A Silent Moment on a Monday Afternoon Stirs Thoughts of Childhood

Remember that old garage?
The one we had when we lived
in the blue trailer across from
the school
with its dirt floor and unfinished walls?

I remember spending long days
and even longer nights in there,
Dad,
with you and the guys,
swapping out transmissions,
or putting on your newly
chromed
headers,
or cherrypicking
whole motors,
the whole time BTO tapes
playing over and over again
or sometimes Lynyrd Skynyrd
or Tom Petty,
and learning things
that school and friends and
television
had not yet taught me.

I'd sit in the corner
flipping through your old
black and white Conan
comic books while you and
the guys sweated and tinkered
over the nuts and bolts
of a '67 'Cuda or a '65 GTO,
hoping to have them ready
for the next big cruise
or car show.

Remember the time that
stray dog,
a little brown, pesky
thing
came into the garage
while you
were on your back,
torso under the car,
tweaking the shifting
linkage
and
started humping your
leg,
and you did your best to
shake him off, but
he just kept coming back
for more,
and you finally yelled,
"Goddamn dog!"
and climbed out
from under the car,
to run him off,
and then we both started laughing?

Or what about the time you
got so mad that the Barracuda
wouldn't start
that you threw a ball-peen
hammer through the windshield
of that old dirty Aries
that you loved to drive around
so much,
that copper-colored
zombie of a car,
with the sagging
ceiling liner, and the ripped
seats with the foam squeezing through
and the rust holes along
the fenders;
that car that embarrassed the
hell out of me when I rode
to town with you and
felt like everyone was
staring at us?