Copyright 2001 by Morris Rosenthal
The Ant was having the best summer of his life. He drove around for hours every afternoon, looking for small garages to sell the chainfalls to. He avoided any place that was upscale enough to have a gas pump and stuck strictly to the one and two bay cinder block affairs that often as not lacked even a sign to announce their existence. He had developed a whole pitch, and felt almost disappointed when a potential customer interrupted him with a blunt offer. For Anthony, the pride he took in doing business out of the trunk was more important then money.
Most guys, if they weren't too busy, would at least look at the chainfalls, though occasionally some puritan would cut him off after ten words and tell him to beat it. One of his first discoveries in the world of garage merchandising was that his customers all thought in twenties. Sixty, eighty, a buck twenty, when someone was willing to buy, the Ant was willing to sell. Never for seventy-five or ninety, though. When they pulled their bankroll out of their pocket to pay, the only variation he saw in the bills was how clean or dirty they were.
One Wednesday morning, two weeks into his new life, he pulled into a likely looking place, a brick two bay job in the backyard of a big yellow house in a downtown Chicopee neighborhood. The front yard was well kept, but the back part of the lot was a rutted, muddy affair, with five older cars parked against the fence. A four wheel drive standing high on immense tires with flames painted on the doors and hood was parked a little apart. It had an oversized scoop protruding from the hood, and 'Crimson Death' in large gothic letters on the quarter panels and roof. Anthony made a point of staring respectfully at the monstrosity for a full minute before approaching the garage.
A big guy with dirty ginger hair shambled out, a distributor cap trailing ignition wires dangling from his hand, and asked, "Whadayah want."
Anthony sized the guy up instantly, and decided on the direct approach. "I got some beautiful half-ton chain falls, salvage from a mill," he explained, opening the trunk even as he was talking, "Mint condition, and they don't make them like this anymore."
The guy grudgingly stepped up to the trunk to look, and his vacant expression suddenly sharpened. "Huh," he grunted, "How much?"
"I'll let them go a buck twenty for one, or two bills for the pair."
The guy put the cap on the ground, held up a gear body in one massive hand, and worked the pulley chain with the other. The gears worked smoothly, to the minor accompaniment of the ratchet clicking and the links passing over the drive sprocket. "Buck sixty for two," he said at last.
"Done," Anthony responded. He had learned to recognize a customer's best offer and accept it quickly when it came.
The guy pulled a roll out of his coveralls, and deliberately counted off eight bills. With this sale, Anthony had broke the thousand dollar barrier, and was feeling so good that he asked the guy, "What's with you mechanics, you throw away your change or something?"
The guy blinked at him and said "Huh?"
"I never see you guys with anything but twenties in your roll. Look," he pulled out his own roll, getting himself a little worked up, "I keep the twenties on the outside, but I got a ten here, and two five's, and some ones. You got nothing but twenties." he accused.
The guy burst out laughing, and stuck out his hand, "I'm Red, and that's my cousin Chuckles under the Honda. You want a beer, funny man?"
Anthony shook with the guy and responded "Anthony, but they call me "Ant". I'm not kidding about the money, Red, what do you do with your change?"
Red pulled three cans of Busch from the mini-fridge, and rolled one across the garage floor and under the compact. A "Thanks" floated out, and Anthony distinctly heard the a third pop-top crunch in, after he and Red opened theirs. They sat down on two low stacks of tires against the back wall. Anthony wanted to ask how Chuckles could drink from a full can of beer while lying on his back under an import, but Red had already launched into a rambling explanation of family finance.
"You married, Ant?" he started.
Anthony shook his head, "No," while he concentrated on Chuckles' legs for some indication of how he was handling the beer.
"Married men don't get change," he explained, "The wife asks you for money, you peel off a couple twenties, and wave bye bye. It's like a rule. The only place I get to spend money is in the bar, and that always seems to come out to twenty bucks too."
Chuck's knees came up against the Honda's bumper, and Anthony pictured him levering his head up into the engine compartment, to get a good gulp.
"It's lucky for me you came along," Red continued, "The piston seal on my cherry picker popped for the second time this month, and I got a motor to put in that Ford over there. Lot of expenses in this business, and for guys without a company behind them, it's getting tougher and tougher to make ends meet."
Anthony gave up on watching Chuck, and sipped his beer. Red continued talking, the unexpected chainfall bargain putting him in a conversational mood.
"I started in business here fifteen years ago, doing tune ups and body work. Not the kind of stuff the insurance companies pay for, you understand. Stupid assholes," he spit, and shook his head, "Pay for twenty-five hundred dollars worth of body work on a car with a book value of twenty-six. Damn thing could have two hundred thousand on the odometer and run like a Russian economy car, but they're going to pay to make the body all pretty. Stupid," he repeated. "Work I do in here, I get it running smooth and safe, end of story. I fix the body so your feet stay dry and you don't get a swimming pool in the trunk when it rains. I fix cars for people who need to get to work, not for those yuppie freaks who have an identity crisis if they get a scratch on the fender."
Anthony laughed and nodded his agreement, "My feelings exactly."
"Then the politicians started changing all of the rules. I used to get half my new customers from folks who came in for the six month safety inspection. Four bucks we got for doing stickers, and I didn't screw anyone around. They need a bulb or a blinker unit, I did it for cost while they waited. Met some nice folks doing inspections," he sighed. "All over now. Couldn't get a loan for the pollution computer, bank said I didn't do enough inspections for the numbers to work out. What do they know customer relations?" he demanded belligerently.
"Shit," Anthony replied, enjoying the tirade, "Bankers don't know shit."
"Damn straight," Red crushed his empty beer can, then looked at it in disgust. "Fucking deposits. I still forget sometimes, and try getting the pimple faced horror at the package store to take a crushed can." As he fumbled with the aluminum pancake, trying to draw it back into a somewhat cylindrical form, an empty can rolled out from under the Honda in a long sweeping curve that ended right at Red's feet. He picked it up, took Anthony's hastily drained empty, and put them with their mangled brother on top of the fridge. He brought three full ones back with him, one of which he bowled in Chuck's direction before resuming his seat.
"I'm all for making the world a better place, Ant, but some of these new regulations are near to forcing me out of business. Some rat on the street called the DEP on me last year and told them I was pouring oil down the storm drains. The came out here with there van, all dressed up in these yellow space-suits, taken samples from my yard and the sewer, and treating like I'm some kind of criminal."
"What's the DEP?" Anthony wanted to know.
"Department of Environmental Protection. They're a state agency. It's, like, the EPA writes the standards and deals with stuff on the national level, but the states are responsible for some of the local enforcement. Then they add their own laws on top, so they have something to brag about when the go to their conventions in Vegas." Red sounded bitterly well informed on the subject.
"Did you do it?" Anthony asked, "Dump the oil I mean."
"Naw, it was antifreeze. I got a guy who takes the used oil for free, sells it for heating or reprocessing or something."
"So it was O.K. then."
"I admitted to doing the antifreeze the one time, and I got a two thousand dollar fine. Thousand dollars a gallon. Now I store it in those drums, but the landfill won't take it, and the place the EPA told me to call wants two hundred bucks per barrel, and they won't come until I got at least five saved up. Take me years to fill up five barrels. Hell, I've read where people lost in the desrt have stayed alive drinking the stuff, but in this state, it's easier to get rid of rat poison"
"So antifreeze is like hazardous waste now?"
"Well, yes and no," Red hedged, "You don't have to do any paperwork or nothing, but if you get caught pouring it out somewhere, they'll fine your life away. I won't put in the old kind of antifreeze for my customers anymore. I use new ecologically safe stuff. They say you can drink it out of the jug, almost. The problem is unless I know I put the stuff in an engine myself, I got to treat it like it was the old kind. There was a guy come around once and left his card. He said that he'd take the stuff to recycle it, for fifty bucks a drum, and that he'd take any other hazardous stuff, too. I haven't filled a barrel yet, but when I do, I'm going to give him a call."
Anthony's ears twitched on the phrase "any other hazardous stuff". Years of selling other people's property had made him very sensitive to the nuances of the language as used by shady characters. The key word was "any". When accompanied by a significant look, or when repeated, it often signifies that the speaker is prepared to offer services outside the letter of the law.
"Mind if I copy down the guys name? I'm always looking for new business opportunities."
"Not problem, it's tacked up to the shelf over the waste oil barrel there."
Anthony borrowed a pen, and wrote the details on a scrap of paper. Mark O'Flahthery, PDC Corporation, with a Boston phone number.