So this was why I always got the answering machine if I called these men at lunchtime. Soap opera?
Jimmy tore his eyes from
“Sorry,” I said, “but I’m afraid something’s wrong with that battery you put in last month.”
“You finish eating, Jimmy,” said a voice behind me. “I’ll check it out for her.”
I turned and there was Allen Stancil.
“Hey, thanks,” said Jimmy, sinking back into his chair, his attention already focused on the TV again. “Battery tester’s over there on that Mercury.”
Reluctantly, I followed Allen back outside. The sky had lightened momentarily, but more thunderheads were roiling up in the west.
I popped the hood and started the engine and Allen did his thing with the battery tester. After a few minutes, he hollered for me to shut it off and he began pulling on various belts.
‘Try it again.”
Again, I started the engine, gave it more gas when he told me to mash down, turned my lights off and on, then switched off as he eventually closed the hood and came around to my side of the car.
“Nothing wrong with your battery or your belts, far as I can tell,” he said, “but it’s not charging right. Looks to me like your alternator’s going to the bad. You don’t get a new one pretty soon, it’s gonna leave you on the side of the road somewhere.”
Back inside, the soap opera had ended and the guys were clearing away. James stowed the television and its board under the desk while Woodrow and the others pushed the cinder blocks and stool out of the middle of the floor.
Allen told Jimmy his diagnosis and Jimmy shook his head and gestured to all the cars ahead of me.
“I’m sorry, Deb’rah. You know I’d do it in a minute if I could, but I’d have to send James to town for the part and the way we’re so backed up—there’s no way in the world we’n get to it before Monday or Tuesday. And even then…”
His voice trailed off into uncertainty.
“I don’t mean to be butting in,” said Allen, butting in. “But she sure needs to get it changed and I’m not doing much right now.”
“Would you?” Relief brightened Jimmy’s face. He really does hate to make me wait. “That’d be great. Y’all do know each other, don’t you, Deb’rah? Dallas’s cousin? Staying over yonder with Mr. Jap? He knows as much about cars as me.”
Allen smiled broadly beneath his mustache. “More.”
“Naw, now, I didn’ say that!” Jimmy laughed. “But he’ll do you right.”
Which was how I found myself riding over to Cotton Grove with Allen to buy a new alternator.
We left my car parked in front of the garage at Mr. Jap’s place and drove to the auto parts store in Allen’s old Chevy pickup. I had to slide in under the steering wheel since the door on the passenger side was held shut with a C-clamp.
“Keep forgetting to get that damn latch fixed,” Allen said with a trace of embarrassment.
Didn’t bother me. With him driving, I could look him over good rather than the other way around.
He’d held up rather well, all things considered. His brown hair was still thick and bushy, his belly was flat, and he didn’t seem to have any teeth missing.
“When’d you grow the mustache?” I asked, as we crossed Possum Creek and headed north toward town.
“You don’t like it, darlin’, I’ll shave it off tomorrow morning.” His voice was warm and insinuating, but there was no way I was going to step in that creek twice.
“I don’t give a damn whether it stays or goes, Allen. I was just making polite conversation.”
“Well, I’n talk polite, too. How come you never got married again?”
“Once was enough, thank you.”
“What about that game warden? Y’all serious?”
“Oh, I always take game wardens serious,” I said. “What about you? How many times you been married since me?”
“Might’ve put my mark on one or two.” With one of those Ain’t-I-a-pistol? smiles, he flashed me the black star tattooed in the palm of his left hand. “You were the last one with a preacher, though.”
“Except it was a magistrate,” I reminded him sharply. “Any kids?”
“They proved one on me, but that’s all.”
I knew that Allen had been married before I met him and I seemed to recall mention of a son. “You mean Kevin—was that his name?”
“Keith. Naw, he’s grown now. Lives up in Richmond. I’m still paying for a girl that—”
He broke off so abruptly that my curiosity was piqued.
“A daughter? How old is she?”
He hesitated. “Seventeen. I got just one more year to pay on her. Wendy Nicole.”
“Seventeen?”
