The Fix-It Man Read online

  THE

  FIX-IT

  MAN

  A YEAR ZERO BOOK

  by

  Donald Wells

  Published by Year Zero Publishing

  Visit Donald Wells’ official website at

  thebooksofdonaldwells.blogspot.com

  for the latest news, book details, and other information,

  or contact the author at [email protected]

  Copyright © Donald Wells, 2012

  e-book formatting by Guido Henkel

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  ALSO BY DONALD WELLS

  SEX POEMS FOR VIRGINS

  (A Poetry Compilation)

  THE MANY AND THE ONE

  (THE FIRST BOOK IN THE OCEAN BEACH ISLAND SERIES)

  DOUBLE OR NOTHING

  SINS & SECOND CHANCES

  (THE SECOND BOOK IN THE OCEAN BEACH ISLAND SERIES)

  T H E F I X - I T MAN

  DRY ADULTERY, WET AMBITION

  (THE THIRD BOOK IN THE OCEAN BEACH ISLAND SERIES)

  DROPPING MY SHORTS

  (a collection of four short stories)

  OF TONGUE AND PEN

  (THE FOURTH BOOK IN THE OCEAN BEACH ISLAND SERIES)

  AS A SOUL, MOLESTED

  (A Poetry Compilation)

  ALL GOOD THINGS…

  (THE FIFTH BOOK IN THE OCEAN BEACH ISLAND SERIES)

  This book is dedicated to…

  well, you know who you are.

  THE

  FIX-IT

  MAN

  PART ONE

  1

  “Hey mister, can you fix a broken heart?”

  I was bent over the workbench in my grandfather’s fix-it shop when the bell over the door tinkled the arrival of a customer. I straightened up and swiveled the stool around to look at her.

  She was just a girl, early teens, with large expressive brown eyes and long, curly, honey brown hair. In her arms, she held a red plastic clock molded into the shape of a heart.

  She gazed around the shop and then looked back at me, seated behind the counter.

  I smiled at her. “Somebody broke your heart?”

  She answered with a shy grin. “I meant to say clock, can you fix a clock?”

  I waved her over to the counter. “Let me take a look at it.”

  She watched me carefully, as I examined the clock.

  “You’re not the fix-it man, are you?”

  “You mean my grandfather? It’s his shop, but I can fix things too.”

  She sent me a doubtful look. “How old are you?”

  “I’m sixteen, how about you?”

  “I’m thirteen‌—‌and a half.”

  “Well Miss Thirteen and a half, do you have a name?”

  “My name’s Felicia, what’s yours?”

  “I’m Johnny, Johnny Faron.”

  The clock’s backing was held in place by several pieces of pliable metal strips, as I began bending these back, she put her hand on mine.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “Your clock’s not working because its movement is dead, the part that makes the hands move. It’ll only take me a minute to fix it.”

  She removed her hand. “Okay, but be careful.”

  I walked to the end of the counter and swung the gate open.

  “Come on back here and watch me work, in fact, you can help.”

  She walked behind the counter timidly, eyes darting about, taking in all the parts and pieces of work yet to be fixed.

  I picked her clock up from the countertop and moved it to the workbench; afterward, I dragged over another stool and motioned for her to sit.

  As she climbed atop the stool and looked at all the tools hung on the pegboard behind the bench, it suddenly struck me how beautiful she was. Although still prepubescent and thin as a twig, there was no doubt that she would someday be stunning. She had even and symmetrical features with more than a hint of a Hispanic heritage, while her long limbs gave clues of a growth spurt yet to come.

  However, her clothing was old, worn, and judging by their ill fit, undoubtedly hand-me-downs from an older sibling. Her jeans were dirty and the cuffs rolled up, while the yellow sweatshirt she wore was streaked with grime and had a small tear near the collar. Her right sneaker had a rip in its canvas top and was tied with a shoelace a different color than the one on her left foot.

  I had grown up poor and knew what it looked like, but this was different, this girl was not only being raised poor, but neglected. Sometimes worn-out clothes are all you have to wear, but there’s never an excuse for dirty.

  I pointed to a set of drawers on her left side. “Open that third drawer from the top.”

  She slid the drawer open and revealed an assortment of clock mechanisms. I picked out one that looked to be the right size and she handed it to me. After removing the clock’s backing, I loosened the cap nut that held the hands to the clock and began taking it apart.

  The expression of distress on her face made me smile.

  “I know what I’m doing Felicia, if you pay attention next time you’ll be able to fix it yourself.”

  “Uh huh,” She said, while watching me intently as I removed the old works and put the new mechanism in its place.

  “You really like this clock, don’t you?”

  “It was my mom’s; she died last year, cancer.”

  “I’m sorry. Both my parents died last year too, a car accident.”

  She looked into my eyes momentarily, giving me a look of sympathy, and then she went back to watching my hands work.

  “So who’s raising you now, your dad?”

  “Yeah, my father’s still alive.” She said, her voice neither happy nor sad, but just reciting a fact.

  When I had it all back together, I reached into a drawer on my right and grabbed a new AA battery. I stuck the battery in its place and the clock’s second hand immediately began to move.

  Felicia’s smile lit up the shop as she held the clock in front of her.

  “You really fixed it!”

  As I put the tools back in their slots, she reached into her pocket and took out a wad of dust covered tinfoil, this, she proceeded to unfold and reveal several one-dollar bills.

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “Well, normally it would be about ten dollars, but… seeing as how you helped and all, I guess it’s on the house.”

  “You mean free?”

  “Sure,”

  She gave me a suspicious look. “You don’t want no money?”

  “No, but whenever your heart’s broken you have to come see me, okay?”

  She smiled again, like daybreak after the darkest night.

  She stuck her money down deep into her pocket and walked to the door, while virtually hugging her clock.

  After opening the door, she stood there for a long moment and stared back at me.

  “Thanks for fixing my mom’s clock Johnny.”

  I gave her a smile of my own. “Anytime,”

  After Felicia left, I wandered over to the display window and watched her walk off down the street.

  It was February 14th, St. Valentine’s Day, and although I didn’t realize it at the time, that clock wasn’t the only heart she carried away with her that day.

  2

  My
grandfather’s shop was located in Castle Ridge, Pennsylvania.

  It sat on a triangular corner lot. My great-grandfather had once worked with Henry Ford, and in 1914, he opened one of the first few gas stations in the state. During the gas crisis of the 1970’s, his son, my grandfather, took out the pumps and opened his fix-it shop by converting two of the station’s four service bays into a storefront. The other two bays were still used for car repair, and that was where the business saw most of its profit.

  After my parents died, I came to live with my grandfather in his tidy two-bedroom apartment above the shop. I had been raised in South Philly and moving to a small town like Castle Ridge took some getting used to, but my grandfather and I never had a cross word between us.

  Quite frankly, I idolized the man. He was hands down the best mechanic alive and I had learned most of what I knew of auto and appliance repair from the summers I’d previously spent with him.

  * * *

  I was putting a rebuilt carburetor in an old Monte Carlo, when Captain Healy pulled his green unmarked police car into the lot. I sighed. He was checking up on me again.

  A few months before my parents died, I was arrested for stealing a car. I had won the car in a drag race, but it turned out that the kid who lost it wasn’t the car’s rightful owner. My dad got the mess straightened out‌—‌and me along with it‌—‌but I did do a couple of days in juvie for car theft and underage driving.

  Captain Healy had grown up with my dad and now seemed to consider himself my Dutch Uncle.

  The man was always full of fatherly advice and seemed devoted to keeping me out of trouble.

  When I first moved to town I got in a couple of fights at school with farm boys who wanted to see how far they could push the city kid. Those fights and my car theft rap put me in the running for the town’s unofficial bad boy.

  Healy walked over and leaned against the Chevy’s fender.

  “What’s new Johnny?”

  “Not much Captain, how about you?”

  “I got a couple of Phillies tickets for Saturday, thought you might like to keep me company.”

  I stared at him and, despite myself, I grinned. As much as I tried to dislike him, I couldn’t.

  “That sounds good Captain, but I’ll buy the beer.”

  “Beer huh? Funny Johnny, real funny,”

  As I grinned over the engine at him, I heard someone call my name from across the street. I looked over and saw Felicia walking by with her friend, Janey. I sent her a wave and she smiled back at me and kept walking. I then looked over at Healy and saw a concerned expression on his face.

  “What’s that look for? I’m not allowed to have friends?”

  “She’s a cute kid, but a little young yet, huh?”

  “I’m not chasing after her, she’s just a friend. I fixed a broken clock for her a few months ago, that’s all.”

  “And you pay her to do little odd jobs around here and you buy her food once in a while and, if I’m not mistaken, I saw you two together at the Town Picnic last week.”

  I stood up from under the hood and wiped my hands with a rag.

  “You do see a lot, don’t you Captain?”

  Healy raised his hands in peace. “I’m not trying to get in your business, she’s a cute kid and you’re only sixteen yourself; it’s her father, Dominic Delgado, he’s one mean son of a bitch and I don’t want you mixing it up with him. He’s beaten the crap out of more than one of his daughter’s boyfriends.”

  “Felicia’s had a lot of boyfriends?” I asked, and inwardly cursed myself for the wounded tone I heard in my voice.

  Healy must have heard it too, because he grinned at me as he answered.

  “No, I wasn’t talking about your little friend. I was referring to her older sister, Mona, she’s a whole other story altogether.”

  I went back to work tightening the bolts on the carburetor, the ratchet wrench making its little clicking sounds.

  “I don’t know Mona.”

  “She dropped out of school last year, but forget her, It’s Dominic I want you to steer clear of, if he found you with Felicia, innocent or not, he’d hurt you. He likes to hurt people, and he’s good at it. In fact, it’s his job, he’s a leg breaker for a Philly loan shark.”

  I straightened up to my full height of six-foot-three, looking at Healy eye to eye.

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Yeah, you’re a big kid and I know your father taught you how to box, but do me this one favor, if you run into Dominic keep your cool and walk away, okay?”

  I nodded. “Will do,”

  Healy climbed back into his car and lowered the window.

  “The game starts at one-thirty on Saturday. I’ll drop by around noon and pick you up.”

  “Sounds good Captain,”

  “My men call me Captain, how about calling me Bill from now on?”

  I only called him Captain because I knew it irked him when I did it. I stared at him for a second before answering.

  “See ya around Bill.”

  He tapped his horn twice and drove off just as my grandfather walked out of the shop, while cleaning his glasses with his shirttail.

  My grandfather was in his late eighties, and with many a past decade spent leaning into engine compartments, he walked slightly bent over, but even at his age, he rarely missed work due to illness and was as strong as men half his age.

  He greeted me with a smile. “Was that Billy?”

  “Yeah, we’re going to a Phillies game on Saturday.”

  “That’s nice of him. I’m glad you two are getting along; him and your dad were like brothers growing up.”

  I went around to reach in the window of the Monte Carlo and started the engine. The car purred to life and kept a steady hum.

  “You can call Mr. Stevens and tell him his car’s ready.”

  “Will do,” My grandfather said, he then pointed to the workbench along the right wall. “What’s that doohickey?”

  I walked over and showed him my latest creation, a modified two-barrel carburetor I had tried out on the Chevy.

  “I can’t get the flow right, the engine kept cutting off.”

  “You really think you can get a car to travel a hundred miles on a gallon of gas?”

  “More than that, I hope.”

  “Maybe you should give up on trying to adapt carburetors and fuel injectors and consider the entire engine.”

  “Yeah… maybe you’re right.”

  “I wish I had the money to send you to college boy, you’re too smart to be a grease monkey your whole life.”

  “I don’t know, a grease monkey and fix-it man named Henry Ford once changed the whole world, maybe it’ll happen again.”

  My grandfather put his hands on my shoulders and stared at me, a proud twinkle in his eyes.

  “That it might boy, that it might,”

  3

  Bill and I were driving back from a Flyers game the following January, when we spotted the trucker throwing up on the side of the road.

  We were about five miles from town on a desolate stretch of County Road that had no lights, but glowed softly from the full moon reflecting off a blanket of snow that had fallen the previous day.

  The trucker finished his regurgitating and ran out to flag us down. Bill stopped the car and asked the man a question.

  “What’s wrong buddy, are you sick?”

  The man looked nauseated, but he shook his head no while pointing at the sparse woods that lined the highway.

  “A, a girl, oh Lord Almighty… there’s a dead girl lying out there.”

  The man explained that he had stopped to relieve himself, and as he was about to leave the cover of the trees, he spotted something twinkling in the moonlight. He went to investigate and found the body of a naked girl, stabbed countless times.

  The sparkle the man saw came from a gold bracelet on the girl’s wrist.

  After explaining to the man that he was a cop, Bill proceeded to handcuff him to
the side of the truck.

  “Damn it officer, do you have to handcuff me?”

  “I told you. It’s only until after I see the body, for all I know you’re the one that dumped her out there. And if you are, I sure as hell don’t want you sneaking up on me. I’ll be right back.”

  I grabbed Bill’s arm. “What about me?”

  “Stay with him.”

  “Well, what if he didn’t kill the girl but whoever did is still out there?”

  Bill thought on that for a moment. “Maybe you’re right. I could use a second set of eyes, but stay behind me.”

  Bill grabbed a flashlight from the car and we headed toward the trees. He took us through the snow on a slanted angle, so as not to trample the crime scene. It didn’t take us long to spot her. Whoever dumped her here wasn’t trying to hide her; in daylight, she would have been visible from the road.

  She was young, blond, maybe a year or two older than me, but probably still in her teens. She may have been beautiful, but her features were sliced into ribbons of bloody scraps. She must have died in great pain. As we got closer, we could see that there was little blood near the body and that whoever had done it, must have murdered her somewhere else.

  We saw only one set of shoe prints, these ended ten feet from the girl’s body and then took off in the direction they had come from, they must have belonged to the trucker. There were no shoe prints near the body, but, curiously, we did spot tire tracks in the snow on either side of her that looked as if they belonged to a pick-up truck or maybe a van.

  As I fought to steady my stomach, Bill whispered, “Goddamn it, not another one,” and began leading the way back the same way we’d tracked in. When we got back, Bill released the trucker from the cuffs and called the crime in to the state police.

  About an hour later, we resumed our drive back home.

  Bill turned on the radio out of habit and then turned it off in disgust. Neither one of us felt like music.