by Todd Kirby
rode his bike over to the shop. As he got off his bike and walked it up to the big open garage doors, he saw a man come walking out. ‘Ratchet’ was probably a little older than Jeremy’s mother. He had long greasy black hair with streaks of gray, and probably hadn’t shaved in a week. As he walked toward Jeremy in his bluish gray uniform, he was wiping the grease off of his hands with a rag.
“You must be Jeremy,” Ratchet smiled, “you ready to begin your career?”
Jeremy rolled his eyes as he parked his bike and set his backpack down.
Ratchet grabbed a clean uniform off of a nearby shelf and handed it to Jeremy. “Put this on over your clothes.” he said, “You don’t want to get your school clothes dirty.”
Jeremy put the uniform on over his school clothes and had to roll the pant legs and shirt sleeves up because they were much too big for him. Then he followed Ratchet into the garage area where there were several motorcycles in various states of disassembly. Jeremy noticed a calendar on the wall with a woman in her underwear. As he stopped to stare at it for a moment, he felt Ratchet tug on his shirt and say, “We’re not learning about that today kid…” Following Ratchet’s lead, Jeremy walked over and sat down in front of the bike that was currently being worked on. “Do you know how engines work, kid?” Ratchet asked.
“Kind of…” Jeremy lied.
Ratchet smiled. “You see this?” he said, pointing to a part of the engine. “This is a spark plug. The carburetor here gets fuel into the cylinder through this valve, then the valve closes and the crankshaft moves this piston up, compressing the mixture. Once the piston reaches the top of the cylinder, the spark plug makes a spark, igniting the fuel mixture and forcing the piston back down. Then the exhaust valve up opens and lets the exhaust out here. But each time the pistons move, it turns the crankshaft here, which moves the timing chain here, and also transfers power to the transmission here.”
Jeremy smiled a little, as if he understood at least part of what he was being shown. Then he said, “Ratchet, why are you doing this?”
Ratchet’s smile left, and he said, “Because I owe it to Mrs. Berry…”
“What do you mean?” Jeremy asked.
“Mrs. Berry took care of me when I was your age, and she means alot to me.” Ratchet went on, “I’m guessing she means alot to you too. She’s been telling me about you for years, but the last time I talked with her, she made me promise to keep an eye on you. So… that’s what I intend to do.”
Jeremy looked puzzled, then replied, “So how did you convince my mom to let you watch me?”
“I didn’t,” said Ratchet, “Mrs. Berry did. She’s evidently been trying to talk your mom into this little social experiment for months, I guess she knew her time was getting short, and even though we’ve all been discussing it off and on, Mrs. Berry’s stroke kind of pushed everything into motion. Just like a spark plug going off moves a piston.”
Jeremy frowned and added, “I miss her already.”
“Me too kid,” Ratchet answered. “Me too.” After an awkward silence, he continued, “Listen, this ain’t no free babysitting service. You’re gonna work while you're here, and the first thing I need you to do is clean this.” Ratchet handed Jeremy an engine part that was filthy with oil and dirt.
“Where’s the soapy water?” Jeremy asked.
Smiling again, Ratchet said, “You don’t use soap to clean engine parts, kid. You use a rag and solvent.” Ratchet showed Jeremy where the rags were and which bottle on the shelf was solvent. “Just put a little solvent on it and rub it until it shines.” Ratchet added. “If you need to use one of the cleaning brushes, they’re on the shelf with the rags.”
Jeremy cleaned engine parts the rest of that day, until his mother came to pick him up. When she first saw him, she tried to hide her smile by putting her hand over her mouth. Then she said, “Oh my word, you’re filthy. Absolutely filthy.”
“A little orange cleaner will take care of that.” Ratchet chimed in. “He did a good job today, learned to identify most of the smaller engine parts.”
“Only because I cleaned about a million of them.” Jeremy griped.
“We’ll start learning tools tomorrow when we break down that other engine,” Ratchet added. “He’s a quick learner.”
“Thank you Ratchet,” Jeremy’s mother said. “Jeremy, tell Ratchet ‘thank you’.”
Jeremy sighed and rolled his eyes. “Thank you Ratchet.” he mimicked.
And thus began Jeremy’s motorcycle education. By the end of the month, he could identify almost every engine part by sight. By the end of freshman year, he could disassemble and reassemble some basic components by himself. In time, Jeremy came to enjoy working on motorcycles, and he became good at it. He liked working with Ratchet as well. Ratchet was like Mrs. Berry in that he seemed to care about Jeremy’s welfare, and he was not afraid to correct Jeremy when it was needed. Ratchet was unlike Mrs. Berry though, in that he didn’t talk about Jesus. Mrs. Berry talked about Jesus all the time, Christianity seemed to be the basis of everything she did. Jeremy wasn’t sure what Ratchet based his actions on, but it certainly wasn’t Jesus.
It was toward the end of freshman year when Ratchet told Jeremy that Mrs. Berry was not going to last much longer, and that she had been asking for him. Ratchet worked it out with Jeremy’s mother that he would take Jeremy to St. Matthews to see Mrs. Berry the following Sunday. When Sunday came, Ratchet picked Jeremy up on his motorcycle and took him to St. Matthews. As they entered Mrs. Berry’s room, they saw her hooked up to all kinds of machines and tubes. They heard the sound of labored breathing and the steady “beep… beep” of a heart monitor. There was a young woman doctor standing by the bed. She looked up at Ratchet and asked, “Are you the family?”
“Kind of.” Ratchet said.
“They’re adopted…” Mrs. Berry said slowly with a smile.
The doctor nodded and said to Ratchet, “She’s very weak. You can have about 15 minutes, but I wouldn’t push her much past that, okay?” Ratchet nodded, and the doctor walked out of the room.
“Hey there pretty lady,” Ratchet said, “how do you stay so beautiful?”
Mrs. Berry smiled and said, “There’s no time for that you rotten boy. Have you been taking care of Jeremy?”
“I try Elizabeth, but he’s too much like me and Hank.” Ratchet replied.
Mrs. Berry started to laugh, then began coughing. After catching her breath she said, “I know, that’s what scares me. Time ran out on Hank before he got saved, and it’s running out on you too. I still pray for you every day.”
“That’s probably the only reason I’m still alive.” Ratchet said.
“Time’s about to run out for me,” said Mrs. Berry. “I need you two to watch out for each other. encourage each other. And I want you to have this…” Mrs. Berry reached over to a table beside her bed and tapped on an old worn-out Bible.
“Elizabeth,” Ratchet began, “if we take that, then what are you going to read?”
“I don’t need it anymore,” she said slowly. “He’s come for me.”
Ratchet and Jeremy looked at the door to see if an intern or doctor had come to take Mrs. Berry somewhere. And then they heard it… “Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.”
Jeremy grabbed Mrs. Berry’s hand and shouted, “Mrs. Berry! Mrs. Berry, wake up!”
Ratchet shot out the door and started yelling, “Doctor! Nurse! Somebody help!”
The doctor came running in from another room, followed closely by an intern and a nurse. The doctor felt Mrs. Berry’s neck and started barking out orders. “Code blue! I need a crash cart!” She looked at Ratchet and said, “I need you two out of here.”
Jeremy looked at Mrs. Berry, her eyes were still staring toward the door and she had the sweetest smile on her face. Then he felt Ratchet tugging on his arm. “C’mon kid, let’s go.” he said. As they were leaving the room, they h
eard the doctor’s voice trailing off, “Defib... give me the paddles… clear...” Ratchet took Jeremy out to the waiting room and sat down with him on a bench.
After an awkward minute of silence, Jeremy asked, “Who’s Hank?”
Ratchet said, “Hank was Mrs. Berry’s husband, he was still alive when I was your age. He’s the one who taught me how to work on bikes.”
“How did he die?” asked Jeremy.
Ratchet took a deep breath and sighed. “My shop used to be his. I was working for Hank like you work for me, and I was out back looking for parts when I heard a gunshot. Evidently somebody came in trying to rob the place and Hank wasn’t about to give up his cash. I came running when I heard it, but by the time I got there the guy was running away. They never caught him, we don’t even know who it was. The only thing I remember seeing was, he had a poker-hand tattoo on the back of his forearm. Aces and eights… the dead man’s hand.”
“So who’s the guy in the pictures at Mrs. Berry’s house?” Jeremy delved.
“That would be ‘Roger’.” Ratchet sneered just saying the name. “Roger is Hank and Elizabeth’s