The RAZZ

Chapter 10

© surmon 2008

In The Pits

Given the impression that I believed I had made on Veronica, and the wonderful feeling or surrendering myself to the power of music, I joined the Hitless Wonders as their permanent bass player. I wasn’t sure what I could do for the band although I had considered trying to get them registered at the Weapons Research Institute, but it didn’t seem to matter to them. They were very happy to have me in the band and immediately aranged to have a rehearsal to learn the rest of the song we'd started to play.

I quickly found that the road to stardom is littered with credit card statements. Since joining the Hitless Wonders, I found myself more out of pocket than breath and quickly came to understand the meaning of the term, Bank Interest. When I had no monetary activity - going in or out - the financial institutions ignored me. But once I started to use the plastic card to buy some new clothes and guitar strings and leads and things, all of a sudden the bank got interested in me, and wanted me to pay back more than I spent! More money, in fact, than I had! What with all the mucking about I had to do with Tats and his broken hand I had missed out on a lot of work with the furniture removal company and was relegated to a casual position, to be called in only when needed.

I figured that if I was going to seriously impress Veronica I needed to get a regular full-time job. It was also obvious to me that I needed to get some form of transport for myself and my guitar - other than my pushbike.  I hit on a clever plan. I would get a job with a motor mechanic. Then, I further figured, while I was working, learning how to fix cars, I could be picking up the odd mechanical bit and piece, like an old motor, an axle, perhaps a steering wheel, a Welsh plug or Dutch cap or whatever, and save them up to make my own car.

Getting a job as a mechanic's offsider was easy. The first dirty, black, environmentally unsound dwelling I came across was found to contain a mechanic.

‘I want a job,’ I declared confidently to a sour faced bloke wearing enough grease on his clothes to lubricate a steam train.

He looked at me for a few seconds then held up a spanner. ‘You know what this is?’ he grunted. I nodded in reply.   ‘Well, what's it used for?’ he asked in a superior manner.

‘Why, you use it to pull things apart.’ I answered brightly.

He raised an eyebrow at me. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now pick up a handful of them and get to work. If anyone parks their car within 50 metres of this place start pulling it to bits. I'll work out what to charge them to put it back together! ’

It was that easy. The things I learned from that bloke about the motor trade would astound you. His lubrication pit-side manner with his victims (read: customers), was engaging if not enlightening.

‘Yes, Madam, the spark plugs were fine. All I had to do was change the motor. ’ And:  ‘Those wiper blades aren't the best but I'm sure we can fix the problem by replacing all the windows with compatible glass. ’

There's more:  ‘Well, sir, the parts for these imported cars are bloody expensive, you know, then you've got to add sales tax.’ And when the situation called for it: ’Well, the parts for these locally made cars aren't cheap, Madam. Then you've got to add sales tax. It's no wonder people buy imported cars. ’ And the most subtle of all:  ‘It shouldn't cost much to get rid of that noise — but it might be something serious and we won’t know for sure until we open her up!’   That one was the death knell to chequebooks.

Nevertheless, I was getting along fine. Any car that came within reach I could strip to a pile of spare parts before the owner got back to claim it. The mechanic even taught me how to do the pricing and invoicing. That was fun.

In the office hung a dart-board with zeros textured next to the small numbers and then there was even bigger numbers written on the wood around it. A couple of throws at the board would rack up a decent price but the three figure numbers around the outside were a stroke of genius. They were for BMW and Volvo owners.

With those particular victims, the mechanic would dip his hands in some grease before throwing the darts which, naturally, would slip out of his grip, miss the board and end up sticking in some of the big fat numbers round the outside. That mechanic was making money greasy hand over oily fist. And I was doing alright as well — for a while.

The first strain on our relationship came when the mechanic absentmindedly parked his own car too close to the shed and I had it stripped down to a skeleton before he could stop me. He blew a bit of blue smoke when he discovered what had happend, but what was really surprising was that he put his own car back together in one tenth of the time it took him to reassemble his customers’ vehicles.  And to my complete amazement, he didn't have to bring it back the next day and the week after that for more repairs.

The next point of friction happened when we had put in a particularly tiring week and my mentor announced he was going off to have a refreshing lunch. He must have been extremely tired because it took him hours to refresh himself.

I had pulled everything apart and was looking for something to do when it struck me how dirty the place was. I filled a bucket with some petrol and set about cleaning all the grease off anything that would stand it. When I finished I couldn't find anywhere to tip the now greasy solvent so, to avoid creating a toxic spill I threw it down the pit where all the other muck was. I was just through doing that when the boss came wobbling back up the driveway, theatrically smoking  a cigar.

His mood soured instantly when he saw how clean the place was. ‘This is a blarsted mechanic's workshop,’ he snapped, ‘Not a flamin' ballet school!’

He kicked over a rubbish tin and squirted grease over my clean floor. ‘Start makin' this place look decent again, I've got work to  do!’ With that said he jumped down the pit. ‘And bring that station wagon over here, ’   he growled as he went to stub out his cigar in the pit.

‘No...!’ I blurted out, trying to stop him. But it was too late.

The explosion was deafening. When the smoke cleared I peered into the pit and I was shocked at what I saw… only a smouldering pair of grimy overalls.

Then I heard a groaning coming from above me... Had the mechanic gone..... up THERE? I looked slowly up. Yes, he had. He'd been blown clean out of his overalls and was strung up in the tangle of shelves, wires and spare parts that cluttered up the inside of the roof. There was smoke coming out of his ears and flames were brimming in his mouth. He was combusting internally.

As I stared at him, I heard a slow tearing sound as his underwear parted company with the snags that were holding him aloft and he fell to the ground with a grunting thud. Just then, I decided I could hear my mother calling me and tried to make a dash for my bike but I started slipping in the grease the mechanic had squirted on the floor.

It was like some terrible nightmare, furiously running but going nowhere while my would-be assailant was lurching to his feet. Just as his hands made a grab at me, my shoes gripped and I was free. As I made my slippery way across the workshop floor, the mechanic started to slip in the grease and run on the spot, giving me some valuable seconds which enabled me to jump on my bike and rooster-tail it down the driveway.

Furiously pedalling, I was cursing the fact that I hadn't even collected enough car parts from the mechanic to make a Tonka toy when I looked back to see him hurl a wrench at me. I put my head down and pedalled harder. The wrench sailed past me as I turned the corner and I thought I was home free. But this particular mechanic must have been a gold medallist at the mechanic's olympics because, just as I relaxed and started thinking about the next job I should look for, I caught a glimpse of something shiny coming towards me at the speed of light. The flying Ford Falcon hubcap frisbee came out of the sky and caught me under the left ear. It hit me with such a clout that it lifted me off my bike and dumped me in an abandoned shopping trolley.

Lights flashed inside my head. The trolley took off down the road and smacked into the back of a parked utility. The impact flipped me over the tail-gate into the tray of the ute. I felt tired and strangely comfortable there so, with a small crowd of surprised onlookers gawking at me, I simply closed my eyes and fell asleep in the warm sun.

o-0-o

To: Chapter 11-  Carwash Blues