Never the Same #52 The Ills of Money or Lack Thereof

Kirk suffered from a case of parsimony. Will he pull through?

 

            Kirk complained about the pain in his sliced little finger to the wrong person: his mother. Even though he didn’t show her underneath his wrapped-up, bandaged finger that he couldn’t bend, just the little blood showing on the wrap and his description of the injury was enough for his mother to pester him to go to the doctor. After all, he told her that his supervisor had told him the plant would pay any medical expenses. Back then, no one even thought about a concept of health insurance and people just paid as they went or went without. After a couple days of his mother suggesting, telling him to see the doctor, Kirk did so.

            The doctor, Dr. Sheffield, a kindly old doctor, not so carefully peeled off the layers of tape and gauze from Kirk’s finger. Kirk grimaced in pain during the process and when the doctor got down to his finger, Kirk wouldn’t look. Doctor Sheffield just did what old kindly doctors did when examining an injury, he took Kirk’s hand in an overly soft and clean hand, picked it up, and turned it this way and this adding concerned “Hmmm, ah ha, hmmm,” comments as he examined the wound. With a long cotton swab-tipped stick, he poked and prodded at the injury causing Kirk to gasp a couple times that didn’t deter the doctor in the least.

            “Well, Mister Biscuit, you definitely cut yourself quite thoroughly. You really should get a couple stiches in that finger to bring that cut together to heal faster and for it to grow back to a normal appearance.”

            Kirk now only nodded after garnering enough courage to look at his injury with a sick stomach and a difficult question lingering in his mind. But the doctor beat him to the punch.

            “We’ll have to pull that split fingernail off to do a good job in fixing that injury with stiches.” Apparently, he caught Kirk’s newly acquired pale complexion.

            Besides that condition, Kirk experienced a shock up his back and a stomach flip.

            “Ah, ah is that really necessary? I mean, remove the fingernail? Isn’t that ah, difficult?” He really meant to say, “Isn’t that really awfully bloody and painful?”

            “Oh no, it’s not a big operation�"and it won’t hurt at all because we’ll numb it right up. You won’t feel a thing during the operation.”

            “And after?”

            “Oh, we’ll give you some pain killers of course to take the edge off.”

            “AH, AH…”

            “Oh, come now. Be assured that it won’t be a big thing,” the doctor shrugged, “it’ll only take a couple minutes.”

            “Oh, ah. How about just leaving it the way it is?”

            “Sure, that’s an option, and your choice, but,” he held up a crooked finger, “it’ll take much longer to heal and the nail will more than likely fall off on its own after a while.” The doctor paused taking a close look at the damaged finger. “For sure it’ll never grow back perfectly sound with the cut producing a scar that will cause the nail to grow out imperfectly.”

            Kirk decided right then and there to take the easy way out because he wasn’t about to let the old sawbones yank his fingernail off even if he wouldn’t feel it and the fact that the nail  would probably fall off later anyhow somehow sealed the deal for him.

            “I’ll just let my finger heal the way it is. It’ll make it easier on both of us.” He felt like he was offering to give doc a break on his medical duties.

            “Well, it isn’t any bother for me because it’s a pretty quick and dirty procedure, but suit yourself. Just to let you know, it will take longer to heal and might even get infected the way it is while leaving it an open wound like that.”

            Kirk shrugged. “I’ll deal with it by taking care of it.”

            “All right Mister Biscuit, I’ll fix you up with some medical supplies.”

            The doctor rewrapped his finger that was still oozing some blood from the examination. Kirk took deep breath of relief with the doctor not pushing the major surgery, at least what seemed major to Kirk. The doctor gave him a tube of antibiotic cream, a pile of gauze pads and a couple rolls of tape.

            “Keep it clean, change the gauze regularly, and use a liberal dab of the cream. It might take a couple weeks for it look better, but then again, the nail might fall off soon. Without the stitches, the nail won’t grow back perfectly.”

            “I’m okay with that.”

            “Keep a close eye on it and come back to see me if anything doesn’t look good.”

            “Will do, doc,” Kirk said, making a hasty retreat.

            A week passed and Kirk’s nail didn’t fall off, yet, but a new, malformed nail eventually emerged from the split nail bed after a couple weeks. The finger healed alright, but the split nail looked gnarly.  Kirk had to wait four months for the broken part of his nail to be completely replaced, but before that happened, he had to be careful not to snag the broken nail as he worked. Many times, he caught his nail on clothes or gloves causing him to think he might yank the nail off or break it. The resulting pain reminded him to keep it wrapped up.

            The winter crept onward. Kirk worked his upstairs kiln job every day, but he didn’t volunteer for any more double shifts. On the other hand, he often worked weekend shifts doing odd jobs at the plant that the laborers didn’t get to which suited him just fine. Low key, easy tasks, no pressure, and the money were all good. As his bank account grew bit by bit, he felt better about paying off the machine shop which was still working on his racing engine for a few weeks. He felt glad that they hadn’t contacted him to let him know it was done.

            Now after a few weeks of adding money to his account, he actually felt confident enough to take Sarah Elizabeth out. Like usual, no huge expensive dates, but Kirk had begun guilty, feeling like he had been ignoring her, which wasn’t actually true, he just more or less didn’t want to spend any of his hard-earned money before then. Sarah E. always welcomed his appearance into her life after a lull and didn’t hold his absence against him. Of course, if they ended up anywhere near the big Mall, Kirk had to partake in his favorite winter vehicular pastime: Making donuts. Yep, flying across the parking lot, popping the emergency brake, cranking the wheel while feathering the gas pedal, Kirk would have the pink van spinning around a light pole in perfectly concentric circles. Sarah E. sitting on her warm perch on the engine cover would just hang on with a perturbed look…

             With spring just around the proverbial corner, Kirk found out what the other workers had warned him about. Working upstairs over the kilns was indeed a good warm job in the winter but when it warmed up outside the temperature upstairs soared. Some days, Kirk found the atmosphere unbearably hot along with the ever-present dust and fumes. As you could guess, getting sweaty in a dusty atmosphere resulted in an uncomfortable outcome. He’d finish a shift almost looking like a drywalled humanoid.

            As usual after a seemingly “dry” period during the winter of available job postings within the plant a spate of available jobs got posted. Unfortunately, they amounted to jobs on the production line like the one Kirk temporarily filled and the rarest of job postings, a single warehouse job. Kirk wouldn’t take a production line job in the summer for whatever it paid, and it seemed to Kirk that warehouse jobs didn’t come around very often and when they did, they got taken within a day. A guy would have to have some serious seniority to fill the job. Undoubtedly, iIt must have been a good place to work never mind the higher pay. So he kept working his hot upstairs job all by his lonesome, the way he preferred.

            Kirk’s bank account steadily increased as he worked day in and day out with spring temperatures rising bit by bit, though the flowers hadn’t bloomed yet. He wasn’t about to tweak his machine shop fate by calling and asking about his engine so he resisted the urge to check. He assumed that if they did call, he’d be able to put them off for a while maybe a couple weeks. Considering the machine shop bill, he had other purchases to make just for finishing the engine, hoping he could make it all work before racing season began. And then there were other things he should purchase for the car as well, but those could wait.

            With slightly warmer temperatures in the barn garage, Kirk threw open the doors to eye his decrepit stock car. It sat there quietly in a quite sorry state of a car. Hood off, devoid of an engine or transmission with the body ground down to rough splotches of various colors of black, gray or silver. Kirk paced around the car taking it in. He recalled the sounds, sights, and smells of race days. He remembered the close, wheel-to-wheel racing that spiked his adrenaline whenever he relived certain racing situations. He realized that he now wanted, no hungered to work on the car to make it a better, faster race car after months of wondering if he’d race the next season.

            With one foot up resting on a side nerf bar, he gazed about the cockpit with its encompassing protective roll cage, special tight bucket seat, five-point harness and gauges right there behind the racing wheel. He glanced up at the big “X” of roll cage overhead that he never really looked at. There he saw fifty or more small holes in a great square with curved corners drilled through the roof’s sheet metal. Yeah, he had taken off that offensive black Naugahyde (those poor Naugas) and foam rubber faux vinyl top and thrown it away. Now, he had a perforated roof. Well, he’d fix that even with his wrapped up injured little finger.

            Taking an old well-worn ballpeen hammer, he climbed up on the nerf bar and leaning over the roof he began denting every one of those holes down to a dimpled indent with the ball end of the hammer. Carefully at first, but he soon realized that it wouldn’t matter if he missed putting a dent right, exactly centered on the holes. So a lot of the holes had double dents, but he didn’t care. He finished one side to the center and then did the other. Even though it was still kind of chilly he dug out the partially used can of Bondo brand body fill. With a squeegee, he found the substance in the can overly stiff and nearly unmalleable in the cold, but he didn’t care he’d deal with it.

            With a piece of automotive safety glass as his palette and Bondo as his medium, Kirk set to work on his masterpiece. Yeah, right.

               Mixing in the hardener, he had to work relentlessly to get it all mixed up. He might have worried that being cold the Bondo wouldn’t ever harden, but he didn’t care even when his stiffly wrapped finger dipped into the Bondo. Yuck! Applying a liberal glob, he half-assed daubed over each small dent that didn’t really work all that well. He ran out of mixed Bondo before halfway done, so mixed another bigger batch. Before he climbed back up, he noticed little nurdles of Bondo on the cockpit floor. He looked up inside and saw that he had pressed some of the Bondo through those little holes. Two nurdles had fallen right on the edge of his seat. He took the seat cover off and finished the job. He knew that after the Bondo hardened he’d have to grind it down and apply at least one other coat before it became smooth enough. He didn’t care leaving it for another day�"maybe a couple days before it’d be hard enough to sand.  

            After that exercise in a probable waste of time, Kirk noted the cylinder head he left lying on the workbench. When he had taken it off the engine, he hadn’t given much thought of cleaning it or what he might have to do to it to match the newly machined engine that would be completed any day.

            Way back in high school BOCES automotive school, the other boys and Kirk learned how to machine the highly sought after coup de grace for young hot rodders: the three-angle valve job. Kirk had learned this skill to perfection, the only real machining skill he had ever learned. Kirk, as you remember, did very well in automotive knowledge facts and figures with straight-A marks, but seemed to flounder with the actual hands-on mechanic work. He had that awful problem the awkward lack of hand/eye coordination skills not attained as a child. Anyway, the three-angle valve jobs seemed to be the one exception for Kirk, him being able to dial in the exact adjustments into the machine to get perfect three-angle grinding results.  

            Kirk took a deep breath with a sigh in considering his situation. Now, in need of such precise work, Kirk did not have access to such machines let alone the relatively simple tool of a spring compressor that he’d need first to relieve the high-tension springs from the cylinder head subsequently releasing the valves. He’d at least have to buy the tool or just take the whole assembled heads to a local shop to get the valve job done. It didn’t go unconceived that Kirk doubted that a local shop would perform a carefully perfect job as he could. And on the other hand, the shop surely wouldn’t let him use their equipment by any means of imploring or stretch of Kirk’s imagination.

                      A couple days of mundane work at work slithered by. His automotive dilemma roiled in his mind even though it was a minor issue. After the third day of work, Kirk went to the local automotive parts store and put his money down on a valve compressor. Kirk didn’t want to spend any money, but then again, the fire of racing had begun to smolder in his soul. For twenty-six dollars and seventy-five cents plus tax, he bought a valve spring compressor. Kind of an odd tool being about a foot and half across “C” shape with a lever and a manual screw with a plunger-like end. He had plenty of practice using one in school so he knew what he was getting into and that was what he needed: progress on the stock car project.

            Back at home, working under trouble-light illumination hung from a nail in the wall because the barn/garage lights weren’t all that bright, he began the valve removal process. Basically, he tightened the tool’s screw down to contact the valve head itself, then cranked down on the lever to compress the spring. Pretty simple and easy. Then with the spring compressed and locked, he could pinch out the small half-moon valve retainers with bare fingers that eventually got chilly and unbearable. (See what I did there?)  His bandaged little finger that stuck out straight didn’t help with the fine work and replacing his gloves when his fingers got cold was tedious. Pressing on, when he released the lever and loosening the spring, he set the spring and cap aside, and placed the retainers in half of a tin can. The valves themselves he cleaned one by one, then marked each one in order with a marker. Just to be sure and to handle all of them carefully, he took a slender piece of cardboard, punched holes in it with a screwdriver and placed the valves in the holes. One would never mix them up nor damage them in any way. Still very conscious of his self-imposed money tightness, Kirk wasn’t sure when he’d get the valves and cylinder head to the local machine shop. He’d have to wait until after his engine came back from the performance machine shop to determine his course after that.

            Life plodded on for Kirk in the usual mundane ways. Spring became warmer, his job upstairs over the kilns got hotter. On a Saturday, when he almost forgot, his mother called out back to Kirk that he had a phone call. When he trotted up to house, she wouldn’t say who it was on the phone.  He picked up the old-style black handset attached to the dial phone with a black coiled cord.

            “Hello, Kirk here.”

            “Hello Kirk, Gan Sen Performance here. We have your engine work done.”

            Kirk swallowed hard. “Ahhh, hmmm, okay. Do you have the total I owe you there?”

            “Oh, sure. Right. It is (specify amount).

            Kirk’s knees got weak even though he had known beforehand the approximate amount and it ended up only a bit higher.

            “Okay,” he managed.

            “Right. We’d prefer cash, money order or a bank certificate for the whole amount on pick up.”

            “Okay, no problem.”

            “Please pick up your engine within ten days, we have a lot of work in and out of the shop right now with the season approaching so we need customers to pick up their engines as soon as possible.”

            “Okay, I’ll be there,” Kirk said, with a dry throat not knowing when he’d pick it up. “Thanks for the call and, ah, the work.”

            “No problem. We’ll be seeing you, then.”  The guy didn’t say good bye, but Kirk heard multiple voices in the background. Seeing spring had sprung, he figured there were now probably plenty of racers who waited to get their machine work done until they could smell the racing season.

            Kirk whimpered out, “thanks again, bye,” but he heard the click before he got all the words out. His heart slammed about in his chest. He felt confident that he had more than enough money saved up but still and all it was one of the biggest outlays of money he had experienced up to that point. Especially for the stock car.

            He suddenly got over his parsimony. Well, he had to know the day would come...

            As they say, “If you wanna race, you gotta pay.”