Richard’s Auto Body

I don’t know what draws me here. Every time I enter, I’m flooded with fear and guilt like the body shop itself rests on an ancient burial ground and my presence alone is enough to summon demons and bad karma. But I always stay until sunset, giving me just enough time to sprint home before my dad’s Audi putters into our driveway. I can’t read the clock, but I know I have plenty of time for conducting business.
I suppress the mental images of my father’s furrowing brow and angry beard scratching as I make my way through the body shop, toward his office. The flimsy sign on the door reads Employees Only. I push the door open and stand on my toes to hit the light switch, careful not to flip the one on the left which controls the air compressor. With a clink and a hum, the fluorescent bulbs flicker on, revealing the vast, comfortable mysteries of my dad’s business.
It isn’t so much an office as it is a walk-in closet tightly crammed with filing cabinets and a desk. Crooked, framed pictures of Dad smiling with nameless clients and their priceless cars clutter the walls. A stack of outdated NHRA calendars threatens to topple from a shelf above my head, but years of lacquer overspray have forged it into an indestructible tower. The tiny room is cluttered and unkempt, subtly harboring the secrets of being an adult, and more importantly, being my dad.
I climb to the padded seat of the swivel chair where, after a few silent, fluid spins, I get down to business. The surface of everything is covered in a thin layer of Bondo dust and empty paper coffee cups litter the desk. I’m careful not to disturb much as I open the top drawer of the nearest filing cabinet labeled BILLS. I search through tubes of insta-weld and putty knives before finding a suitable estimate book with plenty of carbon paper left.
A yellow phone sits on a stack of tri-county phonebooks. It is spattered with colorful blotches of paint and pink repair putty. After disconnecting the line, I pick it up and press it to my ear with a shoulder, allowing me to talk and write. I speak with a man about repairing his nineteen-something Ford. It’s always a rare car, irreplaceable to the customer- which is why they choose Richard’s Auto Body. I use words like quarter panel and after market parts, ambiguously describing the method I will use to repair their one-of-a-kind vehicle.
My cursive is no more than crooked, chaotic lines with violent, swooping tails dancing across the page in peaks and troughs. I stop every few seconds to lick the pen tip, though I don’t understand why. I inspect my work as I hang up the phone with another satisfied customer. It’s scribbled and illegible. I smile.
“Yup,” I say aloud, “Just like Dad’s.”