A New Beginning

the wall, a rack that held a time card for Dawn and another for Gomer.

'Have you been working for Dan long?' Kyle asked.

Dawn shook her head and said, 'No, and I'm just part time. I'm getting his office in order.”

She gestured to the computer on the desk in front of her and said, 'I'm also trying to get Dan set up on the Internet. He rebuilds radios on old cars, but he's hopeless on the computer, and he needs a Web site.”

She tutted gently and said, 'Sorry to say that I'm not much better.”

'Well, maybe I could help,' Kyle said. Actually, he wasn't sure that he could. He was okay on the computer, but he didn't know much about Internet programming. Too late, though. He'd already offered. Maybe Liz could talk him through a few things. And it would help him get to know Dawn a little better.

'Can I help you?' a stern voice said behind Kyle.

Turning, he saw Gomer standing in the doorway.

'What?' Kyle said.

'What do you need, partner?' Gomer said. He looked bigger than Kyle had remembered from yesterday. Or was it just that Kyle was closer to him today?

In any case, there was no mistaking the menace in his voice.

'Is this guy bothering you, Dawn?' Gomer said.

'Just calm down, Gomer,' Dawn said. 'This is Kyle. He's working for Dan.”

Kyle mustered a friendly smile and said, 'Hi, I'm Kyle. You-towed our van yesterday.”

Then Kyle could see that Gomer recognized him. How- ever, his sour expression didn't get any friendlier. Kyle held out his hand.

Gomer ignored him and spoke to Dawn. 'I've got the tranny. Any tow calls?”

'No,' Dawn said, 'but Dan might need you to go to Pueblo for some parts. You can talk to him.”

Gomer shot Kyle a dirty look and headed out the door.

'Well…,' Kyle said.

'Oh, don't mind Gomer,' Dawn said.

'Is he your… are you two…?' Kyle asked.

Dawn shook her head and said, 'No, but he acts like it sometimes.”

Then she smiled that smile at him. 'I'm happy to say that I'm a free agent.”

'Okay, then,' Kyle said. 'I'd better get to work.”

'See you later, Kyle,' Dawn said as he left the office.

Dan and Gomer were talking when Kyle came into the shop area.

'Kyle, grab the lift from out back and pull the transmis- sion out of the pickup,' Dan said. 'Gomer will give you a hand with it.”

Kyle headed across the shop floor to the back door. Out- side, he saw more junked cars and the Volkswagen van that Gomer had mentioned the day before. The van was in bad shape. One look told Kyle it would probably never run again. The back was smashed in pretty well, and it just wouldn't pay to do the extensive bodywork on a car that old.

It was also rusted out along the bottom.

The most remarkable thing about the van was the classic sixties hippie paint job: psychedelic colors swirling around large peace signs painted on the front and the drivers side. Clearly the work had been done by hand, but someone had done a pretty good job. The colors were faded and mixed with a good deal of rust, but Kyle found it easy to imagine how the van must have looked years ago.

What he couldn't imagine was Dan driving it, ever. Aside from the long hair in a ponytail, Dan looked like an average, slightly grouchy, middle-aged guy.

Kyle wanted to get to work, but he figured he had time for a quick check under the hood. It took him some doing to get the hood open, but he saw that the engine was pretty much intact. Then he saw the crack in the engine block. That was it; the engine would never start again. However, that didn't mean that the timing chain wouldn't still be good, but he would have to take the engine apart to be sure.

He would have to remember to talk to Dan about that later. Now he had work to do. The transmission lift was a platform on wheels that had two U-shaped cradles that held the front and the back of a transmission. Because transmissions were roughly cone shaped, one of the cradles was larger than the other.

Grabbing the lift, Kyle wheeled it around to the front of the garage, where Gomer waited by an old pickup that was marked johnny's garage. In the back of the pickup, Kyle could see the transmission. He lowered the tailgate on the truck and raised the lift into place using the crank on the side. Later he would lower it and use the lift to set the transmission into place under the car.

Leaning into the pickup, he said to Gomer, 'Would you give me a hand with this?”

Gomer lit a cigarette and looked past Kyle down the road.

'Gomer?' Kyle said.

The older man didn't even look in his direction.

'Would you give me a hand with this, please?' Kyle said. When Gomer continued to ignore him, Kyle raised his voice and said, 'Hey Gomer!”

Gomer finally looked his way and said coolly, 'I figure that you are such a hot mechanic that you don't need help.”

Then Gomer took a drag off his cigarette and blew the smoke in Kyle's direction. 'You got a problem with that?' His voice was even, but Kyle could hear the menace there just the same.

In his football days, Kyle would not have hesitated to meet that challenge, even though Gomer had a good six inches and thirty pounds on him. And he more than likely would have given Gomer a surprise. But that was before he had found out the truth about Max and the others, before he had found Buddha.

Kyle felt blood rushing to his face and forced himself to keep steady.

'What do you say, Mr. Mechanic?' Gomer said, throw- ing his cigarette down and holding his hands out.

Maybe it's time to put Buddha on hold, Kyle thought, clenching his own fists.

And he might have used them, too, but he remembered his friends. The last thing they all needed was the added attention that a fight would bring… even if Kyle won. Still, the urge to knock that smirk off Gomer's face was strong.

Kyle forced a smile of his own and said, 'Sorry, maybe another time. I've got work to do.”

Kyle caught Gomer's disappointed expression out of the corner of his eye as he wrestled with the transmission. He slid it toward the tailgate and took a deep breath. Though one person could lift one by himself, moving a transmission was really a two-person job. One person risked dropping it.

In one heave, Kyle lifted it, swung it a few feet over, and then lowered it into the cradles. He was relieved when the clang of metal on metal told him it was in place. He half expected Gomer to make a move on him, and Kyle was relieved when the other man just stood there.

By the time he reached the garage door, he found him- self relaxing and smiling at how quickly Gomer had almost baited him. Buddha would not be pleased, Kyle- thought. And neither would Max.

Before he pushed the rig inside, Kyle couldn't resist giving Gomer a wave and saying, 'You have a nice day now.”

Smiling at Gomer's stunned expression, Kyle pushed the transmission into the garage. He used the hydraulic lift to raise the car about two feet, then he got underneath to drop the old transmission. For a few minutes, everything melted away. He was doing something he knew he could do well. And he was the only one of the guys in their group who had found a job.

Plus, there was something Zen about auto repair. His first introduction to Buddhism had come from a copy of a book called Zen and the Art oj Motorcycle Maintenance that he had found at football camp.

At first, he thought it was a joke, but the book had turned about to be serious. He read it cover to cover, and Kyle had never been much of a reader. Then, he had gone to the library to get more books on Buddhism. The next thing he knew, he was trying to walk the Middle Path. It had been almost as big a change for him as learning the truth about the aliens in his town.

Now he found the work relaxing him. His almost- confrontation with Gomer was forgotten, as was the fact that less than forty-eight hours before he had left the only life he had ever known. His worries were replaced by the