Idle In The Driveway

Daniel Parker eased the Mustang out of the garage by hand, one slow push at a time, then slid behind the wheel and turned the key.

The engine caught with a low, uneven thump that filled the closed-up driveway and shook the loose screw in the license plate frame. He kept his hand on the wheel and listened to the dual exhaust settle into its rough idle. The car smelled like oil, warm metal, and the wax he’d put on an hour ago.

He ran a damp chamois across the trunk lid, over the curved chrome letters his father had polished so many times the edges felt soft. The cloth moved in straight lines, then small circles around a nick near the corner. That nick had been there since 1986, when his dad had backed into the workbench in a garage that was half tools and half coffee cans full of bolts.

His father had kept this car for forty years. Weekends, evenings, winters with the space heater going under the hood. Every hose, every gasket, every patch on the seat seams had been his old man’s work. When he got too weak to crawl under it anymore, he made Daniel promise two things: don’t sell it, and don’t let anybody tell you what it ought to be.

Daniel had kept the promise. He’d also kept to himself. In Maplewood Estates, that was easier. People saw a widower with a quiet house and a garage hobby. They did not see the police chief from the central city precinct who wanted one place in his life where nobody knew his name.

He wiped the chrome one more time and listened to the idle. The sound came up through the seat and into his ribs. It reminded him of his father’s hands, black under the nails, and the way he’d nod once at a part that fit right.