Slide of your Life

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

           

When he finally came to for the second time that day, he saw that the 240 driver was gone. He slowly raised himself off of the couch, just in case he was going to pass out again. When he was confident that he wouldn’t, he headed into the kitchen and found a note on the counter. It read:

“Had to go take care of some business while you passed out. I found a junker at the scrap yard. It’s at my buddy’s garage. Think of it as repayment for wrecking your 8-6 on the mountain. The address is on the fridge. I’ll meet you over there later to help you out with the rebuild.

Alex”

“So that was his name, Alex. Funny, it’s my dad’s name. I probably should have told him my name though. ‘Hey, I’m Ryan’ would have sufficed, but oh well, I can tell him later at the garage. I wonder what he got from the scrap yard.” All of these things went through his head as he read the note and walked over to the fridge. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a huge wad of cash, his winnings from the previous night. He counted about fifteen thousand dollars, all in big bills. He picked up the phone and called a cab to pick him up. When it arrived he just gave the address to the driver and paid him amply.

“Keep the change, I don’t have anything smaller than this.” He said paying for his twenty dollar cab ride. The driver’s eyes widened in disbelief as he took the bill and Ryan hastily got out of the cab, and thanked the driver.

He walked into the reception area of the garage and walked up to the lightly tattooed receptionist. She had a non-assuming attitude and was nonchalantly fiddling with the multiple piercings in her right ear.

“Can I help you man?” She asked, looking up at Ryan before actually looking up at him. She seemed like she was trying immensely hard not to sound pissed off because he interrupted her glorious slack-off time. No one ever came around that early for any good reason.

“Um, hi. I’m Ryan. I guess I’m a friend of Alex. He told me he left a car here for me, so I’m, uh, here to check it out.” He puts his hands in the pocket of the faded jeans he’d been wearing since the night before and leans on the wall.

“Let me check that for you, one second.” The sound of the keyboard clacking was the only sound in the shop as the receptionist searched through the database. “Ahh here it is, FC chassis RX-7. It’s in Alex’s garage. You seem to be pretty special because he doesn’t let anyone use that garage.” The look on her face was puzzled as she said this.

“Huh? Special? He only wrote off my old car, so I guess he’s just paying me back, is all.” He scratched his head as responded, just as puzzled as the receptionist was. She reached into a drawer under the counter and pulled out a set of keys and handed them to Ryan.

“Follow me, I’ll show you where it is. Alex said come through whenever you need to work on the car.” She leads him through the back of the shop and opens the door to Alex’s garage. Inside it sits the nearly totaled FC RX-7. There were rust spots scattered about the car’s badly faded primer gray exterior. The cloth interior was badly worn and in need of some TLC as well. Alex definitely hadn’t been lying when he said it was a junker.

“Well, I certainly have my work cut out for me huh? Let’s see if she’ll start.” He walks around the car, closely examining every aspect he knew he needed to fix. Ryan didn’t even realize that the receptionist had left him to his work. He opens the door and climbs into the driver’s seat. He shakes the shift knob back and forth, then presses in the clutch before turning the key. The 1.3 liter rotary engine cranked and cranked until it finally sputtered to life with a low, unsteady rumble. All of the instruments inside the car seemed to work. The fuel gauge, temperature gauge, all of the switches functioned as they should have. Ryan was satisfied with this and put the car into first. As he eased his left foot off of the clutch, problems immediately arose. He felt the clutch slipping badly and the car was jerking violently. Ryan depressed the clutch and shut of the car off. This car definitely needed some work.