Any Given Afternoon #04: Auto Shop

 

Wess wasn’t a lucky person.

Sure he was being raised in a moderately wealthy home, but that came at the price of his parents abandoning him to his grandparents who happened to have been wise with their jobs and savings. He had a best friend, but sometimes it felt more like he was her slave. He was nice and outgoing, but whenever the girl he was interested in separated from her friends and walked out alone into the night where it would be less humiliating for him to be rejected, she’d scream for help and smack him. He didn’t know why; he was a perfectly nice guy.

Then there were the car troubles.

It was an ancient grey-rusted-brown two-seat truck from the early 90s. The back window and tailgate were both missing, but Wess thought doing anything more than grumbling about it wasn’t worth the effort. He just bundled up in the winter and duct-taped Aurora’s wheelchair down when it was back there.

The only times Wess tried to improve the thing was when it wouldn’t work otherwise. When tires popped, he bought used ones. When his hot-wiring trick stopped working, he got an ignition switch installed. 

Except those are car problems that everyone has to deal with and Wess wasn’t a lucky person.

Today, Wess woke up to find his engine was gone.

This only surprised Wess because it wasn’t his battery. Whoever had been targeting him for the past few months always took his battery, but this time they must have seen the Property of Wess Goler he’d written on it.

So Wess went about his usual Sunday routine: Eat breakfast, text Aurora to not spoil the new Space Goats episode for him while he was out, and call Fletcher & Daughter’s Towing, Used Cars, and Auto Shop to give them at least fifty bucks. He wished he could find some place cheaper, but anyone else who tried to open anything having to do with cars in the city woke up to find theirs in the river.

Wess expected Bernard Fletcher to arrive, but today was different. Just like something else going missing from his car, it was someone else driving the tow truck. It was his daughter and Wess’s classmate. Her real name was Dorris, but everyone who preferred not being stabbed called her Draka.

“Hey Draka,” Wess waved, breath visible in the cold winter air.

“Go hey yourself,” Draka said. Wess didn’t know her well, as he and most people stayed an arm and knife’s length away from her, but she seemed extra bitter today. Draka explained as she hooked Wess’s truck up to the tow truck, “I’m supposed to have Sundays off, but the old bastard threw his back out so I’ve gotta cover for him.”

“Why not just close down for the day?”

“We ain’t churchies. We work Sundays.”

Wess shrugged. Besides, what they ran was so terrible that it might just beat out Hell for being the most unholy place imaginable.

The two climbed the tow truck and rode off in casually annoyed silence. At least until a thought crossed Wess’s mind.

“Wait, don’t you have to be eighteen to drive this thing?” He might not have liked Bernard’s chain smoking, but he trusted the man to drive better than his daughter, who Wess was sure had failed out of Driver’s Ed.

“I’m fine with bailing out and letting you deal with it if you know how to handle this thing. Haven’t had my coffee yet and Cornerstone’s just down the block.”

Draka’s glare was equally matched by Wess’s tired and annoyed look so they both returned to silence.

It would be at least another five minutes until they got to the auto shop, but they were hitting just about every red light they could. Draka tried to cut this time down at certain intersections since there were no cars coming anyway, but unfortunately they were still stuck at several.

With every red light, Draka pulled out her phone and frequently reloaded a website. Wess didn’t bother trying to peek at what it was. Probably some knife site. Threatening to stab people seemed to be her single personality trait, after all. He instead took these opportunities to check in on the fake Space Goats spoilers Aurora was sending.

Except, at this light there was radio silence. Aurora usually fired these texts off as soon as a joke came to her mind. According to Aurora, there was just an ad break, so what gives?

“Holy shit!” Draka shouted.

The impact of the shout hit Wess so hard that he thought Draka had crashed. Then he remembered they were stopped at a light.

“Draka?” Wess asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Shut your ugly face. Holy shit!” It wasn’t an angry shout. Much more of an excited one.

Then Wess’s phone rang with a new text from Aurora. holy shit dude, ya gotta watch this ep rn. It wasn’t hard for Wess to put the pieces together.

“Are you watching Space Goats?” Wess asked.

Draka froze, phone still in her hand. Perhaps she had a second personality trait after all. And, as Wess grabbed the phone from her, he hoped that personality trait was enough to save him from her first, which he reminded himself was stabbing people.

On the screen was a Twister post. A picture of a TV, where the white fur of the goat once known as High Priestess Calytrix had been turned into the inky void of Baack Matter. She had been the traitor from the start.

“Holy shit!” Wess shouted. He didn’t know whether that was more directed to the fictional revelation or the revelation involving the girl driving the truck. He decided to focus on the real one first to lower his chance of dying. “You watch it too?”

The anxiety holding Draka’s face together dropped and let her breathe again. The stress was so hot, she took a second to put her long auburn hair up in a ponytail before looking to Wess. “What of it?” The sentence was meant to be a threat, but the fear still dripped into it and eroded it into a stressed tone.

“Nothing. Just, y’know, surprised.” And that wasn’t the only thing surprising Wess right now. The look of her in a ponytail? The way she held herself much more loosely? How she wasn’t threatening to stab him right now? It was all kind of cute.

This could be the start of something, he thought. It was just like in all his romance anime and manga. The angry loner girl who might act all high and mighty but is into the same nerdy media he is and just needs to be shown kindness to fall in love.

Just like all good art, anime truly reflected reality.

“Why’re you spoiling the episode for yourself?” Wess asked.

“This is how I watch it. My dad would beat the shit out of me if he caught me watching kid shit like this, so I just follow reactions.”

Wess filed ‘abusive parent’ for later. Helping her came first, naturally, but if she just so happened to fall for him because of his kindness, then that was just a bonus.

“Ya gotta watch the show yourself,” Wess said. “Come on over to my place sometime and we can marath--”

Wess was cut off by a loud honk from behind. The two were so wrapped up in talking that neither realized the light had turned green and was now yellow. Draka floored it the moment it turned red.

They continued to talk as they arrived at the shop, excited about finding another fan and floating around the idea of watching through it together. Alone.

Wess didn’t believe in a distinct god, but he was sure the universe was rewarding him right now. And those rewards just kept flowing in.

“How about this?” Draka said, hopping over the counter. “I give you fifteen percent off whatever you’re getting since you’re such a reliable customer.”

Wess smiled. This is what he deserved for being such a nice guy.

“Now lemme get an engine from the back. Got one that fits your ride in just last night.”

Moments later she reappeared in the shop’s garage, a lift containing an engine in tow. As Draka straightened it out and prepared it for installation, Wess frowned.

“Uh, Draka? How did your Dad throw out his back?”

“Lifting some junk. Why?”

Draka watched as Wess turned the engine around and white marker appeared on the side of the engine. Property of Wess Goler.

The two stared at each other, both faces blank. Then, Draka spoke.

“Twenty percent off. Final offer.”