Abe chapter 1

The Exchange
By: Wally Nichols (203) 858 3634

Chapter 1
“You wont not get this tractor running. Won’t nobody,” he said proudly, “…Like a dried up old snatch. No gas in there a-tall.”
Behind them a coop glazed with tenacious lead paint chips incarcerated two dozen spent hens.
“Look, not a Goddamn drop making it through. See that, son?” His cackle was chalky.
He held out the miniature engine part in question for approval, a cubish thing with no character that Tim presumed to be a carburetor by function and circumstance, but not necessarily by looks.
“Good spark, though. Must be a clog,” the old man declared vindictively.
He lowered his nose to the device and inspected it closely. Bloodhound on a fugitive’s tube sock.
“The crap gas them A-Rab sand-niggers sell us is filled with twigs. Probably an Iraqi bird nestin’ in that fuel line by nows...”
He jammed the carburetor out chest height, then yanked it back to wipe the sweat from his brow with the tattered shirtsleeve on his cocked, sinewy forearm.
“They don’t teach you that in fancy medical school do they? Die-ag-nose-ing.”
His lips savored the word .
“You start with the problem, like she won’t run, then you work backwards. Check the fuel, check the spark. Not much else to it. Don’t waste your time with the other stuff on account of there ain’t much else. Start with the obvious.”
Tim recognized lecture mode.
“All you doctors do is bend someone over the pickle barrel, shove a finger or somethin’ up where it don’t belong and tell them bad news. Even if they just have a cough. Is why I don’t go... Don’t know why you wasted your money, Timmy boy. I ain’t even sure you are a good doctor, truth be told.”
The old man left a predictable canyon of silence for Tim to either tumble into or climb out of.
“Didn’t I teach you better? I thought you had a head for this stuff,” he said gripping the steering wheel. “My mistake at the end of the day, I guess. You used to be good at engines,” he lamented. “Don’t know what happened…”
“Abe, how ya feeling?”
“I reckon just about how anyone 300 years old feels. Sometimes like shit, sometimes like more shit.”
“Did you call the clinic back?” Tim steadied himself against the tractor as he often had and studied the man who busied himself with the distraction of a fractious engine part. “I’ve been away for a week. On business in Atlanta.”
With its hood up, the tractor looked sickly, anemic.
“I know you have. Haven’t been around pesterin’ me. It’s been quiet here without you dry humping my leg like a junkyard dog. Nice and quiet.”
“Abe?”
“You got somethin’ you want me to fix? Is that why you’re here all up in my face?”
The old man scrunched his brow towards the noon sun and then refocused on his visitor. “I ain’t got lots of time.”
Tim cleared his throat, a nervous habit he’d had since childhood—one that Abe was always teasing him about. He fought the urge to say anything and waited for the old man to speak. He tugged at the knot of his necktie to let some of the tin breeze in around his collarbone.
The old man confessed to the 5/8th inch box end chrome Sears wrench like it was a cherished doll and no one else was around.
“You know I didn’t call. So why you bother askin’?”
“Abe, I spoke to the clinic.”
“Well, there you go all tricky. You ain’t allowed to go snoopin’ around my files. Against the law. You ain’t family.”
“That’s really not fair, Abe. Nor is it very nice.”
“ And plus they don’t know shit.” The old man steamrolled over Tim.
“You don’t even know what I’m about to say. How can you say that?”
“Because I know that’s how you sheisters make your money: You tell people they got the cancer or somethin’, then squeeze ‘em dry like this fuel hose until they’re cracked, or got no soul or got no money left. Probably sell your mother the stuff if she was around.
“Don’t need something fixed? Then leave me alone. I’m killing chickens today.”
A free ranging rooster crowed and Abe flinched involuntarily, thumping his fingers on the tractor’s hood impatiently.
“It’s like I always say. When my time is up, my time is up. Don’t do nobody no earthly good trying to fake the Maker out. We ain’t carburators. We just ain’t.”
“Well your time doesn’t need to be up, necessarily.”
“You God? You making promises? Promises you can’t keep, son? Always good at talking, Timmy, always.”
“Lots of people do very well with Chemotherapy.”
“And lots of people die dead too.”
“Isn’t it worth trying? What do you have to lose?”
“My hair. And my good looks.”
They both laughed out loud. Abe’s bald head shone with a film of sweat.
“And the good time I have left.”
“You don’t have that much time, Abe.” The words sounded acidic to Tim and he immediately regretted saying them.
“And there’s all that throwing up and people coming over with shitpies and such to see what you look like bald and how fast you dying. Wondering if that’s what they gonna look like when you doctors tell them they have the cancer.”
“How do you know that? You don’t even have a TV!”
“Well I hear things.”
Tim chuckled, happy to be allowed to smile.
“ You’re really something, you know. I wish I could take you around in a cage to the circuses as a freak show and display you to the world. No one would believe such a grumpy old fuck ever existed.”
“And you’d charge a nickel a peek, on my back.”
“To see you, I’d charge them all a dime. Nickel’s not worth my time.”
Tim tugged the knot looser and pressed his palms flat on his shirt front. The humidity was undoing his morning ironing job.
The old man grinned. “Feels like the rice paddies of fucking Coo Chi out today, don’t it? You don’t impress me with an ironed shirt. I know you from when you were just a wink in your daddy’s eye. I've knowed you before you even wored a shirt. Pressed shirt don’t impress me a-tall. Might as well stop unless yer wiping your hands.”
“Well, anyway people comin’ over with a shitpie is better than people comin’ over to look down in your casket, ain’t it?” Tim straightened up to his full 6 feet. “Damn it, listen to me talk. You’re making me forget I know how to speak English, old man.”
“I dunno.”
“Yes you do. Might be hard, but you got some fight in you yet , right?”
“Punk. I got more fight in my left nut than you got in your entire body. And then some,” Abe growled.
“I guess you answered my question just fine.”
Tim took they wrench from Abe’s strangely willing hand and set it down gently on the tractor’s fender.
“They told me because I am family.”
“They told you because you sweet talked it out if them. Like you always do with everything you’ve ever wanted.”
“So.”
“So back at you.”
“So. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at 9, after chores, ok?”
“You can go to hell, young Timmy.”
“Hell starts at 9, and I’m not going alone. I’ll be here to get you after your chores.”
“Who’s gonna pay? I’m not paying to throw up.”
“It’s all settled.”
“Well if you’re done imposin’, I got me chickens to kill today.”
“Ok, I’ll see ya at 9.”
“Maybe. Maybe my maker sees me at 8. Beats you by an hour.”
“Wanna make it 7? I’ll get up. For you pops, I’ll get up.”
“Get the hell outta here.”
“Have a good day Abe. Enjoy this sunshine.”
“Blah Blah Blah.”
“You gonna need my help blowing that carburetor out too, old man?”
“You can blow it out your asshole, son.”
Tim smiled and slipped back into his car.