Chapter Eleven
Fluky Signs On
I didn't hear from Fluky again for three days. I didn't attempt to call, thinking it best to let things lie after our exchange outside of Putter's. I also didn't bother to fill Mitty in on the details of my engine design, knowing the whole deal was off if Fluky wasn't on board. It seemed unnecessarily cruel to get Mitty's hopes up, and he'd be of no use in helping to convince Fluky that the engine could actually get built. Potentially exactly the opposite. A sound endorsement from Mitty would be more than enough reason for Fluky to sign off on the idea, permanently.
I busied myself with my job at The Shop, exploring the rest of the complex and determining exactly what resources I had available. I had no more epiphanies, however. There were no more revolutionary means of propulsion lying hidden in the recesses of The Shop. Our train, what would come to be called The Cordwainer, would run on hydrogen peroxide or it would run on nothing at all.
It was Saturday evening when I again heard from Fluky. He called late in the evening, as I was listening to the radio with my father, and invited me down to Putter's for a drink. It was Saturday night, after all, and my father was enjoying the Dean Martin Variety Hour, so I found my coat and headed out. I don't believe my father noticed me go.
I found Fluky again in the barroom. He was in a booth, all alone, drinking a beer from a glass. I bought a glass for myself and joined him at the table, pulling off my coat.
“So tell me straight out,” Fluky began before I could say hello. “No shittin'. You think that rocket-powered train of yours can really work?”
I thought for a second about whether to correct him again, but I decided against it, “Yep,” I said.
“Seriously?” he said with gravity, leaning forward over his beer. “You, me, the fathead, and a cargo of boots. All the way over the mountains and into the Big City?”
“I think it can work,” I replied honestly. “If you can build my engine, I think we've got a fighting chance.”
“At four million bucks?” He said hopefully.
“Well,” I hedged. “That was Mitty's figure for a mega-gauge boxcar. We could never haul such a load with the horsepower we're talking here. I was thinking closer to 25 crates...”
“What that work out at?” he asked impatiently.
“Probably a square million.”
Fluky let that sink in.
“Are you on board?” I asked eventually, after I'd given him ample time to contemplate.
He looked at me with an expression on his face I couldn't quite gauge. He began, “So Wednesday mornin', after talkin' to you the night before, I goes to work like always. We've been cleaning up this lot of cars on the west side of the tracks. All them little shotgun shacks got something rustin' away 'round back. City is sick to death of it all, says they're all a hazard. We can get a writ from the judge on folks that don't want us towing off their old Studebaker. You know, there's still some folks think that the oil is gonna come back? They're holdin' on to their old car for when the shortages end. Damn fool, tartarhead white trash bastards...
“Anyway, Wednesday morning I'm in the yard cuttin' up with a torch the wrecks I'd hauled in the day before. Had a good day – got six without no complainin'. Nothing special in the lot. Fords, a Chevy and an old Hudson. Choppin' 'em up with a torch, as I said. Not rightly sure why I bother. Supposed to break them down small so the Concession can haul off the steel – make 'em into new stuff – maybe new cars. Ain't no iron mining no more, too dangerous. Too much carbon. Gotta recycle the steel we have. But you know how it is, the Concession ain't hauled off a load of steel for years. No space on the trains, no trucks to get the scrap from the junkyard to the terminal. So here I am burnin' up diesel, riding around town, hauling off old cars that no one can ever drive no more, choppin' them up so I can make a big old pile of junk, that no one's ever gonna make any smaller. That right there, that's what I was doing that Wednesday morning.
“Then that son-of-a-bitch Zimmerman, he comes on out of his hut. Bastard has a little hut that he holes up in all day. Too damn old and too damn ornery to do any work. Sits in there and counts the money that the Concession pays him for makin' that there pile of shit a little bit bigger – nah, forget that, counting the money the Concession pays him for me makin' that there pile of shit a little bit bigger. Bastard comes out of his old hut and starts cussing at me. I'm runnin' my torch, watching steel split, so I can't hear the fucker. Anyway, he comes on around and is cussing at me an earful. Ain't exactly sure what he's all bent out of shape 'bout – still don't rightly know. Anyway, he's callin' me a chink bastard and a lazy no good slant-eyed motherfucker. I feel like windin' up and clocking the old coot. But I don't, you know, 'cause by now it's been goin' on six years of this crap. Everyday – everyday that old piece of shit gets a burr in his ass, he comes around cussing at me.”
Fluky paused take a sip of his beer. I'd almost completely forgotten about mine.
“You know, he was in the war?” Fluky continued. “In the Pacific. He was at Guadalcanal, the evacuation of Hawaii; got shot in the head on the Baja by some Jap. Got a metal plate up there now. Can't get too close to magnets. Reminds me at least once a week that the happiest day of his life was the day Truman nuked Japan. That son-of-a-bitch knows what I am – says he can smell the difference between a nip and a chink – and to sit around and say that shit... But I got to sit around and take it. You know why? That old bastard's got me by the balls. There ain't no other place for me to go. Not in Boot Hill, not to work with steel. I got a Class B chit, sure, but what the hell am I goin' to do? Sew boots on the floor of The Shop? Hell, I can weld as tight a seam as any motherfucker that ever built a Sherman tank; I've kept that old wrecking truck running for almost ten years without nothing but rusty old spares to pick from; and I got to stand there and take whatever crap that old bastard want to pitch? Yep. If I ever want to work another day with tools, and not just sit around on my ass like that tartarhead Mitty, I gotta just stand there and take it. Fuck.
“But you know what? In the past I always just let that shit roll off me. I could look at the miserly old fuck and think: Yeah, flap your lip, you bastard, when you die I'll get everythin'. Yeah, that's always what I was thinkin', when he'd start in on me: insult my race and my homeland and anythin' else he can fuckin' think of, that old bastard, but someday, he's gonna die...
“I know that ain't Christian – both comin' or goin'. Love thy neighbor, the prophets say, and don't sweat the trials and tribulations of this life, for the majesty of the promised land will soon be on us all. But shit...”
Fluky paused again to sip at his beer. The tone and manner of his speech subtlety changed and grown much more inward.
“I know I don't much talk on it. Faith. I know you ain't got none, so I don't whittle you on it. But for me it's a sustainin' thing. I know that God has a plan; that he threaded this world through with kami out of the grace of his love; that it surrounds us all and protects us and guides us. But hell... That his people have to suffer such burdens... There may be grace in the afterlife for those who love Jesus, but...
“I mean, ain't ol' Kennedy always saying that despite our troubles, we're still a Nation of Big Ideas? Ain't that what America is 'bout? You ever hear an idea in your life bigger than Mitty's? Bigger than this here rocket train of yours? Shit, Jesus may walk this earth in body and spirit and the fruits of the earth may be given, we might fill our stomachs and be happy, but... Ain't Jesus busy takin' care of the old widows and the little babies? Can't we take a little somethin' off his plate? Seems like if we can provide for ourselves, ain't we tasked with the duty of doin' it?”
Fluky leaned forward in the booh, the vigor returning to his voice.
“So, there I am, Wednesday morning, listening to Zimmerman pitch his shit, and something inside me moves. I ain't sayin' it's the hand of God or nothin' – I ain't blaspheming – but somethin' right here,” he tapped at his chest, “moved. What am I doin'? Hopin' the death of that ol
d shit-heel for? For what? A measly diesel ration and a pile of steel nobody nor nothin' is ever gonna use? What am I makin' in this life? For the glory of God? Nothin', that's what, nothin'.”
“We create our own providence,” I said, unsure if I was offending Fluky. I wasn't sure – Fluky was always a mystery – but I think he was slowly screwing up the courage to sign on to Mitty's Plan. But I could have easily been way off base, it was hard to tell with Fluky.
“Hell, I don't know,” Fluky continued, “if you can really make a rocket-powered train, I don't know if such a fool thing should ever be attempted, but I do know God don't want me pitchin' shit and hatin' on my neighbor. Not like Old Zimmerman.
“Hell, maybe we'll all blow ourselves to hell!” he smirked. “And then I can ask Jesus what he might be wantin'. But, hell, ain't we got to try? Ain't we got to do somethin'? Instead of sittin' around and waitin' on perdition?”
I raised an eyebrow, and looked at him expectantly.
“You know Mitty,” he went on, changing gears. “You know what a pulp brain, horse's ass he is. But ain't he tryin'? I mean, really, in his way? You can't fault the fool for that. What you said back there in the freezer,” he thrust a thumb back over his shoulder. “You was right. Ain't we supposed to be a Nation of Big Ideas? Well, what idea is bigger than this 'un?”
He trailed off and sipped at his beer, thinking.
“Then you're in?” I asked, getting to the nub of it.
“Yeah,” Fluky said with a slight grin. “I'm in.”