The Repair Guy Cometh
by
John Gibson
All rights reserved
Copyright John Gibson 2015
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The Repair Guy Cometh
Frank Miller was arguing with his car when the call came through. ‘Oh come on man,’ Frank beseeched of the car throwing up his arms imploringly, ‘it's only fifteen miles down to the Seven-Eleven.’
The car was immutable, intransigent, it had remained unmoved by his pleadings for the past ten minutes and showed no signs of weakening now: ‘What is the intended purpose of your visit to the Seven-Eleven?’ it asked him in its most officious tone.
‘I need to get a quart of milk.’ He replied. He suspected that the car was enjoying this.
‘Under clause three of section twelve of your leasing agreement with the Happy Drive Car Corporation your monthly payment of three-hundred and forty-seven dollars in now overdue.’ the car told him smugly, ‘This vehicle may not be used for social, domestic or pleasure purposes until payment is made.’ it paused for a few seconds before grudgingly adding, ‘It may however be used in the case of a bona fide emergency.’
‘But this is an emergency dude!’ Frank exclaimed ‘I’m out of milk!’ He hit the big red start button on the dashboard and watched with satisfaction as the the instrument panel lit up, the switches and dials glowing with a cool green light.
The car thought for a moment before responding. He could hear the atomic motor beneath the bonnet whirring into life, it’s gradual increase in pitch mirroring his own rising sense of excitement.
‘The purchase of dairy comestibles does not constitute a genuine emergency.’ the car told him in its most bumptious tone. The green light faded from the instrument panel and the motor began to wind back down.
That was it! Frank wasn’t normally prone to tirades or temper tantrums but now all of his frustrations came bursting to the surface. He lost it! He was missing his show for god’s sake! He released a foul stream of vituperative profanity at the car.
‘You shit.’ he yelled. ‘You worthless piece of Japanese SHIT!’ He banged his fists futilely against the steering wheel. Spittle flew from the corners of his mouth and his long hair whipped about his face as he shook his head violently from side to side. ‘I'm gonna take a sledge-hammer to your fucking motor! You’re going straight to the goddamn scrapyard to get turned into fucking Coke cans! I’m gonna...’
The car remained impassive to his imprecations.
After a few minutes of this his rage subsided as he wore himself out. He stopped screaming at the car, stopped banging his fists and shaking his head. Instead he simply sat there staring out through the wind-shield and panting, trying to get his breath back. That was when he became aware of the ringing sound. He glanced at the small screen in the middle of the dash, it was displaying the words ‘INCOMING CALL’. His face was still flushed and he was still breathing heavily as he reached out with one shaking hand and hit the button marked ‘ANSWER’. Immediately the screen lit up and Frank found himself looking at the image of a young woman. He guessed she was about the same age as himself, late twenties, maybe early thirties. She had long black hair, big doe-like blue eyes and full, pouting, red lips. Frank thought she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
‘Hello?’ he said uncertainly.
‘Hello, Mr Miller?’ she asked blinking nervously into the camera, she seemed to be in an agitated condition.
Without waiting for him to reply she went on: ‘My name's Stephanie Harrison and my television's broken down,’ she gave a nervous little laugh which seemed to border on the hysterical, ‘Can you come over immediately? It really is urgent,’ her eyes looked wet and glassy, she seemed close to tears, ‘I mean it's the season finale of “Celebrity Make ‘n’ Bake”,’ she went on, ‘and there were only four contestants left and they were about to have the vote, and I think they were going to vote Donny off, and I mean Donny's my favourite and then the screen just went blank and then...’ she stifled a sob, the tears were flowing now.
‘I'll be right over ma'am’ said Frank. ‘What's the address?’
‘Really?’ she asked, sniffing and wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand, ‘5028 Melrose, for god's sake hurry!’
‘Try to stay calm ma'am, I'll be right there.’
A big smile spread across Frank’s handsome features. ‘Well,’ he said, speaking once more to the car, ‘You heard the lady, her TV's not working. Lets Go!’
‘A malfunctioning television set is defined as an emergency under federal and state law.’ the car agreed reluctantly and the dashboard lights once more glowed with their groovy green light.
Even the whirring of the motor sounded petulant to Frank as the car rose smoothly into the southern Californian night. Below him the lights of Los Angeles stretched away towards the Pacific ocean and above him the stars shone cold and hard. There was a beautiful thin crescent Moon hanging low on the horizon with Venus and Jupiter close by. The arch of the Milky Way stretched from horizon to horizon. The Pleiades and Haydes were easily visible to the naked eye as were the great galaxy in Andromeda and the great globular cluster in Hercules.
But Frank saw none of these things. Instead he watched the towers of south-central LA slide silently beneath the car and he thought about the programs he was missing. ‘Celebrity Make ‘n’ Bake’ for a start. It was only when he’d slipped out during the intermission to make a coffee that he’d realized he was out of milk. He should have been able to make it down to the convenience store and back in five minutes if the car hadn’t been so bloody recalcitrant. Stephanie had said it looked like Donny would be voted off and that was good, he wanted Monica to win. Perhaps he’d be able to catch the end of the show at Stephanie’s when he’d fixed her set, he could tell her that he needed to watch it for a while in case it overheated or something. But then he’d have to rush to get home, the new series of ‘Pop-star Promoter’ was on directly after ‘Make ‘n’ Bake’ and the early shows where they auditioned the real no-hopers were always the best.
He looked down at the deserted streets - nothing was moving down there. Everyone was at home in their apartment watching TV. Occasionally he’d see another car go by ‘Probably another television engineer on his way to an emergency,’ he mused.
It was only about fifty miles out to Melrose, Less than ten minutes after take-off Frank’s car glided silently down onto the roof of the two-mile-high tower that was home to more than five-thousand people. He took the elevator down to the fiftieth floor and padded along the plush-carpeted hallways until he found 5028. Stephanie appeared in the doorway almost before he’d pressed the doorbell. She was wearing tight-fitting blue-jeans and a UCLA tee-shirt stretched tightly over her not-inconsiderable bosom. Her eyes looked red and swollen and the smudged tracks of her tears could still be read in the mascara stains on her elfin face.
Frank caught his breath, she was even more beautiful in the flesh.‘TV repair-man.’ he said holding up his official Department of Media badge for her inspection.
‘Oh thank god you’re here,’ she said, dragging him into the sitting room where a ninety-six inch Sony Purevision TV took up most of the far wall. She stood over him, nervously chewing at her nails as he knelt down and opened his toolbox.
He had a pretty good idea what the problem was as soon as he’d seen the set. A burnt out double-dipole spring-flange retractor plunger was a common fault on
these early Purevisions. He fished around in his toolbox until he found a new one while Stephanie went off to make him a coffee.
Five minutes later with the new part fitted the Sony fired up back into life. Stephanie was overjoyed especially since Donny was one of the two contestants left in the competition, Monica was the other. He gave Stephanie the line about waiting to see if anything overheated and the two of them sat in silence on the sofa drinking their coffee and watching the show.
Monica tried her hand at a chocolate soufflé for her final dish but when it failed to rise Donny won the day with his raspberry and mascarpone tart. Donny was dubbed Celebrity Baker of the Year and Stella Diamond, the shows host, crowned him with the traditional diamanté chef’s hat whilst leotard-clad dancing girls danced and fireworks exploded. Finally Donny gave a speech in which he explained that he was donating the two-million dollars in prize money to his favourite charity , the Baird Foundation, an organisation dedicated to bringing the wonders of television to less developed parts of the world.
As soon as the final credits began to roll Frank got up from the sofa and bade Stephanie farewell.
‘Can I offer you anything?’ asked Stephanie, fishing in her purse for some money.
‘No thank you ma’am,’ he replied, ‘as a government employee I’m specifically forbidden from accepting gratuities of any kind. The knowledge of a job well done is reward enough for me.’
She showed him to the hallway and they shook hands. As soon as the door clicked shut behind him he ran like hell for the elevators. He wanted to get back home before he missed too much of his show.
‘Come on, come on,’ he thought as he waited for the lift to arrive, it seemed to take ages. At last there was a ping and the brushed steel doors slid quietly open, he dashed inside and punched impatiently at the button marked ‘R’. The elevator seemed to travel upwards at an inordinately leisurely pace, he felt sure that it was doing it on purpose. As soon as the doors pinged open he sprinted across the roof to his car and climbed inside, a few seconds later the vehicle rose silently up into the clear night sky.
‘Hey man, can we stop at the Seven-Eleven on the way home?’ Frank asked the car as Melrose tower dwindled into the distance behind them, ‘I need to get some milk.’
THE END