Chapter 27

In two different cars, Jerry, Jenny, Henry, Bill and Abe pulled up in front of the auto-detailing shop to pick up the Camaro. It was the first time Jerry was to see it since he had been shot and he could hardly wait to see how it looked. Eddie was waiting for them next to the car, but he didn’t look nearly as happy to show off this car as he had been with the truck.

The paint job was amazing. Using the dark on dark technique that Eddie had used for the truck, the scene of a lightning bolt striking a tall building in a cityscape looked three dimensional. As they approached to within ten feet of the car, each of them stopped to stare at the picture in amazement at the quality of it.

The only person who didn’t look pleased was Eddie. He looked over at the picture and shook his head as though displeased with it. There was something that bothered him about the car and he didn’t know what it was. The paint job was exactly what he had wanted to capture, but there was something wrong. He had spent days looking at the car from every angle trying to figure out what it was.

After a few minutes, Jerry stepped up and walked around the entire car taking in the final product. The car was beautiful. The interior had been restored to a condition that was better than new. Coming back to Eddie, he said, “It’s gorgeous. You did a nice job on it.”

Eddie rubbed the back of his neck as he looked over at Jerry. Frowning, he said, “The first couple of days, I loved it. The longer I’ve looked at the car, the more convinced I became that there is something wrong with the paint job. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something wrong with it.”

Surprised at the self-criticism of his work, Jerry looked back at the car. He walked around the car looking at it closer trying to identify what would cause Eddie to say such a thing. The paint job was outstanding and he couldn’t see anything wrong with it. Across the back were the signatures of the shops that had done the finishing work and the name of the car.

He didn’t see anything wrong, but Eddie was right. After a few minutes, it seemed like there was some kind of itch at the back of his brain telling him that something wasn’t right. Jerry walked around the car again, looking at it carefully. Everything looked right, but something about it bothered him.

From the back of the car, Abe called out, “Hey, I thought lightning didn’t have an ‘e’ in it.”

Eddie ran to the back of the car and stared at the name of the car. Sure enough, he had misspelled the name. Slapping his forehead with the palm of his hand, Eddie saw that Abe was right. He groaned at the thought of the work that would be required to correct the problem.

Everyone gathered behind the Camaro staring at the misspelled name. Bill said, “It’s not that obvious.”

“You’re being nice,” growled Eddie as his face glowed red from embarrassment. He wanted to crawl into a hole and hide for the rest of his life. No one in the business was ever going to let him live this down.

Jenny and Henry exchanged looks wondering what Jerry was thinking as he stared at the back of the car. The tension in the air seemed to grow the longer that Jerry stood there without saying a word. Henry moved over to Eddie just in case Jerry lost his temper. The big man knew that he could probably keep Jerry from causing too much damage, particularly with his arm still in a cast.

For his part, Jerry stared at the lettering trying to figure out how he was supposed to react. In the past, his rage would have seen this as an opportunity to run wild. There was nothing in the pit of his stomach but an empty hole. The rage was well and truly gone.

Surprising everyone, Abe commented, “I think it’s a good name.”

Everyone turned to stare at Abe, but the young black man didn’t look uncomfortable with the attention. Puzzled by his announcement, Jenny asked, “In what way?”

“We all know that Thunder knocked him on his ass, but since then he’s dumped a lot of the shit in his life that was holding him back,” answered Abe.

Jerry nodded as he thought about what Abe had said. One of the things that he had dumped was the rage and he did feel lighter as a result. Lightening was a play on words, although unintentional. He wondered if he could live with it.

Of everyone there, Eddie was the most upset. Jerry had treated him well and allowed him to use the truck to improve his business. He felt horrible about having ruined the job and there was nothing to do except fix it. It went without saying that there would be no charge for the paint job. He said, “I’ll fix it. Don’t worry about that.”

Henry was watching the big man, trying to figure out what was going on in his head. His friend wasn’t reacting in a manner that he expected. If the big guy had broken out in laughter, he would have understood. He would have understood anger, but this silent and thoughtful reaction had him confused.

Jerry looked over at Eddie and didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, he said, “I like it like this.”

Abe smiled in agreement even though Jenny, Henry, and Bill looked at him as if he had lost his mind. Eddie looked angry. The idea that the big man was trying to keep from hurting his feelings was an insult. Bill countered, “If you keep it, people will think you are a big dumb oaf that can’t spell.”

Henry, well familiar with that reaction, nodded his head in agreement as he said, “That’s true.”

Shrugging his shoulders, Abe countered, “So what? The ones that think he’s a big dumb oaf are wrong. Shit, we all know he’s just a big oaf.”

Laughter boiled up from the pit of his stomach and Jerry was powerless to hold it back. His loud guffaw carried through the air, infecting others as if it was a contagious virus. Eddie had proved the most resistant to the laugh, but found that he was chuckling along with everyone else after a minute. Hardly able to stand, Jerry found himself gasping for air after five minutes of solid laughter. Every time he looked over at Abe, he broke out in laughter again. Tears were forming in his eyes as he laughed.

Jerry patted Eddie on the shoulder and said, “I’ll keep it like this.”

Shaking his head, Eddie said, “Look, I’ll fix it.”

“No, I like it,” replied Jerry. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the name. Abe was right about the name. Lightening, rather than lightning, was the proper name for the car. He had undergone a huge change in which he had shed a number of the things that had weighed him down and held him back.

Worried about him losing his temper when someone made fun of him, Jenny asked, “What will you do when people make jokes about it?”

“I’ll laugh if it is a good joke and explain things to them if it is tasteless,” answered Jerry.

Having accepted the modified name of the Camaro, Jerry walked around it taking in the paint job. He liked the images presented and came to like the car even more. He opened the driver side door and examined the interior. It was beautiful beyond anything that he could have imagined. They had followed the same gray color scheme in the Camaro that they had used for the truck.

Looking over the dashboard, he noticed an expensive sound system had replaced the old radio that hadn’t worked. Surprised at the discovery, he asked, “What’s with the radio?”

Smiling at him, Jenny said, “I bought it for you as a little present.”

“Wow. You didn’t have to do that,” replied Jerry choked up at the thought of the gift. No one had ever given him a gift before. Sure, his wife used to give him gifts on Christmas, but they were things like lawn mowers and other home care goods.

“Maybe you can loan the car to me when I go cruising for chicks,” replied Henry with a grin. He winked at Jenny to let her know that he was kidding. He didn’t want her reporting back to Sharon that he was already thinking of stepping out on her.

Jerry laughed and replied, “Keep talking like that and Jenny is going to take away the keys. I’ll be stuck driving her little Nova.”

Laughing, Jenny said, “I’ll drive it and turn this car into a regular Man Trap.”

Abe quipped, “Dye your hair blond and no one will question the name of the car.”

“Ugh, that’s horrible,” exclaimed Jenny with a look of horror on her face. She knew that a whole series of blond jokes were about to start.

Abe and Bill nudged each other with their elbows and started trading blond jokes. They knew a ton of them and would occupy themselves for an hour if Jenny let them. Unable to help herself, she laughed at the punch line for the joke about the blond bank robber that tied up the safe and blew the guard. Turning back to look at Jerry, she smiled at the grin that was plastered to his face.

After paying for the work done on the car, the group split up. Abe and Bill went shopping with Jenny to get some new clothes for school. Martin headed off to pick up parts for Abe’s motorcycle and Bill’s Pontiac from a local junkyard that claimed to have a couple of the parts they needed. Jerry got in the Camaro with Henry. The Camaro had an automatic transmission and he could drive it even with his cast. It was with a great deal of pleasure that Jerry sat behind the steering wheel.

As they drove down the street listening to the music, Henry said, “Let’s pull into the drive-in burger place for lunch.”

Jerry smiled at the chance to show off his restored car. He replied, “Sounds like a plan to me.”

More than a few heads turned as they pulled into a parking spot at the burger place. A couple of teenagers got out and looked over the car. Henry smiled at his friend and asked, “How long do you think it will take them to notice?”

Jerry laughed and said, “Considering the state of education today, I doubt they ever will.”

Henry shook his head at the comment and said, “You’re a little rough on the kids today, aren’t you?”

Shrugging his right shoulder, Jerry replied, “I guess I blame the schools for helping to create kids like Joe and Kenny. With a good education, they would have known better.”

“Hey, they had the same education that Abe and Martin got,” countered the big man. He felt guilty about how Kenny had turned out. For the past five years he had been trying to get the kid to grow up and act responsibly. He grumbled, “I let them down.”

“No, you didn’t. You gave him every chance to straighten up.” Jerry shook his head thinking back to when he had first met Kenny. He said, “The first time I met Kenny, he said that he wanted to sell grass for a living. I probably should have taken his head off at the time, but I let it slide with a warning that making an easy living tended to be a lot harder than working at a tougher job.”

“I told him the same thing myself, but he didn’t want to listen. He thought he was smarter than everyone else,” commented Henry. The sad fact was that Kenny was smart. His mother had told Henry that the kid had the highest IQ in the school. Everything came easy to the kid, too easy in fact. Asking the kid to work was an insult.

“I’m still sorry about it all. He’s going to be doing some time in prison,” said Jerry.

One of the kids looking over the car knocked on the window to get their attention. Henry rolled down the window and asked, “What can I do for you?”

“Did you know that Lightning is misspelled?” asked the young man in a timid voice.

“Well, the name of the car is Lightening and not Lightning. It’s the picture that’s wrong,” commented Henry winking at Jerry.

Jerry said, “Yes, this car represents a major load taken off my shoulders. I’m a much freer man because of this car than I was before I fixed it up. You might say that it was the straw that broke the camel’s back and forced me to re-examine my life.”

The kid stood at the window listening to the explanation with a puzzled expression. Finally, he said, “You’re an adult. You can do whatever you want.”

Both Henry and Jerry burst out laughing at that. Henry replied, “Son, you’ve got a lot more freedom right now than both of us put together.”

“Say what?”

Jerry said, “Listen, you’ve got all kinds of choices to make. That’s freedom. We’ve made our choices and have to live with the consequences. We’ve already sold our freedom.”

The kid stood there for a minute with a confused expression on his face. After a minute, he said, “Gee, all I wanted to say was that you had a nice car.”

Knowing the kid was confused by the conversation, Jerry said, “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

The kid wandered off to tell his friends about the strange guys in the Camaro. It wouldn’t be until several days passed that he would think about what the two men had said to him. At the moment, their words meant nothing to him. ‘Everyone knew’ that adults could do whatever they wanted.

Jerry watched the kid walk off and shook his head. Henry voiced what was on his mind when he asked, “Do you think the kid understood what we were talking about?”

“No. I’m pretty sure that he looked at us, considered our size and thought that we could do anything that we wanted,” commented Jerry. He thought it was ironic that kids wanted to grow up so that they could do anything they desired, never realizing that each choice they made restricted their own actions far more than what their parents could possibly impose.

Thinking about the kids that were out shopping with Jenny, Henry said, “You know, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to tell the boys that.”

“You’re right,” replied Jerry. After a pause, his stomach growled and he said, “I’m getting hungry.”

Jerry leaned out the window and pressed the button to order. When the voice over the speaker acknowledged him, he didn’t need to ask Henry what he wanted to eat. Without hesitation, he ordered, “Two burgers, two medium french fries, and two large shakes. One vanilla and one chocolate.”

The two men enjoyed their lunch once it was delivered. Other people came by the car, examined the paint job and went on their way after making comments about the car. Less than a third of them noticed the spelling of the name. One idiot actually made a comment about blacks not knowing how to spell, but Jerry put him in his place. Of course, he could hear the guy’s comment as he walked away that the fucking gorilla couldn’t spell either.

When they had finished eating, Jerry turned to his friend and said, “I’ve never thanked you for installing the hot water heater.”

The big black man looked at Jerry and said, “No problem. I couldn’t believe that you and Bill lived there for a whole winter without hot water.”

“It never really bothered me. To tell the truth, I didn’t know how long I would be living there,” replied Jerry. At the look from Henry, he added, “I didn’t want to make the house any more valuable for that bastard landlord.”

“Putting a Band-Aid over a hole in the wall would double the value of those houses,” quipped Henry with a short bark that passed for laughter. He grinned and then asked, “Ready to buy some Band-Aids to fix up that house?”