Chapter Two
Tom was employed as an auto mechanic at a Toyota dealership. The job had 
been easy to get. He just walked into the office without a resume and filled out 
their application. The important part of the application seemed to be what he 
knew how to do when it came to working on cars. So he listed it: changing oil, 
changing tires, replacing belts, doing a timing, replacing and rebuilding 
starter motors and alternators, repacking front wheel bearings...he was hired on 
the spot, but as a trainee, since he had never been formally employed as a 
mechanic before. All these skills he had learned just working on his own car, a 
truck, actually...a toyota with over 400,000 miles on it. He was proud that it 
had over 400,000 miles but the other mechanics sniffed. "The big number here is 
now 500,000," they replied. The job wasn't exactly what his family had in mind, 
since they had sent him to an Ivy league school which cost thousands of dollars, 
in order to graduate with honors with a degree in Engineering...but Tom had had 
difficulty in finding a job ever since he had gotten fired from an engineering 
job some ten years previously. The folks at the dealership put him on the green 
team with a guy who was probably the best mechanic in the world. We say that 
because Toyota has a contest in which a fault is put into a car and competing 
mechanics try to find it and this guy had come in first in last year's contest. 
This guy, named Mike, had every ASE certification there was, so that he had 
earned the title "Master mechanic". Eventually, Tom would get his ASE in 
electrial. Tom became Mike's assistant. "Hmmm," the master mechanic would say, 
rubbing his hands over a tire, "this tire has recently been on the rear of the 
car. And it has run over glass." Mike was tall and skinny with red hair. Then 
there was Penn, a big guy, and I mean a really big guy, who was part American 
Indian. He had just done two years in jail for smashing up a bar in a drunken 
brawl and injuring some people. But the dealership didn't care if you had just 
come from jail...they didn't care if you had no references and no resume. If you 
showed them that you could do the job and could come in regular, then you were 
employed. The dealership had two mechanics, both named Daryl (don't laugh!) and 
a roue who juggled two girlfriends at the same time. Sometimes the two girls 
would arrive at the dealership at the same time, and the guys had a heck of a 
time trying to keep them from seeing each other. They initially gave Tom the 
scut jobs, you know, changing oil, taking out the garbage, mopping the oil off 
of the floor, bleeding the tanks out in the back that supplied pressurized air 
to the air power tools... the hardest part of the job was figuring out how best 
to place the car on the lift so that when the lift went up, the car didn't fall 
right off. And as a boot, Tom was made the butt of practical jokes. He'd lift up 
a car and then see it shake like it was about to fall off and it would turn out 
that one or more mechanics were hanging off of the back, rocking it. One time 
one of the Daryls was taking off the lug nuts with his power tool and he handed 
them to Tom, all at once. "Yeow!" said Tom, dropping them. They were really hot. 
Daryl laughed at the prank. At first, the guys were eager to test Tom to see what
 kind of a guy he was. Once, one of them suddenly threw something at Tom and only
 afterwards, yelled: "Catch!" Tom caught it, and then examined it. 
"What'd you guys do that for?" He asked.  
"To see if you were a fruitcake," the guy replied. " Girls and fruitcakes won't 
catch anything unless they know what it is. They'll scream and drop it, or jump 
out of the way. Real men don't ask questions."  
The locker room was covered in gross drawings of naked women in various poses 
and the guys tried talking gross with Tom but they soon realized he didn't care for it.
 "When you first came, you wore only black, and we thought you were some sort of minister,"
 they said. "And then you lightened up."  "Really?" Tom smiled. "Maybe I had a limited 
wardrobe."  Tom's background remained a mystery for them. Of course, the guys had their
 swimsuit calendars up on the wall. Over his toolbox, Tom put a calendar of a bunch of nuns. 
The guys hated it. So one day, when it was snowing badly and the guys were 
driving cars into the bay all covered with snow, they decided to have a snow 
fight. Snow balls flew everywhere. Tom got in some good shots. The guys targeted 
his  calendar with snowballs and it fell, all soggy, onto the floor. 
Unfortunately, they threw so much snow at each other that it fell into places 
not intended. "Where'd all this water come from?" The repairman wanted to know, 
called in to fix the now broken tire balancing machine. Everyone tried to look 
scarce. One mechanic wore the same uniform every day, washing it every night in
 what must have been industrial-strength bleach, because every day the shirt got 
threadier and his cut-offs got more and more raggedier. Two of the service writers, both
 women, watched this spectacle with growing interest, wondering how far it would go. Tom 
decided to make himself a better mechanic, so he enrolled in a nearby community 
college. And since Tom took out the garbage, which included such things as 
wiring harnesses and alternators, he brought these items to his teacher, who was 
appreciative, because such things could be used for the students to practice on 
in class. Some vehicles brought into the bay were too heavy to put up on the 
lifts. The weight is listed on a sticker inside the door jamb and if the weight 
was more than 5,000 pounds, it exceeded the lift capacity of most of the lifts 
in the shop. So the mechanic had to, instead, crawl underneath it. Tom disliked 
this, and built a creeper that was really low to the ground. Really low. If the 
floor was wet, then the back of your shirt got wet. Other mechanics would borrow 
his creeper, which was a validation for Tom. Even Mike borrowed his creeper, to 
get underneath a motor home, which you better believe could not be put onto a 
lift. Tom incessantly asked everyone questions, eager to learn. And the 
mechanics appreciated it, because it more often than not brought them more 
business. Example: "Eric, what is all this oil doing all over the front of the 
engine?" Eric would come over and look. "Front seal leak. Tell the service 
writer." Tom would, and the service writer would tell the customer. They'd both 
come out, Eric would point it out, and the customer would see how bad the 
situation was and agree to have it repaired right then and there. Eric would get 
the job while Tom watched and learned. "John, what is going on with these 
tires?" John would come over and look. "Christ. Zipper-splitting. This is what 
comes from buying cheap tires. The customer is a gnat's ass away from a 
blowout." Zipper-splitting looks like someone has taken a knife and ringed your 
tire with it, and in this case, the tear was on the inside of the tire, visible 
only by being underneath the car. They called out the customer so that they 
could have a look for themselves, all of them getting underneath the car and 
pointing it out to the customer. John would get the job of balancing and putting 
on new Toyo's. Tom would open people's batteries to check the water level 
inside. Sometimes he could see the plates. He would tell the service writer and 
the serive writer would tell the customer. "The customer says that she just had 
the car tuned up," and the service writer would smile. "Really? Tell her not to 
go back there." And Tom would fill up the nearly dry battery with distilled 
water. Or a car that had over 80,000 miles on it that had never had a lube job. 
How could Tom tell? Because no grease fittings had ever been installed on it. 
The factory seals were still in place. Tom told the service writer who reported 
back: "The customer says that he takes his SUV into the shop twice a year for a 
lube job. But not this shop," He smiled. They showed the shocked customer and 
Tom went ahead and got his 5mm wrench, unscrewed the factory seals and threw 
them away, screwed in the 45 degree angled grease fittings, got out his grease 
gun, clamped on the nozzle and did what should have been done many times before 
now. Tom would examine the brakes. Once, a lady's car had pads that were worn 
down to parade rest. He told the service writer, and the service writer reported 
back that the lady was grateful, that she was about to go on a 500 mile long 
trip. Now, the state that Tom lived in requires an inspection once a year, so 
these things get routinely taken care of and never gets this bad. But in some 
states, the car only gets inspected when the car changes owners. Tom was also 
good at spotting nails in tires. The most commonly affected tire is the 
passenger-side rear. Why, we don't know. Some of the nails that Tom pulled out 
were doozies, and the service writer took great glee in presenting some of them 
to the customer. Once Tom pulled out a bolt. The tires in this case were under 
warranty, and so the customer was advised to take the vehicle back for a new 
tire. Thing is, the bolt made a hole so big, that the plug Tom put in was sure 
to hold for only a little while. Tom carried a tire plugging tool and rubber 
strips in his car in order to rescue himself, and it would eventually turn out, 
other motorists with flat tires. Now, this tire plugging tool is a lot more 
slender than the thing the automotive stores sell. You have to get this very 
slender tool from a Mac or Snap-On dealer. Like the time Tom had pulled into a 
parking space to go grocery shopping and a car making a very funny sound 
suddenly pulled into the space next to him. He looked over to see some sort of 
device, perpaps something that opens wine bottles sticking into the person's 
tire. The two ladies in the car got out and looked at it with consternation. 
Without word, Tom went to the flatbed of his truck, got out the tool with a 
string of rubber already in it. He never looked at the ladies nor said anything 
to them. He got down and unscrewed the crazy thing out of the tire and quickly 
shoved in the tool, pulled it back out and cut the rubber with his bowie knife. 
The ladies examined the rubber thread hanging out of the now-plugged tire. The 
string will wear down over time, said Tom, and you won't even see it. I suggest 
you drive over to a gas station and check the tire pressure, but from the looks 
of it, I think you didn't really lose any. They looked at the ASE patch on the 
front of his blue ball cap and they thanked him. The craziest rescue that Tom 
was involved in was a lady in a parking lot who had a totally shredded tire. No 
plugging here. She had been trying to get the tire off so that she could put on 
the spare, but one of the lug nuts was rounded, so no wrench could get a grip. 
Tom had an excellent Gator Grip, (this item grabs rounded nuts) but the Gator 
Grip wasn't big enough for a lug nut. (Hey, Gator Grip, when are you guys going 
to make a socket big enough for really big nuts, like lug nuts?!) The only 
solution left was to break off the lug nut with a nut splitter. Tom didn't carry 
one in his tool box. He is careful not to round out nuts, and wondered what 
uncaring idiot did this to the lady. A new lug nut is twenty five cents. The 
lady had a road side service plan, the name of which we will not mention here, 
whom she called. A really big fat guy, maybe 300 pounds in heft, and only five 
feet high, arrived in a tow truck who proceeded to strap pads over his delicate 
knees. Tom rolled his eyes. Wheezing, he got down and confirmed the problem, got 
up with great difficulty, and then proceded to tow the lady's car to a station 
where they would have a nut-splitter. Tom immediately went out and bought a nut 
splitter and put it in his tool box. (Hey, nameless company, why didn't the guy 
already have such a thing in his toolbox? Tom wants to know.) Working as an auto 
mechanic had its alarming moments. One day was all snowy and icy and Tom was 
sent out to the back lot to bring in a big gold cadillac. The manager told him: 
I'm pretty sure that the battery in the car is dead Take the golf cart. It has a 
battery charger on it. Charge up the cadillac so that you can bring it into the 
shop. Tom went on out there first without the golf cart, to find the car and to 
see if the battery was indeed dead. He found the car, with dead weeds poking up 
through the snow around it. He put in the key and tried to open the driver's 
side car door but the door was frozen solid. It would not budge. He trudged 
through the snow to get to the passenger side of the car, put the key in, and 
pulled on the door handle and with a lurch, the big door opened. He got inside 
on the front seat and shut the door. He put the key into the ignition and turned 
it, but no sound. Car's dead, alright, he thought, and he scooted over to open 
the passenger door to get out of the car. He pulled up on the handle but the 
door would not open. Well, I'll be, he thought. The dumb door has frozen solid, 
just like the driver's side door. He shoved and banged and yanked at the handle 
but the door would not open. He tried the driver's door but that one would not 
budge, either. He looked at the windshield, but there was a heavy covering of 
ice and snow on the windows, so that no one could see in or out. Only dim light 
came in. Goldarnit! He fumed, and he pushed on the wheel to honk the horn for 
help, but of course, the battery was dead so there was no sound. He tried 
turning on the headlights to flash for help, but again, the battery was dead, so 
there was no light. Stuck in an icy tomb. Way in the back lot with all the 
snow-covered derilicts. Would they know he was trapped inside one of them? When 
would they notice him missing? Could they find him in this snowy graveyard? He 
felt panic beginning, but forced himself to remain calm. He had seen the TV 
shows, where people kick out the windshield. If it came to that, that is what he 
would do to escape. He thought he would try the passenger's side door one more 
time before he smashed the glass. He looked at the door more closely. It had two 
handles on it. Why would a car door have two handles? What a dumb design 
feature. He tugged at the second door handle, and the car door opened. He 
slogged back to the shop and told his story to one mechanic. The mechanic 
laughed but did not make fun of him. He could have said something like: well, 
that would be a hell of a note. You smash the windshield because you don't 
realize cadillacs have two door handles on each side. Indeed, the mechanic had a 
story of his own: it was on a friday afternoon, and the mechanic was sitting in 
the trunk of the car, one push rod holding it up, as the other push rod had 
failed. The mechanic, not thinking, pulled out the cotter pin of the one good 
push rod, and the trunk lid came down and shut him up inside. The mechanic 
yelled for help, but the car was in the farthest bay and the other mechanics had 
already left for the weekend. The mechanic was determined not to spend the 
weekend inside the trunk of this car, so he manuvered around and tore out the 
speaker system that had been installed behind the rear seats and that was how he 
was able to make his escape. The job was not as bad as some jobs that Tom had 
had. There were these big units suspended from the ceiling that blasted hot air 
in the winter and icy cold air in the summer. Big doors opened front and back of 
the bay so that guys could drive cars in and out, so that there was a constant 
rush of fresh air. Good thing, because most of the cars had their engines 
running, and with all that carbon monoxide and the guys not using the tailpipe 
hoses, one could get sick rather easily. But the big overhead units kept the bay 
nice year round so that the mechanics could be comfortable wearing shirt 
sleeves. No one dictated breaks or lunches. Anyone could go get lunch or take a 
break whenever they felt like it. There were several candy machines and one soda 
machine in the bay and they were always stocked. There were also snack machines 
in the customer waiting area. The first aid kit was on the wall and always fully 
stocked. Unlike the nightmare job at the shipyard that Tom had once had: he had 
cut his hand and asked where the first aid kit was. He was told there was none. 
He was surprised. We had one, but all the bandages kept disappearing. So Tom was 
forced to use duct tape to bind his bleeding hand, to keep the dirt out of the 
five inch gash. Tom once felt thirsty and asked where the soda machine was. He 
was told there was none. We had one, but the workers hung around it drinking 
soda and goofing off all the time, so it was taken out. Same story for the snack 
machine. No breaks were permitted, and lunch was one half hour. You had to 
travel through the bowels of the ship to the time clock and stand in line to 
clock out. Five minutes gone. You had to go the the scaffolding and climb down 
to the little concession stand on the pier. Ten minutes gone. You had to stand 
in line and buy a bag of chips, because there was no time to cook anything. Five 
minutes gone. You had to climb back up the scaffolding. Ten minutes gone. You 
had to stand in line to clock back in. Five minutes gone. Five minutes late back 
from lunch, and no time to stuff the bag of chips down your throat. Ladders had 
broken rungs, held together with duct tape. The dirty floor was covered in 
cabling so that it was easy to trip. They expected you to go up three stories 
and walk across a loose plank of wood that someone had laid across a space with 
no safety harness. You lost your fear of heights right quick. Rats abounded, and 
even the seagulls that landed on the rails of the ship looked dirty and grimy. 
No source of heat in the winter, and no source of coolness in the summer. Tools 
were a problem. Once Tom needed a sander. He was told to go to tool issue and 
check one out. So he did. Then someone asked to borrow it. After a few days, Tom 
asked for it back, as it was signed out in his name and he was responsible for 
it. Well, I loaned it to so and so, was the reply. So, when he could, Tom sought 
out and asked so and so for it. I thought I gave it back to Whoosit, was the 
reply. Tom never could get that tool back. One other time he asked about parts 
for his job, and was told, take it off of the ship. What this was, is that a job 
had been done, and now he was being advised to pirate parts off the finished 
work to complete his own work. It was a wonder anything ever got accomplished in 
that shipyard. The whole environment was worse than the military. It was worse 
than prison. It was worse than hell, and later on, we'll tell you why. Tom 
lasted there one month, and then he quit. Tom felt lucky that he had landed the 
auto mechanic's job. When he left for lunch, he went to a nearby deli and 
snacked on pastrami on rye. Or he had take-out Chinese. Or he got a pizza. While 
he was there, he learned a lot about cars. One day he asked a mechanic how one 
could tell when the timing belt was stretched and slipping. When you can no 
longer do a timing, was the reply. The timing mark will not remain stationary, 
but will coast all over the place. How can you tell that your starter motor is 
dying, he once asked. The reply: the starter motor sucks a lot of current from 
the battery when it initially engages. If you have your headlights on when you 
turn the engine over, the headlights should dim because of all the current that 
the starter motor is sucking. How can you tell that your alternator is dying, he 
once asked. The answer: your alternator is constantly recharging your battery. 
When the alternator goes, the battery runs down. Then you will need to jump your 
battery. As you jump your battery, turn on your headlights. When you take off 
the jumper cables, the headlights should not dim. The alternator should be 
making up the difference. If the headlights dim, your alternator is dying. It 
was good stuff to know, as Tom liked to be a hero and rescue stranded people. 
How old is your battery, he would ask. No one seemed to know. He'd listen to the 
sound of the car as the person, in vain, tried to start it. When's the last time 
you replaced your spark plugs? he would yell. And then there are two jokes that 
are Tom's favorites: A lady has been trying to start her car, but it will not. 
She calls up the mechanic and he asks her: Will it at least turn over? She 
replies, It will, if I push it off a cliff. (Turning over-or Cranking and 
Starting are two different things. Cranking is when you turn your key all the 
way to the 3rd position and the starter motor moves forward and engages the 
flywheel. When you let go of your key and it falls back into the second 
position, that is Starting. At that point, the starter motor gets out of the way 
and the spark plugs and gas go to work. The spark plug ignites and explodes the 
gasoline and the explosion pushes down on the pistons and they turn the engine. 
How did the gas originally get into the engine? The starter motor back in the 
Cranking mode moved the pistons so that they could suck it in.) How did we get 
gasoline? Well, 100 million years ago, there were dinosaurs and lots of ferns 
and they died and over the eons they have turned into black muck and we suck it 
out of the ground...Time now for the Second favorite joke of Tom's! A person was 
driving down the road and their oil light came on. So the person pulled over and 
checked their oil level on the dipstick but it was good. So they continued down 
the road and their oil light came on again. Again they pulled over and checked 
their oil level. Still good. Again they continued downthe road and their oil 
light came on. So they pulled their car over, opened the trunk got out a roll of 
duct tape, tore off a small piece, and stuck it over the oil light. Who says 
duct tape doesn't solve everything?