I was recently buying new windshield wipers when the parts salesman mentioned that a mutual acquaintance, a mechanic, had passed away a few days earlier. This was surprising because the mechanic was not yet 60, and was in reasonably good health as far as I was aware. When I said as much the parts man told me that sudden, massive organ failure, brought on by excessive drinking, was the cause of death.
This was news to me because I had never seen the mechanic drinking, even at the end of a Saturday afternoon. He was always alert and attentive, quick to diagnose a problem– and equally quick to fix it. There were no signs of alcoholic beverages in the shop; no ice chest tucked under a workbench, no trash can full of cans and bottles waiting to be recycled– nothing. This started me thinking about how well I knew the man.
We met years earlier when a friend asked me for a ride to pick up their car. On the way to the repair shop, the friend mentioned that the mechanic had called a day earlier than arranged, and said that the repair was going to cost less than the estimate. I made a mental note to get a business card because a fast, honest mechanic was a real find. When we got to the shop I was introduced to the mechanic, asked him for a card, then left to get on with my day.
As it happened, I called the shop a just few days later to see if the source of a whistling sound could be tracked down and attended to. The mechanic said he would look at my car as soon as I could drive over; I was there in a few minutes. He quickly found a loose hose under the hood, and reattached it with a few twists of a wrench. When I thanked him for being so quick about solving my problem, and asking what the charge would be he said that anytime I had a real problem he would be glad to look into it for me and give me a bill, but this quick fix was on the house. This was the beginning of what turned out to be a decade-long association with this man.
Over that time he probably worked on various cars of mine 3 dozen times. Some of the repairs were done on a lunch hour, for a few dollars. Others took days and cost hundreds of dollars, but the work was first-rate and there was never a second trip to re-fix something. I counted myself lucky to have an honest, capable person looking after my cars.
This happy state of affairs continued for several years until a big, serious problem appeared one Saturday morning. I called the shop and was told to come over about lunchtime to assess the problem. The mechanical details are not important; what is of note is that the repair was going to cost more than I had in my car repair fund at the time. When I asked if the work could be broken into stages, and paid for accordingly, I was told that the nature of the problem was such that it had to be an all-or-nothing job. When I asked his business partner, the billing manager, what kind of payment plan might be arranged I was told that there was no payment plan.
What they did offer me was free loaner car until I had the lump sum payment for the impending job. The loaner in question needed to be registered and insured, but this was too much for me to take on while putting the rest of the payments together. I pointed out that I could make a substantial down-payment on the work, and would use the loaner car for the week the repair would take to get to work, and then make weekly payments for a month or so, driving my own repaired, returned car. The business partner, citing our mutually beneficial history, agreed to this; but the final decision would be the mechanic’s because it was his shop. The manager called the mechanic over the PA, and I busied myself with the cable television.
After a few minutes, the mechanic came into the office from the shop. Even though the partner was on my side the mechanic was not at all receptive to extending credit. He reached to the top of a file cabinet and grabbed a thick-as-a-brick bundle of rubberband-bound invoices. Explaining that the brick was worth tens of thousands of dollars for repairs done, but not paid for, he asked why he should take a chance on me. I told him that I could only point out that I always paid my bill as soon as my car had been fixed, not a day, or a week, or a month later– and that I had done so for the now several years we were acquainted. He looked at me for a long moment; then he looked at his partner even longer. When he looked back at me it was with a brief nod, then he went back into the shop to start working on another car.
The partner said that that was the first time in almost 3 years that such a thing had been done. He explained that the invoice bundle was kept in plain sight to remind both men what could happen if they tried to be nice to people– men and women, who were not nice. I thanked him, then asked for the best estimate on the work so I could go get half the amount in cash right then. He quickly put a figure together, I went to the bank, came back, counted out the bills, and was handed a copy of the invoice with “Balance Due” written across it in red ink. The billing manager explained that the rubber stamp of those words had dried out since it was last used and was crumbling apart.
In short order my car was fixed, and every Friday for the next 6 weeks I made another cash payment on my bill. I do not know who was happiest– me, the mechanic, or the billing manager when the “Paid in Full” was stamped across the final, updated invoice copy. We shook hands all around and that was that.
It was about 6 months later that the business, now booming, moved to a new, larger location. I stopped in one day to congratulate him on his success when I got the “We’ve moved!” postcard, and thanked him again for extending me the credit for the big job. He said he was glad that it worked out for both of us, and to stop in anytime for anything the car needed.
It was only about 3 months later that the bottom fell out at the new location, for business reasons we need not go into here. The upshot was that he was being sued for breach of his commercial rent lease, had tools and equipment stolen by dishonest employees, was having trouble at home, and had a mentally unstable squatter living on his property. I did not know any of this when I called to see if he could do an oil change for me. He gave me an address, which turned out to be his home. He was trying to get another shop together, but his priority was making his house payment, so he was scrambling to do repairs on an outcall basis, from the back of an old van.
When I saw his yard strewn with bits of cars in various states of repair I told him that I would pay for future work on my car, in a cash advance equal to his house payment, so he could keep the house, and continue to look for a shop. He asked if I had hit the lottery, but quickly realized that I was not joking. He asked what I wanted for the loan and I told him that it was not a loan, simply the reverse of our earlier arrangement: He worked on my car, then I gave him the money over time. Now I was giving him the money, and he would work on my car over time.
He was reluctant to do this, but I insisted that he allow me to do him a favor to repay him for helping me when I needed a hand. He agreed that this was a good way to look at things, and did the oil change for free– once I bought the oil.
This arrangement was in place for the better part of a year, then he disappeared. It was rumored that he was living in another country; or that he had moved in with another woman; or that he was on the run from un-named pursuers. This sad state of affairs continued for the last 3 years he was alive. When at the parts store I would get these scattered reports that so-and-so had seen the mechanic at an out-of-state scrap yard bargaining for parts, or that he was in a hospital, or that he moved to another city. No one really knew what was going on, until he went home for what turned out to be the last time, to ask his family if he could move back in. He was told that the house was being foreclosed, and that the family was breaking up to live with other relatives. After that he was thought to be living with the other woman, and eventually passed away.
When told of his death I was more angry than sad. This was a skilled, hard-working man; he was honest, competent, and generous. Now he is gone, crushed under the weight of events beyond his control.
We had become, at a distance, friends. I only regret that it took his passing for me to realize this.
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