Jackson
“I see we’re out and about, making new friends,” Alex remarked as I walked back into the shop with a pizza a while later. I tossed it in the break room then came back out, arching an eyebrow in his direction.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked as he stood under the hood of that disgustingly pink automobile.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m working on Grace’s car.”
“I said take it to the scrapyard, not here.”
“Oh? Did you? I must’ve missed that,” he lied. Alex was a great listener; he never missed a word anyone said. “Well, since it’s here…” He smirked at me, and I rolled my eyes, making him laugh. “Come on, man. It could be our newest passion project. We’ve been looking for the perfect new toy to play with.”
I walked around the car, kicking one of the tires. “There’s nothing about this thing that makes me passionate. It’s a piece of shit. It’s seriously a piece of actual shit. If it were an animal’s shit, it would be a monkey’s. If it were a person’s shit, it would be yours. It’s the worst piece of shit that ever existed.”
“Hmm…” Alex whistled low. “I’m glad to see you’ve been working on watching your language, and really? You think monkey shit is worse than hippo shit?”
“Well, I guess it depends on the size of the monkey.”
“No, Jackson”—he shook his head—“it doesn’t.”
“I’m serious, man. Get this out of the shop.”
“Listen, kiddo, you know I love you like you’re my own son, but I think it’s childish that you are refusing a perfectly good learning experience on this pink hot mama because of the hate you have for the family it belongs to.”
“That family is nothing but shit,” I barked. “You should hate them, too.”
“Yes, sure, of course. But this”—Alex hugged the car—“this is a precious baby. It didn’t choose its family. It had no say in who owned it. It’s just sitting in our shop, looking for a little love. Can’t we give it a little love, Jack-Jack?”
He gave me his best puppy-dog eyes, and he knew how much I hated when he did that.
Alex was my uncle, my mother’s older brother, and he’d moved to Chester a few years back when Dad wasn’t in any shape to take care of the shop or me. He was pretty much the only person in the whole town I gave a damn about.
We were close, at least as close as I allowed people to get, which wasn’t saying too much.
His body was coated in tattoos, and if you found a spot that wasn’t, he’d be quick to fix that issue. He spent all his free time working at a tattoo parlor right outside of town. He had dark black and gray hair that he always combed back and piercings all over. If you passed him on the street, you might jump out of your skin in fear until he started talking to you about the latest avocado mask he’d discovered.
He was one of the most positive people in the world, and I was the complete opposite. But, at the same time, our connection made sense—we balanced each other out.
“My dad’s going to throw a fit if he finds out a Harris’s car is in his shop,” I warned. If anyone hated the church more than I did, it was my father.
“He won’t even know,” Alex said, shaking his head back and forth. “I promise I’ll keep our dirty little secret.”
“Your dirty secret. I’m not working on that car. I want nothing to do with it or that family.” The only reason I agreed to let the car stay was because I knew he wouldn’t give it up until he got his way. “But just to be clear, I’m not happy about this.”
