Hank's garage

From outside it looks like the ramshackled remains
of the fifties. A good place for old iron to rust to dust
with the best memories of home made macaroni and cheese
and coke in glass bottles waiting on a splintery table.

The bustle between the behemoths of detroit
reminds me loudly: this is not a cemetery.
This is the underbelly of miracles
where automobiles should all be called Lazarus..

I slip through the little portal through the big closed bay door on the far right end of the garage.
His brother's work beside him, Butch does body work,
and the other brother whose name always eludes me
does something else that never seems to matter to me.

Phil's hands are black with grease and work,
the bloody cuticles etched with daily slips and hard cracks
against cast iron and sharp edges.

He reaches politely for my sadly prissy hand
from the shadows of cinderblock and car-parts
that make up the happy prison his father built
for him decades ago.

Back then Phil was still willing to guzzle Budweiser
and stand naked on the rocky scalp of an evergreen mountain,
stretch his arms to God and April sunshine amd pray,

"Holy SHIT,
this fucking rocks."

He got serious not long after,
started working with his brothers and dad.

Hank died almost twenty years ago,
when his heart just gave out one day.
Phil doesn't talk about it much, but his heart's not too good either. He keeps working, there are mouths to feed.

I take his hand and shake it tougher than I am,
and he smiles with blue eyes firing on all cylinders
from behind his wire rimmed glasses,

"Thanks Buddy," I say.

"Hey, what are friends for?" he asks.

We talk for twenty minutes about our boys,
our girls, our wives, our homes, and the Red Sox,
he glances at the clock, and now I realize I'm costing him cash.

I write a check smaller than it should be,
he says,"The keys are in the visor,"
as a balding gentleman in his early 60s strolls in.

"Can I get an inspection, Phil?"

"Sure Bob, pull it up."

"Thanks Phil," Bob says.

"Hey, what are friends for?"
is the last thing I hear as I pull away..