The image made me chuckle for a second before I tried to lighten Lout’s mood, “Well, then, let’s get back in and do our morning chorus of ‘We Are the World’ so we can get on with our day.”
“Fuck you,” Lout laughed as he turned to go back inside. But he walked off singing in a horrible Bruce Springsteen imitation, “We are the world, we are the children.”
I heard the men inside, and Jamie too, hollering at him about his horrible impression before a few of them chimed in to sing more of the song.
I was surrounded by goofballs, but they were my goofballs and I didn’t take kindly to others putting them down.
And I realized now that I needed to apologize to Jamie, this time with our clothes on, for being such a condescending dick about hiring her. God knows I probably wasn’t the first man to consider her unfit to work on an engine. I just hoped she was worth her salt and could prove me wrong on her own merit and the fact that she was a female wouldn’t have anything to do with it.
The fact that she was a cheater and had stepped out on her man shouldn’t have any weight while we were working, either. That was just something I’d have to put to the back of my mind rather than judging her for her actions.
◆◆◆
JAMIE
I held the engine steady as Daughtry and another mechanic named Blaze worked the controls on the ‘cherry picker’, the hydraulic lift we had attached to the old engine inside the truck. Tucker, the paint and body guy, stood off to the side waiting for us to finish so he could get in around the truck and take a look at some of the work he would need to do.
As soon as the engine cleared, Daughtry and Blaze pushed it up into the middle aisle - what I’d heard the guys refer to as ‘the hall’. They headed toward the ‘boneyard’ in the back where they would set it aside for us to strip it for usable parts on other vehicles until there was nothing left to salvage and it would be crushed or sold.
With the two of them gone, I put my foot up onto the bumper and hopped into the empty space the engine had left so I could get a better look around at some of the areas I knew could be problematic. I heard Tucker walking around the vehicle as he talked to another man that wrote notes on a clipboard for him.
“Fred, take note that there’s too much damage on this panel here and we’ll need to just replace the whole thing. There’s no coming back from cancer like that.”
“How am I going to learn what to look for if I’m the one that has to take notes?” the guy whined. “Why don’t you write this shit down?”
“Because I’m dyslexic, asshole. Besides, it’s your job to do what you’re fucking told and I told you to take fucking notes,” Tucker growled. “You can’t get to the hard stuff until you get past the shit work. That’s the way life is.”
I smiled to myself in agreement, understanding just where Tucker was coming from. I’d done my share of shit work at my grandfather’s shop and would do my share here at Kings Customs. It was part of the job and made the finished product that more rewarding.
“You’re dyslexic? But you seem so smart,” Fred said. I could hear the confusion in his voice. He didn’t get that he sounded like an idiot right now. “And if I write down notes, how are you going to read them anyway? I could be writing a grocery list and you’d never know it.”
“Do you have a fucking filter in that head of yours? You know, a little part of your brain that warns you, ‘Hey, fucker, maybe that would be a shitty thing to say. You should shut the fuck up before someone breaks your goddamn jaw.’ You know, that filter.”
“Sorry,” Fred grumbled and when I glanced his way, I saw that his face was almost as red as his hair.
As I glanced over, I caught the camera man over to the side and realized he was filming the exchange. Jenna had explained to me over the phone when we talked months ago that a crew would be filming around the garage and at some point, I might be asked to sit down and talk to the camera and explain some of the things I was doing.
I wasn’t shy at all and had no problem doing that. Or so I’d thought. But having a camera filming my every little move was a bit eerie and I knew it would be quite an adjustment getting used to it.
As I squatted down to sit on my heels and inspect the axles of the truck, I heard Tucker’s upper body hit the side of the truck right before he spoke to me from above my head, “You good?”
“Yeah,” I smiled up at him. “There are a few things down in here I’m not sure Daughtry knows about, though, and I flaked some of the grime off and there’s rust under here. Is he back up there yet?”
“No,” Tucker glanced out over the shop and looked out the back doors where Daughtry and Blaze had gone. “He’s on a tear about the scrap not being organized and he’s chewing Jessie’s ass right now.”
“I noticed it was all jumbled,” I admitted. “Hard to find what you need that way.”
“If he kicks Jessie to the curb, which is highly likely considering how many problems we’ve already had with that little shit, he’s probably going to give that job to you,” Tucker warned me. “It’s always the new guy that has to take care of it anyway.”
It wasn’t news to me that Jessie was a problem. Of all the men that worked here at Kings Customs, he was the only one who had been a problem for me. He hadn’t touched me. Yet. But I knew it would be coming and then I’d have to take it in hand before I told Daughtry about it. The words I could handle. In just the few hours I’d been here yesterday and this morning, he’d already made a few sexual comments under his breath where only I could hear.
I wasn’t looking forward to more of that, but I’d do my best to handle it on my own rather than tattle and make it a huge deal in front of the rest of the guys.
But, if he got fired, I wouldn’t really be upset. That was one less thing for me to put up with in this new environment after all.
“I wouldn’t mind taking over the boneyard. I am the newbie after all.” I shrugged. I loved fiddling around in the scrap yard and would probably enjoy the relaxing work out in the sun. “Really. I wouldn’t mind that at all.”
“And there she blows,” Tucker chuckled. I stood up inside the engine compartment and stepped up onto the axle so I could see what Tucker was looking at.
Daughtry was standing nose to nose with Jessie, one of the mechanics, and they were arguing. Jessie threw his hands up in the air and then brought them down and shoved Daughtry. Daughtry stepped back with one foot and then was right back in Jessie’s face, his voice low enough that no one around him could hear. I saw Jessie pale before he turned around and stomped off. I heard an engine come to life and then tires screeched as Jessie left the property. Daughtry stood there alone, in the middle of the parking lot and I could tell he was trying to talk himself off the ledge and get rid of his anger.
“Fuck!” He threw his head back and roared causing Tucker to chuckle beside me. “Shitfuckhelldamnfuckerdamnbitchfuck!”
“There he goes,” Tucker laughed outright now. “The teddy bear just turned into a grizzly.”
“Teddy bear?”
“Yeah, Daughtry’s the teddy bear of his family. He’s the most even-tempered one of his brothers and the most level-headed. He’s got a helluva big heart and rarely ever gets angry at all or loses his temper, but when he does, he turns into a fucking beast.”