Festered Like a Scab

There was something different about the car that pulled into the garage that Sunday night. Sundays were usually quiet for my papa’s repair and garage. Not many people traveled the highway on the day of rest. Most people, even the shining people of the city, had enough sense to not travel on Sunday. In fact, most garages were closed on these days, especially the ones along the sides of highways.

Papa didn’t like to close the shop for any reason. And even if he did, he also had me keep watch from one of the rooms above in case a costumer came in to get a tire change or something of the like.

That didn’t change the fact that most people didn’t bother to travel on Sundays. Of course, the driver of that car was clearly not like most people. The car, like so many cars coming from the city, sparkled like a rare jewel. It glistened so blindingly bright that I felt as though I needed to put it under glass and exalt it as some sort of exotic treasure.

I think the city did that to cars, actually. I would always see men go in with cars that did have another twenty miles on them before collapsing. But they would always come back a few years later talking about what they found in the city. Among the fantastical things in the city, of course, was usually a new car. And these cars were gems all of their own. I imagined the city to be a treasure box. It was filled with fancy cars, women in powdery dresses and long beads, and the colorful liquids that Papa would bring back after coming from the city.

This car was a city car. I knew when I filled up the gas. But the man inside was not a city man. He was lean and not stuffed by city food. His mouth was spread into an earnest smile, and not too busy smoking a fat cigar. But most of all, he was a talker.

“Is this a family business?” the city man asked with an easy smile. He had one tan arm hanging out of the window. I just continued filling his tank. I suppose he figured I hadn’t any idea what he was talking about, for he continued, “What I mean to say is, does your father run this place?”

I nodded and wiped some spilled gas up with a rag and looked at him, “Are you from the city Sir?” I asked, started some small talk of my own. Papa was well known for his sociability. That’s why people came back. I thought I ought to emulate him.

“I am. Going out to see some family in Jersey for the week. My sister’s getting hitched,” he said smoothly. He may not have looked like a city man, but he talked just like one. Of course, he spoke a lot more than any city man I have ever seen. But he did speak quite like what I’ve heard.

“Seeing family. I should’ve figured,” I remarked, probably louder than I should have remarked, “Do you want your tires changed Sir?”

“Sure Boy, why not? Don’t got a long ways to drive. But I need to get back, you know?” he said jokingly with that ever-present smile, “And why should you have figured was going to see some family?”

Suddenly I was beginning to regret my words. I didn’t really have a question for an answer like that. I don’t think most people do, “Well I don’t really know Sir. I guess I figured no one leaves the city unless they have to. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone move out. Seen plenty move in. But never away.”

“Is that right?” the man asked, surprisingly interested in my words. That’s when I recognized what made this man different than the other city men, I think, “I suppose the city does have its allure. Lots of people get rich off of business there. Lot different than the typical farm life outside of cities like New York.”

“I didn’t know there were any other cities like New York,” I remarked, a little amazed. I put on the fourth tire and spun it around to make sure it was working all right. Everything was prim and polished and perfect. But I didn’t want to see him leave. Sometimes, I used to believe that the world was flat, despite what my papa told me. Because although there were some that would revisit, most people never came back to the garage when they left.

“Actually, there might not be,” the man agreed after thinking for a few moments, “Sometimes my drinking friends would call New York a city of dreams. They believed that they could become anything in the city. They would tell me, ‘Scotty, if ever there was a city you could fall in love with, it would be New York. You can become famous up here. The music flows smooth and the liquor even smoother.’ So I thought I ought to find out for myself.”

I was almost shocked by how willing he was to tell me all of this. All I ever knew about the city was from watching all of the city folk drive in an out, with their fancy cars and clothes and taciturnity. They would laugh amongst themselves, but would never care to tell anyone in the garage the joke, “What did you find there?” I asked, now completely at ease talking to him.

The handsome city man only smiled casually, as though there was some great secret about the city that he didn’t want to spoil, “Where’s your Pops, Kid?” he asked, changing the subject, “You said he ran this joint, right?”

I only pointed upstairs, a little upset that he wouldn’t tell me more about the city. I used to read a lot of mystery novels about hidden treasures and curious detectives. The city was like that to me. I was Holmes, but not as dashing and wise, “He’s been sick. I’ve been taking care of the garage for a while. I think he’s worried about my mama.”

“She sick too?” he asked, looking genuinely concerned. His facial expressions were incredible. I never saw city people as living things, more like perfect beings that were manufactured out of those smoking factories in the city.

I shook my head, “Not sick. In the city,” I corrected, “She took a train to the city and has been there for a day and a half.” I began to feel a little sick in my stomach, suddenly knowing how my father must have felt, “Been happening a lot lately.”

The man nodded, his eyes turning pretty misty, “I better get going,” he said softly. I must have scared him off by getting personal. Well, he did start up the conversation about Papa. I didn’t want to see him go. But he drove off. I had no idea if he would just continue down that broken highway until he fell off the edge of the world or if he would come back to visit someday.

In any case, something changed that wasn’t going to turn back. I wanted one of those glimmering cars. I wanted to open the jewel box that was the city. As he drove away, I knew that the world was turning into a very different place.

That same day was the day I quit my job at my father’s garage and left home to see what the city had to offer a brown-eyed boy with the world in his eyes. I took the train out that afternoon, leaving a note on door to the loft overlooking the shop where we lived. I had everything I needed in a carpetbag. I looked just like those immigrants my dad told me used to come by a lot when I was really small.

I felt so old then. I felt like I had grown every inch that I was going to grow. I felt like I could just rent out an apartment and live on my own or the rest of my life, like a real city person.

I was sixteen.

---

“Jake,” someone said to me, shoving me forward towards a drunk-looking man in front of a café, “This is Hemingway, good friend of mine. He’s a writer,” he paused and looked back at me, “Well, say hello,” he urged me.

I greeted the man with a nod and a kind word, holding out my hand for him to shake. Ever since I came to the city, Mister Max Hosper was always introducing me to his drinking friends. He always told me it was the least he could do, since I always cleaned up after him and covered his possession of alcohol from the coppers. And I never did it for much pay, just room and board in his apartment complex.

However, in all of my three years in the city dealing with Mister Hosper, I had never seen any group of friends that looked quite like the ladies and gents that he was introducing me to. They had all been stylish people from fancy houses just outside of the city. I was not accustomed to these five folks and their types. They were certainly stylish in their own way. Yet, their eyes weren’t the glistening gems of the city people.

They all looked on the world with coal, rather than gemstones. I think this Mister Hemingway had it the most. Although, they all looked with tired and observant eyes. I was entranced by it. They weren’t like most people.

These people were artists.

“Jake is a nice name,” an airy woman with dark hair curled up into a bob noted, “I’m Janice Vandyke. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said with a sweet but saucy voice. She held out her hand as soon as I had let go of Hemingway’s.

“Yes,” Hemingway agreed from somewhere in his throat, “I think I should name a character that. It’s a good, simple name,” he said dryly, “You want to come Boy?” he asked simply, nodding towards the stairs.

None of them could have been more than fifteen years older than I, which didn’t look like much through my eyes. Yet they looked at me with an aged eye. A lighthearted man urged me to come and join them in their festivities. Mister Hosper resorted back to the “least he could do” speech. Sometimes I wondered why he always said that. The least he could do was nowhere near the kind of hospitality and friendliness he showed me.

“Oh,” I started, wondering if anyone actually refused these offers. I hadn’t touched a sip of alcohol since I came to the city. There was too much to do: finding shelter, food, all of the things a man needed to live, “I suppose it couldn’t hurt much,” I agreed.

After all, is an enjoyable time not one of the needs in a man’s life? I guess I thought so. I had found out within coming into the city that there was some kind of law keeping people from drinking alcohol in bars. I think that added to my draw towards Hosper’s four room apartment.

There were four men and two young women, these numbers not including myself. All six of them sat on the couch and began to exchange words of gossip and advice, passing around bottles and cups. It started with laughter, I think. The words were light and lacking real substance, with more giggles than actual things spoken. I had my eyes on two things the entire time: my glass and Hemingway. I always took the most interest in the odd things out. My hand through the alcohol-filled glass was one of those strange things: it was trying to fit in, but wasn’t quite accustomed to the life of a real city folk.

Hemingway was another odd one. When he spoke, he spoke with ease and amiability. But he rather just sat there and listened. He took in everything everyone said, his eyes of coal still sitting still; the light bubbles of alcohol did nothing to him, unlike everyone else.

The room started to become heated when the night reached the later hours. I couldn’t quite tell who was yelling anymore. Somebody was. There was a lamp on the floor. And there was Janice Vandyke beside it. She was saying something, but it wasn’t comprehensible. The lights of the city were blurring through the window of the landlord’s apartment.

Hemingway motioned for me to come near him, “Jake, my boy,” he said with restraint, “Don’t make your judgments off of these people. You’re still young. I know when I was your age, I wasn’t lucky enough to see the world like you.”

“You were in the war,” I nodded, remembering him relating a story an hour or so ago about an exploit on the other coast of the world.

“It’s better in Europe, I hear,” he continued, taking a sip from his glass, his eyes glassy with a look I recognize, “The booze is easier over there, the girls are plenty. And it isn’t here,” he said, exhaling through his nostrils.

He continued on about Europe, a few of the others joining in about their own plans to move over to England and hop to France from there. That was when I recognized the look in the artist’s eyes. It was a look of hope and earning for a life where anything could happen. It was the dream of a pirate on the sea, striving for some buried travel.

But more than anything, it was the same feeling I had three years ago staring out of my father’s garage. What had been the people of the city were now the people of Europe. What was once the sparkling promise had become the doldrums that only a new country could destroy. If this sort of life was good, then life in Europe was better.

This ended my city dream. I realized that everything I had pictured of the city had only been a dream. It was a dream everyone had chased, but only a few succeeded. I was not one to succeed.

It seemed as though the only possibility was to leave the city and chase a new dream, leaving this one festered like a scab. That seemed to be what the artists were doing. Even Hemingway seemed keen on the idea of chasing a new dream.

Of course, there were two more possibilities: to stand still in the city land or to go back and pray for forgiveness.

---

I hadn’t really even thought about going back to the city when I returned to the garage. The only time I really remember returning crossed my mind was one Sunday night when a car I vaguely recognized pulled into the garage.

“Don’t I remember you?” the man from the shiny city car pulled up next to me. I wiped my hands clean and pulled out a gas pump, “You were here a few years ago when I went up to my sister’s wedding.”

“Ah,” I nodded, remembering the man. He had aged some. And unlike this time, he wasn’t alone. There was a lovely young woman next to him and a young child in the backseat, “I do remember you. Are you leaving on some sort of vacation?” I asked with a friendly smile. I would have shook hands with the city man, but my hands were soiled with grease and motor oil.

“Nope,” the man laughed, his eyes twinkling with delight, “Moving out, we’re getting a large house out in the country, not too far from the city of course.”

“Of course,” I nodded in agreement. I didn’t ask why he wanted to leave the city. I think I already knew. I didn’t quite understand it all yet, as I was still young. And at that point in my life, I was unsure if I would ever leave the garage again.

“Your father here?” He asked me, looking into the backseat quickly. His child was sleeping peacefully, like a young angelic imp, of the sort.

I shook my head solemnly, “No Sir. He passed away less than a year ago,” I said with a sad smile, not allowing the man to extend his grievances. I didn’t need them, since I was partially to blame. The doctor said that my disappearance contributed to the stress that killed him.

We exchanged a few more words before I wished him the best of luck in life and finished working on his car. And I watched the glimmering city car leave the car, it’s shine from the city slowly fading away from it.

There was something different about the car that pulled out of the garage on that Sunday night.