Poor Henry
Grease, again. The clock hangs on three. It’s always three when he thinks about his wife. At home, he imagines, just sitting there with the television. He wipes some grease off on his rag, it doesn’t come off. Drinks from a can of coke through a straw, makes the drink come through all foam. Tastes good, mixed with the smell of oil and petrol and cigarettes. A smell of home, a smell of purpose, a thick good reality. ‘What am I doing?’ he asks himself again, looking at his hands. It’s the hands that tell you, or, look like they tell you. Something about working on machines with your hands. Making a machine live. Turning pieces of metal into a breathing thing. That no one sees. ‘Under the hood’ they call it. Forget about it. He coughs hard and spits some black and blood stuff into a bin. It’s getting worse.
There’s something wrong. He finds it hard to believe in God. That his life is this. That he is in this body. Still. His father was a fireman, a soldier, a mayor. His children, in their twenties now, don’t call him and when he calls them it’s about what they are doing and he asks if they’ve done their taxes and what their friends who he remembers the names of are doing. He says ‘I love you’ at then end of the call. There is a silence when he hangs up the phone. Like a ringing in the ears that lasts until he looks away from the phone. To the still room with still seats and other things. His wife is in the kitchen and it smells of butter and garlic. It is a delicious smell, a promise. He wants a cigarette but that was years ago. Damn them.
Deep dark in the bedroom. Lying on his back he attaches the snore-eeze™ tape to his nose. Doesn’t want the operation like his friends have had. All their wives swear by it, a ‘marriage saver’ they say. That a marriage can end from snoring, that his wife falls asleep so fast now. On his back he knows the next thing to do is close his eyes. It’s been so hard lately. ‘Close your eyes’, he says, ‘close your eyes’. The blankness of the dark starts. There is nothing surrounding them in their bed. The house mocking him, all their things waiting to be used. On benches, in drawers, the culmination of all the cars and trucks he’s felt under his fingers. He rolls onto his side, feels like a child again, curls his legs up. Fifty now, feels his body but it’s not what he thought. His belly is too big, his hands are too fat. He rubs his belly with his hands, breathes in and can feel the fluid in there move away to let some air in. Medical problems only make him think of his children. His wife sleeps softly and sweetly. He remembers her young, when they had sex at night.
The headache when he wakes up reminds him that he should stop drinking so many beers before bed. His doctor told him to cut down so he switched to lite beers. He has three lite beers and then when his wife goes to bed he has three regular beers. A shower helps, he pulls on his suit, a white, well, grease stained white overalls. The young guys wear blue or some wear black ones now. He sees them and without talking to them wants to say ‘don’t do it, this is not a good idea’ but they are stupid. They drink a couple of beers at lunch, put new engine parts in their car, smoke too many cigarettes and are laughing all the time. They look at him he knows and laugh. He gets paid well so it’s not a problem. They don’t ask him questions about engines, they talk to each other and look up things in the internet.
Another cold darkness crept inside. He doesn’t want this again. The last time it almost cost him his children. He remembers what the therapist told him. It works. In the therapist’s office at first felt so wrong. He sat wringing his hands and looking at the carpet. A light green carpet with small flowers. He had so much time to get the pattern worked out, the same three rings of mini roses. They talked for weeks about his what they called ‘violent tendencies’. He knew who he was and what he did. It isn’t supposed to take a court to rule against you. But he is glad they did. Now seeing her once a week is something to look forward to. She says things to him that make him feel like a human. Not a body or a dead husk taking breath and then eating. It’s the silent meals he talks about. How the sounds of the knives and forks on the plates makes him feel sick. The therapist told him when this happens to look at your wife. She is also alive.
“Henry!” his boss yells. He walks over. “Henry, this is Malcolm Auld, he’s in the Bentley”
“That’s a nice car” he says, honestly.
“It’s yours Henry”
“Okay. So what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know” the owner says, not looking at Henry, waiting for an answer to nothing.
“Okay. I’ll take a look”
“Henry’s the best”, the boss offers, smiling, “you’ll see”
“Well, my friends told me ‘don’t take it to the Bentley place, take it to O’Donnell’s'”
“And they’re right, aren’t they Henry?”
“Yeah. So, okay, so I’ll take a look. Ummm, Wednesday?”
“Uh, well, I was thinking, today”
“Henry, take a look at it today, okay?”
“Yeah, okay”
“Perfect. Ok so, call you later okay Malcolm?”
“Thanks. Hey, Henry, thanks a lot”
“No problem”
Work. His head over a beautiful clean engine. He looks at it for a long time. Studies the intricate connections. In his mind, working out the way it lives, feeds, breathes. How are you? He asks. Sits in the driver’s seat. Waits for a moment, the leather, hands on the wheel, feels it like a stranger, foreign. His hands are too big, swollen and dirty. Shameful hands, not supposed to touch this beauty. He turns the key and the engine starts. Yes something is wrong, he can hear it. This poor thing is choking on something. It sounds sick. When his boy was five he had a fever. He was vomiting and has terrible diarrhoea. He remembered what his grandmother did for him and did it again for his son. He cleaned him up, wrapped him in a bed sheet and carried him in his arms out into the night. They walked three or four blocks like that. Getting the fever down, the young boy holding close to his dad. Sweating and shivering.
