Chapter 4

Summer 2006

The second week of summer vacation was half over, and Scott was considering which hobby he should take up. How hard could whittling be? Find a piece of wood, a pocket knife, and start carving. He was actually looking around outside the horse barn for a scrap of wood when he realized he didn't know where to find a pocket knife. This was Texas. You could sit in your homeroom class and discus deer hunting versus quail hunting, or the merits of your favorite rifles, but get caught with a little pocket knife at school? You might as well volunteer to do the castration yourself.

Scott's search for a second job had been a complete bust. He'd applied for anything at Meritt's, but a waitress told him she doubted they'd hire anybody before fall. None of the ranches or homesteads within an hour's bicycle ride needed any help. A couple of deer lease management companies needed help clearing brush and doing summer feeder maintenance, but they were on the wrong side of Fort Stockton. Even Judge Upcott hadn't been able to help. The judge did say that he knew a guy who might be able to get him a job with a big outfitter in a year or two. Scott counted himself lucky to have a part-time job.

He'd gotten so bored that he started helping the younger ranch kids. Summer was usually a decent break at Broken Creek since Mrs. Rewcastle always took several long trips during the summer. Even Mr. Rewcastle would relax after she'd been gone for a few days. Scott showed the new kids how much antibacterial detergent to put in the water when they cleaned horse brushes. He was warning one boy about not soaking the wooden brushes when Mrs. Delgado shouted to get his attention.

"Mijo!" she shouted. Thirteen kids at the ranch now and most were younger, but he was the only she called 'mijo.'

"Be there in a minute," he yelled, rinsing his hands in clean water.

She handed him a big glass of ice water as he came into the kitchen. He gulped it down and went to refill it.

"Mijo, do you know the Piotrowskis?," she asked.

"Don't think so," he replied between gulps.

"They own the house between the Mendoza's and Meritt's," she explained.

"The flag house? Sure I know it, but I've never met them. They always wave when I go by."

Mrs. Delgado handed him a cookie. "Verna Piotrowski died last month. Mr. Piotrowski, that's Alex, needs some help cleaning out the house and fixing the place up. I'm told it will be a big job and might take several weeks, if not most of the summer. Are you interested?"

"You found me a job?" he asked staring at her in amazement.

"Mr. Piotrowski is a good man. He asked if I knew a trustworthy young person who might be able to help. I told him I'd try to find one. Do you know anybody we should ask?"

"Abuela, you're teasing me."

"Oh, were you looking for a job?"

"I guess I could ask around," he said before he finished the cookie. "I'm sorry the lady died, was she a friend of yours?"

Mrs. Delgado paused and patted her hands dry. "We were friends years ago in the women's auxiliary. Their son got in to some trouble and died. The Piotrowskis didn't socialize a lot after that, but yes, we were friends. It was a long time ago, Mijo. I only tell you because if you take the job you're going to be over there a lot. Mr. Piotrowski was married a long time and is probably very ... sad."

"So you think a poor orphan boy can cheer him up?" he asked.

"Mijo! You know I don't like that word."

"Abuela, it's what I am. Maybe would you prefer waif, or ragamuffin? Foundling is good. How about wastrel? Any of those words are better than ward of the state."

Mrs. Delgado grabbed him and pulled him into a hug, "What am I going to do with you? You're starting to get too big to spank."

"You never spanked me!" he protested.

"I should have!"

"What do you want me to do? Should I call Mr. Piotrowski?" he asked.

"Why don't you ride over and introduce yourself? I think you'll make a good impression."

Scott looked at his watch. It was starting to lose time, but he still wore it. It was close enough to lunchtime. "I'll do that, but first I need a sandwich."

Scott ate quickly and went to change into clothes that didn't smell like he'd been working in a barn. He put on a comfortable pair of jeans, an old Astro's baseball t-shirt, and his work boots. He had to have steel toed boots to work in Mr. Mendoza's shop. He went over to a drawer and pulled out a pair of heavy gloves that he had for when they cleared brush on the ranch. The gloves he stuffed part way into his front pocket. Going out the door he grabbed a battered baseball cap. He was ready to work.

Deciding that he didn't want to arrive at Mr. Piotrowski's door all sweaty, he backed his pace down. When he got to the house he could see that it needed fresh paint. He laid his bike down with a little less clatter than normal and went up the steps of the front porch. Scott knocked on the screen door and stepped back.

After a minute a man opened the interior door to peek out. Seeing a boy he opened up the door and asked, "What do you want?"

Scott took off his hat, "Mr. Piotrowski? Mrs. Delgado over at Broken Creek said you might need some help this summer?"

"And what's your name young man?"

"Sorry, sir. My name is Scott MacIntyre."

"Are your people Irish?"

"I don't know, Mr. Piotrowski."

"You should find out. It's important to know where you come from." Mr. Piotrowski unlocked the screen door and motioned for him to enter, "Come in before we let all the cool out."

Inside, he followed Mr. Piotrowski to the kitchen where he was directed toward a chair.

"What kind of work do you think you could do around a house?" Mr. Piotrowski asked.

Scott thought about the kinds of chores he did around the ranch. "Sir, I can do basic carpentry. I know to measure twice and cut once. I can do miter cuts, and use a coping saw. I'm good with a hammer. I've done a lot of painting. I can repair a fence, clear brush, and if you've got any old horse tack around I can clean it up real nice. I know how to clean, and do it right. I'm a hard worker, and I learn fast."

"What can't you do?" the man asked.

Scott shrugged, "I'm not very good with power tools. The ranch foreman doesn't let us use them. Safety issue he says."

"I don't have many power tools anyway. Do you have any previous work experience?"

"I've worked for Mr. Mendoza part time since January over at Meritt's Corner."

That got Mr. Piotrowski's attention. "What sort of work have you done?"

"I started out just sweeping floors and picking up trash. Then I washed parts in the engine shop. This summer I'm working three days a week and I've been learning about parts inventory and how to log in deliveries. I still wash parts and clean though."

"Well you are a pleasant surprise young man. If you're working three days a week, would you want to work the other days of the week?"

"Yes sir, I would like to. Very much," Scott replied.

"What days are you working for Mr. Mendoza?"

"Thursday through Saturday, sir, but only for six hours each day so I could work evenings if you needed me."

Mr. Piotrowski slapped the table with a big meaty hand. "You've got the right attitude son. I'm an old man though and don't need to work that hard anymore. Would you mind working Sundays? Do you go to church or anything like that?"

"Sundays are fine sir."

"Don't go to church?" asked Mr. Piotrowski.

"No, sir."

"Well young man, how about you work Sunday to Wednesday for me. Let's say sunrise till the afternoon, or whenever I get too worn out?"

"That would be fine, sir, thank you."

"What do they call you anyway? Scott or Scotty?"

"Scott, if you don't mind."

"Scott it is then. If you'll follow me, I'll give you the nickel tour."

Scott got up and followed Mr. Piotrowski. It was nice old house, but needed a good cleaning. Mr. Piotrowski explained that he hadn't done much of that after his wife had gotten sick. The kitchen had a nice, homey feel to it. There was a large pantry area and several closets. The front sitting room was cluttered with an old television set and stacked with furniture. That was explained when they went into what had been the living room. It had been turned in to a home hospital room for Mrs. Piotrowski. It was nearly empty now. The equipment rental people had taken away the special bed, but the room still had a smell that Scott associated with sickness.

Upstairs was a bathroom, three bedrooms, and a sewing room. The air in the master bedroom was stale. Scott could tell that nobody had slept here in a long time. It looked like Mr. Piotrowski had been using the smaller bedroom closer to the stairs. Mr. Piotrowski wanted the big bedroom completely cleaned out along with the other bedrooms and sewing room. The closets were packed with ladies clothing, and shoes.

"Mr. Piotrowski, what do you want to do with all the things that you want cleared out?" Scott asked.

Mr. Piotrowski scratched his head, "I thought we'd just send a bunch of it to the dump. Might see if some charity wanted some things, and then I thought I'd have a big yard sale."

This was going to be a lot of work.

"Come on, I still haven't shown you out back yet."

Scott stood next to Mr. Piotrowski, gaping at the scene. Completely hidden from the road was a ramshackle building built straight back from house. It had started life as a detached garage and had been added to along the way. Just from this view, it was clear that it was packed with all manner of things. Most of the mystery items were covered with tarps, or concealed in boxes.

Mr. Piotrowski explained that he had been a bit of a collector. He had liked going to auctions and estate sales. He had stopped at some point and this building hadn't been touched much in ten years or more.

Scott stared at Mr. Piotrowski with awe, 'a bit of a collector?' This was an entire summer's worth of work. They sat down on the back stairs looking at the building.

"Still want the job?" asked Mr. Piotrowski.

"Yes, sir, I was just trying to organize it all in my head. How do you want to go about doing all of this?"

"I thought we should do the house first, then this outbuilding. Have you heard of the Internet?"

Scott stared at Mr. Piotrowski until he realized that he was serious. "Yes, sir, we use it in school."

"Do you think this eBay thing is okay? I read about it in the Reader's Digest. People can apparently sell anything on it."

Scott nodded, "That's an excellent idea Mr. Piotrowski. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I can check in to it and let you know on Sunday?"

"We have one problem," said Mr. Piotrowski, "You forgot to ask how much I was going to pay you."

Scott hadn't forgotten he just figured that it didn't really matter how much Mr. Piotrowski paid him. It was clear that he wasn't going to find another job. So anything he made from this job would be a bonus. The hard work didn't bother him, and Mr. Piotrowski clearly needed the help.

"Why don't I work for a week and then you decide what you think it was worth?" he offered.

Mr. Piotrowski considered the idea and stuck out his hand, "Deal."

Scott shook it and said, "There are a few hours of day light left why don't I get started?"

After showing Scott to a closet filled with cleaning supplies, Mr. Piotrowski announced that he was going to sit down and watch one of his shows.

Scott got to work. The first thing he did was clean out the cleaning supplies closet. He pulled out a couple of buckets and boxes, some old mops, a nice push broom, a sweeping broom, and an odd looking brush on a telescoping handle. He found a big box of heavy duty trash bags that were going to be very handy. He spent ten minutes shaking bottles to see if they still had contents in them, but most were too old to be of any use so he started filling up the first bag of trash. After sweeping out the closet he wiped down the shelves and reorganized the remaining supplies. The mops would have to be thrown out, but fortunately the brooms were in good shape. There was a bag of old rags that he hung from a hook in the closet. He was off to a good start. There was a lot more room for storage.

Next he decided to tackle the sick room. He understood why Mr. Piotrowski didn't want to help since he must have spent a lot of time in the room as his wife slowly died. Scott moved a floor lamp and a small side table out into the hall. There were some pocket doors to the front sitting room, but he left them closed. He pulled the drapes back from the bay window to get as much light coming in to the room as possible. The curtains were heavy fabric and needed to be cleaned. He had no idea how you cleaned curtains, but would find out.

Scott started sweeping the floor. It was a nice wood floor that he suspected would gleam with a little attention. He found an envelope on the floor near where the side table had been. Scott picked it up. It was some kind of billing statement. He went out into the hallway and opened the side table drawer. It was overflowing with medical bills and insurance statements. Scott walked back to the kitchen where he had seen a milk crate with miscellaneous folders and a box of envelopes. He rooted around in it and found a cardboard folio. He put all the material from the side table into the folio, tied it shut and wrote "Medical Bills and Statements" in large letters on the front and set it on the kitchen table.

He went back to sweeping the floor and got everything pushed into little piles. Then he swept the debris into a pan and dumped it in the garbage bag. Looking around he noticed cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling. Ah ha. The funny brush with the telescoping handle made quick work of the cobwebs, so he ran it around the entire ceiling knocking down dust. He found a step ladder and dusted the light fixtures. Then he had to sweep the floor again. Next time he would start at the top and work his way down, saving the floor for last. Scott thought about cleaning the big bay window, but decided that maybe windows should have their own day. How many windows were in this house? Make that two days for windows.

When he checked on Mr. Piotrowski he found him sleeping in his easy chair with the television running. Scott decided not to disturb him and left a note explaining what he had done and that he'd be back Sunday bright and early. He carried the trash bags out behind the house. They should be safe from any curious critters since there was no food in them. Scott climbed onto his bike and headed back to the ranch.

Mrs. Delgado had already left and he had missed dinner. In the refrigerator he found a plate of food that he quickly heated in the microwave. Back in his room Scott found a new note. It was time for him to move to the senior bunkhouse. It wouldn't take long to move his few possessions. He'd need to do some work in his closet to return it to its former state. The senior bunkhouse would be his last stop at Broken Creek. The move seemed very minor compared with his new summer job. He fell asleep planning the rest of his cleaning attack on the Piotrowski house.

The next morning Scott was eagerly telling Mrs. Delgado about the job and Mr. Piotrowski.

"You keep an eye on him for me." Mrs. Delgado said. "Sometimes after older people lose somebody they just want to fade away, but Alex has some good years left in him."

Scott agreed, "I think cleaning the house out will help. There are parts of his house that he doesn't even like being in now. It's going to be a lot of work. Mr. Piotrowski even wants to try and sell some things online. I'm going to check into that. You don't know anybody who would want a bunch of old clothes do you?"

"What kind of old clothes?" she asked.

"There are three, maybe four, closets and a room packed with women's clothes," Scott answered.

"The women's auxiliary," Mrs. Delgado said firmly. "Sort it all out and I'll arrange for some ladies to come pick it up. We'll take out what we need for the Goodwill here in Fort Stockton. If there's anything left over we could send it to the women's shelters in Alpine or Midland."

"There's a lot of stuff. How exactly should I sort it all out?"

"Organize it by outfits, then pants, dresses, blouses, like that. Throw out any undergarments, we can't take that."

Scott looked at his watch, "Okay. I'm not sure when I'll start working upstairs where the clothing is, but I better get in gear and head to Mendoza's. Thanks again, Abuela, working for Mr. Piotrowski is going to save my summer!"

"Don't work too hard," she called as he raced out of the kitchen to his bike.

Scott didn't see Mr. Piotrowski when he rode by the house headed toward Meritt's Corner. He planned to drop in on his way back to the ranch and check up on him.

At the engine shop Scott was spending most of his time converting the inventory system. It was a big change since the old system consisted of cardboard boxes with hand written labels. The new system was made up of custom built shelves and plastic bins. They even had a couple of hand held gadgets that could read the stock codes along with a neat little thermal printer that cranked out labels. There was a lot of grumbling from the shop floor since the guys couldn't just walk in and grab parts like they used to.

Mr. Mendoza had stopped in to see how the inventory room was progressing. He spent a few minutes explaining to Scott how he had to spend money to make the company more efficient. It made sense. Mr. Mendoza seemed a little more cheerful. Scott hoped that it meant that things were looking better for the company.

The shop foreman stopped by to talk while Scott was eating a turkey club sandwich for lunch.

"I hear you want to train on small engines? You know we don't do a whole lot of small engine work here right? Come see me in the mornings like normal on Thursdays and Fridays, but after lunch you're going to be working with Noah. He'll teach you small engines. Saturdays will be a regular workday. Any questions?" he asked.

Scott thought it was worth a shot, "Do you know anything about eBay?"

"Did one of these morons tell you to ask me that?" barked the foreman, his face turning red.

"No, sir. Nobody put me up to anything," Scott stammered, hoping to talk his way out of whatever he'd stepped in. "I'm helping Mr. Piotrowski clean out his place up the road. He wondered if he might be able to sell some of his stuff online. I told him I'd check into it."

The foreman relaxed and leaned in. He gave Scott a fifteen minute description of the ins and outs of online auctions and his bidding strategies. The foreman was apparently a rabid collector of some sort of movie memorabilia that involved action figures.

Scott was jotting notes down on the back of his lunch receipt, "So he needs an eBay account and a PayPal account. Then he needs to either include the cost of shipping in the item price, or explain up front what shipping will cost for each item, and he needs to ship quickly."

"Exactly. Does he have a computer?" the foreman asked.

"And he needs a computer," Scott made a new note.

"You might be in luck, Meritt's is also a cyber café now," smirked the foreman. Meritt's tried to be a little bit of everything this far out in the country. A few things they had experimented with hadn't worked over the years. These trial balloons amused the locals, but Scott had always been impressed at the creativity of Meritt's owners. Granted, their Friday night sushi bar was never well thought out.

The foreman continued, "They put two computers in the old vending machine room between the post office and the diner. You have to get a password from somebody over there. You could also stop and talk to the post mistress."

"Thanks, that could be a big help," Scott replied.

"Any other questions?" asked the foreman.

It worked the first time, "Know anything about cleaning drapery?"

"You'll want the dry cleaners in Fort Stockton."

Scott was impressed. The foreman was a man of hidden talents. If he wanted to collect dolls, okay 'action figures', then that was fine by him.

After lunch Scott went and tracked Noah Easterbrook down.

"Why do you want to learn about small engines?" Noah asked.

"I'm going to buy a motorcycle this fall. Figured since I'm working in an engine shop that I should pick up a few things," Scott explained.

Noah nodded his approval. "I like it. I see a little bit of everything here in our expansive small engine department," he waved at the corner bench setup and a table with a rototiller half disassembled next to it. He had one toolbox next to the table.

"I also hear from Mr. Mendoza that you're our new inventory control expert, is that true?" Noah asked with an eager gleam in his eye.

"I guess, sure," Scott answered and waited for the other shoe to drop.

"Great! See what you can find from this list in inventory and order the rest," Noah handed him a sheet of paper with items listed in bullet point.

Scott didn't mind being a gofer since it allowed him to move around a lot more. He might even learn a little about small engines.

After work he went over to Meritt's to explore the new internet café setup. He knew from school that most internet cafés had been replaced by wi-fi hot spots, but that would be a long time in coming to Meritt's Corner.

He asked a waitress who he needed to see about using one of the computers.

"That's me, honey," she said cheerfully.

"How much is it?" he asked.

"It's only five dollars an hour, but you have to leave your ID with me."

Scott pulled out his wallet and handed her his student ID along with a precious five dollar bill.

She walked to the cash register, rang him up, and put both the money and his ID in the register drawer. On the receipt she jotted down a password and handed it to him. He looked at it and wondered how often they would change passwords.

"You're not going to look at porn are you?" she asked him with an evil grin.

"No! I'm doing research on online auctions if you must know," he glancing around to see who had overheard, but nobody had paid them any mind.

The waitress laughed and picked up a fresh pot of coffee to distribute to her charges.

Scott wondered what it was with women lately. They seemed to take entirely too much pleasure in teasing him. He went into the room with the two computers. They weren't any worse than what they had at school, but he thought that with only two computers they should probably call it a kiosk instead of a café. He bumped a mouse and sat down. He entered the password, and then brought up the auction site and started reading. Scott made another note about getting a cheap digital camera.

He didn't really need to make notes, but it was a habit that he forced himself to follow. People, mostly teachers, didn't think that you were taking them seriously unless you took notes. It wasn't like he could tell them that he wouldn't forget, or in fact couldn't forget. He'd looked up eidetic memory once. While that came close to describing the way his mind worked, he thought it only got a portion of what was going on in his weird head. It was best to keep people comfortable by doing the things that they expected of you, so he took notes. Comfortable people didn't haul you off and cut you open to see what made you tick.

After thirty minutes of research, and a minute of staring at a blank Google search box, Scott logged off of the session and went to get his ID back.

It was close to 4:30 when he knocked on Mr. Piotrowski's door. The door opened and Mr. Piotrowski said, "I thought I wasn't going to see you until Sunday?"

"Good afternoon, sir. I thought I'd stop by and tell you what I've learned so far. If you wanted I could still get a couple of hours of work in?"

"You better come in then."

"Thank you."

"Would you like something to drink? Come on through to the kitchen," directed Mr. Piotrowski.

"Yes, sir, some water would be great."

Scott took out his notes and began explaining everything that he had learned about the auctions. Mr. Piotrowski listened intently. When he was finished Mr. Piotrowski looked encouraged.

"That's a very good presentation Scott," he commented. "I'd say that you've got a flair for public speaking."

Scott had been taking a drink and immediately started to choke when some water went down the wrong way. Mr. Piotrowski got up and gave him a couple of very solid thumps between the shoulder blades. Mr. Piotrowski must have been one tough hombre back in his day. Those whacks had some power in them.

Embarrassed, Scott told Mr. Piotrowski that he didn't talk much in school, or to other people for that matter. Although, as he thought about it, he realized that wasn't really true anymore. He didn't have any trouble speaking to people at work. Maybe his problem was just at school? It was something he needed to mull over for a while.

"You had other news?" prompted Mr. Piotrowski.

"Right," Scott snapped his fingers, "we can take the curtains to the dry cleaners in Fort Stockton. I'm told they do a quick turnaround service for a very reasonable fee. It might take a couple of trips because I don't know how much we can fit into your car."

"You're right about the car, but you haven't seen my panel truck. It might need a new battery to get it turned over, but we can haul anything the two of us can move. Tell you what, let's go take a look at it, and you can tell me the rest as we perambulate."

Scott turned the word over in his head. Perambulate, I like it.

Mr. Piotrowski nodded his head in approval when Scott told him about the women's auxiliary and the clothing. He pointed Scott toward the end of the building. When they reached the end he took out his keys and hunted for the one he wanted. He found it and unlocked the padlock on the carriage door.

Scott took a firm grasp and pulled the door open on its track. He stepped back a few paces to try and get a good look at the building. You could park a lot of cars side by side in this thing, and it was full of ... well he had no idea what it was full of.

In the stall was the massive back end of an old vehicle. Mr. Piotrowski climbed back out of the driver's side and announced that the battery was dead. Scott walked around to the front of the beast and watched Mr. Piotrowski reach in through the grill to release the hood latch. He helped him push the heavy hood up. The engine bay was cavernous.

"Bet you've never seen anything like it have you?" said Mr. Piotrowski with more than a bit of pride in his voice.

"What is it?"

"That lump of iron right there is a 235 cubic inch inline six, or what some call a straight six. It'll run forever if you take care of it. Weak point is the clutch and transmission. I've replaced the throw out bearing twice on this one. I bet you could crawl in there and sleep on either side of that head. Modern car you can't hardly fit a hand down under the hood. I can reach in there and touch every single component on this engine. No sir, they don't make 'em like this anymore."

Mr. Piotrowski closed the massive hood. "As for the rest, you're looking at an original 1959 one ton Chevy panel truck, a model they called the Apache. I've driven this thing all over; Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, New Mexico, you name it. It always brought me home. After we get it charged up, I might even let you try it out. Can you drive a stick?"

This was the most excited that he'd seen Mr. Piotrowski, "No sir, I've never driven a stick, or anything else."

"Heck, every boy should learn to drive a stick shift. Why don't you climb up in there, and get acquainted with her?"

Scott opened the heavy steel door and climbed up in to the driver's side. He was sitting on a bench seat. There wasn't much to the interior. The truck had an overly large steering wheel, and a long shift lever rising up from the floorboard. The dash was neat. There was only one gauge, a speedometer. It was a big, broad V shaped display with a single sweeping arch of numbers indicating miles per hour. There were some pull knobs on either side of the gauge, and three pedals on the floor. No air conditioner he noticed, but it did have an older style radio bolted under the dash. The bench seat was pretty wide. He thought they might be able to fit four people without it getting tight. Behind the seat was a massive expanse of emptiness back to the two clam shell doors at the rear of the truck. Mr. Piotrowski was right; they could fit just about anything in here. He wasn't so sure about driving this thing. It was huge.

Mr. Piotrowski rapped on the window. Scott hopped out.

"I can't find my battery charger," complained Mr. Piotrowski. "I'll look for it tomorrow. Let's go back into the kitchen and get cool." Scott slid the carriage door shut, and put the padlock back on the clasp.

"You're stronger than you look, that door always gives me problems. Course I'm not as young as I once was."