The Highway Kind

by Patrick Millikin

Eddie said, “Yep. She paid us and made us those cookies I gave you. Remember?”

  The boy kept petting the dog. He nodded. “I remember now. So you don’t have any brushes for me to clean?”

  “Not today,” said Eddie. “We’re scraping all week.”

  “That’s the worst part of the job, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “Did you eat dinner before you got home?”

  “No,” Eddie said. “Your mom’s not around?”

  Russell shook his head.

  “What about your grandma?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Let me look at you,” said Eddie.

  Russell smiled suddenly and stood up.

  “Yep, I was right,” he said. “You look hungry.”

  Russell laughed. “That’s what Monica used to say.”

  Eddie nodded.

  “Monica’s not coming back?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Eddie.

  “Why?”

  “It’s a long story,” Eddie said and bent down and put his hand on the dog. “I know she misses you, though. She told me that the last time I talked to her. Anyway, you want something to eat?”

  “I’m hungry if you’re hungry,” said the boy.

  Eddie reached into his shirt pocket, took a cigarette from the pack, and lit it. “Get your bike and tell your grandma you’re going to the store. I’ll make a list. You go shopping and I’ll cook. Deal?”

  The boy nodded and went back through the gate. He returned five minutes later pushing a bike with two flat tires. He leaned it against the house, opened Eddie’s back door, and walked up the steps into the kitchen. “I think Curtis let the air out of the tires...I can’t find the pump,” he said softly. His face was red and wet with tears.

  Eddie took a drink of beer. “Why would he let the air out of your tires?”

  “I don’t know,” Russell replied.

  Eddie finished the grocery list, put out his cigarette, and stood up. “We’ll use the compressor in the garage. And remember, you can always leave your bike here if you want to protect it.” He handed the boy the list, forty dollars, and the old backpack he had Russell use to carry the groceries in. They went outside; Eddie unlocked the garage, turned on the compressor, and filled the bike tires.

  A week scraping on ladders passed. When he could, Eddie looked over the two streets to the Le Mans. He wasn’t sure why exactly, but he began to want it. Each day after work he looked to see his note still there and untouched. When there was a night rain in the middle of the week and his note became illegible, he left another. But no one called. When Friday came and they’d finished for the day, he went to the houses around the car. He knocked on doors and asked if anyone knew who owned it, but no one did.

  He and Houston worked a half day on Saturday and when they were done, they spread out and knocked on doors farther down the neighborhood and finally Houston met the person who owned the car. It was a man who lived on a busier street a block away. Houston told Eddie which house and left.

  The man was in his early twenties and let Eddie inside. The front room had dozens of drawings taped to the walls. They were pen-and-ink and all of them had women in bondage outfits and positions. The women were beautiful but always bound. They didn’t appear to be either happy or upset by it; they were just there.

  The man was skinny with shaved-short dark hair. He looked anemic and pale and he stood stooped over.

  “The guy I work with said you own the Le Mans.”

  The man nodded.

  “You interested in selling it?”

  “I might be,” he said. “But I ain’t broke enough to sell it right now.”

  “Does it run?”

  “It did at one time but I don’t know if it still does. A friend of mine said it’s not good to start a car with flat tires so I haven’t tried in a while.”

  Eddie glanced around the room. “You drew these?”

  The man nodded.

  “That’s a lot of work.”

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  Eddie looked at the man. “You have the title for the car?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Well, I’d like to buy if you ever want to sell it.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  “You mind if we swap numbers?”

  “Sure,” the man said and Eddie began writing his number in the small spiral notebook he kept in his back pocket.

  He and Houston had primed the house and were finishing two days of filling and caulking when Eddie’s phone rang and the man with the Le Mans told him his rent was due and he didn’t have the cash to cover it. He would sell the car to Eddie right then if he had the money.

  “Well, how much do you want for it?” Eddie asked while caulking a window.

  “How about four hundred?” the man said.

  “I gotta go to the bank. I’ll be over in an hour,” he said and hung up. He got down from the ladder and told Houston the news.

  “Don’t do it,” warned Houston. “You don’t even know if it has an engine, do you?”

  “No,” Eddie replied.

  “Then you’re nuts.” Houston put his caulk gun in a water bucket and wiped his hands with a wet rag.

  “It’s just one of those things,” Eddie said and lit a cigarette. “I’m at the point where I’d pay two grand even if the tranny was shot, the engine was gone, and it didn’t have a title. I don’t know why exactly, but I just have to have it now.”

  Houston bummed a cigarette from Eddie. “Even if it does run you’ll spend more than two grand fixing it up,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “Paint jobs are a lot of money.”

  “I know that too.”

  “Old cars are like bad women,” said Houston. “They’re fun at first but they break down a lot and take your money little by little. For me it’s all right when it’s little by little, but then always, eventually, they hit you with the big bill. But by then you’ve already put so much time and money into them it’s hard to quit. So you pay up and then it starts all over again.”

  “I know all that,” Eddie said and laughed. “But it’ll give me something to do at night.”

  Houston nodded. “The last car I gave a shit about ruined me. A 1965 Mercury Cougar.”

  “I like those,” said Eddie.

  “I did too, but I was downtown, on Broadway, going up the hill when she cut out on me. The car was so damn heavy I couldn’t push it and I couldn’t back up ’cause there was too much traffic. It was rush hour. And then the cops came.” He threw the wet rag in the bucket of water and combed his hair back with a small black comb he kept in his pocket. “They helped me, all right. They saw I was drunk and took me to jail and impounded the car.”

  “What happened to the Cougar?”

  “I didn’t give a fuck then and I don’t give a fuck now. It was dead to me after that day. The way I look at it, any car that breaks down on me when I’m drunk or in a traffic jam is no longer my car. I give no second chances. I hoped they crushed the shit out of it and melted it into bedpans.” Houston stopped and took a long drag off the cigarette. “It was a great-looking car, though. I spent three grand on the paint job alone. White with silver sparkles. Man, it was something else.”

  Eddie parked the work van in front of the Le Mans. Houston sat in the passenger seat and listened to the radio while Eddie walked to the owner’s house.

  “I only have a couple minutes,” the man said when he answered. He was dressed in an Applebee’s work shirt.

  “Here’s the four hundred,” Eddie said and gave it to him.

  The man counted it and handed Eddie the signed-over title and two keys. They shook hands and Eddie walked back to the van and got in.

  “You get it?” asked Houston.

  Eddie smiled and waved the title at him. He started the van and took a small air compressor he kept in a milk crate, plugged it into the cigarette lighter, and went out the back to the Le Mans. The driver’s-sid
e door opened and he looked in. It smelled of dust and mold, and the front seat was in worse shape than he’d thought, as was the floor carpet. But the backseat was decent and so was the dash. He opened the trunk to find eight old car batteries sitting on a piece of cardboard.

  “Why you think there’s so many in there?” asked Houston, who was now watching from the sidewalk.

  “I don’t know,” said Eddie and shut the trunk. He lit a cigarette and opened the hood.

  “At least it has an engine,” said Houston.

  Eddie looked it over. A tired-looking 350 covered in dust and oil and rust.

  “You going to try and start it?”

  Eddie shook his head. “I have a tow rope. I was thinking you could tow me in the van to my place. After that I’ll take you back to your car and set you free.”

  Houston nodded and Eddie shut the hood. All four tires were nearly bald but they held air and Eddie hooked the tow rope from the van to the front of the Le Mans. With blue painter’s tape he spelled out IN TOW on the back windshield, and Houston put the van in low and towed him out of the neighborhood. They went the four miles to Eddie’s house and parked on the street.

  Russell must have been waiting on the lawn chair in Eddie’s backyard when he heard the van because he came out front and walked across the lawn to see Eddie get out of the Le Mans.

  “Why are you in that car?” he asked.

  “I just bought it,” said Eddie.

  “You just bought a car?”

  Eddie nodded. “You think you can steer? We need to get it into the carport.”

  Russell nodded. “This is really your car?”

  “It is,” he said. “Now get in and steer and we’ll push it up.”

  The boy got in the driver’s seat and held on to the wheel while Eddie and Houston pushed it from the street into the carport.

  “Does it go fast?” the boy asked when he got out.

  Houston laughed.

  “I don’t even know if it runs,” said Eddie.

  “But you bought it anyway?”

  “It looks cool, doesn’t it?”

  “If you like dents and Bondo, it looks cool,” Houston said.

  “I like it,” the boy said.

  Eddie looked at Houston. “See, I told you Russell had taste.”

  Houston again laughed.

  “Will you make it run?” Russell asked.

  “Eventually,” Eddie said and that set off Houston laughing again.

  The next evening Russell sat in the lawn chair next to the dog while Eddie worked. He took the eight batteries from the trunk and set them in a row at the back of the carport. He took the best-looking one from them, put it on a charger, removed the one from under the hood, and put that on another charger. He checked the fluids. The oil was full but the transmission was empty. He wrote a note to get a transmission filter kit and fluid, a fuel filter, oil, and an oil filter. The top radiator hose was bulging and covered with duct tape and would also need to be replaced.

  “Do you think it’s going to be fast?” asked Russell.

  “Probably not unless I put a new engine in it.”

  “Are you going to put a new engine in it?”

  “Nah, I don’t care about going fast. Even when I was your age, I didn’t. I’ll get it running, though.”

  “Are you going to paint it?”

  “Nope,” Eddie said. “I’m going to keep the dents. You might think I’m crazy but I like dents. I’ll get the front seat reupholstered, new carpet set in, and I’ll put in a good stereo. It’ll be nice inside when I’m driving around but I don’t want to be one of those guys who has a meltdown if a bird shits on the hood.”

  “I can wash it if you want,” the boy said.

  Eddie laughed. “I like the way you think, but it probably hasn’t been washed in years. It’ll be a hard job.”

  “I can get it clean,” the boy said.

  “Well, I’ll pay you twice what I do for the van ’cause it’s going to take you a while. Maybe tomorrow you could come over and let Early out. I have to do a couple bids in the west hills after work so I won’t be home until later.”

  “I can feed Early too, if you want.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Eddie said. “If you want to wash the car, please do, but don’t feel like you have to. I’ll put the house key under the front seat of the Le Mans. But don’t tell your brother you have it and don’t let him in the house, okay?”

  “I won’t,” the boy said. “I don’t tell him anything ever.”

  The next evening Eddie parked the van in the carport. As he got out, he noticed four of the batteries from the Le Mans were gone. Russell’s bike was still leaned against the garage and nothing else was taken. He set down a bag from the Auto Zone, opened the back door, and let the dog out. He took a beer from the fridge, unlocked the garage, and got to work. He changed the oil, replaced the top radiator hose and the fuel filter, and then took one of the charged batteries and set it back in the Le Mans. He put two gallons of new gas in the tank, primed the carburetor, and got in the driver’s seat. He put the key in the ignition and the engine caught on the third try and idled smoothly. He got back out and checked for leaks, but there were none. As he stood watching, his gate opened and Russell walked slowly toward him.

  “I missed you starting it,” the boy said.

  “It wasn’t much,” said Eddie. “I just put a little gas in it and bam. I got lucky. She’s an old engine but she sounds pretty good.”

  “I think she sounds good too,” he said and went to sit down in the lawn chair but it clearly pained him to do so.

  “You’re hurt?” asked Eddie.

  Russell looked at him and tears welled in his eyes.

  “Curtis?”

  Russell nodded.

  “Did you tell your grandmother and your mom?”

  Russell nodded vaguely.

  “Do you want me to talk to him?”

  Russell shook his head.

  “Where’s your mom?”

  “She’s at work.”

  “Where’s Curtis?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You think you need a doctor?”

  “No,” Russell said quietly.

  Eddie paused for a time and took a cigarette from a pack on the hood of the car.

  “You did a good job washing the car.”

  “I couldn’t get the hood,” the boy said.

  “Don’t worry about the hood. I’ll get it. I’m going to change the tranny filter and if that does the trick and the transmission works, we’ll take her for a little spin. Maybe go get pizza.” He lit the cigarette, inhaled deeply, and blew the smoke out. “But you don’t like pizza, do you?”

  “Pizza’s my favorite,” the boy said and smiled.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” he said.

  “I thought you didn’t like pizza.”

  “You know pizza’s my favorite,” he said and laughed.

  “But I got a question to ask you first, Russell. Do you know anything about the missing batteries?”

  Tears welled suddenly in the boy’s eyes. He tried to speak but couldn’t.

  “It’s all right,” said Eddie. “I’m not mad at you. It’s just that four of the batteries are missing.”

  Russell began sobbing.

  Eddie went to him and patted him gently on the shoulder. “We’ll talk about it later. I’m gonna put this thing up on blocks, change out the tranny filter, and see if we can get it to move.”

  Russell brought him two beers and a new pack of cigarettes before Eddie finished. He then started the car and put it in reverse, and the car went in reverse. He put it in forward and it went forward.

  “We’re getting lucky,” said Eddie. “The tranny’s all right and the engine’s all right. I’m going to do one more thing and then we’ll take her for a spin.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m putting in a kill switch.”

  “What’s that?” aske
d the boy.

  Eddie showed him a small electrical switch. “I’ll set it up so you’ll just hit this switch and the car won’t start. It’s for safety. These old cars are easy as shit to steal. My brother had his van stolen once; I had a Dodge Dart stolen twice, and I had an old Ford pickup stolen too. That one cost me. I had a lot of tools in it. After that, I started putting in kill switches.”

  “Then they can’t steal it?”

  “Not unless they tow it or figure out where the switch is,” said Eddie. He spliced the coil wire and ran two wires from each side of it through a hole he’d drilled below the glove box. He lay on his back on the floor of the passenger side connecting the wires to the switch he had hidden there. Russell leaned over the backseat and watched until Eddie finished.

  “I think we’re done now,” he said and sat up. He started the car and then hit the kill switch and the engine stopped. He looked at Russell and smiled. “Now call your mom and tell her we’re going to get pizza, okay?”

  Russell crawled out over the front seat and walked back to his house. He came back two minutes later while Eddie was cleaning up in the kitchen sink.

  “I can go,” he said.

  “You called her?”

  Russell nodded.

  “You ever waxed a car?”

  Russell shook his head.

  “Waxing a car is one of my least favorite things to do. My dad used to make me wax his car, and if I didn’t do it right he’d be an asshole about it for a week. So I won’t wax my own car. I just won’t. But if I call your mom and she says she didn’t talk to you, I’m going to make you wax the Le Mans, all right?”

  Russell looked at the ground but didn’t say anything.

  “All right?”

  The boy nodded slowly.

  Eddie called Russell’s mother, spoke to her for a minute, and hung up.

  “You shouldn’t lie,” said Eddie and lit a cigarette. “Lying is a bad habit and no one likes liars. Your mom says you never called. Is she lying or are you?”

  “But she doesn’t care,” the boy told him. “She said she doesn’t care what I do as long as I’m home when she gets home.”

  Eddie looked at Russell. “That might be the case, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that you lied to me. We’re friends and you lied to me. I know you know about the batteries too. And you wouldn’t even tell me about that. It doesn’t look good. It looks like you’re a bad kid. Now, I know you’re not bad but you gotta start acting like a man once in a while and not like a little dude.”