Broken Mirrors

Chapter 11

Crystal pulled up to the shop but as soon as she reached the part where the narrow driveway spread into an open space she wasn’t sure where to park her car. There were vehicles in all states of repair parked around and she couldn’t, at first glance, put any rhyme or reason to their organization. There was a man washing a car on one of several concrete slabs buried in the dirt directly in front of the shop, but she didn’t know him at all and he gave no indication as to where she might need to pull her vehicle to have the conversation that awaited her. She finally just pulled the car in front of one of the open stalls of the shop and sat there a moment.

A small man in filthy jeans and a plaid button down shirt started toward her out of the shop and she realized she was going to have to get out and state her business.

“Ayyy oooh… got a customer!” Tommy called, alerting the men inside the shop to stop any inappropriate chatter for the moment. He wandered out to circle around the car as Crystal got out of it, trying to assess at a glance what level of repair work was going to be necessary.

“I’m looking for Richard McLurey,” Crystal said as she got out of the car and closed the door behind her.

“Rich! Hey Richard! Got a customer!” Tommy called. Derek echoed the call from inside the shop calling Richard in from the back where he’d gone to into the stockroom. “He’ll be out in a minute,” Tommy said. “What can I do you for?”

Crystal frowned a little at the tiny man. She knew of Tommy Wren, but her knowledge of the man didn’t stretch far beyond gossip that she’d heard here and there. He was supposedly a heavy drinker and a rowdy individual who spent a good number of his Saturday night’s locked up downtown. Apparently he and his wife were brawlers, at least with each other, and they called the cops on each other on a regular basis. Crystal had heard the stories about it more than once, though she wasn’t sure how to process exactly the idea of a husband and wife who fought each other with equal ferocity.

“I just need to talk to Richard,” Crystal said, eyeing Tommy.

“What’s wrong with your car?” Tommy asked. “I can start an estimate for you while you wait.”

Crystal shook her head.

“There’s nothing wrong with the car,” she said. “I just need to talk to Richard .”

“You got him!” Richard announced, walking through the shop and appearing a few feet in front of her holding some kind of tool that she wouldn’t have been able to identify if her life had depended on it. “What’s the problem?”

Richard stepped outside the shop and walked past her to the edge of the concrete area they were standing on. He spit in the dirt and kicked sand over top of the tobacco spit with his shoe. Crystal tried not to shudder at the habit that she found disgusting. Richard drug his mouth across the shoulder of his shirt to wipe it and regarded her, waiting for her to state her business.

“I’m here about Sophia,” Crystal said, realizing that she still hadn’t lost the attention of Wren who was now leaning against the front fender of her car.

“Beg pardon?” Richard asked.

Crystal was confused. She wasn’t sure if Richard was hard of hearing or if there was some problem with the fact that Sophia told her she was working here. She hadn’t doubted Sophia’s honesty about the situation, and she’d known at least these two characters by name.

“Sophia?” Crystal repeated. “I wanted to talk to you about her working here.”

Andrew was washing one of the cars that they’d finished repairing when the person had pulled up and parked right in front of the shop, blocking one of the stalls. Andrew figured it was a customer and didn’t bother to look up from what he was doing. The three nitwits that worked with him were more than capable of getting off their lazy asses and giving an estimate for whatever damage was done to the vehicle.

When he finished rinsing the car, however, and let the hose fall to the ground so he could go for the tire brush, his ears caught enough of the conversation to perk his interest…something not regularly occurring with new customers.

“I don’t know what the hell ya talking about ma’am, but we don’t know no Sophia,” Richard said.

At the name Sophia, Andrew glanced in the direction of the others who were standing in a semi circle around some woman. He felt compelled to sort out the situation since he was the only one present with enough brain cells to be able to do so. He walked toward the cluster.

“Sophia?” He called out. All four people looked at him at once and he absentmindedly bit at his thumb nail in response to the overload of attention. “Ya lookin’ for Sophia?” He asked again, looking toward the woman and moving closer in her direction.

The woman nodded. As Andrew got closer he inspected her a little. He figured her to be about his age, which would put her somewhere between her early and mid-thirties. She was wearing jeans that looked like they hung off her with a long sleeve shirt that did the same. Andrew almost laughed to himself thinking that it looked like there was enough room to spare in her clothes that Tommycould have worn them with her and neither one of them would have felt crowded for space.

Her hair was an auburn color but showed signs of grey and it was cut with less attention to detail than his was, almost to the point that he felt the need to reach over and smooth it down so that she looked less like she’d rolled out of bed moments before.

He guessed, though, that the woman was probably Sophia’s mother…the one she kept insisting she didn’t have. She had big blue eyes, and he could easily match those with Sophia’s. She also shared her daughter’s frame and Andrew imagined that stripped of the oversized clothing she probably had more knees and elbows than she knew what to do with. As Tommy had said about Sophia, she had enough joints that she probably got knotted up on herself if she wasn’t paying attention.

“Sophia’s supposed to be working here,” Crystal said.

It was Andrew’s turn to nod then.

“She ain’t here right now,” he said. “Don’t know what time she gets outta school but if she ain’t home ya might just check the highway. Picked her up a couple days ago makin’ like a hitchhiker.”

Crystal looked at him.

“I’m Crystal ,” she said. She offered her hand to him. Andrew hesitated a moment, but took it, shaking it slightly. “You brought Sophia home the other day?” Andrew nodded a little. The woman’s face lit up and he automatically worried that he was about to see far more emotion from this woman than he really wanted to see from anybody. “Thank you so much!” She said.

Andrew nodded.

“Don’t mention it,” he said. He ignored the muffled snickers from Tommy and Derek , knowing the assholes were going to have something to say when this woman finally left.

“So she is working here?” Crystal asked. She glanced around, wrinkling her brow at the other three men.

“She’s workin’ here,” Andrew said. “Cleanin’ up an’ s’posed ta be a shop hand. She ain’t come home again today?”

Crystal shook her head.

“She’s still at school,” Crystal said.

“Excuse me for breakin’ up this beautiful family reunion,” Richard said, “but what the hell is goin’ on here?”

“She’s askin’ ‘bout Sophia, the girl that’s workin’ here,” Andrew said. Richard looked at him. “Wendy,” Andrew l said.

“Oh!” Richard exclaimed. “She’s workin’ like a shop hand…what’cha need to know about her? She ain’t in no trouble is she?”

“Wendy?” Crystal asked.

Andrew scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” he said. “That’s what they took ta callin’ her.”

Crystal had no idea why in the world the men were calling Sophia by the name of Wendy, but she wasn’t going to try and delve into the psychology of any of these men. The man that was about her age, Andrew, seemed like the only one that she could have a halfway intelligent conversation with, and at this moment she could do without the audience the other three onlookers were providing. She decided to give her attention to him and try to ignore the others.

“I wanted to…well…I wasn’t sure about Sophia working here,” Crystal said. She glanced at the three men who were smirking at her a little. She stepped closer to Andrew , closing the space between them and leaned in. “Could we talk a moment?” She asked.

“Ya wanna talk ta me?” Andrew asked, his eyes growing wide. Crystal nodded. Andrew hesitated a moment and tossed a glance at the other three. Finally he shrugged. “Yeah, whatever…” he said. He started to walk off toward the back of Crystal’s car where she could speak to him in some relative privacy. He didn’t know how to tell her that the three numbskulls behind them were going to be eavesdropping anyway so she might as well just talk in front of them. Andrew lit a cigarette and leaned against the back of the car.

“Is it OK if Sophia works here?” Crystal asked him when they’d walked around to the back of the car. She kept nervously glancing at the three men who had actually dispersed and gone back to at least pretending to be doing something productive. Andrew wasn’t sure why Sophia’s mother would be asking him if it was OK if Sophia worked somewhere, but he shrugged in response.

“What’cha mean? I mean she’s got the job, but I don’t know if ya want her workin’ here. I mean ain’t nobody here no kinda creep nor nothin’ but she ain’t liable ta have the best fuckin’ role models since the Disney channel,” Andrew responded.

Crystal knew better than to expect the nannying skills of Mary Poppins from any of the men that she’d seen today, including Andrew , but she was more concerned about whether or not Sophia would be safe than she was about whether or not she’d hear more lovely language to enrich her already flowery vocabulary. If the girl was determined to work there, and if it would perhaps make her more inclined to stick with their agreement and smooth things over, then Crystal could tolerate trying to counteract some of their poor influences, but she couldn’t tolerate knowing that anyone had stepped over any physical boundaries with the girl.

“I understand that,” Crystal said, “but is she safe here?”

Andrew shrugged a little again.

“Long as she stays the f**k away from the equipment she ought notta get hurt,” Andrew responded.

Crystal shook her head.

“I mean safe from the men? No one would do anything inappropriate?” Crystal asked.

Andrew narrowed his eyebrows at her and glanced over his shoulder back toward the show where the three men were pantomiming productivity. He shook his head.

“Ain’t nobody gonna f**k with her if that’s what’cha worried about,” Andrew said.

Crystal nodded. She paused and then nodded again before smiling.

“Thank you,” she said. “And thank you for bringing her back. Hopefully we’ve got things…under control now.”

Crystal started back around like she was getting in the car and Andrew stepped to the side, nodding at the woman. She waved briefly at Tommy who was leaning against the stall door and the man waved back.

Andrew watched her as she backed her car up and left.

“What was that all about?” Richard called when she’d pulled down the drive.

“Wantin’ ta make sure y’all was just jackasses an’ not fuckin’ perverts,” Andrew said.

He didn’t expect the laughter that the statement drew from the other three men, but he wasn’t surprised by it either.

“Looks like you done found ya self a girlfriend,” Derek drawled, dropping appearances of doing anything he might be paid for. “Y’all boys seen she ain’t think lil’ brotha’s no pervert. Can see a mile away he ain’t no threat…got ta have a set ta be one.”

Everyone chuckled and Andrew rolled his eyes. He passed by the men and headed back toward the half broken drink machine to see if he coax a Coke out of it. He hoped they’d all forget about the visit soon enough, but they’d all latched onto it like a baby to a teat and they somewhat swarmed around him, pretending they were on some kind of break.

“Ya best be careful hittin’ that s**t,” Derek said. “One look at her an’ you can damn well guarantee that soon as she opened her legs bats would be flying out.”

Tommy disappeared a moment, fumbling in the tool chest that belonged to him and rested against the wall nearest the air compressors. He came back a second later holding a Christmas tree air freshner by the string, pinched between his finger and thumb.

“Here you go, Andrew . I got some to spare and you might need it if you’re planning on going down under, boy,” Tommy said.

Andrew twisted his neck a little against the crick that was forming there and curled his lip at the men who were all howling at the jokes made at the expense of the woman.

“My lil’ brotha,” Derek drawled. “Got him a girlfriend an’ the last damn time her legs was open ya can bet was when Wendy crawled her ass outta there.”

“Kid ain’t nothing but knees and elbows, though,” Richard said. “No worries, Andrew . Probl’y slid out like a damn spaghetti noodle. She’s prob’ly damn near still got the cherry because you know whoever the f**k put Wendy in there did it on accident.”

Tommy howled.

“He was walking by and just kind of fell in…”

Andrew curled his lip and took a swig of the Coke that he was holding in his hands.

“Shut the f**k up!” He growled. “Y’all are some nasty f***s! Damn, leave the poor woman alone. She’s up here checkin’ up on her fuckin’ kid an’ I go an’ tell her y’all’s asses is fine just for ya ta act like a buncha fuckin’ animals when she leaves.”

Andrew shoved by them and made his way to the work counter, having forgotten the car he was washing, to start cleaning out paint cans from the car that he’d sprayed earlier. It needed another shot of clear and he was more than anxious at the moment to get in the booth and away from the howling baboons around him.

“Ah now, don’t be that way lil brotha ,” Derek drawled. “We ain’t mean ta be pickin’ on ya sweetness. Ya take her out behind her car ta whisper sweet nothin’s in her ear?”

Andrew didn’t have any affection whatsoever for the woman, so he wasn’t sure exactly why it grated on his nerves to hear their ongoing outpouring of slurs and insults, but he didn’t care for it. He knew they were just being the d***s that they normally were, but he felt like they were giving the poor woman more hell than any one person deserved in the course of a day at Richard’s.

Andrew kept his back to the men, continuing his work with the sprayers. After a few minutes of him not paying them much attention, the laughter started to die down between the three of them, fading out into the occasional chuckle and snort.

“You know who the hell that was, though, don’t’cha, Richard ?” Tommy asked when he’d finally gotten control of himself.

“Hell no I don’t know who the hell that was,” Richard said. “Andrew’s girlfriend is all I know.”

Tommy chuckled.

“Nah, I’m serious. You know who it was. That was Gary Mcalisters daughter,” Tommy said.

“Who?” Derek asked.

Andrew shook his head at his brother’s nosy ass. Tommy and Richard had both lived in this town since they were born and Andrew figured that to be somewhere around the time the dinosaurs died the f**k out. Tommy was younger than Richard , but the only damn reason that Andrew could figure that Richard was still kicking it like he was had to do with the fact that he’d probably drank so damn much he was almost entirely pickled.

“Gary McAlister,” Richard said, the laughter gone from his voice now. “Dead…been dead a while. Never had but one kid. Reckon that was her.”

“Yeah, that was her,” Tommy said. “Freckle faced, chicken legged little thing. Shoulda known it when I saw Wendy wobbling her ass up here.”

“Ya a damn good one ta be talkin’ ‘bout somebody’s chicken legs,” Andrew said, turning around and heading toward the back to get the clear that he needed. Tommy caught him by the arm.

Tommy shook his head at him, only a hint of a smile spread across his face.

“Now don’t be like that, Andy,” Wren said. “Ain’t nobody around here gonna judge you just because you got a taste for chicken.”

Andrew shoved Tommy backwards to get his hand off his arm. If Richard hadn’t been standing there, he might have shoved the little man to the floor, but Richard caught him and Tommy responded with a laugh instead of being sore about the incident.

Andrew went to the storage area leaving the gossiping ninnies to talk their s**t. He didn’t have any interest in what they had to say and he didn’t know Gary McAlister so he could give half a f**k if it was Sophia’s grandfather.

When he passed back through, though, the conversation caught his ear and he paused a minute on his way toward the paint booth.

“Didn’t realize they had a kid, though…son of a b***h damn near killed her more than once,” Tommy said.

Andrew turned around, halted in his movement.

“Who?” He asked, drawing the attention of the other three. “Who damn near killed who?”

Richard spit into the cup he was holding.

“Ya bat’s old man damn near killed her,” Richard said. “He’s doin’ somethin’ like eight to ten at state.”

“Ole Mike was a fine one,” Tommy said. “One first class son of a b***h…said he use to hit on her like he was trying to win first place in a damn game of Whack-A-Mole.” Tommy pantomimed the game for the benefit of his audience.

Andrew shuddered. After the award winning parents that he’d been pegged with he couldn’t stand to hear about that kind of thing. He knew it crawled up Merle’s ass too. The only person they ever forgave for anything akin to beating on his wife was Wren and that was because he didn’t so much beat on her as the two of them tangled up about once a week. She tended to give it as good as she got and from what they understood from Richard that was part of what made their sorry union so damn happy. Andrew figured it was something he didn’t understand, but for all his bitching it was evident that Tommy and Nellie liked each other alright…and apparently part of that liking of each other was the fact that they could go a few rounds, get each other locked up on a regular, and then happily reunite when the free one bailed the other out of jail. They apparently both got a damn kick out of it, and neither one of them had ever really been injured in the conflicts.

Tommy’s f****d up union aside, though, Andrew couldn’t abide the idea of a man tangling up with a woman, especially if that woman wasn’t giving it right back. He thought for a moment about the skinny woman in the oversized yard sale outfit. He couldn’t see her giving it back to any men, unless he was maybe the stature of Tommy. He disliked the thought. Then his thoughts settled, for just a second on Sophia, and he shook his head thinking about the fact that the girl may have very well seen her share of it all.

Andrew didn’t say anything else to the three men. They continued talking, but he wasn’t interested any longer in what they had to say. He walked off and closed himself in the confined area of the paint booth where the car was waiting, taped up and ready to go.

Andrew pulled on his mask and tried to switch his thoughts over, taking them off the conversation. He didn’t give one hot damn about woman that had been up there other than the fact he hated to know that she’d been on the receiving end of some asshole’s fists.

She had to be a decent mother, though, despite the fact her kid had run away…otherwise she wouldn’t have come up there checking to make sure that her kid wasn’t about to become victim to any sick f***s. Andrew thought about Sophia, then. If her Daddy had pounded on her Mama and left her so f****d up that she wanted to deny her parents even, he knew she must have seen a lot of s**t in her life. Maybe…if he thought about it…he could see how she might have ended up on the side of that highway with her thumb stuck out.

Andrew started spraying the car. He hoped the jokers outside at least had enough damn sense to stop talking trash about that girl’s Mama before she got there. He wasn’t sure exactly what made him do it, but he stopped spraying for the moment and shifted his mask to his head. He opened the door and stuck his head out, finding Mac closest to the door of the paint booth.

“Just make sure ya fuckers stop talkin’ s**t ‘fore that girl gets here,” Andrew said.

Richard looked at him. Andrew could see that without the other two around to egg him on, Richard was being serious for a moment. He nodded at Andrew . The nod was clearly to assure him that they would indeed be somewhat mindful of what they said. Then a smirk spread across his face as he spit into his cup again, letting Andrew know that the moment had passed.

“No worries,” Richard said. “We won’t talk about your girlfriend so your pup can hear it.”

Andrew growled his annoyance at Richard and ducked back into the silence of the booth, pulling his mask back into place and turning his attention to the car that was patiently awaiting some of its finishing touches