Auto Shop Sam Cicero

He got out of the diesel powered nightmare machine, and walked over to the parking lot. If someone where to peek out their window on this beautiful summer afternoon, they would have seen him. The apartment complex surrounded the warm blacktop, protecting it from street view. He had a few days stubble on his face, and he wore a stained blue jumpsuit with Joe stitched in red on the left breast. He was carrying a curious piece of metal. With one end a stick with a handle, the other had a hard rubber squashed ball onto the end. Calmly walking over to the cars huddled together in the parking lot, Joe began putting dents into various parts of the cars that were worth more than his yearly wages cleaning up kid’s puke at a hospital. A quarter-panel here, a nice deep hood mark there, and on the black Mercedes he gave it a brand new broken mirror, as well as taking off a door.

If the neighbors in the apartments saw what Joe was doing, they certainly didn’t do anything about it. He left the parking lot in his smoking beast of a truck soon after the Mercedes part and if anyone saw him in the first place, they certainly didn’t again. Since it was indeed a Sunday that our friend modified some stranger’s cars, most people didn’t find the damage until Monday morning when they were going off to work (the were from a part of the country that particularly enjoyed spending time with their families indoors on beautiful weekend afternoons). After staring for a few seconds at the damage a few people got into their cars and went off to work. However, some came together and collectively wondered aloud who would do such a thing and why? Was it local teenagers or a professional hit-man warning them of their imminent demise? The Mercedes owner was particularly fearful.

The man who owned the Mercedes was named Jerry. He was a middle aged bachelor, who had recently divorced his second wife in a particularly nasty divorce. Apparently she had a new 'thug” of a boyfriend, and our dear friend was rather afraid of his personal safety. (Our reader will be pleased to note that in fact his former wife indeed happily had a new boyfriend, who was in fact, black, and not a thug). He decided the best bet would be to take his car to a body shop and get it fixed immediately. That would prove that he wasn’t afraid of her or Hakeem. Plus the insurance would pay for it, so it was the natural choice.

Most of the other tenants decided to agree with him, fixing their cars was the best mode of action. Some decided to keep it because it looked cool or because they were really new age-y and bought into that shit. The ones that wanted to get it fixed were in a bit of a pickle though. Due to recent legislation (Local Ordinance 565: "No auto shop shall be particularly filthy), many were forced to close their doors. A brand new auto shop (with self-cleaning floors!) had recently been introduced to the area, though with more than enough space to accommodate the angry tenants.

When the tenants, thoroughly using their day off to be angry to their fullest extent, stormed in they were stopped by a receptionist that the men at the top hired for her excellence in breast size, they immediately forgot to be angry. Not that all of them were men, but that her boobs were really like two large pillows strapped to her chest. She smiled and asked 'Could you sit there?” pointing to a few rows of freshly pleathered chairs. 'We’ll be with you momentarily” she said, as she hobbled back to behind the counter. Calling each person up by the color of their shirts, eventually she got every person’s order filled. She apologized to each person and said that since the billing system hadn’t been worked out with the insurance companies yet, everyone would have to pay the hundred bucks or so worth of repairs out of pocket. Whether it was the coral colored lips, or the 80’s hair metal blasting behind the shop doors, all the previously angry tenants indifferently paid their bills.

The shop was only a few blocks from the apartment, and even Jerry, the man with the Mercedes, got his car the next day and he was ready to go to work. When the tenants asked the insurance company to cough up with a class action lawsuit (they were from part of the country where people all had the same insurance), some of them realized that their insurance didn’t cover collision. Some of their insurance companies tried to convince some of the tenants that their insurance didn’t have collision coverage as well. One of these tenants, instead of throwing out his policy, kept it and read it over. The case was tossed around in court for a while but was eventually ruled in favor of the tenants. The insurance company, anxious to make sure such an event would never happen again decided to investigate the cause of the mysterious hit and runs.

So the insurance company hired a private detective to 'work the case” and figure out exactly what happened. Without emotion three days later, he arrived at the auto shop, while some guy in a custodial jumpsuit and a 5 o clock shadow brushed past, and asked (unfazed) the receptionist to talk to her boss. It was mighty suspicious.

A Trip Sam Cicero

I came downstairs and saw my friend sitting cross legged in front of the monolithic stereo system my dad had had since the late 80s. He had turned up the stereo to 11 and sat with his Powerbook whirring away, catching all the sound through a wire. I rubbed my eyes and asked him if he wanted toast with his eggs and he looked up at me, his eyes safely shielded by thick rimmed glasses, and said "no breakfast today, thanks,". We were all set and he was busy with the soundtrack for our journey. I went back upstairs to the kitchen and ruined eggs for both of our girlfriends. My girlfriend and I continued our argument about the merits of Kerouac, while my friend’s girlfriend sat with coffee in silence. Alex bounded up the stairs and proclaimed that we were ready. We piled into my tiny Sentra (from the 90’s before it got all bourgeoisie) and followed the sun.