Author's Note: If you're looking for a story filled with lots of sex, this isn't for you. I've tried to make this as real and believable as possible, hence it moves at a slower pace.
*
I leaned against the car, while Jerry fumbled with a wrench. He wasn't mechanically inclined and could have paid someone else to fix his bike - say, a professional who knew what they were doing. But in doing it himself, Jerry considered it rebellious.
The wrench slipped. Jerry swore.
"Son of a bitch."
"Funny."
"You go to hell."
He put the wrench back on the nut and tried to twist. It didn't budge. He pulled the wrench off and put it on again. Nothing. He huffed, put the wrench back on, still nothing.
"Fucker."
"Do you even know what your doing?"
"Fucker, yes, I know what I'm doing."
"What?"
"Trying to use a fucking wrench."
I watched him for a moment. The wrench came down, he turned his head and spit, put the wrench back on, nothing, threw the wrench over his bike and into the garage where it bounce twice and slid to a halt on a black oil stain.
Jerry sat staring at his bike, not moving, not saying a word, his cheeks puffing as he tried to calm his nerves. He was twenty-one years old, but had the mind of a world-angry teen. And he dressed and looked like one, too: Chubby belly, chubby round face, thick legs and stocky arms, and his clothes were always haphazard. His hair was a curly black mat atop his head that always appeared unkempt, because it was. But his black-rimmed glasses accurately depicted him as an intellectual, which he was. He simply lacked common sense.
"What about those other wrenches?" I said pointing.
He turned his eyes down.
"Where?"
"Under the first ones."
He lifted the top tray revealing another row of shiny silver wrenches. I asked if he had tried any of them. He looked up at me, and then down to the wrenches. Jerry stared at them for a moment, huffed, and then his eyes closed. "Mother fucker." I chuckled. "Just shut the fuck up." He took a deep breath and quickly rose to his feet. He stomped into the garage, bent down for the wrench, inspected it, cursed, then dropped his hands and moped back.
"Shit."
"Yeah, there's a difference. Some are metric, some aren't."
He dropped the wrench in the toolbox sitting open next to his bike.
"Oh, thanks, mother fucker. Where were you ten minutes ago?"
I went to speak, but caught sight of Caroline crossing the street. Jerry planted his hands on his hips and turned to say something to me, but when he saw me looking down the driveway, he turned around. When he saw her, he dropped his hands, fidgeted, and finally slipped the tips of his fingers into his pockets. Then he cleared his throat.
She walked toward us, arms folded, no expression on her face. Her long hair shone golden in the late afternoon sun and fluttered in her wake. Jerry held a fist to his mouth and coughed. She stopped before us and looked to him with a nod.
"Jerry."
He fidgeted.
"Hey, Caroline."
Then she looked to me.
"I'm coming over tonight with some boxes. Are you going to be there?"
I rose from the car and my mouth opened and closed. I went to push my fingers into my pockets, but Jerry's were still in his and I didn't want to look like him, an unconscious decision. I folded my arms, but looked too much like her; it was her pose, after all. I finally sank my hands into my back pockets and gave a quirky nod.
"Yeah, sure. I can be there. What time?"
She brushed the hair from her eyes.
"I see. Well, if you've got something else going on..."
"No. No. Nothing. What time?"
Caroline enjoyed making people uncomfortable. I suppose it was her way of exerting control, which she liked. She also liked putting people in their place, so when she suggested I might have something other to do, this is what she was doing to me. I glanced at Jerry, still staring in awe, and then to his bike. This was my social life, whereas Caroline was a debutant in demand. She knew I had nothing else going on.
I pulled out a hand and scratched my chin. I asked what time she wanted to stop by.
Damn it, why didn't you give a specific time? Now she's going to make you sit around and wait. More control.
Jerry coughed as she pulled a finger across her brow. She shot him a glance and he apologized. She looked to me and said, "Between eight and nine."
I pressed my lips and bobbed my head.
"Okay, sounds good. I'll - Yeah, I'll try to be there."
Her simple smile said she knew I couldn't play her game.
She nodded to Jerry, turned and walked down the driveway to our house across the street. A car was coming, but she didn't stop. They didn't honk or anything and she didn't bother to look. They simply stopped, let her cross, and continued on their way. Then Jerry spoke.
"I could so fuck the living shit outa her."
With his mouth drawn tight, he watched her walk across the grass to the front door. He looked to me and said, "You are so fucking lucky."
When the door closed behind her, we both turned to his bike and stared at it.
"So what's The Lump think about this?"
I gave a little shrug.
"He hasn't said much, but I think he understands. It's just getting too crowded over there anymore."
"She doesn't like crowds."
"Not that kind, anyway."
The Lump owned a towing and wrecking company, but because of his size, he couldn't get to the shop, so worked out of the house. As a result, many of his customers, all of them his friends, were frequent visitors in our home. I found them to be friendly and generally inoffensive, but outside their element in this rather ritzy subdivision. I wouldn't be surprised if some were low-level criminals or had connections to the mob. Maybe that's what drew these deviants, as my sister called them, to do business with The Lump. They knew he was honest and a fair businessman. Plus, he never asked questions. And he had a good sense of humor working in his favor. He could even make Caroline laugh, which nobody could do.
How long had we lived there? Eight years come July. The Lump inherited his first gas station from his dad and expanded from there. By the time he purchased his fifth station, he moved us to the subdivision across from Jerry's parents, whose dad was a radiologist and his mother some sort of managing accountant for a brokerage bank. Nobody said anything about us, of course, even though we were literally from the other side of the tracks. And maybe the odd customers coming and going, sometimes at late hours, intimidated the neighbors into silence.
But Caroline found her place there. That is where she belonged. She was already pretty, there was no denying that, but now that her family had money, she could cavort with the proper people. Even if The Lump had never made a dime, there was little doubt Caroline would move up the social ladder. Her standards were quite high and she stuck to them rigidly.
Jerry became our first friend in the subdivision, and my only. He stood across the street on his porch watching the movers unload the van and carry items into our new home. After a time, he walked over and introduced himself. His first words to me were, "Hi, I'm Jerry and I'm a Jew. People don't like me, and they won't like you, either." He said his last name was Schwartz, but their mailbox said Black. His grandparents wanted to blend in after immigrating, so Anglicized their name.
When he met my sister, like everyone else, he was awestruck by her looks, and for a time I wondered if he was only my friend just to be near her. And maybe that was true. Even when she developed the attitude to go along with her new surroundings, he never stopped pining for her. But she kept him at a distance, holding him in something of polite distain, and he was no fool. Jerry was aware of his place in her circle, which was just outside its periphery. They were similar in many ways and by all accounts should have got along better than they did. Both were surly, somewhat rebellious, and didn't care much what others thought of them. But Caroline carried the air of a sophisticate, whereas Jerry was more slovenly and didn't give a damn.
He also wanted badly to sleep with her, though as he often put it, he just wanted to fuck her. Jerry made no secret of his attraction to her, although he never came right out and told Caroline as much. I'm sure she assumed it by way of how he acted whenever she was near. That is to say, he was uncharacteristically polite. I think she secretly found him amusing, but she never said so.
We studied his bike some more, and then he looked at me.
