Chapter 1 – Junkyard

“Hand me that twelve-millimeter box-end.” Albert Jenkins held his hand out behind him from where he leaned into a salvaged 1989 Subaru four door DL.

The vintage Subaru was a piece of crap, but its old Mitsubishi engine weighed only a couple of hundred pounds and was as indestructible as a Briggs and Stratton lawnmower engine. Notorious for breaking timing chains at a hundred twenty thousand miles, most people opted to scrap the cheaply made cars instead throwing good money after bad.

He felt the thin handle of the wrench in his hand and set it onto a rusted bolt. It took exactly four tools and a hundred-fifty dollars to repair the engine, something he’d become something of an expert at. The only other investment was time, and since he’d been fired for drinking on the job after his wife died, time he had in excess. That and piles of scrap cars in the junk-yard his deceased father had willed him.

“Don’t know why you work on these old junkers,” Darnell Jackson said. “I know you got enough to get along.”

Darnell Jackson was either his best friend or a pain in the ass, depending on the day. The two had met in Vietnam as grunts just looking to survive and forged a friendship while watching each other’s backs. It wasn’t the sort of thing they talked about anymore. It was just who they were.

It was an old conversation, but A.J. didn’t mind. It was nice to have the company. “Six hours of work and I net four-fifty. Ten-millimeter, please.”

“More like eight hours and two-fifty,” Darnell pushed back, pulling a 10mm wrench from the tray and placing it in A.J.’s outstretched hand. “You’re not including salvage title and parts.”

“Fine, two-fifty.” A.J. pulled off the valve cover. “That’s still what? Forty bucks an hour?”

“Try thirty,” Darnell answered. “Tell me again why Pacific Aerodyne’s retired chief engineer can’t do better than thirty bucks an hour?”

“Covers booze and girls. Man doesn’t need more than that,” A.J. said, skootching his gut off the fender. He stood and tried to straighten but a degenerated disc in his lumbar region stopped him. Shrugging, he pulled a silver flask from his pocket and took a hit of cheap bourbon.

Darnell choked back a laugh knowing full well his buddy wasn’t joking. A.J. smiled and offered his flask.

“You’re a real renaissance kind of guy,” he mocked, holding his hands up to show he wasn’t interested. “If Lisa smelled that, she’d have my hide.”

“Suit yourself.” A.J. took a second hit and stowed the flask. “Appreciate you letting me know about that Air Force salvage contract. I got a load coming in this afternoon.”

“Not sure what you want with a bunch of burned up old rocket husks. Metal fatigue from re-entry ruined them for anything military. I think those Air Force boys were glad to unload them.”

“That’s the life of a junker,” A.J. said. “Pennies per pound. Someone will need it in the future and I’ll have a crap ton of it. Just like these old Subarus. You just gotta have patience. Not that Mr. Bigshot CFO needs any of that.”

“You don’t have to get grumpy,” Darnell said. “Are you sure you won’t come over for dinner? Lisa’s been asking about you.”

“Bubba, you’re a terrible liar,” A.J. said. “That woman’s always had a strong distaste for white men.”

Darnell laughed. A.J. loved trying to bait him. “You sure it’s not your sparkling personality? She doesn’t seem to have the same aversion for our other friends. Seriously, though, are you eating okay?”

“I appreciate your concern,” A.J. said. “I’ve got a pot-pie I’m gonna nuke once I get those rockets off the truck.”

“Lisa’s making meatloaf on Friday,” Darnell said. “I’ll bring some over Saturday after the game.”

A.J. made a face but the sound of heavy trucks on the street distracted him from lobbing insults at Lisa’s prized meatloaf. “You sure you gotta go?” he asked. “Might be fun to see what they brought.”

“Nope, I’m on a short leash. Cody is starting tonight against the Crusaders,” he answered, referring to his grandson who was cornerback on his junior high school football squad.

A.J. smiled, enjoying Darnell’s pride in his family. He’d always felt lucky to have met Darnell and wished he’d been more like him.

The toot of an airhorn spurred A.J. into action. “Okay, you’ll have to let yourself out. Don’t let Max off the porch.”

He walked over to the fence, grimacing as his right knee complained. The doctor told him he needed to lose fifty pounds, stop drinking and smoking before he’d approve a much-needed replacement. A.J. had politely indicated to the doctor which orifice he’d been keeping his head in and the two of them had agreed to disagree.

Unhooking a chain, A.J. slowly walked the gate back in a wide arc, then kicked a brick in place to hold it open. His eyes grew wide as he saw a caravan of flatbeds carrying not just rocket bodies, but battered engines, hydraulic lines, cowlings and so much more.

He shook his head as he hobbled over to the lead truck. The driver jumped down and met him with clipboard in hand.

“You sure all that’s for me?” A.J. shouted over the sound of the heavy diesel engines. “I only agreed to pay four thousand.”

The truck driver shrugged. “Orders were to dump it all. You got enough room?”

“The guy said you’d leave the flatbeds and give me a few days to get ’em unloaded.”

The man handed him a business card. ” We’re to unhook anything we can’t get unloaded tonight. Call this number to arrange for return transport.”

“Around back,” A.J. said, pointing past his ramshackle home to the stack of wrecked cars. “Just drop ‘em in front of those stacks.”

“We got eight,” the man said. “I see room for maybe five.”

“Dang. Eight?” A.J. scratched the white scruff on his chin. The man was right. There was no way they were getting eight, fifty-three foot flatbeds back in there. He shrugged. “Just junk, right?”

“Got me,” the man said.

“Back ’em in, one at a time, I’ll unload with the front-end loader. It’ll make a mess, but I won’t hold you up too long.”

“You’re the boss,” the man said. “Just need a signature.”

A.J. signed. It was the one thing he liked about junk. It could always be piled higher. By the time the last truck pulled out, he’d successfully unloaded all of it and the already crowded yard was now completely filled in.

“We should open up a spaceship store, Max,” he joked as he walked into the porch where his old lab thumped her tail at him. She’d left a mess, but he couldn’t blame her, she’d been locked in for way too long. He held the screen door open. “You want to go check your new toys?”

She struggled to her feet and hobbled outside. Like him, Max had bad joints but she still preferred to pee in the yard and would insist on checking out the new arrivals. He worried for a moment that the hastily arranged piles might shift on her, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

Entering his dad’s kitchen always felt like coming home. He and Mary-Beth had lived a comfortable life together in the suburbs, but when she’d passed, he’d sold their house and moved back. The worn wooden floors sagged on failing joists but he saw right past the decay.

Opening the refrigerator, he pulled a can of the cheap beer and popped the top, taking a long drag. He’d run out of bourbon in the first few minutes of stacking aged rocket parts and he was parched. His disappointment flared when he discovered no frozen pot-pie in the freezer., The empty box at the top of his trash can reminded him that he’d actually eaten it the night before. Shutting the freezer, he grabbed the plastic ring that held the remains of the six pack he’d started and hobbled to his chair, making sure to grab the remote control.

“High winds in front of that cold front tonight, Jeff.” A pretty blond in a bright red dress smiled winningly across the television studio, stepping away from a large weather map.

“What can we expect, Ashley?” Jeff asked.

A.J. shook his head. No one should get that excited about weather.

“Gusts reaching as high as sixty miles per hour after midnight,” she said.

“Well, there you have it,” Jeff said. “Turning to other news …”

He flipped channels to public broadcasting. He seemed to remember a semi-dramatized series about life on Mars that he’d found interesting. Or was that on the Discovery channel? He opened a second beer and settled back. He’d just flip back and forth until he found it or fell asleep.

***

The sound of a screen door banging incessantly woke A.J. from sleep. “I guess that cold front’s here,” he muttered. Over the howling wind, he heard a dog’s yelp. He realized that he’d forgotten to let Max in. It wasn’t a particularly new phenomenon, but she wouldn’t appreciate being left out in the rain he could hear pelting off the metal roof.

“I’m coming.” He struggled out of the easy chair and grabbed a flashlight from the counter. The change in weather made it nearly impossible to navigate on his bad knee, but he wasn’t about to use a cane. He hobbled from one door frame to the next and pushed open the screen door, fully expecting Max to come running in. When she didn’t he called for her, shining his light into the yard.

She yipped twice more and then he heard it. The tall piles of vintage space hardware were shifting in the wind. Metal surfaces groaned as they rubbed against each other. The beam of his light caught a patch of yellow fur. The old girl was barking at something, her hunting instinct having pushed her past the pain in her joints.

“Max, darn it. Leave it alone,” A.J. called, his voice carrying a sense of urgency as he watched the poorly assembled stack above her list in the high wind. Her tail wagged with excitement and she jumped forward, pouncing on her foe. She twisted her head, confused at having missed whatever she’d tried to catch.

“Ah, crap. Max, you’ll be the death of the both of us,” A.J. complained as he hobbled out into the yard. She was as stubborn as he was, and no amount of calling would get her back if she had rat scent in her nose. The rain intensified and sheet lightening illuminated the sky, booming over the top of them.

The pile above Max swayed in the increasing winds, groaning its complaint to whoever would listen. A.J. looked up at it nervously but refused to stop. He’d lived nearly eighty years, survived war, Agent Orange and losing his wife to leukemia. Tonight wasn’t his night. He was certain of that.

“Come on girl,” he said, leaning down and grabbing her collar. She barked, unhappy with his first attempt to pull him away.

She lunged forward, barking frantically, realizing she was about to lose her opportunity.

“Darn it, you’re gonna get us killed.” He peered ahead, wondering what could have her so riled up. That’s when he saw the flickering image of a ten-inch high woman, standing on the ground, waving her arms at him. Her lips were moving but he couldn’t hear a word she was saying. He blinked his eyes and she disappeared.

“Come on, girl. Just the light playing tricks on old eyes,” he said.

Lightening flashed again and the pile above them shifted. “We gotta go, now, girl,” he said.

Her collar slipped through his fingers as she lunged forward. The imagine of the small woman reappeared. She was gesturing for him to get away and then pointed straight up.

“Aww, crap,” were his last words as tons of space debris toppled over on top of him and Max.