Slowly Sliding Into the Abyss
Part 2
Late 1962, Early 1963
Frank Delivers Bad News
As I drove home from work that night, well after midnight, I wondered how I would break the news to Sharon, and I shuddered just a bit as I tried to imagine her reaction. Questions with no possible answers kept rolling around in my head: How can this be happening? Here I am, married just a few months…with a child, and another one on the way…and now I’m being sent to some remote radar site in Alaska? What’s happening to me? And, what will happen to us? Where and how will Sharon and the children live while I’m away?
Panic began to creep into the pit of my stomach as my thoughts raced, and for a few seconds I lost track of where I was, or where I was going. A car, its driver probably impatient because I had slowly decelerated on the dark sloping two-lane highway, unexpectedly roared by, passing me on my left side—angrily flashing his high beams and blowing the horn. Shaken by his unexpected appearance I instinctively jerked my car to the right, sending the tires on the right side of the car off the road surface and onto the shoulder’s soft sandy dirt.
On the verge of losing control, my heart raced and I concentrated on being careful not to overcorrect back to the left. Fighting my instincts that were yelling at me to get back on the road as soon as possible, I instead slowly eased the steering wheel to the left letting the right front tire bite into the asphalt. The lumbering and swaying old Chevy jumped back into the lane, all the while narrowly missing a white luminescent highway mile marker.
Shit! I almost rolled the damn car! I said, almost aloud, all four wheels now fully on the road and the nose of the car pointed in the right direction. Just what the fuck I need to do right now, I thought, a bit shakily, crash the fucking thing and kill myself!
Settling back onto the road I checked the rearview mirror and saw nothing but the blackness of the desert night. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t even seen that car approaching me from behind. Worse, I hadn’t realized that I had unconsciously let my speed bleed off so much.
Just then, a creepy thought slithered into my brain: Maybe that would be the best thing that could happen at this point. If I’d rolled the car and died in the wreckage, Sharon and the baby would be home free. I thought. So, let’s see; if I died, the military would take care of my burial expenses and she would get some kind of pension, or something—for how long? Hmm. At this point any kind of cash settlement would be good. But, it would have to look like an accident, wouldn’t it?
My thoughts were interrupted when my Chevy’s high beam headlights reflected off of one of Winnemucca’s speed limit signs posted just outside the city limits. Because of the wide open spaces between towns, Nevada’s speed limit on the open highways was posted as “Safe and Prudent”. In other words, “Go as Fast as You Want”. Winnemucca’s speed limits, posted about a half a mile outside of town, started at 55MPH, and gradually reduced down to 25MPH. As I adjusted my speed and checked the rearview mirror again for any phantom cars lingering behind me, the morbid thoughts that I’d briefly entertained just a few seconds prior completely disappeared.
To my recollection, this was the first time ever that I’d entertained thoughts of killing myself, but it certainly would not be the last.
As I walked into our little house almost an hour after midnight, I was thankful to find that Sharon had not yet turned off the floor heater. Pulling off my military field jacket and hanging it on the back of one of our cheap vinyl-covered kitchen chairs, I moved close to the metal heater’s glowing stone grill to soak up some of its welcome dry warmth. Rubbing my hands together to chase the chill from my fingertips, I was relieved that the door to our bedroom was closed. That meant that the baby had worn Sharon out and both of them were sleeping deeply. Maybe, I thought hopefully, I could just break the news to her tomorrow.
Finally warming up a bit, I decided to get partially undressed in the front room to avoid making noise in the darkened bedroom and chancing waking up Sharon and the baby. Just as I sat on our one arm chair and was starting to pull off one of my brogans (military boots), the bedroom door slowly and quietly opened. My heart jumped.
Squinting and shading her eyes against the dim light coming from the kitchen and our one living room lamp, Sharon tiptoed out of the bedroom—gingerly pulling the door closed behind her. She was wearing her favorite knee-length pale blue frilly nightgown, and had her long auburn hair piled into a messy bun on the top of her head. Wrinkling her nose against the glare she pushed her glasses onto her face.
“Hi.” she said softly.
“Hi.” I responded.
“How was work?” she asked, as she glided across the floor to quietly sit opposite me on our small two-cushion sofa.
“Oh, you know,” I shrugged, “same as always, long, slow and boring.”
I resumed unlacing one of my brogans, and while doing so, felt an uncomfortable twinge of terror and discomfort shoot across my chest.
“Is this your second or third swing shift? I tend to lose track.”
“No, this was my first. I just got off days yesterday—remember?”
“Oh God. That’s right.” She sighed deeply. “My internal clock is so messed up. Sorry.”
“No problem, I understand. With the baby and all, I’m surprised either of us know which day it is.”
“Yeah…” she said, leaving her side of the conversation open and incomplete, her eyes drifting off to some point over and behind my head.
Slowly pulling my brogan off, I finally screwed up the courage and made the decision to tell her.
“Hey, look. I need to tell you something.”
“Hmm?” she said lazily, her gaze still centered on the wall behind me.
“Well, it’s not good news.”
She slowly lowered her eyes and centered them on mine. “Is it ever?” She said almost inaudibly, shaking her head slowly.
“No, I guess not. I don’t know exactly how to say what I have to say.” I sat back into the chair, putting my brogan onto my lap. “But I have to tell you, even though I feel that it’s just so painful.”
“OK. Tell me.”
“Well, I was asked to meet with the station commander before I went up to the hill…and…well, he told me I would have to rotate out not later than this coming February.”
“Rotate out? What does that mean?” She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees and resting her chin on her two balled-up fists.
“Well, you know I’ve been stationed here in Winnemucca for eighteen months already…and so, the Air Force is reassigning me.”
“Oh.” A deep furrow formed just above her nose between her two eyes. I would see that furrow time and again, and more often than not during the span of our short unfortunate marriage.
“Where to?”
“Alaska.”
“Alaska?”
“Yeah, someplace called Tatalina Air Force Station; it’s just outside of a town named McGrath.
“Oh.”
“And…they’re sending me alone. I mean, no family. It’s a remote assignment.”
“Oh.” She looked down at the floor and clasped one hand over the other hand’s fist. It looked very much like she was praying.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, “I don’t know what else to say.” My teeth began doing a little chattering dance and I wrenched my jaw tight.
We didn’t say anything for a long while—I don’t remember breathing. Sharon kept looking at the floor. We remained this way—not speaking, nor looking at each other, for a very long time.
I would learn—painfully—that these types of moments would eventually become the norm in our marriage. Although I have no doubt that she felt something akin to love for me, and I for her, it is a painful fact that we were never able to get very close to one another. And this first severe strike to our budding relationship easily found that empty breach between us; the breach that would eventually widen, and in the end be all but impossible to close.
“I’m tired,” Sharon finally said, “the baby was fussy all day and I need to get some sleep.”
“OK, sure. I’ll get the lights and turn off the heater.” She was already by me and turning the knob on the door before my last words were out.
“Fine. Don’t hurry.”
As I crawled into bed Sharon had her back to me and was curled up in a tight fetal position. I wanted to say something to her—something to soothe her, anything to try to alleviate the somber mood that had descended upon us, but alas, nothing came to mind.
I slept very little that night; my thoughts, dark and endless, circling and chasing the sleep from inside my head. As the freezing winter sun rose a few hours later that morning, sending its cold yellow rays knifing through the frost-edged window and spilling over our bed, I heard my young wife crying deeply—pitifully bitter tears and soft sobs slowly soaking through the thin pillow she’d wrapped around her face. And in the light of the slowly-breaking dawn, my eyes fell sadly upon the finely-spun auburn hair curling down her delicate neck and lightly freckled back.
Comforting and soothing words remained locked behind the growing lump in my throat and my tightly-drawn lips. And when I finally found the nerve to say something, my words were cut off by the sound of a deep ragged sigh welling up deeply from Sharon’s chest. Slowly her tortured sigh faded into nothingness, and then her soft wet voice pleaded quietly to the cold unhearing wall, “Oh God, oh…”
A “New” Car
After a few weeks of working on the hill I learned that radar operators (me) were not very well liked or respected by radar maintenance technicians. Whereas our tech training at Keesler Air Force Base lasted about four and a half months, the maintenance techs’ training lasted a year or more and was infinitely more comprehensive.
Radar operators received very broad or general training on what made the radar tick, whereas the techs were required to know and understand the working schematic for each different search and height radar, and be able to diagnose a problem based on the symptoms displayed by broken units.
The first hint I got of the techs’ complete antipathy toward radar operators was when, after working a few weeks on the hill, I introduced myself to one while he was adjusting the CRT (cathode ray tube) on my height finder radar console.
“Hi, I’m Frank.” I said, extending my hand as he opened the access bay on the unit. The name tag on his fatigue shirt said, ‘Rogers’. “Hey, thanks for your help. The radar returns were really fuzzy and starting to hurt my eyes.”
He looked up, a small screwdriver in his hand and sharply said, “Fuck you.”
“Uh, what?” I pulled my hand back.
He peeked around the console. “I said fuck you, scope dope.” And he ducked his head back in.
“Hey, what’s your problem?”
“You’re my fucking problem, asshole!” He said from behind the unit. “If you knew how to adjust your display correctly I would still be drinking coffee and playing pinochle back there!”
Although the techs also worked on the hill they had their own area well away from the dark room we worked in.
“Sorry, but I just came on shift and the display was already out of focus. So don’t blame me.”
The tech mumbled something that I wasn’t able to totally understand.
“What?” I asked.
He pulled his head out from the access bay and said, “All you scope dopes are fucking stupid! That’s what I said. Did you hear that all right?”
At this point my temper was beginning to flare and I stood up, pushing my chair back. My face burning with anger I said, “Look, you fucking jerk. Take out your hostility on someone else. I don’t wanna hear it!”
The sergeant in charge of the departing operators’ shift, Kazinski, was suddenly on the scene.
“Hey! I’m talking to both you assholes! You’re both on duty and if you persist I will bring both of you up on charges.”
Airman Rogers, having thrown his screwdriver on the floor in preparation for hand-to-hand combat, stood up and put his hands on his hips.
“Yeah? Well, you’ll have to go through my sergeant first! I don’t listen to fucking scope dopes, no matter how many stripes they have on their sleeves!”
Since the sergeant was in fact one of those scope dopes, he took Rogers’ comment very much to heart. Pushing me aside, he got directly in Rogers’ face, and in a very controlled tone, growled, “OK, you are just about to totally piss me off, airman!” Then, sensing an air of disrespect in Rogers’ cold stare, he totally lost it. “STAND AT ATTENTION WHEN I SPEAK TO YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKER!” This, delivered about an inch from Rogers’ nose.
Rogers turned kinda white.
“DID YOU FUCKING HEAR ME, AIRMAN?” Kazinski’s eyes bored into Rogers’ face.
“Yes sir.” Rogers whispered, then he stepped back and popped to.
Sergeant Kazinski glared at Rogers for what had to be a full minute.
Finally, regaining a bit of self-control, he said, “Listen to me very carefully Airman Rogers. I will be reporting you to your sergeant as soon as I get back down off the hill, and that should earn your ass a letter of reprimand. So from now on, this is what I will expect from you: When you get a repair order from one of my operators, you come into our radar room, keep your yap shut, do your job, and get the fuck out of our sight as soon as possible. Understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“Then,” Sergeant Kazinski said, in a much more soothing voice, “Do your fucking job now and disappear.”
And he did.
This, of course, was an extreme example of the techs’ dislike of us operators. Most of them did just what the sergeant suggested: kept their mouths shut and fixed our radars.
During one extremely boring weekend day shift, I had stepped out of the radar building to take in some fresh air and to scan the incredibly beautiful landscape from the top of the highest point in and around Winnemucca. Standing on a bed of gravel that marked the farthest point one could stray before coming precariously close to the edge of the precipice, I was deep in thought when I heard someone crunching up the gravel bed behind me. I turned quickly, afraid that one of my shift-mates might be thinking that it would be a funny idea to make like he was going to push me over the edge. Instead, I saw an airman whom I’d previously seen hanging out with the radar techs and on occasion had worked on some of our radar units.
He was about six feet tall, pudgy, his fatigues looking a bit disheveled and hanging loosely on his rather overweight body. The hand sewn, white cloth name tag over his left breast pocket said, “Hardy”. His shoddy appearance pretty much summed up what most, if not all, of the radar techs looked like on any given day.
“Oh,” I said, “sorry, I didn’t hear you come up right away.”
“Oh hey!” He said cheerfully. “What’cha doing?”
“Nothing, just looking and enjoying Nevada’s wonderful atmosphere during my break.”
He stepped up, extending his hand. “I’m Tom Hardy!”
“Hi, Frank DeLeón.” I responded, meeting his hand and receiving a very hardy handshake. (No pun intended.) “I’m one of the…scope dopes.”
“Ah, well I don’t like to use that term. You guys do a good job; and to tell you the truth I think I’d rather spend my time looking at a radar scope rather than working on one. Pretty boring work…you know?”
So for the next ten, or so, minutes we chatted atop that windblown hill, and after we re-entered the radar building, went our separate ways.
A few days later, while eating my box lunch in the little break room, Tom walked in. He greeted me cheerfully and pulled up a chair across the table from me.
“Hey Frank, what’s up?”
“Not much. Just trying to figure out what the meat in this sandwich is.”
“Oh, ha! I couldn’t eat that stuff. My wife packs me a good lunch every day.” And with that he produced the biggest lunch bag I’d ever seen. The size of a grocery bag, he dug in and began to line up multi-colored plastic containers on the table in front of him.
“Hmm, your wife doesn’t want you to starve, does she?”
“Ha ha! No she doesn’t. Can you tell?” He slapped his ample gut with both of his hands. “Hey, aren’t you married too?”
“Yup.”
“So, your wife doesn’t pack your lunch?”
“Nah, we think it’s cheaper for me to buy a lunch from the chow hall. A dollar goes a long way in terms of box lunches. But, sometimes I’m not sure what I’m eating.” We both chuckled and dug into our food, chatting easily and comfortably.
Tom was not the typical radar maintenance guy. He was friendly, sincere, and didn’t seem to take himself too seriously. Our lunches together became fairly regular affairs when we happened to be working the same shift, and I began to look forward to spending time and chatting with him. During one of our conversations I found out that the house he was renting was just a couple of blocks away from the Chevron station where I was working part time.
“Maybe I’ll drop by to chat you up one of these days when you’re working there.” He said when I told him where I worked.
“Sure, I could use the company. It actually gets pretty monotonous there sometimes. Stop on by if you get the chance.”
And so, one Saturday afternoon as I was responding to the hydraulic bell, thinking it was a customer, Tom rolled up in a dated little beige Nash Rambler. I pointed to a spot next to my car, parked near a six-foot cedar border fence well away from the station’s pumps, and he pulled his little car up to the spot and came to screeching stop.
We visited for about three hours, our conversations interrupted randomly by gas-hungry customers anxious to get back on the road. He’d been in the Air Force for over six years, and stationed at the radar station for about a year. He was still an E-3, which in itself was odd, given his longevity in the service and his assigned career field. Typically, a radar tech would be at least an E-5 by now.
He and his wife, Daisy, were devout Mormons with two kids and a third on the way. He regretted re-enlisting a couple of years ago and he and his wife were looking forward to returning to Utah once this four-year stint was completed.
Although his job was fixing radar units, he confessed that his true love was working on cars. That first day at the gas station he seemed to take a very keen interest in my 1949 Chevrolet fast back—specifically its poor state of repair.
“You know,” he said, pointing in the direction that my car was parked, “that model actually has a great engine. It’s an in-line six that’ll just go forever. Is it a stick?”
“No, it’s got an automatic transmission.”
“Ugh, great engine, but bad transmission. How does it run?”
“Oh, it runs OK, actually. The body is a wreck though. And it needs new tires and brakes. But the motor always starts up, regardless of the temperature.”
“That’s what I’m talking about! It’s a workhorse!”
“Yeah, well I’m not too sure if it’ll be able to go a hundred miles non-stop before something falls off. My mother-in-law gave us the car…we wouldn’t have transportation otherwise.”
“Why don’t you try to fix it up?”
“Well, for one…money. Ain’t got it.”
“Crap, that shouldn’t be a problem. Anything that car needs we can get through the JC Whitney catalog. And, man, they’re cheap. You know, if you let me work on your car I can help with buying the parts.”
I was astounded. “What?”
“Sure. How about you let me do a diagnostic on her over maybe a couple of days and figure out what she needs. Then I can compile a list of the parts; like, what’s needed first, and the price, and then we can go from there. What’dya think? Wanna do that?”
“Well…I guess. But really, I don’t have any money. Besides, I’ve got orders to go to Alaska in February, so I need to save all I can.”
“Perfect!” He said, enthusiastically. “We can work on the car in the next couple of months…maybe we can use one of the bays here at the station, and we’ll have it ready to go before you leave. Is your wife gonna stay here?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think so. Her mom moved in to a little trailer home in Reno, and her sister lives in a one-bedroom apartment. They sure can’t afford to have Sharon and Ricky living there too…oh, and we’re having another baby in August.”
“Oh! So, what’s the plan?”
“We’re thinking I’ll take them to Houston to stay with my folks. That way my mom can take care of Ricky and help when the new baby is born.”
“There you go!” Tom said, again enthusiastically. “You don’t want, and probably can’t afford, to fly them down, right? But if you drive down they’ll have a car to use while you’re in Alaska.”
“Listen, Tom. Why are you so set on fixing up my car anyway?”
“I love working on cars! And my wife won’t let me experiment with our Rambler. Aside from the normal maintenance stuff there’s not much to fix anyway. Besides, I need something to keep me busy on my days off. I get bored easy.”
“Let me think about it and I’ll talk it over with my wife.”
“Great! Let me know as soon as you can. In the meantime, after I do a little diagnostic, I’ll start looking at the parts catalog and start getting a list ready of the most important things that I know the car will need.”
He jumped off the stool he’d been sitting on and headed out the door toward my car. “No time to waste, so I’m gonna look at a couple things now, if you’re OK with that.”
As he busied himself crawling under and over my car the customers started pouring in. While I was cleaning off one of my customer’s windshields I heard Tom’s car start up. As he lurched back onto Highway 40, he waved gleefully and gave me the thumbs up.
About a week later, during one of my midnight shifts, Tom came into the radar room while I was working one of the height-finder radar positions.
“Hey, got a minute?”
“Tom, I can’t talk right now. I have to concentrate on my display. And if the shift sergeant sees us talking we’ll get our asses chewed out.”
“OK, I know. This won’t take long. Here,” he handed me a piece of paper, “take a look at this and then get back to me with your thoughts when you’re free. It’s what I think we need to work on getting first—before anything else. OK? Just come on back to the maintenance section when you’re done.”
“All right.”
I stuck the folded paper in my breast pocket and got back to concentrating on my display. A couple of hours later I was relieved from my position and headed to the break room. Taking a seat on one of the faux leather, aluminum-frame couches, I dug into my pocket and unfolded the paper that Tom had given me.
There were only two words written on it: ‘Need body’. What?
My curiosity stoked I got up and went to find Tom. I had never been in the Tech Section of the building and was surprised at the complexity of the area. Long gray metal rows of communications and electronic equipment resembling school lockers, quietly buzzing, sighing, and exhausting warm air through the slotted vents of each unit’s twin doors.
There were so many units placed in neat rows that after a few seconds of walking in between them the thought of a rat maze came to mind. As I turned down an aisle I heard voices and headed in that direction.
A couple of turns later I came upon an open area that resembled a large rec room. Chairs and couches were scattered willy-nilly, and to one side there was a large metal table. Six techs, stripped down to their fatigue pants and T-shirts were sitting around the table talking energetically and slamming cards violently onto its center.
I looked around, looking for Tom, and finally spotted him on one of the couches leafing through an automotive parts catalog.
“Hey Tom!” I called out.
He looked up from the catalog, recognized me, and waved me over.
“Holy cow, man, you found me! Have a seat.” He said, pointing to an empty cushion on the couch. “Did you read my note?”
“You mean the two words you wrote?”
“Yeah. No sense in getting too wordy, you know.”
“So, ‘need body’. That’s it?”
“Yup. The body on your car is shot. The interior headliner is ripped all to heck. The seat covers are shredded. And there’s a couple of rust holes in the floor boards. Shocks, brakes, problems all around.”
“So, a new body? How’s that gonna happen?”
A big grin came over his pumpkin-like head. “You’re in luck, my friend! Yesterday, while you were home sleeping off your mid shift, I went to the junk yard at the west end of town. And guess what I found?”
“Let me guess—a body.”
“Yes, but it gets better! See, you’ve got a 1949, right? And, it’s a fast back coupe, right?”
“Yeah.”
“OK, so I found a cherry 1950 Bel Air coupe body—two tone, even! And when I say cherry, I mean CHERRY! Listen, the paint is great…well, it’s a little oxidized and needs some rubbing out with some heavy paint compound—but you can do that—and the interior is almost showroom new. The steering is tight, the brakes are practically new, and the floorboards are solid! It’s great, I tell you, great!”
“How can that be?” I said, incredulously. “It’s in a junk yard!”
“Yeah, and that’s the best part. See, the guy who owned the car had just finished rebuilding it in Reno. But he mainly concentrated on the car’s body work and what he neglected was to make sure the engine was sound before he started his trip. Anyway, he was driving it to Elko and was probably pushing it real hard, when ‘BOOM’”, I jumped just a bit and the pinochle crowd paused in mid-card slam as Tom slapped the plastic sofa cushion flush with his open hand, “the engine overheated, and he threw a rod… ‘POW’…right through the side!”
“Threw a rod?” Not being real savvy with engines I was a little confused by the term.
“Yeah! Blew that sucker right out the side!”
“Out the side? OK, so…?”
“So, he had it towed to the junk yard right then and there! Didn’t even ask for any money. Just left it there, called a cab, and left.”
“OK, all that sounds OK, but how does that help us?”
“Well, I talked to the owner of the junk yard, and all he wants is twenty-five dollars for it! Isn’t that great? Twenty-five dollars!”
“Well, that all sounds good, but it so happens that ten dollars is all I have to my name right now. And that’s before we buy baby food and medicine for Ricky. Does he want to sell it now or can he wait.”
“Man, he can wait until the cows come home; it’s us who can’t wait. Look, time is short and we need to get this project started. So,” he sat back, rubbing his ample belly, “I’ll tell you what: I’ll front you the money for the body and you can pay me back in five dollar increments when you can. Look, that twenty-five-dollar investment is going to save us well over a hundred dollars in parts.”
“So, what happens after we get the body?”
“Simple! We pull the engine out of your old fastback, which for the most part is OK, then we’ll just drop it into the Bel Air. Of course, before that happens we’ll have to tear it down, then rebuild it with all new parts—then, drop it into the new body. Easy!! And another great thing is that while your fastback has that awful automatic transmission, the body at the junk yard has a manual transmission. You know, stick! That eliminates the need for us to rebuild the transmission on your old car. All we need to do is get an adapter kit to allow your engine to mate with the manual transmission on the new coupe.”
“Sounds complicated and expensive. Besides, I’ve never done that kind of mechanical work.”
“Man, I’ll do all the mechanical work! It’s my dream come true! We’ll completely strip the engine, throw away and replace the old worn parts, re-bore the cylinders, refit them with new sleeves, grind the valves, pop in new rings, rebuild the generator, re-core the radiator, and slap new gaskets on everything! What a cool project! I can’t wait to get started!”
A few days later Tom stopped by my house and asked me to accompany him to the junk yard to retrieve the Bel Air body he had set his eyes on.
“Look, I told you I don’t have twenty-five dollars! We can’t go get it now!”
“Hey, no sweat. I got this.”
“You’re going to front the money?”
“I told you I would. Don’t worry, I’ll keep a list on how much you owe me. OK?”
I reluctantly agreed, then I asked him how we were going to get it back to the gas station. He said his little Nash would be more than capable of pulling the engineless car. All I had to do was go sit in the Bel Air and steer.
The car was all Tom said it would be. It was a clean 1950 Chevrolet Bel Air Coupe; solid body with no dents or scratches, but the two-tone green paint—deep emerald on the top and light pearly green on the main body—was dulled over with oxidation. The slick whitewall tires were almost new and were well worth twenty-five dollars on their own, and the interior was perfect—looking like it had been completely replaced not too long ago.
The blown engine had been removed by the junk yard owner and cannibalized for saleable parts. Opening the hood exposed a huge open hole surrounded by dangling cables and wires. It troubled me to think that every one of those loose wires would eventually have to be identified and reconnected to something on the rebuilt engine. Where Tom saw this endeavor as a grand project, I saw it as a fearful and unnerving task.
Once back at the station, Tom explained that the first thing we needed to do was to pull the engine on my fastback, tear it down, and begin its restoration. During this conversation it dawned on me that when this stage of the project began I would be totally without transportation.
“Hey, Tom? Uh, how am I going to get to and from work? I won’t have a car until the engine is rebuilt and dropped into the Bel Air.”
“Oh yeah, no problem. I talked to Daisy and we decided to let you borrow the Nash when we don’t need it. And when we do, then either her or I will chauffer you up to the radar station. When you’re at work Daisy can check with Sharon to see if she needs to go somewhere; then she’ll take her. Also, they must go to the same gynecologist so they can coordinate their appointments. Don’t worry, I’ll make it work. We’re Mormons, and it’s in our doctrine to help and assist the needy.” He grinned proudly.
It wasn’t so much that I was worried about Tom making everything work, it was that I’d not had a chance to completely discuss the situation with Sharon. She knew that we were going to be fixing up the car but had no idea that we’d be completely without transportation during the repair.
“So, how long do you think it’ll take to finish this?” I asked, a bit apprehensively.
“Well, that depends on how many parts we need to order, and how long it’ll take to get them. Then we’ll have to see if we can get the valves ground down and the cylinders re-bored within our time frame. The machine shop that does that might be busy, but we’ll see. I’m thinking about four to five weeks.”
“Man, that’s a long time for us to be without a car.”
“No sweat! It’ll be OK.”
Tom’s bubbling enthusiasm did little to make me feel comfortable. And, as expected, Sharon did not take the news about not having a car very well.
“Who is this lady that’s supposed to be taking me where I need to go, Frank? And what’s going to happen if Ricky gets sick unexpectedly and I have to take him to the doctor? How am I supposed to get in touch with this woman? Huh?”
All very good questions—for which I had very few suitable answers.
“Well Sharon, we’ll try to make it work as best as we can. Eventually we will need to have a reliable car anyway, and this is the cheapest way to get that done, so that’s a positive. Look, we’ll hurry the repair job as much as we can. And besides, Tom and Daisy are Mormons. Their…uh…religion, or something, tells them to do stuff like this. So, it’s OK.”
“Really? So forgetting about their charity just for a minute, how are we supposed to pay for all of this?” She asked angrily, shoving her glasses back onto her forehead for emphasis. There was that furrow again.
“Well, I’ll work extra hours at the gas station, and maybe I can skip buying box lunches from the chow hall every once in a while. That’ll save us a few dollars anyway.”
“So you’re going to starve yourself too?”
“It won’t be that bad. Sometimes the chow hall sends up apples and oranges along with the box lunches, for us to snack on during our shifts, and they’re free. I can make do with that, I guess.”
She stared at me, her hands cocked indignantly on her hips. “This project of yours better not take long! That’s all I have to say!” And right on cue, Ricky, napping in the bedroom, started screaming his little guts out. For once I was happy to hear him cry.
***
The engine was rebuilt, dropped onto its engine mounts, and reconnected to all those random cables and wires by the third day of January, 1963—about a month before I was due to be at my radar site in Alaska. It was just past five in the evening and the leaden ambiance from the cloud-covered winter sun was just beginning to fade into icy darkness. Soft wind gusts flurried the lightly-drifted snow that had fallen early that morning and sent it scurrying across the gas station’s concrete driveway when Tom finally turned the Bel Air’s ignition key to spark the engine back to life for the first time.
A click, a groan…then, nothing. Again the key was turned with the same disappointing results.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, worriedly.
“Oh, nothing. This little heifer (one of Tom’s favorite expressions) is just being stubborn.”
Another turn of the key, and again nothing.
“OK, looks like we’re going to have to do this the hard way!” Tom announced, to no one in particular.
“What’s the hard way?” I asked, curiously.
He rolled out of the car. “Get the chain from the wall in the bay and hook it up to the front bumper. I’ll pull the Nash around.”
I sprinted into the oil change bay and pulled the chain off its storage hook on the wall. “What’re we doing?” I asked, as I walked back dragging the heavy chain.
“Well see,” he responded, “the pistons are so tight inside their new sleeves in the newly re-bored cylinders that the starter just isn’t strong enough allow the flywheel to turn the engine. So, we’ll have to have the back wheels on the car provide the inertia to turn the engine for us. So, I’m gonna pull your car until we get her up to around fifteen or twenty miles an hour. Then you’re gonna slam the transmission into second gear and pop the clutch. That should force the engine to turn, and allow the plugs to spark. Then, if all goes well, the engine should fire up. When it does, we’ll have to keep it running for a couple of hours or so to make sure the cylinder walls get lubricated enough to loosen up the friction between them and the pistons. See? No problem.”
That’s one thing I liked about Tom—there was never a problem, and I had not the slightest idea what he’d just said.
“Hey look, I can’t just drive off and leave the station alone!”
“Oh, stop! We’re just going down this side street for a bit. The car should start in a jiffy and you’ll never lose sight of the station. I promise.”
“OK…I guess.”
I got into the car, turned the ignition on, depressed the clutch, and waited for Tom’s little Nash to pull me out onto the street. Once there, I ground the transmission into second gear. When the speedometer reached fifteen miles an hour I engaged the clutch.
For a split second I thought the engine had exploded. I was violently jerked back into the seat and my neck whip-lashed. At the same instant I saw that I was rapidly catching up to Tom’s Nash; and in fact, was about to ram him from behind.
The noise coming from the engine compartment was ear splitting, and in my panic I slammed on the brakes. That little error of mine instantly slowed my car’s forward progress and caused the chain between our two bumpers to tighten back up, threatening to rip our bumpers clean off.
Regaining my common sense, I depressed the clutch again and released the brake. My car ceased its frontal attack on the Nash’s rear bumper and the chain between us slackened. It was then I noticed Tom’s left arm wildly waving up and down from the driver’s side window. Keeping the clutch depressed and releasing the transmission allowed the engine to run unimpeded, and a little pressure on the brake pedal caused the car to glide to a smooth stop behind Tom.
He jumped out of his car and did a little dance on the street before hop-skipping back to me.
“Yee-haw!! We did it! Hot dang, we did it!” He yelled over the deafening sound of the engine.
“Why is it so damn loud?” I yelled.
“Oh,” he screamed back, “that’s because we haven’t connected the exhaust manifold to the exhaust pipe or the muffler.”
“Jesus! Shouldn’t we have done that before starting it up?”
“Well, I guess we could’ve. But then we wouldn’t have been able to hear just how sweet that engine sounds. Great, ain’t it?”
Well, I did think it was kinda great, but the neighbors who were pouring out of their houses and stumbling onto to their porches, probably thunderstruck and expecting to see a jet airliner crashed and burning on their street, were probably less than impressed to instead see a slightly overweight Mormon doing a Scottish jig over a slack chain strung between two old cars, and a skinny Hispanic kid standing, looking somewhat dumbfounded, with his fingers stuck in both ears.
Dinner at the Hardy’s
A week later Sharon and I again had transportation. The car that Tom Hardy literally built from the ground up looked great and ran great. After going through the expenses I found that I owed Tom a little over a hundred dollars for parts and services for the machine shop that had bored out the six cylinders and ground the valves. I knew that I probably owed him at least five times that amount of money for the time and labor he put in to get the car in running condition. My contribution to the whole project had mostly consisted of using rubbing compound and carnauba wax to rid the paint of the coat of oxidation it had accumulated while sitting in the sun in the junk dealer’s yard. Oh yeah, and a bunch of heavy lifting.
The junk dealer on the edge of town took what was left of the old 1949 Fastback and gave me fifteen dollars. He’d said it was only worth about ten dollars but he knew how much work we’d put into the Bel Air coupe so he kicked in an extra five. I told Sharon that I’d probably give that money to Tom and write him an IOU for the remaining eighty-five dollars, to be paid once I started getting my paycheck in Alaska. She agreed it would probably be the right thing to do.
We decided that we would invite the Hardys for dinner at our house, but then abruptly rethought the whole idea when we realized that there would probably not be room enough in our house for four adults (two hefty ones), and the two Hardy children. Instead, we asked them that if we provided the food, could we cook and have dinner at their house. Daisy was particularly thrilled at the suggestion as she’d apparently taken quite a shine to Sharon and Ricky.
The dinner was scheduled for the following Saturday, and although it was still January, the weather that weekend was unseasonably warm. While the wives were in the kitchen getting the meal together, Tom and I sat out on his small deck drinking Cokes and watching his boys play in the yard.
“Tom,” I started out, “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t rebuilt my car. There’s no possible way the old Chevy would’ve made it all the way to Texas”.
“Aw, don’t mention it. I had a great time. I keep telling you, I love to work on cars.”
“Well, I know. But you put in a lot of your money into the project too. So regardless, I plan to pay you back as soon as I can.”
“Pay me back? Are you kidding me? You don’t owe me anything.”
“How can you say that? You paid the machine shop, and when we ordered the parts out of the JC Whitney catalog you paid with your money orders. I figure I owe you about a hundred bucks.”
“OK, look. This is the way this is going to go. You know we’re Mormon, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, Daisy and I aren’t the greatest in practicing our faith…well, because of a lot of reasons. But anyway, she and I had been praying over this and God finally showed us the way to atone for our failures.”
“What failures?”
“Well, you know. Not being good Mormons and me joining the military. Anyway, we made the decision to donate our time and sacrifice some of our money for a worthy project. We had been trying to find something that we could do, we call it doing good deeds, that would benefit someone and at the same time humble us in the eyes of God; and so before we knew it—boom—you came along.”
“What?”
“Sure! Don’t you see how it makes so much sense? I got to do something that I truly love, working on cars, while at the same time I’m helping someone that really needs the help. It was like a miracle. Daisy and I spent hours at night in bed talking about how wonderful this experience was. And then to top it all off, she ended up also being able to get in on the good deed by donating her time driving Sharon and Ricky to the store and stuff, and running errands. It was a spiritual coup for both of us. So the way I see it, you don’t owe us anything—we owe you.”
I was stunned. Sitting there listening to Tom and watching his face light up as he talked reminded me of how some of the people in the old Pentecostal church back in Houston looked and sounded when they testified about accepting Christ as their personal savior. I was at once grateful and humbled.
“Tom…,” I stuttered, “I don’t know. I understand what you’ve said, but I still feel that I need to give you more than just thanks for all the work you did.”
“I’ll tell you what. You can pay me back by driving your little family all the way down to Houston in that Bel Air and getting them there safe and sound. That’ll be your gift to me and Daisy. Now, not another word about this. Let’s go see if the girls have some food ready for us. I’m starving!”
To be continued…
