'Stall twenty! Stall twenty!' Darnell yelled at Arnie in his irritable, wheezy voice. 'Get it over there and shut it off before we all choke!'
'We all' seemed to be a group of men at an oversized cardtable in the far corner. Poker-chips, cards, and bottles of beer were scattered across the table. They were looking at Arnie's new acquisition with varying expressions of disgust and amusement.
Arnie drove across to stall twenty, parked it, and shut it off. Blue exhaust drifted in the huge, cavernous space.
Darnell turned to me. He was wearing a sail-like white shirt and brown khaki pants. Great rolls of fat bulged out his neck and hung in dewlaps from below his chin.
'Kiddo,' he said in that same wheezing voice, 'if you sold him that piece of shit, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.'
'I didn't sell it to him.' For some absurd reason I felt I had to justify myself before this fat slob in a way I wouldn't have done before my own father. 'I tried to talk him out of it.'
'You should have talked harder.' He walked across to where Arnie was getting out of his car. He slammed the door; rust flaked down from the rocker panel on that side in a fine red shower.
Asthma or no asthma, Darnell walked with the graceful, almost feminine movements of a man who has been fat for a long time and sees a long future of fathood ahead of him. And he was yelling at Arnie before Arnie even got turned around, asthma or not. I guess you could say he was a man who hadn't let his infirmities get him down.
Like the kids in the smoking area at school, like Ralph on Basin Drive, like Buddy Repperton (we'll be talking about him all too soon, I'm afraid), he had taken an instant dislike to Arnie - it was a case of hate at first sight.
'Okay, that's the last time you run that mechanical asshole in here without the exhaust hose!' he yelled. 'I catch you doin it, you're out, you understand?'
'Yes.' Arnie looked small and tired and whipped. Whatever wild energy had carried him this far was gone now. it broke my heart a little to see him looking that way. 'I - '
Darnell didn't let him get any further. 'You want an exhaust hose, that's two-fifty an hour if you reserve in advance. And I'm telling you something else right now, and you want to take it to heart, my young friend. I don't take any shit from you kids. I don't have to. This place is for working guys that got to keep their cars running so they can put bread on the table, not for rich college kids who want to go out dragging on the Orange Belt. I don't allow no smoking in here. If you want a butt, you go outside in the junkyard.'
'I don't sm - '
'Don't interrupt me, son. Don't interrupt me and don't get smart,' Darnell said. Now he was standing in front of Arnie. Being both taller and wider, he blotted my friend out entirely.
I began to get angry again. I could actually feel my body moan in protest at the yo-yo string my emotions had been on ever since we pulled up to LeBay's house and saw that the damned car wasn't on the lawn anymore.
Kids are a downtrodden class; after a few years you learn to do your own version of an Uncle Tom routine on kid-baters like Will Darnell. Yessir, nosir, okay, you bet. But, Jesus, he was laying it on thick.
I suddenly grabbed Darnell's arm. 'Sir?'
He swung around on me. I find that the more I dislike adults, the more apt I am to call them Sir.
'What?'
'Those men over there are smoking. You better tell them to stop.' I pointed to the guys at the poker table. They had dealt out a fresh hand. Smoke hung over the table in a blue haze.
Darnell looked at them, then back at me. His face wag very solemn, 'You trying to help your buddy right out of here, Junior?'
'No,' I said. 'Sir.
'Then shut your pie-hole.'
He turned back to Arnie and put his meaty hands on his wide, well-padded hips.
'I know a creep when I see one,' he said, 'and I think I'm looking at one right now. You're on probation, kid. You screw around with me just one time and it don't matter how much you paid up in front, I'll put you out on your