” He looked at me. “Put an ad in the paper, Packer. I need someone more reliable. I’m sick to death of Keith’s…limitations. This whole damned place needs a good housecleaning.”
He stormed out of the office and we watched as he yelled something to Butch and then got into his car and took off. I sat there for several minutes, listening to the sound of Nancy’s fingers on the keyboard, listening to the sound of Butch running some sort of machine outside, listening to the sound of my own heartbeat. Yes, it all came together with that phone call from Keith. It was fortuitous, I guess you’d say.
Jack began work on school bus #3 on Thursday morning. We could hear him swearing off and on for the first hour. Butch stood guard, handing him tools like they were performing surgery. The school superintendent came by to check on the progress and stood over Jack, making idle chatter. I sent Nancy out to ask Jack if he needed some extra help with the bus. She pulled the wrench Butch was about to hand Jack out of his hand and reached for the right one.
“Listen, Miss Runnerup,” Jack told her, eyes bulging and grease covering his face and arms. “I’ve been keeping this fleet on the road since before you climbed on one of these buses to go to kindergarten.” He paused. “Or maybe you’d like to get under here with me and show me what you do know?” Nancy shook her head, hurrying back inside as Sprague and the Superintendent laughed.
The sound of the bus falling, of it smashing into the concrete floor, was a horrible, grinding noise. Ear-splitting. The ground beneath us shook for several seconds and most of the tools hanging from the walls came flying off; the soda machine fell on its side and several pieces of expensive machinery were destroyed. It was a cataclysmic event. People came running out of their offices as far as two blocks away, fearing an earthquake or some kind of rock slide in the mountains.
Nancy and I ran right outside, but there was no possibility of survival for Jack Sprague. We stood there a minute, taking it in, more in awe of Jack finally being gone than with how he went. And then Nancy called the cops. It took hours to get the bus off Mr. Sprague. We had to send for an emergency mechanic to fix the lift and hoist the bus back up. Nobody should have to look at a man who’s had a bus fall on him. But we did. All four of us filed by him like at a funeral, Keith with his hands swabbed in calamine lotion.
“I’ve been reading the flyer,” the investigating officer told me later. He was one of the few cops I’d never seen at Sprague’s before. “Did you read it?” He started to laugh and then stopped himself. “I know it’s not really funny but listen anyway.” He cleared his throat. “Our Mobile Column Lifting Systems are the fastest and smoothest lifts a
vailable. So whether you are lifting light duty dump trucks or rail cars or buses, Superior Lifts, Inc. has the right M-series Electric/Hydraulic Mobile Column for you.” He looked up. “Guess they won’t be putting the pictures he’s taking now on their brochure,” he said, gesturing at the police photographer.
Nancy and I were married last spring and renamed the business Packer-Willis Auto Service. Even though Nancy took my name it seemed fitting her birth name should be on the sign. I handle the business end of things, and Nancy, with Keith helping, the vehicles. Mrs. Sprague sold her share of the business as readily as Jack’d predicted. Turned out she wanted to move to Naples, Florida as quickly as possible, to get away from the fierce western Pennsylvania winters. Maybe she had someone down there all along.
We live in Boswell and it doesn’t feel that big to me anymore. I step out of the office for lunch with my mechanics most days and drive home with one at night.
RAISING THE DEAD
Violet made a meager living working freelance. She also took her own photographs, often gruesome pictures that attracted little more than outraged stares.
“They’re missing—well, I don’t know exactly what,” Ted, a local gallery owner told her when only one of the dozen photographs he’d hung sold. “Look, both the angle and the lighting is static. And in Detroit, you only need to look out the window to see scenes like this. Maybe in San Diego or Palm Springs you’d have something.”
He picked up a photograph of the Seville Apartments, the one that sold him on her months before. Part of the building seemed to melt into the earth as a cruel, sluggish dismemberment took place. “I like this one though I’m not sure why. You’ve caught something here. Inexorability perhaps?”
She shrugged and took him home to bed where her eyes drifted up to the ornate mirror over her bed as he went about his business. Her super had hung it for her between lewd glances and stifled smirks the week she moved in—years ago now. Oddly, Ted never noticed it. There was a pelt of reddish fur running from his neck to his ass. It looked like she was screwing a fox. Their lovemaking was further punctuated by the guy upstairs running on his treadmill, their bodies instinctively picking up the thumping rhythm.