Car Talk

I’m spending my Tuesday afternoon at the Mechanic’s.  Not just any Mechanic’s, but “Creative Concepts Automotive.”  It sounds fancy, right?  It’s not.  The place is barely noticeable, if not for the beaten, metal sign hanging like a finger nail from the small, one-story brick building on Grant road.  After missing the entrance two times and a couple of U-Turns, I’m there.  I take five minutes, write down some questions, and I’m off.  Little do I know that this list in front of me won’t even be of use.  Men love to talk cars. 

           

            “So, how long have you been a mechanic?”

 

            “A Collision Repair Technician,” he corrects.  “For fifteen years.”  He is Mike, Mike Holmes.  He’s the boss, the one who “always double checks my work, has a touch,” according to co-worker Rus Murray.   

 

            Mike is a pretty normal looking guy, but with a little bling-bling on the side.  He has a well-trimmed mustache, clean buzz cut, red T-shirt, blue jeans, gold necklace, diamond earring, and Nike tennis shoes.  He’s just sitting at his computer when I walk in, like he has all the time in the world to talk.

 

            He works primarily in Body Work—the outside of the vehicle, the part that you can actually see.  So if there’s an accident and the car gets all mangled up, he’s the one to fix it.  He distinguishes that a Mechanic works only on fixing internal problems: Anti-lock brakes, Power boosters, Suspension Work, Gas Leaks.  He rattles these words off as if I’m one of the guys.  I nod, pump up my chest, and scratch my crotch. 

 

            “You want to see some pictures?”

 

            Mike, like many men, loves his cars.  He shows me the Before and After of his work with as much giddiness and pride as my Mom showing off Before and After pictures from her twenty-five pound weight loss.  As he scrolls through, he shows me the dented, the damaged, the dead.  It’s a wonder he could bring these not only back into shape, but back to life as well. 

 

            “The worst car was a 1964 T-Bird.  It was so bad I didn’t even want the job.  I told the guy, I need $2,000 upfront.  He came back, and in the envelope, there was $3,000.  That’s how much it took me to want to work on this thing.”

 

            You have to be very creative when it comes to these hard projects.  He had to make a custom front hood for the T-Bird.  It’s tricky--you have to know how to create things, manipulate, and use what you’re given.  In order to make a car hood, he had to find its measurements, down to the millimeter, and then trace that onto a piece of sheet metal.  A simple cut and paste project?  Not so much.

 

            “It took me about eight months to finish that.”

 

            “Were you proud of the work?  Did it feel worth it?”

           

            “No.  I couldn’t wait to be done with it.”  He told me he prefers doing short-term projects.  They’re not as frustrating and you get great feedback right away.  That’s the best feeling.  He smiles into the computer, looking at the past, the pictures of his masterpieces.

 

            “The mechanical repairs, there’s not as much gratification.  It’s much easier to justify when the body looks nice and brand new.  I love getting the reaction, ‘Oh, Wow!  It’s beautiful.’”

 

            But how does he do it?  I’m interested in the process.  Seeing how things are fixed, how things are made.  Mike’s hands are clean.  And for a guy working on cars, this seems odd.   He does more supervising now.  I want to see some dirty hands in action.

 

            “Can you show me how to do something hands-on?  Could I change a tire or something?”

 

            “Let’s see.  Come on back.”

 

            A mechanic’s garage is their sanctuary.  It’s where they go to get in a hard day’s work.  It’s where they’re constantly learning, adapting to new technology.  And it’s where they bond with the guys, showing them an email forward of a baby who looks like a pig.

 

            “He has swine-flu!” co-worker Charlie yelps.  Charlie has worked in the business for ten years.  He has two-degrees in Engineering fields, but quit his job and came to work at Creative Concepts.

 

            I take Charlie’s burst of enthusiasm as an entrance.    

 

            “Can I help you fix something, anything?  Can I do something simple to the wires in there?”

 

            He raises his eyebrows at me, and gives Mike a stare that says, “Who does this girl think she is?”  And he’s absolutely right.

 

            Going into this project--jumping head first into the interviewing process--is tricky.  I’m an amateur, biking head on without a helmet.  It’s so important to be sensitive, thoughtful, and as my friend Jimmy, a war veteran says, “tread softly” upon subjects.  Crashing brashly into a place and expecting that they’ll let you ask or do whatever you want, is not only cocky, it’s just plain stupid.

 

            In retrospect, I thought how this is Charlie’s job, his life’s work, how he makes a living.  It’s why he gets out of bed in the morning.  It’s why he decided to quit his high paying engineering job, and came to work on cars instead.  And I want to pull apart some plug, just for play?  I have no idea what I’m doing.

 

            These men work on these cars with such intricacy, with a perfectionist’s palm.  This isn’t the kind of work that just anyone can barge in on.  It requires exactness, measurements to the nearest three-fourths of a millimeter.

 

            Mike brings me over to Rus, Rus Murray.  He’s been working as a Mechanic and Body Technician for forty years.  I look down at his hands.  They’re fat, chapped, and full of black grease.  He has white hair that’s covered by a red and white Trucker hat.  Rus is unscrewing some bolts with an Air Ratchet—a short and fat device that kind of looks like a hand-held bike pump—which is used to remove all the little nuts and bolts on a car.  He tells me the first step is just taking all apart.

 

            “Do you want to try?” he asks.

 

            Mike explains that I need to push the handle back first.  I try once.  I try twice.  Three times.  Four times.  Five…

 

            “It’s really not that hard,” he laughs.

 

            My armpits start to sweat.  I tighten my teeth, scrunch my face, and try to concentrate.  It’d be easier to just give up, let somebody else take over.

 

            “Let me do it for you,” says Mike. 

 

            “No, I can do it!” I cheerlead myself along.   I pull the plastic sheath towards myself again, and again, and again, until finally it snaps back.  I press the lever, and out shoots a steady stream of air.   I squat down to the front silver bumper.  Mike points out  a few spots where I can remove some lug nuts. 

 

            “ZoOm!  ZoOm!  ZoOm!” the ratchet cries out like a crazy bird.  The silver nuts drop to the floor.  I scoop them up, and flash a silly smile at Rus and Mike.

 

            Working with your hands is a tool.  It’s something that’s practiced: repetition, repetition, repetition.  You learn with experience.  It’s not just a one-time thing. 

 

            “We get these guys from Auto-School, and when we ask them what they can do they say, ‘Anything!  I can do anything!’ But the only way to see if they really can do stuff, is to get them to work, to fix things hands-on.  And we have to watch them like a hawk to make sure they don’t screw things up,” says Mike.

 

            Mike and Rus continue to wax lyrical about cars, and I listen quietly to their sharp, metallic rhythms: space frames, crush zones, hub-caps, plug-weld, hood, bonnet, trunk, bumper, dent, damage, deploy, air bags, header panels, nose panels, mirrors, radiators, grilles, headlights, fenders, tail lights, crash…  

 

            “Watch your hand on that glass!” they warn me.

 

            “They’re nasty cuts,” Rus cringes.  The front shield is broken into tiny, congealed bits.  The car was wrecked by a man driving drunk.  They didn’t know any more details than that.  It’s better not to know.  You don’t want to think about that while working on a car.

 

            Mike slips on a pair of blue-gray gloves and grabs a piece of the glass.  He shows me how it all sticks together in one giant piece.  That way, it doesn’t shatter into your face.  I look around the garage—there are tools galore.  But as I watch Mike slide the gloves off, I realize what the two most important tools are.  You need to keep them protected.  They must be so careful when they’re working—not only because they want to keep their hands safe, but the cars themselves safe as well.

 

            “We have peoples’ lives in our hands,” Rus reflects.  And it’s true.