“Well, you may be footloose and fancy free, but I have a wife who’s probably worried sick about me,” Ed said, pulling himself to his feet. “And the more worried she gets about me, the more pissed off she gets at you. Let’s go.”
C.D. lifted his end of the tie rod and they took off down the rail bed. “Are you sure you don’t want a hit of this?”
Ed glared over his shoulder.
“Naw, I guess not.”
They started work on the Chevy the next morning. After fixing breakfast on the camp stove, they pulled the garage door up and rolled the car out into the sunshine where they could see what they were doing. Between the countless trips to C.D.’s basement for tools and materials, extra time spent jury-rigging incorrect parts until they fit, and finally bringing the battery to a full charge, the Sun was already low in the sky by the time they finished.
“This is it.” Fred held the key in his hand, fingering the old Chevrolet logo on the key chain. Carol had given it to him years ago, and the enameling—not to mention the once shiny silver plating—had all but worn off. He slipped the key into the ignition on the dashboard and, placing his foot firmly on the gas pedal, gave it a sharp turn. The starter cranked loudly, but ineffectively, as he held it for nearly half a minute.
He released the key, pressed the accelerator a few times, then tried again as he continued to pump the gas pedal softly.
“Careful,” C.D. warned. “Not too much.”
“Hey, I know what I’m doing.”
He was about to let go of the ignition when it caught. Weak and chugging comically like in some cartoon, the sputtering motor kept turning over for nearly a full minute before finally stalling out. The dense exhaust that had poured from the tailpipe at the attempt wafted in small clouds over the garage. Quiet once more, they heard the barking of a dog roused by what must have been, to it and probably anybody else within earshot, an unfamiliar and intrusive noise.
He turned off the ignition, pumped the gas again, and said, “This’ll do it. This time for sure.”
The engine caught almost immediately. It idled roughly, sending an occasional loud pop! out the back, but did not die this time. He pushed in the clutch, put the Chevy in first, and started rolling it slowly toward the street.
“Yes!” Ecstatic, C.D. hopped in next to his friend and slammed the door. “Where we going, boss?”
“Hold your horses, will you?” Grinning nearly as broadly as C.D., Ed bought the car to a stop at the end of the short driveway and set the brake, then pressed the gas several times, revving the engine higher and higher. Each time he did that the sound from beneath the Chevy’s hood became a bit smoother, a bit more resonant. “Look, I haven’t driven this thing anywhere in” His voice trailed off as he tried to remember. “My God, I think Paul was still in medical school. Anyway,” he said, looking up into the late afternoon sky, “it’ll be dark before long. When I take her out for the first time, I want everyone to see her in the daylight.”
“I don’t blame you, pal.” C.D. drummed his hands excitedly on the dash. “Yes! I don’t blame you one bit.”
They continued to sit in the ’57 as Ed let the motor run. Occasionally he’d rev the engine a bit and they’d listen intently to the steady purr of the motor. The deep, rich sound, so alien to the high-tech, plugged-in world of their neighbors, drifted unchallenged by any other man-made noise out over the homes of Dutch Elm Acres.
To both men, the sound was just about the sweetest thing they’d heard in decades.
“Ed, honey. Come on, get up.”
He woke himself as best he could at the insistent shaking at his shoulder, then rolled stiffly over and looked up at his wife through eyes that simply did not yet wish to focus in the dim glow of the Coleman lantern she carried. Not awake enough to quite know where he was—or, for that matter, when it was—he glanced at the clock on the nightstand, staring dumbly at the darkened face until he realized it was the power outage and not his eyes that refused to let him see the familiar green digits.
“What… time is it?” His voice croaked, and he knew before she answered that only a handful of hours could have passed since they had finally turned in after getting the Chevy running. They’d spent too much time listening to the AM radio, catching up on the news from the rest of the world. None of it had been very good.
“It’s after midnight. Honey, you have to get up. Jason’s here.” It was the look on her face more than her words that brought him fully awake. Something was very wrong.
“Be right there,” he said, sending her back to take care of their uninvited guests. His pants were still on the floor where he’d dropped them before crawling into bed, and he’d slept in his shirt, so getting dressed took only a few moments. His shoes were nowhere in sight and, assuming he must have left them in the living room, he padded barefoot and sock-less down the hall.
That his neighbor was in a sad state was apparent the moment he entered the kitchen. Jason’s usually perfect artificial hair was a mess, his designer clothing disheveled and mismatched. The man’s face was drawn, and there were dark circles under his eves, accentuated by the harsh shadows cast by the lantern. He gripped a coffee mug in hands that shook visibly. Brittany sat nervously in the chair to his left, her own coffee untouched in front of her, and had her arms looped tightly around her husband’s elbow although he didn’t seem to be aware that she was even there. Her eyes were red from crying.
“Jason?” Ed sat across from him and accepted the steaming mug Carol offered. “Are you all right?”
The man, seemingly on the verge of tears, stared at the table top and said nothing.
“He needs your help,” Brittany pleaded. “Please. I’m worried about him.”
The fear in her voice made it difficult to be angry “What is it, Jace?” Ed touched his arm. “What is it? What can we do?”
He looked up, his eyes bloodshot, and swallowed several times before responding. “I have to get… get online.” His voice quavered badly and his eyes blinked rapidly. Was he on something? “Everything I have… Everything I am depends on it, Ed!”
“Yes, but I don’t know what I can—”
“The car!” He pounded a hand flat on the table, spilling his coffee and sending Brittany into tears. “I… I’m sorry… but I saw that you got it running. Maybe… if you drove me outside the affected area—can you make it to upstate New York, or maybe eastern Pennsylvania? The interstates are deserted.” His voice still shook, but a certain desperate excitement crept into his words that was unmistakable as his eyes widened and he began to talk faster. “I can link in if only I can get somewhere outside Connecticut!”
“With what, Jace? You just going to walk into someone’s house or office and start using their stuff? Come on, I imagine everything’s tied up for hundreds of miles outside the affected radius here in the east, with people doing their best just to help take care of us and what’s happening here. Don’t you think?” He leaned back in his chair and allowed himself a sip of coffee, hoping the nonchalant gesture would help to relax the man—not to mention his distraught wife. Why did they always come to him asking for help or advice? What did they think he knew that they didn’t?