I did need him this morning. My car wasn’t acting right. You know, I change spark plugs and fan belts, but I’m not a real mechanic. Anything that looks serious, I send folks up to Fred in Holofer. That’s forty-five miles west, the nearest town. Certainly not a city, maybe not even a town, but what can you call a place that has four hundred people and is a hundred miles from the nearest place big enough for two banks? Anyway, this weekend I’ll nurse my car up to Fred’s and talk him into fixing it while I wait. For now Grampaw is with me.
He didn’t mind at all winding up his old ’39 pickup and hauling me all the way down here to work. Only thing, it took us an hour from the cabin he and I share, twenty-one miles up the draw. So we didn’t figure it was worth it for him to go home and then come back for me in the evening.
I think he looks on it as a real adventure. He rushes out and “helps” me when cars come in, not that it’s so often he’s really needed. In the early morning a few folks going in to Holofer want to gas up, or a few others heading out the long road to the Pass. Mostly these, the east-bound ones. It’s another forty miles up that way to Burney, and about the same southeast to Hot Rock, and neither of those is anywhere the size of Holofer. That’s supposed to be the big advantage of my place — Last Gas on the road from Carson to Sybil, over the Pass at the state boundary.
Like I say, a normal crummy day. Besides the guy who leans out his window and cusses if I spill a spoonful of gas alongside his tank and wants a free wash job to clean it up, besides the high school girl who needs just enough gas to get to Terrell and makes it 1.44 gallons, besides the lady who’s sure the hose is putting terrible dents in her tailgate when I have to get clear around the car to gas up, besides them there are the jokers who notice Grampaw’s old pickup setting there in the sun where my car usually is and make sarcastic cracks about “trading up” or “adding a sideline of antiques.”
But Grampaw seems to enjoy it. So I let him help. It’s been so long since he could feel useful, he wants to overdo it. Looks under everybody’s hood, checks the oil and transmission fluid, washes the windows, levels up the tire pressures. I tell you, “You start doing that, everybody’s going to expect it,” and he says, “What’s the harm?”
“Well, for one thing, all that water you’re washing windows with, that costs money to haul up here. And the labor — you could gas up three cars and get them out in the time you’re fiddling around one car.”
Then he says, “What three cars? All I ever see is one at a time. And what labor? You’re sitting here all day anyway.”
He never does see my point.
So I humor him. What the heck, he’s giving me a ride to work until I can get my car fixed. Let him play at helping me.
Mostly we sit inside, out of the sun, for it gets hot soon down here and stays hot a long time. You don’t want to put in much time outside during the day. A man walking could die. Even a man stuck in a broken-down car could get pretty parboiled waiting for one of the occasional drivers to come by and help. So we sit inside, with both doors open, working the puzzle magazine or leafing through the old Handy Mechanix magazines, or listening to the radio.
Not really listening. Sitting out here alone, day after day, month after month, I just let it run all day. Five minutes of news, fifty-five of cowboy songs, just for the company. It’s a friendly noise to let you know there’s somebody else alive somewhere in the world besides you. I keep it tuned way down. First thing Grampaw does, when we’re settled in with the displays out front and the pop machine plugged in and the pumps unlocked, is turn up the radio. I argue with him a bit, but it’s already too hot for that, so we compromise. Too loud for me, too soft for him. After a while I don’t hear it anyway. It’s just there.
We get through the day about as well as I ever get through it. Have a little run of business between seven and eight, then a long slow spell till about noon. Then a few cars straggle by, mostly ranch wives heading into Holofer. I’m working my puzzles and Grampaw is propped up in the corner with his head against the radio. Then slow again.
Along about three, just heading into the hottest part of the day, this sedan pulls in. Four-five years old, dusty, two men in the front. I lay down the puzzle book and start for the pumps, because I’m the guy in the uniform and cap, but Grampaw comes to life and trots out ahead of me.
“Fill ’er up?” he chirps. “Regular or premium?” We’re supposed to say it that way, because the driver has to answer regular or premium, and unless he remembers to say otherwise, you go ahead and fill her up. Where if he stopped to think on it, about the price and his distance and all, he’d probably want only half as much. So Grampaw has the hose out quick as the man says, “Premium.”
Grampaw sets the pump on slow-automatic, and hauls the water hose and chamois around to the front. There he goes to work on the windshield.
“Lotta bugs on the glass,” he says, “makes it pretty hard to see.” The guys inside just look at him without moving or speaking. Might as well be dead, for all the action they show.
Grampaw is around the side with the water. “Roll up your windows and I’ll clean the glass all around,” he says. “Man can never have it too clean for safe driving.” The driver looks at him, hesitates a second, then rolls up the window. His partner does the same.
Grampaw works his way slowly all around that car with the hose, peering and polishing. I never see anybody do such a thorough job. He even scours the brake-lights and license plates. Finally he’s at the front again, where he shuts off the water and opens the hood. He pulls out the oil dipstick and shows it to the driver. “You’re down a quart and a half. Long hot drive ahead, up there to the Pass, and there’s no other station till the other side. You better take two quarts. What’s she burn?”
The driver moves his mouth enough to say, “Ten-W.” Grampaw gets the oil and runs it into the motor. While he’s running in the second quart, the gas hose clangs off. Grampaw looks up at the dial and says to the driver, “That’s fourteen eighty for the gas and two ninety-five for the oil.”
The driver never looks at him, but paws in his pocket and comes up with a twenty. “Keep it,” he mutters.
“Thank’ee kindly, sir,” Grampaw says. “I’ll just get your water while we’ve still got the hood up. This car’s been running hot, and you’ll be needing water.”
He removes the radiator cap, and I see the water level is down a bit, but not dangerous. Grampaw sticks the running hose* in the neck, then feels around under the bottom of the radiator.
“What’re you doing?” I asked him.
“Just checking the connections,” he answers.
“Remember that water isn’t free,” I tell him, and would like to say more, but a little yellow hatchback pulls in and I go over to service it. The driver is a college-age girl, better looking than I usually see around these parts, with a breezy air and not much on in the way of clothes. Grampaw’s watching the sedan fading away down the road, and I’m glad for once he isn’t right there helping. This one I can take my time on.
When I get back inside, Grampaw’s hanging up the phone. I’m surprised, because he doesn’t know anybody but me around here, and I never hear him getting calls while we’re at home evenings.
“Just had a little business,” he says, sort of smug, at my stare.
“Business?” I repeat.
“Business. Could have been yours. You know, Dick, you’d have more business yourself if you’d be a little more observant.” He settles back in the corner, and I pick up the puzzle book again. Then I lay it down.
“You know, Grampaw, I could also make out better if people weren’t wasting my hard-bought water all over half of Creation. If that guy’d wanted his car washed, he could’ve asked, and we could’ve charged him for it. I saw streaks of water clear from our station up onto the highway after he’d left.”