Cars and Cocks

Cars and Cocks

Warning: If you are a mechanic, please do not critique my knowledge on the automotive vocabulary. I did my research and applied it the best I could.

“Hey Eric? Are you working hard over there or hardly working?” Becca asked her student.

“Man. Ms. D. Why you always busting my chops? You making us do extra these days.”

“You do know I went to college for a hundred years just so I could torture you?” Becca gave her student one of her famous, wicked looks.

“That’s whack,” Eric grinned at his favorite teacher, Ms. DiAngelo. While he would claim that her work was whack or that he was too busy stacking his bread, the reality was that he actually did quite well in Becca DiAngelo’s senior English class.

“I really just want to ruin my weekend by having all of these papers to grade, so the sooner you can get them done, the sooner I can torture myself.” Some of the students chuckled while others rolled their eyes at her lame joke, which she found just as amusing.

Becca walked to the front of the room and addressed the class. “Alright, listen up. Tomorrow these theme analysis papers are due. If you have questions, email me tonight; but I don’t want to hear grumbles tomorrow when you have to submit them.” Just as Becca was giving out her final warning, the bell rang; and the students escaped her classroom as if there were a rabid dog on the loose.

The experienced teacher just rolled her eyes and walked back to her desk. Becca DiAngelo was forty-two years old, but her students would claim she was probably closer to fifty. They sucked when it came to guessing age. Hell, she didn’t even have that much gray hair. She was an average looking woman most would say, but she had a radiant smile that lit up a room, but don’t be fooled. If you were a high school student who gave her sass, she could cut you with her dagger looks. Her light brown hair fell to the middle of her back, and she usually wore it down. If you looked closely, her green eyes told a story that few knew. However, she wore glasses to disguise the secrets her eyes could not hide.

Many of those secrets were nothing more than scars that formed over the last several years. She lost her mother to cancer, and then a year later she lost her husband to another woman. The cancer slowly ate away at her mother, and in the end it won. Becca prepared herself for that loss; however, the divorce was quick. There was nothing slow about it. One minute she was married, and the next minute she was a single mother. She was a cliche. She was just another middle-aged woman whose husband left for a sexier, younger chick. Becca wasn’t sure what hurt more: her heart or her ego.

At first Becca pitied herself, for she drank often and ate even more. However, she realized she had a son to raise and students to teach. As the days went by, she cried less, drank less, and ate less. Forcing herself back to the present, Becca looked at the clock; it was five to four. Her son would be at his father’s tonight, so she had no reason to rush home, which meant she could see her second favorite man. She packed up her school bag, and headed out the door.

“Hey, Dad? Are you around?” Becca asked when she walked into her childhood home. “Hey, Bug. I’m out in the garage.” Bug was the nickname her father gave when she was a kid, for she always loved to catch ladybugs, fireflies, and even the occasional dragonfly. Becca walked into the garage to see her dad hunched over his 58 Cadillac Fleetwood Special. The dusty rose exterior shone, and she was pretty sure her father wiped her down each night before he went to bed.

“You do know, you’re not an only child,” Rich would tell his daughter growing up. “Dusty over here is your older sister. You’re both my babies!”

“Mom should be worried. Not me,” she would respond. “I think she’s the true love of your life.”

“Shhhh…” Dad would wink knowing full well his wife was behind him rolling her eyes. Becca smiled at the memory as she put her hand on her dad’s back and said, “What are you working on now? This thing is in better shape than me.”

“Oh this damn carburetor needs to be rebuilt. The airflow sucks.”

“Does it need to be rebuilt, or are you just looking for something to tweak. Because let’s be real, Dad, this thing doesn’t need to go faster.” Becca grew up working on cars with her father, so talking shop was in their blood. “You hungry? I brought subs.”

“You know there is always time to eat.” Her dad wiped his hands off on a shop rag and shut the car hood. Inside Becca set a place at the table for her and her father, Rich, while he grabbed two beers from the fridge.

As the two of them ate, they made small talk.

“How you doing, sis? How’s Max?” Max was Becca’s son who was once her daughter. Before the divorce, Max came out as trans, which was no big deal for Becca, but her ex-husband was still struggling with his little princess becoming a prince.

“He’s fine. He is with Ben this week. They do therapy together.” Becca took a swig of beer. “You know Dad, it’s a process. Apparently everything‘s a process.” Becca rolled her eyes.

“Well I’ve been told everything takes time. Is that the same thing as it being a process?” Rich laughed at his own joke. “A process that takes time, and time that is a process.”

“So I’m told.”

As they ate, Rich asked his daughter, “Since Max won’t be home much, do you think you can stop by tomorrow or Saturday? You got anything going on this weekend?”

“Really dad? Other than grading, I have nothing going on. Why? What’s up?”

“Let’s finish eating, and then I’ll show ya.”

Becca scrunched up her eyes and looked at her dad. “Is everything okay, Dad?”

“Bug you worry too much. Everything’s fine.” Becca wasn’t sure she could believe her dad, but she had learned over the past few years to just go with the flow. After dinner, Becca and her dad cleaned up.

“Okay, dinner is done. What is it that you want to show me?”

“Follow me. It’s in the building.” Becca and her dad walked outside, which sat her father’s pole building. This is where he kept his cars and other miscellaneous shop things. “So ya know how you’re divorced and have no life anymore?”

“Really, Dad?” Becca laughed. “Thanks for reminding me. It actually slipped my mind this week that I was dumped last year for some hussy.”

“Well I thought you may like this.” Rich pulled the cover off of a 1990 GT Ford Mustang. “V8. 5 liter. 302 Ford engine. Stock. I know that isn’t super exciting, but I thought we could rebuild the engine to a 347 Stroker. We could add some aluminum heads. Get this baby a 250 horsepower NOS system. ”

Becca’s eyes lit up. “Dad! Are you kidding me with this right now? Did you just buy me a car? It’s not even my 16th birthday!” The divorce had not killed her sense of humor.

“Bug, you have had such a shitty run lately. I thought we could upgrade this baby together and then take her to the track. See what she’s really like. Besides- I needed an excuse to spend more time with you.” Rich’s soft smile warmed Becca’s heart. Her father was a good man.

“This is very thoughtful. Thank you, Dad.”

“Well…don’t just stand there.” Rich tossed Becca the keys. “Let’s see what she sounds like.”

Becca hopped into the driver’s seat and started the ignition. The engine roared as it came to life. “She sounds like a beauty,” Becca hollered out to her dad. “I can’t wait to see what she can do on the track.”

For several hours Becca and her dad tinkered with the car. As they worked, Becca’s excitement grew. So many people just knew her as Ms. DiAngelo, the hard-ass English teacher; but there was so much more to her.

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Several weeks later, Becca and her dad went out to the track. Rich knew more of the guys than Becca did. In fact, Becca didn’t recognize anyone, which was no big surprise since she spent the majority of her time in the classroom.

“How do you know these guys?” Becca asked after they parked.

“Some are part of the Caddy club. Some I know from around here or there. People come and go. Sons of the guys I hang out with. Ya know…one car group knows another group…” Rich couldn’t sound more ambiguous.

“Ah yes. The good ole car club pipeline. You just don’t want to admit that you’re a social guy, Dad.”

“Ah bullshit,” Riched joked. The son and daughter combo walked up to a group of men who were looking over a 1972 Nova. “Hey, guys. I want to introduce my daughter, Becca. Becca this is Jackson, John, and Quincy…and a couple of other fellas I don’t know.” The men introduced themselves as Ron and Jack while Becca did her best to remember everyone’s names.

“What brings you out to the track, Ms. Becca?” Jackson asked. Maybe it was Jackson. She thought it was Jackson. Hell, he just introduced himself. He was cute though with his salt and pepper gray hair and stubble.

“Dad and I wanted to see what that girl could do on the quarter track.” Becca jerked her head towards the Mustang.

“Sounds good,” Jackson replied with a warm smile. We were just about to see what Quincy here did with his eng-”

John interrupted and asked, “What you got under that hood, Quinc?” John was a larger man. He was not rude, nor was he as inviting as Jackson; Becca noticed right away. He wanted to talk shop- not hit on the pretty, new girl.

“I stoked this engine to a 383,” Quincy began. Before he could finish, John interrupted and looked up at Becca.

“Stoked means-”

Becca was not about to have John mansplain what stoked meant, so before he could say anything more, Becca sarcastically interjected, “John was it? Yes, please explain to me what stoked means…oh wait, you mean how there is a bigger crank with shorter rods, which increases the displacement and adds cubic inches to the engine.”

“Oh damn!” Jackson roared and the rest of the guys laughed.

“Well Rich, I guess you were right,” John began. “Your kiddo does know a thing or two about cars.” And just like that Becca became one of the guys.

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