Steve's

My parents’ mechanic

Camping in Spain. In the morning, I headed down the dirt road toward the highway. There was a garage—a diesel station—a couple of miles away. I figured I could probably use the bathroom there, clean up a little. I walked in the dead grass on the side of the road, scattering thistles as I went. Dust rose from the ground as I kicked my way along.

I got to the station. Empty oil cans sat everywhere, rusting in the dirt. There was a smell of diesel, and the choking scent of asphalt in the sun.

A few men were working inside the open garage, peering underneath a car that had been hoisted into the air. It was like they’d been swallowed by the dark and the dirt, their faces covered in soot, coveralls streaked black with grease. They nodded in greeting as I passed, then turned back to their work.

I looked at them and remembered going to Steve’s garage when I was a kid. It was at the corner of Milpas and Anapamu, right where the poorer neighborhood ended and the rest of the city began. It was where my parents always brought their little derelict bug that I’d been so ashamed of until they came into some money and bought a new one. After that I missed it.

Steve was Italian, old-world, kind but a little gruff, not quick to smile. His father, who owned the garage, was more so—more Italian and more gruff—but less kind. They always wore coveralls—Steve kept a clean bandana in the breast pocket of his—and their hands were always dirty.

Steve’s father, my dad once told me, was a crook, charging too much money for work that didn’t need to be done, but Steve wasn’t. He was honest, and my parents, who didn’t have a lot of money, liked him very much. Maybe that was why they always called the garage Steve’s instead of Raffetto’s, which was the family name and the name on the sign.

I remembered going to Steve’s house once. His wife had invited us over because her dog had just had a litter of puppies. They were fun to play with. It was a big nice house and I was startled by how clean and well dressed Steve was outside of work. I remembered how later Steve’s wife got cancer. He kept working but was different—quieter.

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Over the years, I’ve occasionally brought my own cars to Steve. He worked on them, charged me fairly, gave advice. I’ve always trusted him completely.

A few years ago my siblings and I started battling the doctors and the DMV to get my mom’s driver’s license revoked, but we got nowhere. We had to do something —she was continually getting lost on her regular route between the house and the grocery store, forgetting how to start the car and calling AAA to come fix it, or, finally, failing to differentiate between street and sidewalk and crashing into a signpost.

One time I showed up to visit just as my parents were about to sign the paperwork to refinance their house… so that my mom could buy a brand new car. She’d seen an ad on TV and had called the broker. I stopped them and went outside to talk to him. “My mom is eighty-six years old and has dementia,” I said. “She’s not safe to drive and we’re getting her license revoked. The last thing she needs is a new car.” I did not add, “you greedy soulless fucking shark bastard.”

In the end it was Steve who came to my parents’ rescue. We knew we needed to prevent my mom from driving, so one afternoon I distracted her while James took her keys, and we drove the car down to the garage. I explained the situation to Steve. “I’ve always loved your parents,” he said. “I went through something similar with my own mom. I’ll go over and see them.”

“Okay,” I said, and turned away so he couldn’t see me cry.

Steve started going over to my parents’ house every week or so, bringing lunch, hanging out, chatting. He wanted to see for himself how they were doing. He told them that he had the car but it was too broken to repair. They hadn’t even noticed it was gone. After fifty years of fixing their cars he was still helping them. I wish I could tell them what he did for them—but I think they probably felt it somehow, anyway.

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