Interference & Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

windshield from the outside. He ran his hand over the spot. “Jesus, a baseball,” he said out loud, “not a chance, no way.”
    He worked like a demon, dislodging the windshield with blows from the heel of his hand, ripping out the old rubber gasket, throwing them both in the dumpster. He cleaned and siliconed the metal around the opening and tucked the new gasket in all around. He rigged the wire so that after he’d maneuvered the new windshield into position he could use it to pull the inside lip of the gasket over the metal flange. When he was done, he called Nancy at work.
    Out sick. He called her at home.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œHello yourself. I called your work and they said you were sick so I called to see how you’re doing.”
    â€œOh, hi Daddy. No. I’m fine. I just needed a day to catch up. A mental health day.”
    â€œNancy?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou’d tell me if you were in trouble, wouldn’t you?”
    Later on he’d realize that this was the point where, if she didn’t know what he was getting at, she would have asked what he was getting at.
    â€œOf course I would.”
    â€œWell then. If you talk to Cal, tell him the Bug’s done. I’ll leave a message at his office. Tell him I’ll wait for him here. I want to talk with him.”
    Next was a Chrysler that needed a new water pump, a Dodge that needed a new ignition and solenoid, new brake pads for a Honda, two drive-in tire repairs, and a muffler and tail pipe assembly for a rusty old Cadillac. All afternoon, as he worked, Walter thought of what he wanted to say to his son-in-law. Clarity came and went, interrupted by waves of anger and sadness and old guilt he thought he’d done with. At five thirty a car dropped Cal off. He wore his briefcase on a strap across his chest. He walked right over to the VW and ran his hand over the new windshield. He flashed Walter a grin and a double thumbs up.
    â€œLooks great!” he said. “Good as new! Thanks, man.”
    Walter realized the sit-down, the heart-to-heart he’d been imagining all afternoon, was not going to happen. It couldn’t. He had been thinking of the young air salesman, of Donny, of himself those many years ago, and he’d wanted to take this boy—oh, that’s what he was all right, a boy—take him by the shoulders and somehow make him feel the strength and concern and warning of his scarred hands that understood so much. Then the words might come. Then he would tell him that he understood what it was like to feel adrift, unchallenged, used as badly as this rotten world has always used young men, how it twists and distorts every decent impulse, shames and maims them, shrinks and breaks them. Instead he said, gruffly, walking toward him, “What’s my name?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI have a name. What’s my name?” He held the driver’s side door of the VW open for him.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œAm I Walter? Dad? Pops? Mr. Crosby? Get in, get in.”
    Cal’s face colored red as he slid into the driver’s seat. “I. I don’t know. I guess it depends on what you want me to call you.”
    â€œNo, I would say it depends on how well we understand each other, don’t you think?”
    Cal nodded and grinned nervously. “I guess.”
    â€œI would like to think that I could be a kind of older friend or advisor.” Walter squatted next to the VW and through the small open window placed his hand on Cal’s shoulder. He was surprised to find his hand shaking, and he thought Cal must surely feel his thumb trembling where it rested at the hollow of his throat. Good, he decided. “I’m good at fixing other things besides windshields is what I’m trying to say.”
    â€œI know that.”
    Walter reached in with his left hand and stroked the inside of the windshield as if to remove a streak or smudge. “But