V8
\1-8 The motor hung in my neighbor's back yard for years, tarp-covered and lashed with rope. Suspended from the rusty block and tackle of an engine hoist, it cast a constant shadow on the concrete pad. And all around it lay the necklaces and hoses of its accessories: the black spark-plug harness, the bedpan of the air filter, the fuel pump and distributor, the carburetor on its side with its barrels and chambers exposed. And though my neighbor never rebuilt the engine, he must have thought about it often: a heavy pendulum that no wind moved, a plumb bob fixed dead center like some bulky reference point he ducked and dodged each time he passed through the yard. And each time, too, he had to pass the small side door to the garage which held the silent tools: the bright chrome sockets and ratchets, wrenches and drivers bundled in soft canvas, like good silver shoed in its polish cloth. I was too young to know what a life's work was, too impatient to understand how our true affections are deflected, shunted by the domestic, by the hard promises we make to another. What did I know of our capacity to transform bitterness into love, as he did helping a teenager load the VB into the back of a pickup, cranking the hoist winch down slowly with one hand and with the other fending off the willful spin of the block, until it settled in the bed, tilted on its side, leaking a puddle of oil, dark and latent? 9 ...
OR
Buy This Book in Print