had been taken to the one that used to belong to Gareth’s father. The place had been bought and expanded by a nationwide chain and was now run as a franchise by staff who all wore matching uniforms. A short, fat mechanic carrying a clipboard joined us in the workshop. He moved slowly, as though the weight of the fat dragging at his body exhausted him.
“She’s up there.”
He jerked his head at a hydraulic hoist, then took a flashlight out of his pocket and shone it on the underside of my father’s car. The damage was extensive. The exhaust system had been torn away and the drive shaft was no longer connected to the differential. The base of the car itself was scraped and gouged and marked in places with powdered concrete.
“Brake failure.”
Using the flashlight beam he traced a thin metal pipe that came out from somewhere in the engine and ran along its base before splitting out to feed the brakes on each side of the car. Where the pipe bent to curve around the engine it looked discolored and corroded.
“Someone hold the flashlight.”
I took it from him and held it trained on the spot while he went to work with a pair of wire cutters. When he was done he stepped out from under the car and held his hand out to us. A six-inch section of the pipe rested on his palm. The metal on one side of it had rotted away leaving a hole in the pipe wall about two inches long. My father took it and examined it closely. His face was tight with anger and he shook his head slowly.
“Unbelievable.”
The mechanic snorted derisively. “Yeah, it’s pretty poor. Looks like some sort of metal fatigue.”
“But these things aren’t supposed to corrode.”
“What can I say? You got a defective part. This is a reasonably old car.”
“It’s only a ’93.”
“Yeah.”
My father passed the pipe to me. I passed it on to Stan who muttered under his breath, “Unbelievable.”
The mechanic picked up his clipboard and ran his finger down a list of handwritten entries on the top sheet of a pad of printed yellow forms.
“Your car’s written off. Rear axle, diff, drive shaft, all, er, shafted. Chassis out of true. Panel damage down the entire right-hand side. Not worth repairing in a car this age.”
“It’s sixteen years old.”
“Yeah.”
The mechanic signed his name carefully at the bottom of the form then tore off the sheet and handed it to my father.
“You’ll need that for your insurance company.”
On the way home my father was pensive and didn’t speak much. I tried to make conversation once or twice but each time, when he responded, it was as though I had dragged him into the present from someplace far away. In the end I left him alone and listened to the radio instead.
That night at dinner, when my father wasn’t looking, Stan kicked me under the table and silently mouthed,
CHAPTER 12
A week later, when we officially started work on Plantasaurus, I still hadn’t told my father about it. Stan and I went over to the garden center midmorning and found the place full of men in coveralls loading everything that could be moved into trucks outside. Rachel showed us the plants Bill had said Stan could have. There were forty assorted centerpiece shrubs around six feet high-dracaenas, weeping figs, kentia palms, etc.-ten large trays of smaller subtropical plants, and a pallet of potting mix.
It took us two hours to lug the plants and the soil over to our warehouse. When we were done we drove to a copy shop in Oakridge. Earlier that morning we’d sketched out a design for the fliers that were to be our principal means of advertising-I’d written a description of our services and above this Stan had drawn a smiling, cartoon- style brontosaurus holding a big flower in its mouth. We talked through the design with the copy guy and ordered five thousand fliers.
After that, we hit the road for Burton. There was a plastic-molding business there that had the kind of containers we needed as planters for the displays Stan had in mind.
The hour-long drive felt like an adventure-the day was beautiful and we were on a mission, out in the world actively pursuing the dream of self-employment. Stan was twitching with excitement.
“Hey, Johnny, you think we should get the truck painted too?”
“With a dinosaur?”
“Yeah, and the name, so people will know as soon as they see us.”
“This truck?”
“It’d look cool.”
“Would we have to have the flower as well?”
Stan laughed. “Hey, Johnny, you know what? I’m stoked.”
Burton was twice the size of Oakridge and it took us a while to find the molding factory that made the planters. When we did, we bought what the pickup would carry of the models we wanted-cylindrical drums and long rectangular troughs-and placed a wholesale order for more to be delivered the next day.
It was early afternoon when we got back to our warehouse. The workmen had gone from the garden center and the complex was closed and locked and already had an air of abandonment about it. After we’d carried our planters inside Stan showed me how to build a display.
I followed his instructions on how high to fill the planters with soil and what plants to use and where to place them so that they looked good and gave a balanced effect. The drums were simple. A layer of pumice stones, several inches of potting mix, remove the black plastic wrapping from the root mass of a single palm or dracaena, center it in the pot, and fill it up with potting mix.
After we’d done a few of these we moved on and prepared a couple of troughs. Stan called these “display planters” and they took more time since a selection of plants had to be used to create a symmetrical display that rose gradually from the ends of the box toward a high point in the center.
It was pleasant being there like that. The scent of the dark moist earth and the green humidity of the plants made the work seem clean and real and good, and for the two hours we spent at it there was no need to think too deeply about things.
Even so, I couldn’t help moments of vague unease. I’d had to pay Bill Prentice the first three months of the lease up front and even though he’d given us a good price, that and the deal we’d just done for the planters had taken more than half my savings. We still had Stan’s money, but there would be more plants and soil to buy, and there would be bills too-electricity, insurance, the cost of running the pickup…
Toward midafternoon, while we were still working, I heard a car pull up. Shortly afterwards, faintly, beyond the tin walls of our warehouse, it seemed to me that someone was walking around the outside of the garden center. I assumed it was someone who’d come to buy garden supplies and that they’d go away when they finally figured out the place had gone out of business. But when there were still noises five minutes later Stan and I went outside to take a look.
Midway between the garden center and our warehouse a man stood looking carefully at the section of land. Though he could not have failed to notice us he gave no immediate indication of it. Instead, his gaze continued to wander over the buildings as though he was taking an inventory. Beyond him, in the parking lot, a red convertible E-type Jaguar bounced sun off its paintwork.
When he’d finished his inspection the man walked over to where we were. For an instant, as he looked at me,
