The Backyard Mechanic
by S.A. Shriner
Featured Guest Writer – Rubber Rooster Media
I never liked the way that sounded — backyard mechanic. It rolled off the tongue like a derogatory slur and was an insult to my ears. I didn’t realize at the time that not everyone possessed the same level of mechanical skills that I did, or how dire those skills would become.
After my mother’s accident, I found myself assuming new roles around the house as well as outside of it. I cooked, I cleaned, I did laundry, and I made one hell of a cup of coffee. So many cups of coffee. But when the next family car broke down, I watched. I asked questions. I hovered like any curious child would, and I took it all in until I was handed the almighty wrench and told it was my turn to finally get my hands dirty.
I had unconventional teachers. My Uncle Tim was an alcoholic — a highly functional one — who took a broken stick-shift transmission in a van and made it work with two bed rails, even teaching his girlfriend how to drive it. I changed my first fuel pump in our gravel driveway under his guidance, and then my second.
My cousin Michael was one of many who helped me when I broke the timing chain on my first Camaro. He also goofed around a bit and threw a dart between my legs while I sat there cleaning parts, only to sink it into my forearm when I reached for a wire brush. He screamed and ran like a girl when I pulled it out and threw it back at him. With the help of a few more people, that old Camaro ran again — until I wrapped it around a telephone pole a year later. A combination of a curve, a car crossing into my lane, and a cup of hot coffee spilling in my lap.
I lost my license before I even had them, but within a few months I had a much better, faster, cooler Camaro that I built from nearly scratch with money earned mowing lawns and working nights at a local bar.
Not every day was full of chores. My mother recovered enough that, in her own true fashion — she never gave up. She bought an old van from a neighbor, and it was she who replaced the head gaskets in it, not me. It was an inspirational moment in my life — she so nonchalantly did it as if it were any other chore that had to be done. Even now, the thought of doing such a job on a Ford V8 crammed halfway through the doghouse of an Econoline is not appealing to me — but she had it finished before I even got out of school.
My mother taught me not to overthink things — to just do it. That mentality made it easier for me to challenge the unknown and tackle the tasks at hand. When a task was harder, she would buy me the Haynes manuals, and I would study them even after the job was done.
As time went on, my mother continued to heal and became a nurse at a care facility, and I took advantage of my newfound freedom.
It would be a full decade before I met my mentor, Ed. He helped refine my abilities and shaped my talent into a skill. He taught me professionalism and trained me to be an ASE-certified mechanic like himself. In the few years I knew him, I helped with everything from routine repairs to engine swaps. I even worked alongside him at a local muffler and brake shop and then his own garage, building custom cars.
My Aunt Mickie had previously held the reins, taking me in after I came home from the Navy with a broken spine and an intolerable case of PTSD. She was a classic lesbian, married the love of her life in Vegas, and built her wife a 1968 Firebird convertible with enough horsepower that the shock towers had to be reinforced with weights. She was like my second mother — one of my most cherished humans.
We would work on cars all night sometimes. I’ll never forget the Ohio winters in a tarp-made tent with a heater inside, snow falling all around. She was the storyteller of the family, and she always had a story to tell. She was a woman ahead of her time — and one worthy of recognition. She died of cancer just years after her wife, Sarah “Jean.”
We often acquire skills throughout our lives that we don’t recognize as our own personal superpowers. Sometimes it’s a passion, sometimes it’s second nature. While being a backyard mechanic wasn’t my only acquired skill, it played a large part in achieving my goal — one that a counselor once told me was “unrealistic.”
It was a hobby that made me feel good about myself, knowing I could help others. It was a skill I possessed before being thrust into poverty — one that began as early as Christmas when I was seven, when I took apart my first remote-control car to see how it worked. I wasn’t allowed to have another for ten more years, and even then, it wasn’t nearly as expensive as the first.
There was also the time I dismantled thousands of dollars’ worth of what were then new computers to harvest parts for a robot I’m certain I would have finished if not for tattling siblings sneaking into my attic bedroom when I was twelve or thirteen. I suppose the short-lived treehouse I built with a brick, rusty nails, and scavenged wood — later condemned by the city — is another story. But it only hints at how my “skills” nearly made my mother pull her hair out in their fruition.
It’s Who You Know
My circle was much smaller before I broke my spine in the Navy. I hadn’t yet met my next-door neighbor, Ed. Most of the cars I fixed, I did for free. I was mostly alone, a self-exiled boarder at my Aunt Mickie’s shack in the country. She was the one who pushed me to get my GED and my license when I was less than motivated.
When I was a teenager and the pressure was too much, I’d run away to her house — and she would always have me home for dinner the next day. It wasn’t unusual for me to return to her house; it was a refuge for all of us boys when we had a midlife crisis. We paid her a little money every week and had a hot meal ready every night and a carton of cigarettes in her freezer.
Sometimes, we bunked two to a room, and sometimes one of us took the couch — but her door was always open. She also provided internet and a single computer we nearly fought over. There weren’t as many of us after I came home from basic training broken, so I had more time to chat with random people online — and that’s how I met Rachel.
She was a few years younger than me, but we were just friends who casually chatted online because we were from the same city. She kept encouraging me to come to her church, and the first time I agreed, I drove around for hours with my younger sister, going back and forth in the wrong direction, never finding it.
The next week, with better directions, Brittney and I finally made our debut. We went just to go — but we stayed because of the people we would soon come to know as family. They greeted us with an openness and love that I could only describe as unconditional. We had found a place where we were finally accepted — by people who didn’t judge us.
I can still remember the anxiety of normalcy and how far I still was from it. I was almost immediately recruited as a Sunday-school teacher’s assistant, and Brittney joined the youth group. They invited us to functions beyond the church. They listened and offered guidance when I needed it most. We became part of their family — inside and outside the church.
When one of their vehicles broke down, it was my time to shine! I tried to refuse payment, but they insisted. They wouldn’t have it any other way.
Bob and Liz
Bob and Liz were my first real customers — a happily married couple with kids, the American dream personified in a humble inner-city family. Bob worked his whole life for the same company, and Liz was my Sunday-school teacher.
I worked on their vehicles for many years — and even their house — once they realized my skills weren’t limited to cars. I remember Bob locking his keys in his car and me showing up with a coat hanger. And the second time. And the third — until Liz made him get a spare key made. By then, it took me only seconds to open his door, and we all felt a little embarrassed.
Our interactions became less frequent after I met my son’s mother and moved farther away. Then one day, Bob was looking thin. That summer, I fixed up an old Ford truck for him, and afterwards, I bought a Cadillac Fleetwood that had been stored in a barn since the owner brought it up from Florida.
After a little work, a wash, and a wax, I was on my way to show Bob my new car. It was purple pearl and said to have been owned by a 400-pound mobster before making its way to Ohio. Bob laughed and shook his head when he saw it. He was reluctant at first, but his face shone as bright as the paint job when he finally took it for a spin.
I’ll never forget the smile on his face when he hit the gas — it was like a boat launching for the first time. It was one of the last times I saw him before cancer took him.
Liz still holds the candle for Bob to this day in a way that’s nothing less than admirable. And while I’ve heard the song a million times, I finally understand the lyric when it says, “I want to be loved like that.”
Tim and Lisa
Now, Tim and Lisa are not Bob and Liz — but they are indeed Tim and Lisa. That doesn’t mean any more or less, just different. He’s Greek, she’s Italian — and that says it all. They have fire, they have passion, and sparks when they rub each other the wrong way. I can’t recall how many times Lisa has said, “Grrr! But I love him so much!”
When I went to college (my second time) for mechanical engineering and had baby Domenik on the way, it was they who gave me a job at their car wash. When my family car had rusted so badly the wheel was going into the trunk, Lisa got her dad to sell me his old 1978 Buick LeSabre for $40. A set of tires and a speedometer later, when I no longer needed it, I sold it for $500 — and kept the tires.
“Wow, nice. Don’t tell my dad!” she said when I told her.
I worked at their car wash with our friend Gerri. I worked on their cars and their house. I introduced my girlfriend Tara to them, and they let us fish in their ten-acre pond. At any moment, they can call me — same as Liz — and I’ll drop everything to help.
These are the people who were there for me when I least expected it. They helped me grow as a human being — supported me both financially and personally. They helped shape me into who I am.
From Gerri, who I’d smoke cigarettes with in the church parking lot while we directed cars — to his wife Betty, both dearly missed — who, ironically, were the parents of my pastor. I never put the two Smiths together until Pastor John called her “Mom” at Gerri’s deathbed. Huge revelation. Everyone laughed about it for years.
And then there was Howie — the old man whose gutters I cleaned out six months after I broke my back. I’d sit and talk with him for hours while he smoked his pipe and told stories about the war and his girlfriend in Germany, to his wife’s dismay. He gave me a 1970 Mustang for $100 and refused to let me pay him.
Had I only known that car would be worth thirty thousand today, I would’ve bubble-wrapped it instead of selling it that winter after wrecking my truck on the ice.
These were real friends — family beyond the bonds of flesh and blood. Sometimes, the key to success is who you know. At the very least, it doesn’t hurt to have a few good people in your corner.
I’ve met many others — people who didn’t recognize their own talents until I pointed them out. One woman was clinically depressed but an extremely gifted interior designer. The last time I saw her, she was networking and building a customer base.
I had a friend who lost his license again and was selling drugs to pay bills. I knew about the weed, but I didn’t know about the rest until his house was robbed. Afterwards, I convinced him to go legit. He started a food-delivery service downtown on a bicycle — and now he flips real estate. He’s driving legally, I might add.
There were a few who didn’t listen, but those who did found promise.
My advice to readers: find your niche, your skill, your talent. Network with like-minded people — good people you can call your circle. Use your skill. This is your gift, your positive attribute — capitalize on it.
Your success is limited only by your boundaries. Knock down those walls.
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