by William Bebb
Maria awoke with a yelp of surprise and looked around the garage.
The old woman was gone.
“Mrs. Remlap?” she called out warily and softly.
There was no answer. One lantern was still lit, sitting on the workbench and the garage seemed full of ominous shadows cast by its light.
She heard distant screams from somewhere outside and shuddered.
When the door creaked behind her she spun around eyes open wide.
Mrs. Remlap was coming down the steps from the kitchen holding a plate. “Oh, I'm sorry, dear, I didn't mean to wake you up. But since you are, how about a sandwich? I made peanut butter and honey on wheat bread. I would have used jelly, but since it was in the refrigerator without electricity for about five days now, I thought honey might be safer.
Honey is an amazing food, don't you know. I read in some book or magazine that archaeologists actually found honey in some Pyramid over there in Egypt once. And believe it or not, even after five thousand years it was still safe to eat.”
Maria got up slowly from the lounge chair and asked, “How long was I asleep?”
“Oh,” the old lady said, looking at her wristwatch. “Almost four hours, I guess. Now, have something to eat,” she said, handing her one of the sandwiches.
Maria took it and ate it in giant bites while glaring at the car with a determined look.
“Slow down, sweetie, you're going to choke if you aren't careful. I bet that’s how some of those Egyptians died and turned into mummies. You need to slow down and chew your food.”
“I got to get those stupid nuts off the bolt so I can swap out the car battery. Once that's done we can go get help,” Maria said, between enormous bites.
“Relax child, I took them off ages ago.”
Maria jumped up, looked under the hood, and stared in happy disbelief at the old battery cables hanging loose. She smiled at the old lady then sat back down on the lounge chair and ate her sandwich a little bit slower.
She pointed to the battery sitting on the workbench and spoke with a mouthful of food. “How... mm, (chew and swallow) old do you think that other battery is?”
“Oh, my goodness. Don't you listen, girl? I told you that man... Dominic, I think was his name from the filling station, brought it out last Christmas. He was going to install it so I could drive in to town for church services, but he was just so uncouth and rude- really just a remarkably unpleasant man. He was short, with a big nose, bad breath, and had that swarthy Italian kind of look. He reminded me of gangsters I used to see in motion pictures at the theater. That was back when films had stories and not a few hundred explosions in slow motion with a lot of vulgar language disguised as dialogue.
Anyway, I gave him a check for the battery and told him to just get out and I'd put it in the car myself. Can you imagine a grown man passing gas in front of a lady? And as if that wasn't the worst part, he actually laughed while he did it. Just stood there and laughed like a mental defective, as I told him to just go on and get out of here.
Why, if my Henry were still alive, I know he would have beaten that little man to a bloody pulp.”
“And you're sure it was this last Christmas, not maybe a few years ago when all this happened?” Maria asked as she tugged the old battery out of the engine compartment and let it fall onto a badly stained pea green colored recliner.
“Careful girl, that's my Henry's chair. May God rest his soul. He was always out here working on something or other, and when he'd take a break he'd sit in that very chair and peruse his magazines. I don't know any other man that loved to read magazines as much as my Henry. He spent hours on end out here doing that.”
Maria tensed for a second before continuing to work on the battery without commenting on the old lady's perverted dead husband.
“He was always out here reading his National Geographic magazines and all kinds of other stuff and telling me about whatever he learned that was interesting.”
Maria was scrubbing the corroded battery connectors and asked under her breath, “Did he ever tell you anything about horny donkeys and young Hispanic girls?”
“Have I ever shown you his photograph from when he was in the service? He fought in Germany against the Godless Nazis and was awarded a lot medals and citations. The medals are up there in the attic crawlspace if you want to climb up and see for yourself,” the old woman said, pointing her cane toward the partial second floor of the garage. Where there were indeed hundreds more boxes and crates stored.
The elderly lady looked at the windows again and said, “When the police get everything sorted out with your nasty friends, how would you like to earn a few dollars cleaning the windows out here? I could do it myself, of course, but I believe in helping people like you whenever I can. I've always believed in charity and helping people who have the gumption to make something out of themselves.
I know you like to think of yourself as an auto mechanic, but I need to be honest with you. I really think during all that time you were messing around with the battery, you were actually turning the nut the wrong way. My Henry made up a rhyme that went 'righty tighty lefty Loosey' to help him remember which way to turn things like nuts and such. I told him he should copyright his rhyme, but did he listen to me? No ma'am. He was like all men- stubborn and set in his ways.”
Maria lifted the heavy replacement battery off the workbench and carried it slowly over to the old car. With the battery resting on the edge of the fender she looked confused.
She was trying to remember which cable goes to which terminal on the battery.
Positive is red? Or is positive black? CRAP! She grunted in disgust and sat down on a stool next to the old woman. After a few seconds of trying to remember which terminal connectors were positive and negative, she refilled her glass with more lemonade. Maria chugged it down in mere seconds- followed momentarily by an enormous belch to come from such a small woman.
“Don't you have any manners at all? First you come up here last night banging on my door, scaring the denture adhesive out of me. Then you tell me everyone’s turned into monsters, barge your way inside, slam my door and then lock it as I hear some of your hooligan friends outside beating on my door.
I'll grant you they do look a tad more disgusting than usual but really dear, monsters?” She gave Maria a look that was a combination of pity and confusion.
Maria went and searched the car's glove box, pulled out a very old driver’s manual and flipped through the pages as she said, “You saw what they did to your cats outside on your porch. You heard them yowling as they were ripped apart and eaten.”
“Shut your mouth! I saw and heard no such thing!” The old woman yelled with a tremble in her voice as she pulled out a handkerchief and wiped at her eyes. “I don't know what's really going on around here, but I guaran-damn-tee you one thing, Missy. When we get to town, I'm going to file papers to have every one of your nasty cat killing friends evicted.”
The old lady stared down at the cat litter box, kept in the garage, and could still see her furry friends as they were: Angel, with the snow white fur, Mr. Naughty, a gray and brown stray she'd taken in, and Mr. Sourpuss, with his soft solid black fur. Her voice sounded venomous as she said, “Yes indeed. When we get to town I’m going to call someone to deal with your gross looking cat killing friends. That’s the very first thing I’m going to do.”
Mrs. Remlap couldn’t stop recalling how the small group of crazy, screaming, bloody, men came up on her porch and began beating on the door while others ate her cats. They devoured her only friends in the whole world. Maria was forced to drag the old lady back toward the living room and kept saying, “Be quiet,” as the cats yowled and screamed while they were torn apart on her porch.
The old lady shuddered and closed her eyes as she leaned back. Tears fell and she didn't both to wipe them away.
Maria shrugged and continued looking through the owner’s manual. It was a stupid problem to have. All that kept them from going for help was trying to make sense out
of the pages of words and confusing diagrams in the manual. As Maria flipped pages and tried to figure out which cables go to positive and negative, she hadn't heard anything the old lady said.