guess you can call me David. My sister’s name is Cindy.”
“David, it is. Can you pass me the wrench?”
As he reached into the toolbox, he asked, “You’re in a motorcycle club, right? So, Clutch is like your road name or something?”
“Yeah, I picked it up when I was working at our garage back home. My real name is Thomas, but no one really calls me that anymore.”
“I think it’d be cool to be in a club like that,” he told me as he handed me the wrench.
“It has its moments.”
We continued to talk back and forth as I disassembled the broken faucet and all the broken plumbing. In no time, we had the new showerhead installed and a new nozzle on the faucet. There was still a hole in the drywall, but I was running out of time. They’d still be able to take a shower, so I decided to leave that for the following day.
Once I had my mess cleaned up and all my tools back in my bag, David asked, “You want a drink or something? I think we’ve got some sweet tea made up.”
Knowing Hazel would be home any minute, I told him, “Nah, I gotta get going. I’ll be back tomorrow to finish up the drywall and paint.”
“You’re gonna paint it, too?”
“Yeah, it could use a fresh coat … maybe two.” Honestly, the entire apartment could use a coat of paint and some other basic updates to make it more like mine. As I was walking out into the hall, the little sister popped out of her room, blocking my path. I smiled and said, “Hey there, beautiful.”
A light blush crossed her face when she said, “Hi… I … just wanted to say thanks for fixing our shower.”
“No problem, sweetheart. Glad to do it.”
She was twirling a long strand of her hair around her finger as she took a step closer to me and softly said, “Just so you know … I think you hurt Sis’s feelings last night when you called her a dying hyena.”
“Whoa … wait a minute. I never actually called her a hyena. I just said she sounded like one when she was doing all that screaming last night.”
“It wasn’t very nice.”
“No … I guess it wasn’t,” I admitted. For a kid her age, she was doing a pretty good job of busting my balls for being an ass. “I guess I should probably apologize for that.”
“Maybe, but don’t do it because of me. You should do it because you want to, not because I said something about it.”
Damn. She sounded just like my mother—and even looked like her as she stood there with her hand on her hip and a stern look on her face.
I nodded and cleared my throat. “Got it.”
“Thanks again for fixing our shower,” she told me as she stepped back into her room and shut the door.
“Check you later, dude,” I told David before walking out of the apartment. It was getting late and I still hadn’t had anything to eat. I figured I had just enough time to make it down to the diner for one of those famous cheeseburgers and maybe, if the mood strikes, a good old-fashioned apology.
“I was enlisted for over twenty years. Would’ve stayed longer if I hadn’t blown out my knee. It was the best time of my life, but I tell ya … lots of things changed since the day I first joined,” Sam told me as he took another bite of his fries. He’d started talking as soon as I sat down in the booth in front of him to wrap napkins around the silverware. Even from several feet away, I could see a glint of happiness when he talked about that particular time in his life.
Hoping he’d keep talking, I asked, “What kind of changes?”
“Ah, nothing that really mattered. Back when I first enlisted, the boys could wear beards, long and burly. No one cared much,” he answered. After taking another bite of his burger, he said, “And back then it took months for us to get mail. It was well past Easter before we got our Christmas cards, but satellites and computers changed all that.”
“That had to be hard. I’m too impatient for that.” I smiled.
“I don’t know. I think we appreciated it a lot more back then. Now everything comes too easy, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
“You remember when the Challenger went down in ‘86?”