Chapter 1
Tod Baker didn’t have a girlfriend anymore.
It had only been three days since Anya, his college sweetheart, had dumped him in hopes of finding something exciting and new on spring break in Miami, Florida. Tod had spent those three days being miserable, then plotting his revenge, then trying to figure out how he could possibly get her back. That was why, on one fateful Thursday -the first day of spring break- Tod was embarking on the grueling, 17 hour, 1,156 mile trip from Ohio State all the way to Miami, Florida. He was too broke to fly, and barely had enough money to cover the gas to drive down, he didn’t know where he would sleep when he got there, and wasn’t even sure how he would afford to eat once he finished off the purloined cafeteria food he’d pocketed with his student caf card that morning, but he was going anyway, and all in the name of love... or revenge... he wasn’t sure yet. His best friend refused to go, telling him outright that he was being a moron, so Tod was heading out with the only girl who had never let him down in the 6 years he’d known her: Persilla.
Persilla was Tod’s 2014, sandy-beige, Toyota Prius. He’d inherited Persilla from his mother on the day he turned 16, and she had been with him through every adventure he’d had since then.
Persilla, however, seemed to think the spring break trip was a foolish plan too, or perhaps it was just one adventure too many for poor, aging Prius, for it was on that fateful journey that she decided she’d had enough, and died. She did manage to get him to Miami, just not the Miami he meant to go to. A quarter mile before the border of Ohio and West Virginia, she started to sputter and lose power. Just after the exit for Miami, West Virginia, poor ol’ Persilla lost all power, shuddered, and barely let him get over to the edge of the road before stalling out completely. After several failed attempts to get her started again, Tod was forced to give up and call AAA.
Unfortunately for Tod, he didn’t have AAA.
The sticker on the window of his car was a remnant of the days when his parents still carried a AAA plan that covered the whole family. Now that all three of their children were out of the nest, Tod and Persilla apparently weren’t covered.
After some sobbing and general freaking out on the phone with an agent of the company, the tired woman on the other end of the other end of the line at least took enough pity on Tod to give him the number for a local garage that offered 24 hour towing and worked on hybrid cars just a few towns over. Tod was still thanking her profusely when she hung up on him.
While he waited around for the next 3 hours for the tow truck to arrive, Tod called his mom. This netted him nothing more than a tongue lashing and a lecture for having taken the car on such a long drive, and that was with his quick lie about only having been going to West Virginia for a field research trip concerning the socio-political climate in rural Appalachia. She’d flatly refused to send him any money to help with the repairs. Then his father got on the phone. As with everything, his father parroted his mother’s response. At least his dad assured him that if he hadn’t found a way to get himself and the car home by the end of break, they would pay to have it towed back to their house in Akron and drop him off at college sans-car on the way.
This whole call only took up an hour of his wait, leaving him with the remaining two hours to think about how he would ever be able to get Anya back if he not only didn’t make it to spring break, but also no longer had a car when she got back. Then there was the problem of how he would make money without the car. He needed his car to drive to school from his off-campus apartment, to work on the other side of the city after class, and he’d been working in the gig economy for a popular food delivery app on the weekends too and he was still barely making rent on the pointlessly expensive apartment Anya had talked him into getting with hints of wanting to move in. That had never happened, and now it looked like he might not have a means of making the money to pay for the apartment anymore anyway.
By the time Everette Jr. of Big Ret’s Auto showed up in his daddy’s tow truck, Tod was utterly depressed. He sulked the whole ride back to the shop, and Everette “Rett” Jr seemed more than happy to fill the silence for him.
To Tod’s surprise and delight, the actual repair took less time than the 20 minute drive to get there.
“Buncha shit got knocked into your mass airflow sensor,” Rette Sr. explained, “Makes the damn computer think it ain’t getting no air, so the stupid thing shuts it down to keep the assholes who drive these foreign pieces of shit from blowing their damn fool asses up.”
“Oh god. That’s such a relief!” Tod had almost cried when he heard what a minor issue the fix was, “I was worried it would be some huge problem that I wouldn’t have the money to fix. How much do I owe you, friend?” He said cheerily as he pushed his glasses back up on his nose with a bony finger.
“Well, with tax that’ll come out to $279.50, but there’s a 3% convenience fee in that for card payments. If you’re paying cash I can knock it down to $271.36. Hell, you seem like a nice kid, so let’s just call it $270 if you got cash.”
“$270?!?” Ted yelped, “To unclog an air filter?”
Big Rette scowled at him. He spun the screen of his computer around to show Tod the breakdown of the bill.
“No, unclogging the filter only took 5 minutes, however, as soon as a car pulls in the shop, it’s subject to a full half hour of labor, regardless of how long it takes. So half an hour, at a rate of $90 an hour, comes out to $45. That’s your labor fee there,” Rette pointed at a line clearly labeled labor, “Now, towing is the $40 hookup charge plus the round trip mileage, at a rate of $2 per mile for 23 miles. Then that last bit is the computer analysis fee. Since your car is more computer than car, I had to hook her up to a special diagnostics computer to tell what was wrong. Any time I roll that cart out, it’s an automatic $125. Put that all together and you get $256. Governor demands his share at a rate of 6%. That takes you to $271.36 if you got cash. If not, the card processing company charges a per transaction fee of 3% of the total amount of the charge, so that cranks you up to $279.50.”
By the time Big Everette got done explaining the breakdown, Tod’s head was spinning. He couldn’t believe it.
“I... I, I, I... I don’t have that kind of money,” He stammered and fell back into the ancient, wooden folding chair on his side of Rette’s desk.
“Then, sonny boy, you got a problem,” Rette said, swiping Tod’s keys back off the desk and into a drawer, which he promptly locked.
“Can’t you, like, bill me or something?” Tod asked, though he thought he already knew the answer.
“No, I, like, can’t, kid.” The mechanic mocked, “No cash, no car. Easy as that. Now, if you wanna sell it, I know a guy down the road who pays cash for cars. He’s an old buddy of mine, so, I can probably talk him into buying that off you for around $3,000 if you took $2,250 of what he gave you and used it to buy the old ’92 Ford Festiva he’s been trying to unload.”
“Is it in good condition?” Tod asked, trying not to hide his disgust over the idea.
“Hell no. It’s a 92 Ford. It’s garbage. But it’s the only thing on his lot that you could get for less than he’d pay for the Prius and it would at least get you back to Columbus faster than walking, which is what you’re gonna be doing if you don’t come up with the money for the repair,” Rette leaned forward and folded his thick, calloused hands on the desk, “Look, kid, I’m trying to help you hear. You want me to call him?”
Tod hung his head. He was quiet while he considered his options.
“Look, I drive for Uber and Uber Eats. I have to have a car that’s newer than 15 years to do that. If you let me use the car for the weekend, I can log in and try to make the money here in town. I can even leave my entire wallet with you while I’m working so you know I won’t run off. I’ll work literally the entire weekend, I’ll only sleep what I have to survive and I’ll even do that in the car in your parking lot while you keep the keys so you can know I won’t run off. Please, just, let me try to earn the money.”
“Uber n’ Uber Eat don’t work around here,” Rette Jr. barked out with a laugh as he came in from the garage, “You’d have to go all the way up to Charleston if you wanted to make any money that way.”
Rette Sr. snorted out a half laugh as his son guffawed at Tod. Tod could feel the mechanic staring at him and his deep blush of humiliation. After a long moment, the older Rette sighed and picked up his phone.
“Morning, this Debbie?” Rette said into the phone in a much warmer voice than he’d used at any point with Tod, “I thought so. Darlin’, this is Everette. How are you this morning, young lady?” He paused to listen for a moment, a smile spreading across his grizzled face, “Ah, well, at least you only gotta clean out a chicken coop, not a whole cow barn. Say, darlin’, is your Pa close enough that you can get him to come to the phone?” Another pause, “Sure, I’ll wait. Thank you kindly, dear.”
As Rette waited for whoever John was to get to the phone he looked up at Tod. He held up his finger in a ‘just a moment’ gesture, but didn’t explain who he’d been talking to. Tod could only assume it was the used car salesman.
“Hey, Johny, how the heck are ya, you old s.o.b?” Everette grinned from ear to ear as he listened to the man on the other end, “Yeah, that’s what I heard. That’s actually why I’m calling. I got a city kid here in need of making a quick $250 to pay for some car repairs. I remembered Norma saying your Betty told her your Lumbago was acting up something fierce, and if I ain’t mistaken, you just tilled up that whole back field to plant your potatoes, so, I figured i’d see if you could use some help from an able bodied young man who was just telling me he was willing to work day in and day out all weekend to make the cash.”
Tod perked up as he listened to the mechanic’s side of the conversation. He was sitting on the edge of his seat leaning toward Rette’s desk when Rette looked at him again appraisingly.
“Well, he’s definitely a city kid. Kind of a skinny, nerdy type, but he holds down two jobs back home...”
“Three, actually!” Tod chimed eagerly, “Plus my classes. I’ll work. I don’t care what kind of work, I’ll do it, and I’m a quick learner, I promise.”
“Three jobs, he says, and he’s a college kid. He’s real eager for the job, and Johny, I just have a feeling he’ll be a hard worker for you,” Rette grinned at Tod as he listened to John, “Alright. Think you can send one of your girls in for him or do you need me to get Jr. to run him out. Okay, not a problem. I’ll tell him to be ready when she pulls up.”
Rette hung up the phone. He sobered his smile slightly and adopted a matter of fact expression as he laid down the law to Tod.
“I found you a paying job. It’ll be hard work, but my old pal Johny is willing to pay you $75 for today since it’ll be a partial day for you and a full $100 each day for Friday and Saturday. He doesn’t work Sundays, none of us round here do, so you’ll just barely be able to cover the repairs, but you’ll make it. I’ll even come in before church Sunday so you can have them drop you off on their way, pay me, get your keys and be on your way. Oh, and, his wife, Betty, will feed you while you’re there, and he said you can sleep in the hayloft of the barn, so you don’t have to worry about sleeping in your car. Now, you will treat him and his family with respect, you hear me, sonnyjim?”
“Yes, sir. Absolutely. I won’t let you down, or let him down I mean,” Tod gushed.
“I had a hunch that would be the case. But, just in case you need a lesson in respect, that means you will call him Sir or Mr. Spencer. His wife is Ma’am or Mrs. Spencer and their 3 girls are all Miss Spencer, even if they try to insist on you calling them by their names. And you just keep your eyes off those girls, you hear?” Everett pointed a finger at him menacingly, “They’re a nice family of good Christians. You don’t need to be spreading any of you sinful, city mindsets to them. The oldest, Danny, is on her way in to get you now. She’s got to pick up some things at the feed store before she heads home then, so you’ll politely go in with her and help her carry anything she gets out to the truck, then mind your manners the rest of the weekend, right?”
“Right! For sure. Thank you! Thank you so much.”
