Chapter 5
P olly kept Indigo on Tuesday night so Blue could go to rehearsal with the guys. He came home exhausted, but the baby was already asleep and all he had to do was carry her home. He thanked Polly over and over, then went home to bed.
On Wednesday morning, he decided he had to get some things done, Turner be damned.
“Hi. Um, my name is Blue, er, BrentWallace. I’m friends with AnneBlack. She told me to call Dr.Malone and make―”
“An appointment. Yes, Mr.Wallace, we’ve been expecting your call. When would you like to bring your daughter in? Indigo, right?” the woman on the phone asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Uh, do you by any chance have evening hours? Or late Saturdays? Because I work and―”
“No, sir. I understand, but we only have weekday hours,” she told him pointedly.
“I see.” Blue sat for a second, thinking. He’d have to come to some kind of decision before Turner caught him on his phone. “Um, do you have something very late in the afternoon?”
“Actually, we’ve got an opening Friday at four thirty,” she said.
“I’ll take it,” Blue said. His heart had begun to race when he’d heard Turner’s voice as the difficult owner left his office. “And I’ll ask Anne for your address.”
“Sir, do you have any records to be transferred for your daughter?” the woman asked. He wished she could understand what a bind he was in right at that moment.
“If her mother ever took her to the doctor, I don’t know about it. But I’ll call around. Thanks. See you Friday afternoon,” he said and ended the call quickly, then shoved the phone in his pocket.
“You on the phone, Wallace?” Turner asked as Blue picked up another wrench.
“No. Just checking the temperature, that’s all,” Blue said, hoping Turner bought it.
“Yeah, well, you’re inside so you don’t have to worry about that. Get busy,” he said, his voice menacing. “I’m getting tired of you fucking off on the job.”
“Fucking off on the job? Look, I’ve already done three brake jobs today. Yeah, brake jobs―the one thing nobody here wants to do. So before you tell me I’m fucking off, get your information correct,” Blue snapped at him.
“Yeah, yeah, cry me a river.”
Turner turned to walk away, but Blue stopped him. “Hey, I need to leave a little early on Friday afternoon. Like about four,” he said, hoping he could get to Anne’s, pick up Indigo, and get back to the doctor’s office in thirty minutes. It would be a stretch, but he thought he could do it.
“I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you take off Friday? All day. Without pay. I like that idea,” Turner said, glaring at him. “Yeah. You get a vacation day. How ’bout that, huh?”
Blue’s heart sank. He couldn’t afford to miss a day’s pay, and yet this was important. “Fine, asshole. I’ll take Friday off. But I’ll be in early on Monday morning.”
“Whatever. I don’t care. I can’t get a full day’s work from you anyway,” Turner told him and turned on his heels to walk away.
Blue flipped him off. That made it sort of feel like he’d gotten the last word in, even though Turner hadn’t seen it.
He worked as hard or harder than any of the other guys in the shop.
How dare Turner say that to him! But he wasn’t going to argue.
He’d definitely miss the money, but at least he’d have a chance to take Indigo to the doctor.
When lunch rolled around, he took the sandwich he’d made and headed out the back door to the alley. Taking a seat on an oil drum right outside the door, Blue took a bite and called the number he’d written down for the fire department. It rang twice before a voice said, “Fire dispatch.”
“Oh, sorry. I was trying to call the station that does the car seat thing,” Blue said.
“I can connect you. Just a second.” The hold music he had to listen to was dreadful, but in a few seconds a male voice said, “Firehouse five. Nelson speaking.”
“Yes, um, my name is BrentWallace and I was wondering about your car seat program.”
“Oh, yes sir. Well, we do a clinic the third Saturday of every month to show people how to properly secure their car seats,” the firefighter told him.
Blue’s first question was, “What does it cost?”
“Nothing! It’s free. It’s just a community service we do, that’s all. I hope you’ll come out and visit us that day,” the man said.
“Um, problem is, I don’t have a car seat. And I don’t have any money to buy one,” Blue said, swallowing his pride.
“All the hospitals give one when you take a baby home,” the man said, and he seemed confused. Of course he was. Blue could understand that.
“Um, I just got the baby Saturday and she’s six months old.” Now Blue was getting embarrassed. He sounded like a total idiot and he knew it. What would these people think?
“Hang on just a second,” the firefighter told him.
Blue was sure he was relaying the information to the other guys there, and they were probably having a good laugh at his expense.
A new six-month-old baby. That was pretty weird, he had to admit.
But he was shocked down to his socks when the man came back on the line.
“We’ve got three donated car seats here that we’ve checked over and they’re in good shape.
If you’ll bring her on Saturday, we’ll see if we can fit her in one of them. How’s that?”
Blue could barely speak. “Oh, um, god, that’s, well, thank you so much! I mean, really, thanks. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem. That’s why we have them here. Wallace, did you say?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. BrentWallace. My friends call me Blue.”
“Well, Blue,” the firefighter said and chuckled, “see you Saturday!”
“Yes, sir! Thanks so much, sir! See you Saturday! Bye.” Blue ended the call and sat with his phone in his hand, totally in shock.
It seemed there was a whole world out there of which he was unaware, a world where people gladly helped others and didn’t ask for anything in return.
Where had all those people been when he was alone, being abused and neglected and starved?
He certainly hadn’t run into any of them then, but he was grateful for the ones he was finding in his current predicament.
Saturday he’d get a car seat. Of course, he’d have to take her to the doctor on Friday without one, but it was a necessity.
If he got stopped by the cops, he’d just have to tell them that.
He went back to work after lunch with a smile on his face and his heart just a little lighter. That dissolved at about two o’clock when he heard Turner heading his way. “Wallace!” Turner yelled.
“What now, Turdbucket?” Blue called back from under the car he was working on.
“Did you tell a lady that she didn’t need her transmission replaced?”
Blue was confused. “You mean the lady with the Thunderbird?”
“Yeah. That one. She says you told her she didn’t need her transmission replaced,” Turner said, his face beet red. “Did you actually tell her that?”
“I did. Because it was true. She didn’t. I tightened the bands and it’s fine,” Blue said, wiping off one of his wrenches and tossing it into a drawer. “ You told her she needed something that wasn’t necessary and would’ve cost her thousands of dollars.”
“It would have netted us thousands of dollars, you imbecile!” Turner almost screamed.
“It would’ve lost us a customer when she figured out she’d been swindled,” Blue told him point blank. He could feel his blood pressure rising with the fury building deep inside his chest.
“Next time I tell a customer they need something, you fucking do what I told them they need or you’ll be looking for a job,” Turner told him, shaking with rage. “Do you hear me?”
“Yeah. I hear you. Be a dishonest bastard. I’ll try, but I don’t know. I think you’ve got that perfected,” Blue said, trying hard to hold his temper.
“Shut the fuck up and do your job. And stay the hell off the phone,” Turner told him, then turned to walk away.
“I was on the phone on my lunch break. You don’t control my lunch break. I can do whatever I want while I’m at lunch,” Blue replied, mad as hell. Instead of a smart comment, Turner just walked away as though Blue had said nothing.
“Why is he gunning for you, man?” David, the guy who worked next to him, asked Blue.
Blue shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“I think it’s because you’re damn good at what you do,” grizzled old Vernon told him. “You’re the best mechanic here, and he abuses you like you’re a stray dog. You should go find another job. He doesn’t deserve to have you here, Blue. It’s ridiculous.”
Problem was, Blue was pretty sure he couldn’t find another job. He had no education and no training, just his instincts and experience. No one else would want him, regardless what Mr.Wentworth said.
He was stuck.
Dead on his feet by the time he got a little dinner eaten and Indigo cleaned up and dressed, Blue made his way to the hospital, driving slowly down back streets to avoid accidents and being stopped.
An injured infant or a ticket for no car seat were things he didn’t need.
He stepped through the front doors with Indigo in his arms, asked the lady at the desk about the nurses’ lounge, and in a couple of minutes, a pretty young nurse showed up and asked him to follow her.
They took the elevator up to the fourth floor and stepped off.
The halls were quiet and smelled of antiseptic, and Blue was glad he’d never had to stay in the hospital.
He’d been to the emergency room twice, once with a cut on his arm from a flying bolt, and another time when he’d dislocated his shoulder.
Both times they’d treated him and released him, and that suited him just fine.
The girl stopped just outside a door that, sure enough, read Nurses’ Lounge on a plate screwed to its gleaming wood. “Don’t freak out, okay?” she whispered.
“Freak out? Why would I freak out?” Blue whispered back. He hadn’t realized hospitals were like libraries and you had to whisper, but she was whispering, so he did too.
“Just don’t freak out. Ready?” she whispered again and giggled.