Hard Body Autoshop

𝔱𝔴𝔬 [2]

not edited 🥴

• 2| Cori Anne Blake •

Cori had just finished her 1PM class on Friday and speed-walked to her car in the student parking lot. Her and the girls made plans to go to some random club that Khalia had heard about through one of her customers. After picking out their outfits and buying their hair, the girls anticipated for the pre-game session more than the club itself.

She started her car, muttering to herself about needing gas, not for the tank, but cursed when the engine refused to turn over. She removed the key from the ignition and replaced it, repeating the same motion — it still refused to start.

   "Bra, what the fuck?"

For her to have a mechanic as a father, Cori only knew a few things about cars. She knew what the engine looked like, windshield wiper fluid, and how to change a tire. So she somewhat understood that after looking under the hood, her engine had some corrosion on-top of it. Using her key, she scraped the orange and brown crust off of the car part, and crossed her fingers when she started the car.

   'I needa take this old muhfucka to the shop or we won't be goin nowhere tonight,' She thought, pulling off the lot and speeding to the new bodyshop close to her apartment.

HardBody Autoshop opened recently in the city, and only accepted a certain type of clientele. Cori always saw nice big body cars driving in and out of the garage, and hoped that her Mini Cooper fit the requirements.

She fluffed her hair and made sure her lipgloss was still intact before rolling her window down to speak to a worker wearing red dickies coveralls. He had a tattoo of a cross on his left cheekbone, or was it a dagger or a teardrop? He wore a black scub cap and had eyebrows thicker than Cori. She expected shiny white people with lemon water at the shop, not a nigga staring her down and the rest of the workers blasting La4ss.

He leaned down to make eye contact with Cori from her car and introduced himself, "Wassup, I'm Samir. Who you know?"

Cori blinked a few times before asking, "What you mean? I just need a new battery and to see if my starter cool."

"We only fix up cars from certain people, Miss..."

Cori kept blinking.

He sighed, "We don't just work on anybody's cars, miss lady. We take people that we know, people from higher classes, and foreigners. We don't take regular people. It's exclusive."

"So you can't just sell me a engine and look at my starter? I'm not askin y'all to change my interior and repaint the car." Cori wiped at some lipgloss on the side of her mouth.

He scratched his head while looking at her car and shrugged, he walked over to another worker with dreads and started a conversation. Samir came back over after a few minutes and said,

"Look, I'll look at yo car and get you a new battery but I can't guarantee knowin about yo starter. I'm new on the job and the nigga that specializes in that shit is off for the day. I just do paint jobs."

Cori gave him a small smile that barely showed her teeth, saying, "Thanks, that's all I needed."

"But you gotta leave." Samir rubbed his hands on the white towel around his neck. "We close in a few. I'll park the car outside the garage and give you a call when we all done. What's yo number?"

—————

• 2| Samir Isaiah Hill •

As soon as the garage door finally touched the concrete floor of the shop at 4PM, Samir unpacked the lunchbox that his little sister packed for him that morning at frowned at what she put in it. He pulled out his phone to FaceTime her. Soon as she answered he went off,

"What the fuck I look like eating these organic fruit snacks and drinkin a damn Kool-Aid Jammer at work? You must want me to get bullied, huh?" He flipped the camera on the lunchbox and kept going. "Then you put a damn Cane's napkin in here. What am I wiping?"

Katrice, his sister, rolled her eyes and muffled a laugh, "Okay, well you didn't buy groceries so Ion know what to tell you, ugly. It was either that or a boiled egg and a mini water bottle."

Samir had been slacking on buying groceries since he was too busy trying to help run the garage with Rico and Ohaji. They opened the shop because they needed a new way to make some fast money. And since Ohaji knew about cars and Rico knew a lot of people, they figured it was the best idea. Samir was a quick learner, so he taught himself the basics about cars. Painting, upholstery, cleaning, all that — so he never had time to do shit for his apartment but pay bills.

"Damn my bad. I'm finna cashapp you some money so you can buy some groceries n shit for the house and whatever else you want. What's my son doing?" He cheesed at his phone.

Rico came up to Samir with some keys and his backpack over his shoulder. His long dreads covered parts of his face, but from the small frown on his mouth Samir could tell that his friend was irritated.

He hung up the phone and took the keys from Rico, asking, "What's wrong with you? Yo lights cut off?"

"No, nigga bitch, Ohaji tryna go out tonight but Ion got no weed and you know I can't be around all them people sober."

Rico claimed to have PTSD. All of his childhood friends that he grew up with got mowed down as the years went on, and for all those incidents, he was present. He kept getting shot at so much that he started shooting back, and the city so damn small he constantly feels like somebody gon come after him one day for revenge because of his hurt. And he chose weed as his vice since he didn't want to be a sloppy drunk like his cousins.

Samir frowned. "I should have a few grams in my lil bag in the back of my closet. I forgot all about that shit til now. I'll pick you up after we get ready, then we can smoke on the way to the club to meet up with Ohaji. Lemme call this girl."

He entered in the 314 number that the mean-looking girl who owned the Mini Cooper, and left a voicemail saying her car was fixed and to pick it up. He hid the keys in the potted plant at the front of the shop and drove off, following Ohaji out the lot.