The Last Open Road

by Burt Levy

  But I stood there and took it, nodding my head at appropriate intervals like I was listening, even though my antennae were apparently down that particular ayem and most of it was coming in as pure static. I do recall some stuff about the evils of foreign automobiles and the idleness and greed of rich people (especially the kind who drove those foreign automobiles) and how those third generation wealthy assholes were corrupting his beloved Republican Party from within. Which naturally led into the usual stuff about the lack of morals and proper work habits among my age group and me, Buddy Palumbo, in particular. I'm sure the Old Man could've gone on all morning, but he broke down in one of his trademark coughing jags about halfway through, so I missed out on the big "and that's why this whole damn country's going straight to hell!" payoff that inevitably comes at the end.

  I think Old Man Finzio would've likely let it go at that if I hadn't spent the rest of that morning turning everything I touched into a certified class-A disaster. First I broke the coffeepot. Then I snapped three studs trying to get the damn exhaust manifold off some jewelry salesman's Dodge Wayfarer that was in for a valve job. Next I couldn't find the damn cutting torch (and I had it right in my hand, you know?) after which I set it down for a moment—in full operational mode—on the hood of Dr. Rossi's brand-new Lincoln Capri, which was in for its very first oil change. The flame seared a splendid, thumb-sized scorch about six inches back from the hood ornament where you couldn't miss it unless you had a damn laundry bag over your head.

  But I think the Old Man still might have let it slide (hey, we all have bad days, right?) if only Julie hadn't showed up an hour later to pencil some numbers in the books. As you'll recall, I hadn't been seeing too much of her on account of all the time I'd been putting in on Cal's worthless TC, and to tell the truth, I hadn't been real good about calling her, either. So I could really feel the old frost when she walked by my workbench and smelled trouble right away when she motioned for me to meet her out behind the shop a few minutes later. No question she had something besides the usual "long-time-no-see" chitchat on her mind. Sure enough, we hadn't so much as rounded the corner when Julie started in on me full blast. "Why should I NEED this garbage?" she screamed, fire spitting out both eyeballs.

  "But, Ju—"

  "You think I got nothin' better to do? Is that what you think? Huh? IS IT?!!"

  "A'course not, Julie, I—"

  "Think you can just call me up any old time you feel like a little kissy-face at the drive-in? Huh? Is that the way it is?"

  "Aw, Ju—"

  "And then let me rot by the stinkin' phone for weeks on end while you go screw around with those frickin' racecars!"

  "But, Julie—honey—Cal and me had an awful lot to do. It gets like that some—"

  "Yeah, sure it does! You was so frickin' busy y'couldn't find FIVE GODDAM MINUTES t'pick up the frickin' phone and see if I was maybe still alive."

  "But, baby—"

  "Don't 'baby' me, Mister Buddy Palumbo. You make me sick. And I mean SICK! Why should I need this garbage. Huh? You tell me. WHY?!"

  No question I wanted to stay on good terms with Julie, and not just because we did stuff out behind the station on Saturday nights (or used to, anyway). Heck, she was about the only female I'd ever been really close to. So I felt pretty damn scummy about ignoring her the way I had, and for that reason just stood there and took it like a man, nodding and shrugging and staring at my shoes while she paced back and forth in front of me like a damn drill sergeant and let me have it with both barrels.

  But I was patient and kept my mouth shut and pretty soon I could see she was running out of steam and even starting to cry a little bit, and although I've never claimed to be any kind of expert when it comes to dealing with the female of the species, I do know that's your only chance to turn one of these deals around. "Aw, baby," I said softly, kind of easing my way toward her, "I'm real sorry. Honest I am. It's just that racing's so, I don't know, so damn addicting. Why, it's the most exciting thing I've ever done in my life. Really it is. Sometimes I just get sort of, you know, involved. . . . "

  "Yeah, I know you do," she sniffed. "But too involved to even pick up the phone?"

  "Aw, listen, Julie . . ."—I cautiously reached out and wrapped my fingers around her elbows—". . . someday you gotta come to the races with me. Then you'd see for yourself. Honest you would." I pulled lightly on her arms and felt her glide gently into me. We'd have a super time there together. Really we would."

  "We would?"

  "Suuure we would," I whispered, nuzzling into her hair. "You'd love it."

  "Humph. Just like I love hangin' around gas station garages on Friday and Saturday nights, I suppose?"

  "Aw, honey, it's not like that at all. Sure, sometimes you gotta pay the price. But believe you me, it's worth it. Why, you should see all the fancy cars and rich, classy people we hang around with at the races. Real live celebrities, even."

  "Oh yeah?" Julie said, perking up just a little. "Like who?"

  "Oh, well, ah, let's see." I was racking my brain for names that might impress her. "I've seen that Dave Garroway guy a couple times already. . . ."

  "He's the one with the chimpanzee on television, isn't he?" she said, not looking particularly stunned.

  That's when I realized movie stars were what I really needed. "Well," I told her, "how about Tyrone Power?"

  "Tyrone Power?" Julie's eyebrows slid up a notch or two. "He goes to the car races?"

  "Suuure he does. And Jackie Cooper, too. He races a Jaguar just like Big Ed's. . . ."

  "He does?"

  "Uh-huh. Why, he even wrote about it in a magazine called Road & Track"

  "He did?"

  "Yup, he sure did. So did Clark Gable."

  "CLARK GABLE??!!" Her eyes popped like mousetraps. "The Clark Gable?"

  "Um hum," I nodded.

  She looked at me kind of sideways. "Say, this isn't just another load of the old Palumbo bullshit, is it?"

  "Of course not," I gasped, insulted that she would even think such a thing.

  "Even the part about Clark Gable?"

  "Absolutely. He goes to the races all the time when he's not all wrapped up shooting a picture."

  "You're sure?"

  "It's God's truth. I swear." And it was true. Or at least that's what I'd heard from a couple of the MG guys at Giant's Despair. Of course, I'd never actually seen Tyrone Power or Jackie Cooper or Clark Gable at the races, but that was simply because they did all their sports car stuff out in California. But Julie didn't need to know that, did she? "And listen," I added, watching the celebrity sparks flickering in her eyes, "you should see the places we go. Why, just yesterday we were at this huge country estate that belongs to a real live Pennsylvania state senator."

  "You were?"

  "Um-hmm. And you should've seen it, Julie. There were forests and gardens and a big brick mansion right in the middle. Why, we even slept there."

  "You're kidding."

  "No, I'm not. And I can't wait to take you with me." As you can see, I decided not to mention that my "accommodations" at Senator Wood's estate amounted to a moldy stolen comforter, the lid of a Sears Craftsman toolbox, and the back seat of an old four-door DeSoto.

  "Sounds pretty dreamy," she admitted, her eyes dancing.

  "Gee whiz, Julie," I continued, pulling her in close, "I can't help imagining how much nicer it'd be to have somebody, you know, special to share it with. . . ."

  "You mean like me?"Julie whispered, rolling her head into my shoulder.

  "Sure like you, Julie. Like you and nobody else. Why, you'd be about the prettiest girl there."

  I felt her stiffen like a dead mackerel. "What do you mean, about?"

  Whoops.

  "So tell me," she asked in a dangerously singsong voice, "they got a lot of pretty girls at those races?"

  "Oh . . . well . . . ahh," I mumbled as visions of Sally Enderle's incredible white shorts popped in my head like flashbulbs. "Certainly none as pretty as you. . . .
"

  "Honest?" She was twirling a few strands of hair around her finger like a female spider spinning its web.

  "Oh, no question about it, Julie. No question at all."

  "That's nice," she finally whispered, leaning in close so I could feel her various female parts pressing in against me.

  "It sure is," I whispered back, nuzzling her cheek.

  "Isn't it?" she purred with her lips right up to my ear so the words sent heat waves pulsing through my system. I wrapped my arms around her and Julie put hers around me and when we started to kiss, she surprised the hell out of me by opening her mouth a little bit and more or less inviting my tongue inside. WOW!

  And that, of course, is precisely when Old Man Finzio came stomping around the side of the building to see what his niece and star employee were up to. Seeing Julie and me all tied up in a love knot stopped the Old Man dead in his tracks, and his jaw had to work itself up and down a few times before he could produce any kind of recognizable noise. Imagine the sound of a rusty nail being pulled out of an old oak plank. But a split-second later he was bellowing away at the top of his lungs. "YOU!!" he shouted at Julie. "You get the hell INSIDE!"Julie jumped off me and scurried around the corner like a mouse running for its hole. "And as for YOU, Palumbo," the Old Man hollered with a dangerous waver in his voice, "you pack up yer shit up and get the hell outta my gas station. And I mean NOW!!"

  "Aw, geez, Mr. Finzio, if you'd jus—"

  "SHUDDUP!"he screamed, running his eyes up and down me like a rake. "I'll be damned if I'm gonna let my little niece play God's Gift t'every damn hard-on west of the Hudson River. No SIR! 'Specially not with one a'my God Damn EM-PLOY-EES! And for damn sure not on my goddam company time. YOU HEAR ME, PALUMBO?"

  Sure I heard him. Hell, everybody in Passaic heard him.

  "Now you got just ten minutes t'clear yer shit outta my shop!" he snarled, the loose turkey skin above his collar turning tropical sunset colors. "You unnerstand me, boy? TEN MINUTES!!!" And with that he spun on his heels and stalked back into the building.

  All I could do was just stand there, reeling and blinking and praying deep down inside that I'd wake up and discover it was only a bad dream. But of course it wasn't, even though it didn't seem real. Like I was watching myself in a movie or something, you know? But there was no getting away from the reality of the situation when I tiptoed back into the service bay and found the Old Man hard at work on my Dodge valve job. Naturally, I wanted to talk to him—to maybe reason with him—but I was all choked up and hollow-feeling and afraid my voice might crack like a little kindergarten kid with a skinned knee. And I could see the Old Man wasn't in any mood to listen, seeing as how wherever I went, he'd make sure to keep his back turned so I was looking squarely at his spine. Julie was nowhere to be seen, either, and finally there was just nothing to do but pack up Butch's tools and go. I carefully wiped off each wrench, socket, and screwdriver, packed them neatly away, and closed the lid. "Okay if I leave these here?" I heard myself ask.

  "You bet'cher ass you'll leave them tools here," the Old Man growled without turning around. "Them is Butch Bohunk's tools, not YERS!"

  Then he jammed his head back under the hood of that Dodge and pretended like I wasn't there. So I locked Butch's toolbox, heaved it under the bench, covered it with a fender blanket, and slipped the key into my pocket. No way would Butch want Old Man Finzio messing around with his tools. After that, there wasn't much to do but hang up my coveralls on the nail over by the space heater and walk on back to my apartment. Gee whiz, it wasn't even noon.

  When I got there I flopped down on the bed and tried to sleep, but of course I couldn't. My body and mind were beat-out exhausted from the weekend, but all my nerve ends were jangling like fire alarms and the best I could do was just lay there with my eyes slammed shut while all these things swirled around in my brain like scenery whipping past a car window. It must've been past midnight when I finally dozed off, and I more or less slept clear through Tuesday. Or at least I stayed in bed all day. I mean, what did I have to get up for? Truth is, I'd never experienced the humiliation of getting fired before, and it made me feel angry, depressed, confused, guilty, and totally worthless. All at the same time. And that's not even mentioning how I might eventually wind up broke, hungry, and homeless. All told, I had maybe sixteen dollars wadded up in a sock in my top drawer and maybe another buck or two in loose change scattered around the apartment. Period. Not much to show for a guy who was supposedly earning himself a full-time, adult-type living, was it?

  On the brighter side, my Aunt Rosamarina wasn't the type to throw me in the street just because I was down on my luck, and I could always cadge a meal or two in my mom's kitchen, especially if I broke down and told my folks I'd got fired (although telling them sounded even worse than starving to death, but then I wasn't real hungry yet, either).

  But time passed (as it does), and by Wednesday morning I was feeling almost human again. I even had this crazy notion I could maybe go over by the Sinclair and patch things up with Old Man Finzio. So I washed and shaved, put on the closest thing to a clean shirt I had, and headed over to see if the Old Man had softened up any. But when I got there he was just pulling a Help Wanted sign out of the window and some burly-looking stranger in a string T-shirt was heaving a big red toolbox out of an unfamiliar Chevrolet station wagon and hauling it inside.

  Well, so much for that.

  I went back to my apartment and sulked for awhile before gingerly peeling two dollar bills off the skinny roll in my sock and heading over to Westbridge to see if Barry Spline had any openings. Believe me, it was tough getting into New York without the Old Man's tow truck or one of Big Ed's Caddies, and I spent the better part of two hours on assorted buses and subway trains, each one smelling slightly worse than the last as I got closer to Westbridge's dirty little corner of Manhattan. I ultimately had to hoof it the last five blocks from the nearest bus stop, and it was past noon by the time I finally arrived. Naturally, Barry and Colin St. John were out to lunch, and the only people inside were Hans, Bjorn, and Vito, none of whom spoke any English unless they wanted something off you. So I went looking for Sylvester, and found him slouched against the brickwork in the alley behind the shop, thoughtfully drinking his lunch. I figured Sylvester would be an excellent person to talk to, seeing as how he was a seasoned expert on the subject of getting fired. "Sheee-it!" Sylvester grumbled, taking a long pull off his bottle. "What th'fuck you got t'worry about."

  "Well," I said, trying to make it sound desperate, "I got fired."

  "So?"

  "So I don't have a job anymore."

  "So?"

  "So I'm outta work,Sylvester."

  "So what? You still single, right?"

  "Sure."

  "You ain't got no kids, right?"

  "A' course not.'

  "You ain't missed a meal yet, has you?"

  "No. Not really."

  "You still got a lil' money in yo' pocket?"

  "Yeah. Some."

  "How 'bout yo' rent? Is yo' rent paid?"

  "Through August, anyway. But my aunt'd probably let it slide awhile if she knew I was tapped. . . ."

  "Sheeeee-it!" Sylvester cackled, slapping one of his big, calloused hands on my knee. "You ain't outta work, son. Hell no! You is on fucking vacation!"

  You must admit, Sylvester had a unique way of looking at things.

  Barry Spline was back behind the parts counter when Sylvester and me returned from lunch, and he seemed pretty interested when I told him I might be looking for employment. "Only trouble," Barry sort of whispered behind his hand, "is we got a bloody full crew right h'at the moment. Don't see how we could use h'another set of 'ands just now. Yer understand, of course."

  "Uh, sure."

  "But we'll be sure t'keep yer in mind h'if things change. . . ."

  "Gee, th-thanks," I said, my insides going pale.

  Then Barry looked me up and down with this unusually thoughtful expression on his face. "Then again,"
he mused, stroking the end of his nose, "we could maybe put yer on as a race mechanic."

  My mouth popped wide open. "You COULD?"

  Barry nodded. "We can most always find a spot for a decent race mechanic."

  "Gee whiz," I gushed. "That'd be great!"

  "I had a feelin' yer'd like it," Barry grinned.

  But then I caught the glimmer of something sneaky in the corner of his eye. "Say," I asked, trying to sound real mature and professional about it, "what exactly does a race mechanic do, anyway?"

  "Why, whatever bleedin' needs t'be done. 'Round here, we recognize race mechanicin' as a bloody highly skilled form of h'employment. Indeed we do. Most of yer garden-variety grease monkeys can't do the bleedin' job a'tall. Not a'tall."