Page Five

he Vette's drying, so I'm finishing up on the Benzo. The VIN's on the chassis are in a couple of tricky spots and my knees are getting really sore. You should see Toady. He can get low. Great big tall guy, all squatted down working on the bumper of a car. Can do that all day. Just stop to take a piss. That's how he got his knick-name, because of the way he squats when he's working, his ass on the ground and his knees as high as his head and his legs splayed out like a frog's. Just working away. You get to love the guy after a while. You got to hand it to him. He's got style. And he pays great. And he remembers your birthday.

I'm grinding the numbers off the second VIN when somebody taps me on the back. It's Toady. I turn off the grinder and the walkman. He asks me if I've seen his wallet. The boy is behind him, smirking and buttoning the last of the buttons on his 501's.

Boy tilts his head to the side. "Looks like the boss man can't find the money he owes me," he says. "Maybe he doesn't have any. Maybe next time he'll just have to take it out of your ass."

And he starts singing again, "Full fathom five, he'll take to your insides."

"Shut up you little son of a bitch," says Toady to Boy.

He does, and I give Boy that same lazy look the bastard is always wearing. "Why don't you check his coat pockets?" I say to Toady. "I think I saw him put it there."

Toady grabs Boy and pushes him onto the hood of the Benzo. "Big mistake kid," I say, and start up the grinder. I want to finish up the second VIN before I go home.

The sparks are flying. There's that wonderful smell of burning metal that always smells like sex to me. That thing where it just punches you in the nose, in the head. I notice a real bad area where it looks like Toady missed a spot-weld on the undercarriage. This here Mercedes had more or less a new front-end glued onto it. Take one car that's got a bad rear-end, and mate it with a car that's got a bad front-end. That's the Toady philosophy.

I decide to go ahead and hit the spot with a bead off the arc-welder so I cut the power on the grinder. I'd forgotten to turn the walkman back on so the moment the grinder winds down I can hear the boy whimpering. He doesn't whimper nearly so nice as he sings. When I get up from the side of the car I see why he's whimpering. The wallet is laying open on the hood and Toady's got Boy's arms tied up behind him in his coat. Boy's bent over the hood and is definitely getting it 'full fathom five' as he put it. Toady is taking to the boy's insides, banging away and yelling so loud I'm amazed I didn't hear it, even over the grinder. He's yelling, "Am I getting my hundred bucks worth now? Am I getting it now? Why don't you just take the wallet and I'll fuck you until you die!"

I want to leave the shop. This is not my deal. But I'm thinking about this one spot-weld. And that little bit of grinding. And then I'm out of here for the day. Like I said, you can get used to most anything. So like a machine I walk over to the arc-welder and fire it up like nothing's happening.

After the first few times I took Toady cruising we settled into a nice routine. I drove, nothing else. He told me when to stop and go. And he did the boys in the office. And he was so damn nice afterwards. I saw it was good for him. And he remembered my birthdays, something no one was ever very good about. And he paid great. I could even tell him about problems I was having with girls or whatever and he would listen. Give me advice. Sometimes it was good. So he liked to sleep with street boys. What did I care? The boys didn't seem to mind coming back a second time.

I just got into the habit of turning on the grinder after we got back. There's always something to grind here at the chop shop. The grinder drowns out the sounds that come from the office. Toady's loud. And so are a lot of the boys. I get the feeling maybe Toady is really hung, or has a powerful technique. Its always looked pretty damn big to me the times I've seen it.