Thunder and Lightening
Chapter 5
By
Lazlo Zalezac
Copyright (C) Lazlo Zalezac, 2004

Sunday threatened to be a real scorcher, but Jerry was hard at work 
while the temperatures were still reasonable. He had filled four 
trash bags with paper, rotten food, and kitchenware. He was 
washing the counters when he heard a noise behind him. Without 
turning around, he said, "Hello Abe."

"You sure workin' here," replied the black youth as he scratched 
his neck. He had always considered his mother to be a terror about 
dirt, but she had to take a backseat to this guy. 

"I plan to eat in here," replied Jerry. Seeing the look on the kid's 
face, he said, "There are enough germs in this room to kill an 
army."

"Germs? You worry 'bout germs," asked Abe thinking that this guy 
sounded just as bad as his mother.

"Yeah, imagine that. Big man scared of something he can't see," 
Jerry answered in a joking voice. 

"My momma always talks 'bout germs."

"Smart woman. You've ever had the shits for a week?"

"No."

"Your mother is the reason why," replied Jerry with a smirk. In a 
way, Abe was like a lot of kids in the sense that if they didn't see 
the danger, then it wasn't really there. Bending to his work, he 
scrubbed at a particularly tough spot. 

"Guess so. I always thought she was crazy."

"So what are you doing today?"

"Nothin'."

"Want to help me?" asked Jerry anticipating a negative answer.

"You crazy?" asked Abe as though Jerry had asked him to fly. 

"I didn't think so," replied Jerry. He poured more of the cleaning 
powder on the counter and wet the cleaning pad at the sink. As he 
went back to work scrubbing, he said, "I'm looking for a stock boy 
at the store."

"You calling me a boy?" asked Abe in an offended manner.

"No. That's what the position is called. I need someone to unpack 
the stock and put it on the shelves," answered Jerry surprised that 
Abe had taken offence. That's how he had started in the auto parts 
business. 

"You talkin' 'bout a job?"

"Yes, I am. Two hours a day, Monday through Friday."

"How much does it pay?"

"Five fifty an hour," replied Jerry without looking at Abe. He 
wondered if the kid was going to take the job.

Abe stood where he was thinking about what he could do with 
fifty-five dollars a week. It sounded like a lot of money for a kid 
that was fifteen. Shrugging his shoulders, he said, "I guess so."

"Guess so, what?" asked Jerry.

"I'll take the job."

"I didn't say I was offering it to you," replied Jerry.

"Why not? 'Cause I'm black?" asked Abe getting angrier by the 
minute. 

"The job is yours on two conditions."

"Aw shit! Here it comes. My brother said you were a faggot."

Jerry turned to look at Abe in surprise. The people in this 
neighborhood really didn't trust whites. Shaking his head, he 
replied, "Fuck you kid. All I was going to say was that you had to 
go to school everyday."

"Why would you want that?" asked Abe puzzled. He was still 
trying to figure the angle that this guy was taking. 

"I'm not training you for a career if you can't get promoted. 
Without a high school diploma, I can't make you a fulltime 
salesman when you turn eighteen."

"Shit. Why would I want to be a salesman?"

"It starts at about thirty-six a year," answered Jerry. At that pay, he 
could move out of this neighborhood and start a family. 

"Thirty-six a year? What's that?"

"That's thirty-six thousand a year," replied Jerry knowing that 
amount of money would tempt Abe more than anything else he 
could offer. 

"That's a lot of money."

"Well, you might decide to go to college. Probably make more 
money that way, but I don't know much about that. I've never been 
to college." The truth was that he never thought he was smart 
enough for college.

Jerry wiped down the counter trying to get all of the powder off the 
surface he had just cleaned. This was the part of this job he never 
seemed to be able to do well. It was easy enough to get lots of 
cleaning powder down, but tough to get it off. The countertop was 
clean enough to see it was a light blue speckled pattern. Shaking 
his head, he said, "I thought it was yellow under all that crap."

Abe was leaning against the door into the kitchen thinking about 
what Jerry had said. There had to be a trick in all of this, but he 
didn't know what it was. Finally, he said, "I'll talk to my brother."

"Might want to talk to your mother, too."

"What's my momma got to do wit' this?" asked Abe.

"She can say no and I won't hire you," replied Jerry.

Jerry turned his attention to the stove with built-in oven. Whoever 
had lived in this house before him had loved to fry food. There was 
old baked-on grease that covered the whole surface and the wall 
around it. Spraying the entire inside and outside with the oven 
cleaner, the smell almost drove him to his knees. Eyes watering, he 
headed out of the kitchen. 

Eyes tearing, Abe swore as he backed out of the room, "Shit, man. 
I can't believe you did that."

Jerry grabbed the six-pack of cokes and headed towards the front 
door as he answered, "Let's sit on the porch and drink a coke."

"I'll be there before you," cried Abe as he rushed out of the house. 
Once outside, he wiped his eyes clearing the tears out of them. 

Jerry left the house and sat down next to Abe. Ripping a coke off 
the plastic holder, he tossed it over to Abe and then took one for 
himself. For a long time he examined what passed for a lawn. 
Crabgrass, dandelions, and thistle broke up the bare spots. There 
was one oak tree that provided some shade. After a minute, he 
asked, "Think there would be any problem with keeping my car on 
the lawn?"

"Shit, ain't no one gonna complain about that around here," replied 
Abe looking at the houses across the street. Several of them had 
cars in the yard. He looked over at Jerry and asked, "You worried 
about someone puttin' another dent in the heap of yours?"

"No. I want to work on it under that tree over there."

Abe closed one eye and looked at Jerry. "I thought white dudes had 
nice cars."

Jerry laughed at the comment and pointed over to his truck as he 
said, "That's the best car I'm ever going to own. It's a real beauty."

"Are you crazy? That's a wreck. Someone ought to shoot it and put 
it out of its misery."

Opening the coke, Jerry took a long sip from it before he replied, 
"I'll bet you money that you'll be begging to borrow my truck a 
year from now."

Abe shook his head in the negative confident there was no way that 
he would want to borrow that wreck. They'd laugh him out of the 
neighborhood if he were to show up driving something that looked 
so bad. He didn't even think it would be running in a year. "You're 
one crazy white man."

They sat together on the porch watching the activity around the 
neighborhood. Old folks sat on the porches, rocking in their chairs. 
The few young kids were riding bikes in the middle of the street 
unconcerned about cars. Martin and his friends were sitting on a 
curb talking about what they were going to do. Young women 
were busy with housework. There weren't many men around who 
acted like fathers. 

Finished with his soda, Jerry stood up and returned to the house to 
finish cleaning the kitchen. The odor had died down a little and he 
went to work wiping the grease off the stove and the residue out of 
the oven. Stepping back to look at the result, he said, "I had no idea 
they sold stoves painted gray."

Examining it closer, he saw that someone had painted it a gray 
color in the past. It looked like hell, but was basically clean. He 
wondered how many of the burners worked. There was only one 
way to find out so he turned on all of the burners, but nothing 
happened. The oven worked, but he would have to check that it 
came up to a hot enough temperature to cook anything. He decided 
that it would be a problem to solve another day.

Shrugging his shoulders, he went to work on the other surfaces in 
the kitchen. For the next three hours, he did nothing except scrub 
the kitchen clean. By the time he was done, most of the surfaces 
actually shined. Standing at the doorway, he was pleased with the 
progress made on the room.

Returning from a late lunch, the temperature had reached the high 
nineties and looked like it might break triple digits before the 
afternoon ended. Entering the house, he found it was broiling 
inside. Of course, there wasn't even a window unit to cool the 
house down. Stepping out to the porch, he noticed all of the elderly 
neighbors were sitting on their porches using folded newspapers as 
fans to cool themselves. 

Seated on the porch, he leaned over and pulled his work list out of 
his back pocket. The yellow paper was folded into eighths. 
Unfolding it, he looked over the list trying to decide what he could 
do in this heat. Cleaning the bedroom or bathroom wasn't possible 
in this heat. Looking over at his truck, he decided the only thing he 
could do was work on it. 

The doors of the house were open in the hope that what little 
breeze might exist would help push some of the heat out. Rather 
than lock it up, he decided to leave them open while he ran to the 
auto parts shop. Going out to the truck, he noticed the old folks 
watched him while shaking their heads. He didn't know why they 
reacted in such a negative fashion to his presence. Perhaps, it was 
because he was a white living in the neighborhood. Alternatively, 
it could be because he left the doors wide open. 

Rather than heading directly to the parts store, he swung by a 
hardware store to buy a sheet of plywood. Until he rebuilt the 
wood bed of the truck, the plywood would have to serve. At least 
that way, he could haul lightweight things around in the back of 
the truck. 

When he reached the auto parts store, he got out his power saw and 
cut the board to size. He wasn't too careful with the fit, but it was 
good enough to function for a while. He threw the scraps in the 
back of the truck to use elsewhere, including fixing the step to the 
porch. Making several trips into the store, he loaded the truck with 
his tools. Once the truck was filled, he went into the store and 
looked up the parts for a 1956 F-100 Ford Pickup Truck. He 
loaded the truck with all of the easily replaceable parts, including a 
new battery.

At the house, he parked the truck under the oak tree, driving it over 
what was laughingly called a curb. Sitting on the porch waiting for 
his return were Abe and Martin. Jerry didn't greet them, but went 
to the back of the truck to remove his toolbox. Martin came over to 
see what he was doing. When he reached the shade of the tree, he 
stopped and asked, "What are you doing?"

"Fixing my truck."

"Nice toolbox."

"Thanks," replied Jerry as he glanced down at it. The tools were 
the only things that were his throughout his marriage. Everything 
else belonged to the others in the family. It was the family 
television, the family house, and the family pet. The dog had died 
two years ago and he was the only one in the family who missed it. 

The conversation died as Jerry lifted the hood of the truck and 
looked at the engine. The engine was built in the days before all of 
the electronics, pollution control, and air conditioners had been 
added to cars. There was room to get at every part of the engine, 
even with his huge hands. 

He started by replacing the battery. The old one was long past its 
prime and he didn't want to be stuck somewhere unable to start the 
truck. After that, he rebuilt the distributor and then replaced the 
ignition wires and spark plugs. Getting out the strobe, he started 
the car and adjusted the timing. The truck began to purr like a tiger 
although the tappets were rattling a little.

Removing the cover, he adjusted the gap on the tappets setting 
them back to book value. The lifter rods were all in good shape, a 
fact that surprised him. He was replacing the cover when Martin 
commented, "You really know cars and shit, don't you?"

"Yeah. I like these old cars the most. A man can really work on 
them. It doesn't require a computer or any of the fancy equipment."

"My mom's car doesn't work."

"What's the matter with it?" asked Jerry as he examined the belts. 
He had brought belts just in case they needed to be replaced. The 
ones on the truck were old, but not too worn. Picking up the 
wrench, he loosened the bolt on the generator to replace them any 
ways. 

"Shit, I don't know."

"If you knew, you could fix it."

"I don't have the tools," replied Martin as he looked down at the 
toolbox. 

"Well, if you were to find out what was wrong with it and wanted 
to fix it yourself, I see no reason you couldn't bring the car over 
here and work on it while I'm working on this one."

"No shit?"

"No shit. Of course, you'd have to buy parts."

"How much did all this stuff you're putting into this car cost?"

"About a hundred. I get an employee discount that lets me buy 
them at wholesale."

"Must be nice."

Jerry slipped the old belt off the pulleys and threw it down on the 
ground. After slipping the new belt on, he pulled the generator so 
that the belt tightened. As he tightened the bolt on the generator 
mount, he said, "I'm looking for a fulltime salesman."

Martin had been about to walk off when Jerry hadn't replied to him 
immediately, but stopped in mid-step and turned around to look at 
Jerry. He asked, "You're looking for a full-time salesman?"

"Yes, I am. Of course, they have to be qualified for the position."

Martin frowned and said, "Yeah right. Got to have experience and 
all of that kind of shit."

"High school degree or equivalent."

"I graduated High School this year."

Jerry didn't say a word, but checked the tightness of the bolt. 
Satisfied that it was tight enough, he put the wrench back in his 
toolbox. Looking up at Martin, he asked, "Well?"

"You'd hire me?"

"Possibly, but you'd have to convince me that you want the job. 
Believe me, it is a real job. It requires you to show up when you 
are scheduled, dress in business casual clothes, and work hard." 
Jerry grinned in a manner that looked almost feral as he added, 
"I'm not an easy boss. I don't tolerate drunks or druggies working 
for me."

Jerry checked the oil and found it was a little low and definitely 
required an oil change. He had the oil, the filter, and everything 
else required for changing the oil except an oil pan to drain the old 
oil into. The quick change in town was cheap and would use his 
parts since they'd have to order them from him anyway. 

He noticed Martin wasn't talking and wondered which of his 
conditions had put doubts in his head. He removed the hoses and 
replaced them with new ones. After checking the radiator, he 
topped it off with a little antifreeze. He noticed that it had little 
metal flakes floating on the water. Someone had used 'stop leak' to 
hide a radiator problem. He'd have to replace it before long. 

Martin broke the silence when he said, "I'd do a good job for you, 
but I don't have the clothes."

Jerry smiled and replied, "I suppose you would probably pull parts 
for the salesman until you learned the inventory and lingo. Then 
you could probably work on the phone until your first paycheck. 
By then, you'd have enough money to afford an outfit."

Martin listened and asked, "So you'd hire me?"

"Yes, I probably would. You'd have to fill out an application and 
I'd check your references. We'd have a formal interview where I 
could see you function in a business environment." Jerry was 
enjoying this discussion since he was getting to see Martin's mind 
at work. 

"So what does it pay?"

"About thirty-six a year." He slammed the hood closed with a 
resounding clang.

The amount agreed with what his little brother had told him earlier. 
That was a lot of money for a guy fresh out of high school with no 
experience. After a few minutes, he asked, "So if I want this job, 
what am I supposed to do?"

"Show up Monday morning and apply for it."

"What about my brother?"

"He stops by after school and applies for the stock boy job." It 
didn't take him long to change the windshield wipers. 

"School hasn't started yet."

"Oh," replied Jerry as he thought about it. He had been assuming 
that school had started already. Stepping back, he patted the hood 
of the truck and said, "Thunder, you've got to be feeling pretty 
good about now."

"You talkin' to your car?"

"Better than talking to myself," replied Jerry with a smile as he 
climbed into the driver's seat. He started the truck and listened to 
the engine, pleased with the sound of it. There was still the low 
rumble of a bad muffler, but no clatter from the tappets. Revving 
the engine, he grinned as the engine responded to his command. 
Letting the engine return to idle, he turned it off. The engine 
stopped without dieseling, another good sign.

Looking over at Martin, he said, "Not bad. This truck is five years 
older than me."

"What good is that?"

"Good? Well, it makes it a collector's item. When it is fixed up, it 
will be worth a lot of money. Of course, I won't sell it." Jerry felt 
that selling the truck would be like selling a part of himself, 
particularly after he put in all of the required time to fix it. 

"Shit, there are a lot of old cars around here."

Jerry looked down the street at the cars parked outside the houses. 
A few of them could be worth fixing up for sale, but the money 
wouldn't cover the time spent doing the work. Of course, the 
increase in self-worth that could result might be invaluable. 
Nodding, he said, "Some of them would be worth fixing. You'd be 
surprised at how much work it would be."

Jerry bent down and packed up his tools. He picked up his toolbox 
and headed towards the house with it. When he reached the step, 
the wood almost gave out from under him. Shaking his head, he 
went back to the truck and pulled out the scrap plywood that 
remained from his hasty patch of the truck bed. It didn't take him 
long to trim one of the pieces of scrap to fit the step and nail it in 
place. 

Abe and Martin watched him work, rather surprised that he fixed 
anything in a house he didn't own. Abe asked, "Why are you fixing 
that?"

"So I don't hurt myself."

"Shit, you just walk around it."

"It took me five minutes to fix it up. I won't get hurt, you won't get 
hurt, and the effort was nothing. Why leave it broken?"

Abe looked at Jerry in confusion as the big man picked up his 
toolbox and climbed the step. It continued to groan, but it didn't 
give. He carried his toolbox into the house and dropped it in the 
smaller of two bedrooms. The room was a mess, but most of it was 
just old clothes scattered around on the floor. He noticed a stack of 
Polaroid pictures on the floor and bent down to look at them. The 
top one showed a close up of a black cunt. He tipped the stack with 
his right toe and saw it was just one of a series. Raising an 
eyebrow, he decided he'd come back to look at them when he had a 
little more privacy.

It took several more trips to carry the rest of his tools into the 
house. Once that task was completed, he joined the two teenagers 
on the porch. Abe said, "You're gonna have to lock up the house 
from now on or those tools will disappear."

"Really?" asked Jerry as if he didn't know that would be the case. 

"You can bet money on it," replied Martin. 

"They'd take it knowing that I'd hunt them down?" asked Jerry 
curious how the two would answer.

"Your big size only makes you a bigger target for a bullet," replied 
Martin dryly. 

Jerry burst out laughing at the direct answer. It was interesting how 
some people saw ways to make everything equal when others saw 
only inequality. The thought struck him that the converse was true 
as well. There were lots of people who saw only inequality when 
equality was the rule. 

His reaction puzzled Abe and Martin, since they didn't find the 
comment all that funny. Both had seen too many people die as a 
result of bullets. Abe asked, "What's so funny? He was serious."

"I like you two. You and I see the world in very different ways," 
replied Jerry.

"Hey, we see the world as it really is," replied Martin. 

"You see one reality. I see another." 

"Yeah, you see the white world and it is just a rosy place. You're 
living in the black world, now." There was a certain amount of 
anger in his voice when he said it. Having looked for a job all 
summer, the best job he could get was manual labor or working a 
cash register in a store somewhere. 

The anger in the voice of the teenager was not lost on Jerry. He 
understood a person being driven by rage. The question was how 
the guy would handle it over time. Jerry answered, "Right."

The two black kids looked at each other, sharing a look suggesting 
that Jerry was going to learn a lot over the next few weeks. He 
stretched and then said, "It's starting to cool down. I expect the 
house will be cool enough to work in pretty soon."

"Wait until winter. You'll be wanting some of that heat," Abe 
joked. 

"Are you saying I made a mistake moving into this dump?"

"Shit, you know it."

"Hot in the summer and cold in the winter with bugs all year 
round." Martin watched Jerry to see his reaction and was 
disappointed when all he did was shrug his shoulders. No matter 
what they said to him, he just shrugged it off as though it wasn't a 
problem. 

Jerry stood and looked in the house. The air was still hot in the 
house and it would be hours before it cooled down enough to be 
comfortable. It was getting close to dinnertime and he still had to 
buy a mattress. Entering the house, he locked it up and returned to 
the porch closing the front door behind him. Looking down at the 
two boys, he said, "I guess you two might be by the store 
tomorrow."

Both of the boys just shrugged their shoulders as though indifferent 
to the offer. In reality, both were speculating on their chances of 
getting the jobs he had described. As Jerry walked towards his 
truck, which was still parked under the oak tree, he called over his 
shoulder. "Opportunity only knocks once. Look before you leap. 
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Beware of Greeks bearing 
gifts."

Abe turned to his older brother and asked, "What the fuck does that 
mean?"

"Hell if I know."

Jerry drove the truck across his lawn and onto the street. He waved 
to the two kids as he drove off while laughing at the looks on their 
faces. As he drove, he said, "Thunder, who do you think is going to 
have the biggest change in their world view?"

Stopping at a mattress store, Jerry was about to order a mattress, 
but saw a futon in the store. The idea of a chair that folded out into 
a bed and wasn't a sleeper sofa intrigued him. The more he thought 
about it, the more he liked the futon and bought it on the spot. The 
salesman helped him carry the box containing the parts out to his 
truck and the futon mattress that went with it. 

From the mattress store, it was a quick stop at the hardware store. 
He bought a new doorknob with a lock for the bedroom where he 
kept his tools. Abe and Martin were not kidding about the chances 
of someone walking off with his tools. He didn't want to make it 
easy for whoever might want to do that.

Dinner was a simple affair at the local diner. While eating, he 
thought about Jenny and how she had taken special care of him at 
the restaurant. She was attractive, smart, and motivated. He liked 
her, but he just wasn't good enough for a woman like that. There 
was no way that she could possibly be interested in him.

As he ate, he thought about his circumstances. He was living in a 
$200 a month rat-trap, driving an old car, fantasizing about a girl a 
lot younger than him, and walking away from a wife, kids, and 
middle class house. He was stuck in a job from which he should 
have been promoted years ago and with no real prospects in the 
future. Who was he kidding? His wife was right, he was a loser. 

He looked at his hands taking in the newly formed calluses. If he 
were to touch a woman now, she'd scream in pain and all he'd done 
was spend a little time working on the car. By the time he was 
finished with the bodywork on the car, his hands would have the 
texture of lava rock. 

Thinking about the two kids in the neighborhood, he realized he 
had been very flippant with them. The temporary high of leaving 
his wife was ending and now he was thinking about the 
consequences. His rage rose at the thought of how he had screwed 
up his life. 

He returned home after eating, still angry with himself. The drive 
home didn't take long and he parked the truck in the street in front 
of his house. The elderly neighbors were still sitting on the porches 
of their houses, waiting for it to get cooler. He picked up the box in 
which the futon was packed and carried it to the house. Setting it 
down on the porch, he unlocked the front door. A blast of hot air 
hit him in the face and he swore aloud, "I should have bought a 
damned fan."

He picked up the box and carried it into the living room. Opening 
the box, he spread the parts on the floor and retrieved his toolbox. 
It took him a half an hour to assemble the futon frame. The 
mattress was still in the back of the truck. He walked out and 
retrieved the mattress. Setting it on the frame, he sat down using 
the futon as a sofa. It was comfortable and could actually fit two 
considering his width. He lowered the back and then lay down on 
the futon. It was a perfect size for him.

Retrieving the new doorknob from the truck, he installed it on the 
door of the bedroom. Setting the toolbox in the bedroom, he closed 
the door and locked it. His tools were now a little safer, but not 
entirely safe. 

Returning to the living room, he looked around. Putting the futon 
into the sofa position and taking a seat, he considered his 
surroundings. He didn't have curtains on the windows, the 
bathroom was still toxic, there were no sheets for the bed, and the 
house was hotter than he could possibly have predicted. Looking 
up at the ceiling light, which was just a bulb screwed into a socket, 
he watched the bugs circling around the bare bulb. There were no 
screens on the windows and he would have to live with the bugs.

With a frown, he realized that he was going to be sleeping on the 
couch in the store again. Angry at his self perceived incompetence, 
he thought, 'I can't even get a home set up properly.'





 
