“Herman! You stinking mass of smeared dinosaur dung, I need to buy a spatula.”
Herman did, in fact, feel like a steaming mass of dinosaur dung on this cool morning, but after years of exposure, he was immune and deaf to his wife’s venomous stings. Their marriage was a messy, bitter recipe of avoidance, name-calling, silence, and hoarding. He’d buy another old car and tinker too long in his shop to avoid her spitting words, and she’d fly from thrift store to thrift store spending their retirement money on yet another rusted can opener, inaccurate food thermometer, or bent whisk. She doesn’t even cook.
She came home to show him her most recent thrift haul but was upset because no one donated the exact spatula she was looking for, and like a hornet, she flew from one corner of his shop to another. After effectively ignoring her, Herman spotted his wife looking for a way out when the stupid shop door was wide open. She began spitting words—so many words—at the speed of “Flight of the Bumble Bee.” The satisfying thud of her skeletal frame slamming into the glass side door was payment enough for her stealing a pair of sunglasses he found in a 1982 Jeep J-10. After cussing out the door for existing, she asked Herman—ask? No, ordered him to go with her to yet another thrift store to look for butter knives, an orange peeler, and a spatula variant. What’s up with spatulas? She’s got, like, twenty.
Anyway, Herman had other plans. He had a date with a car today. His oil-stained hands ran along the inside of the building, nails clicking against the dimpled steel siding. He glanced through the gaping, 20-foot-high white door, flaring his nostrils—stubbornly infested with blackheads—and inhaled the scent of warm tires and spilled motor oil. The embrace of his prefab shop never got old.
“Time to get to it,” Herman giggled, the sound starting easily like a modern electric car, its hum both striking and unnerving. He lifted the driver’s side handle of his newest salvage car—a 2004 Mazda Miata—and swung its petite door wide open. The hardtop cab was packed full of car parts and junk. Crammed inside were the front bumper, torn, scratched, and bent from impact, which he threw into the corner of his shop, a car seat, headlight, used tissues, melted crayons, and a ripped and partially colored picture of SpongeBob SquarePants, which he also tossed in the corner.
Fitting himself inside the seat, Herman spotted a photo. A Filipino woman and a boy who looked to be three years old smiled at him with overly white, massive teeth. She probably fed the boy apples and spinach; he thought as he raked his white tongue over yellowing dentures. He shook the dirt off the image and turned it over. Nothing but some dried-up, green, toy goo. “I wonder what happened to them. I hope they didn’t get hurt.” He frowned and raked his sausage fingers through a carpet of thinning hair. “They probably talk nice.”
Herman liked talking. He didn’t like talking to people or animals, and he didn’t like them talking to him or making noises, but chatting with a car, hearing it rumble and purr in reply, that was acceptable. His Mazda couldn’t talk back, like his wife. It couldn’t tell him his halitosis was getting worse, his bromodosis was leaking on its floor mat, and his cigarette was burning holes in its leather. It wouldn’t ask him why he hadn’t showered or changed his clothes in weeks, and in return, he wouldn’t cuss it out while he struggled to fit between its under and inner parts. He’d get it new tires, rotors, calipers, brake pads, and a front bumper. He’d switch out the coolant, change the oil, put in a new license plate with a clever name. He would buy a used left fender, resituate its rear bumper, install a new headlight, and he’d at least hose it off. He wasn’t a monster.
“If you don’t complain, I won’t,” Herman said as he picked through the remaining items on the floor of the car: a ladybug magnet, a couple of press-on French tip nails, a Panera Bread card—he wondered if there were any points on it he could use—an X-Acto knife, deodorant lid, and a toy car. It looked brand new. He hoped the big-toothed boy didn’t miss his car. He put it in his pocket.
After his twisting and shifting massaged bodily residue into the driver’s seat, Herman made his way to the other side. He was too old for this. He should probably take the car in to have someone else fix everything, but he knew he didn’t want to talk to a mechanic who attended school past 9th grade. He’d probably end up drilling holes in the front bumper to reattach it with some heavy-duty wire. It would look cool—like stitches. Scars are sexy.
Kneeling outside of the car, Herman rifled through the remaining items: a red-stained popsicle stick, two more toy cars still in the packaging, receipts for Macy’s and Chipotle, scraps of gift wrap, and a dehydrated cake. Chocolate. It was still in the box. “It must have been the boy’s birthday,” he sighed. His phone rang.
“What?” Herman yelled before reaching into his breast pocket to fumble with his phone.
“What’s taking so long? I need a spatula.”
“Mhm.”
His wife was in the house next door, probably counting her spatulas. She couldn’t see him reach into his pocket. She couldn’t see him hold the boy’s toy car in one hand, roll each tire with his thumb as he nodded to whatever it was she was saying. She couldn’t see him hook a fingernail into the tiny doors, opening and closing them, smiling when they snapped shut.
“Not any spatula will work, you know. There’s…”
He was looking forward to starting his car, smelling its exhaust, buying it new tires, oiling its door hinges. As he salivated over these future joys, he spotted something shiny and gold.
“There’s going to be 37 desserts at potluck, Herman. 37. The ladies are bringing apple pies with streusel topping, dump cake, and...”
Herman spotted something shiny peeking out from underneath the Miata’s stained floor mat.
"I need a solid cake spatula with a black…”
“Oh, look,” he smiled
“A golden spatula. This'll work perfect as a gas pedal."
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