24. George #2
I sit there for a while. Eight years we’ve known each other, most of those spent together as co-workers as much as friends. Met him at a flight deck, then years later carried on working with him in a shop neither of us was sure would survive its first winter.
I know I have to say something at some point. I sigh.
“Hey, whatever’s going on with you, I support that.”
Carter gives me a tight smile, his shoulders loosening slightly at that.
“Can’t say I’m happy about this—” I continue.
“I’m not trying to dump this on you out of nowhere, and I’m not saying I want out because there’s something wrong here. There isn’t.”
He means that part. Carter’s never lied well.
“I just…” He pauses, jaw tightening once before it smooths back out. “I think it’s time for me to go, George.”
What he’s saying is simple enough. He wants out. And I’m the thing standing in the way of that.
The financial side of it isn’t simple.
When I came back from eight years in the Navy, my father’s shop had already been gone for years. Building leased out. Equipment sold off piece by piece. The only things left were the tools from his workbench and the idea that maybe I could still build something with the name.
The building on Fourth Avenue had been sitting empty when I found it. I got the startup money through the Small Business Administration’s Veterans Advantage loan program, set up for honorably discharged vets starting businesses. Lower fees, better terms. For me, it was $150,000 over ten years.
Four years in, I still owe about $95,000.
Our partnership agreement has a standard buyout clause. If one partner wants out, the other gets sixty days to purchase the share before it can move outside the business.
Carter’s thirty percent currently values at around $120,000, based on what he put in plus a market adjustment clause we added so neither of us could get bought out cheap if things took off.
If I can’t come up with his share within sixty days of Carter filing notice, we have to move to an outside sale. The buyer who’s been circling is ProMotive.
Right now, the shop appraises at about $400,000. My 70 percent comes out to roughly $280,000. Take off the $95,000, I still owe on the SBA loan, and I walk with about $185,000.
I’ve run the numbers before. More than once, usually when I should’ve been sleeping.
What leaves with it is everything that actually makes this place what it is.
My father’s name above the door, the sliding scale repairs for families who can’t pay all at once, veteran Saturdays, the youth program, the customers who come here because they know they’ll be treated like people, not numbers.
ProMotive would strip it all within months.
Rebrand it, standardize it, make it profitable.
The sign would come down. The programs would go.
And whatever’s left wouldn’t be Torres Auto anymore.
“Carter,” I begin, “The SBA loan has ninety-five thousand still on it. I can’t apply for a second veterans’ loan while the first is active.
I looked into the federal community business grant program six months ago when the first ProMotive letter arrived, and that takes ninety days minimum to process. I’ve got sixty.”
Carter gives a small nod. He already knows the numbers.
“You know what happens if you pull out and I can’t cover the buyout.”
“ProMotive buys the whole place,” he says carefully. “George, I know how that sounds. I’m not saying that like it doesn’t matter. I’m just saying it’s not automatically the end of everything.”
He rotates the bottle in his hands once. “I wasn’t going to bring this up until the letters started coming in again. I didn’t plan on doing this either, but my uncle’s been pushing harder lately. Family business, all that. He wants me in South Carolina.”
I stand up and go to the window that faces the dark bay. I think about the Gran Torino sitting in the garage at home beneath its drop cloth, the car my father always wanted but never got, now being rebuilt by his son.
“My father’s name is on that sign,” I sigh, thinking about how much of this is still about him. “Along with yours.”
I can clearly see Carter trying to keep his voice and expression steady. “And I’m not saying any of this lightly.”
“Then give it to me straight. What’s actually behind this?”
When I turn from the window, he focuses on his shoes instead of me.
“Part of it is the security offer,” he admits eventually. “Part of it is…I’ve needed a change for a while now and kept pretending I didn’t.”
I sit down at the desk. “Is it about the shop, or something that I’ve done?”
“It’s not the shop.” He raises his gaze to meet mine. “This isn’t about anything you’ve done. You’ve been a good business partner, and a friend. I love the shop, and I don’t regret being a part of all this. But this is mine to carry, not yours.”
Carter’s never been anything less than straight with me in years I’ve known him. The fact he’s hesitating at all tells me exactly how real this is.
“George, I’m not trying to force you into a sale. If there’s another way to handle my share without making a mess of it, I’ll work with you on it.”
“I understand.” The words come out even, even if I don’t feel it. “It’s sixty days from formal notice. That’s what the agreement says. And we’ll make your share work.”
Carter appears like he doesn’t expect me to say that at all.
“I mean it,” I add. “One way or another.”
“I’m not really worried about that,” he replies, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “I just feel bad it’s happening like this. That’s why I kept putting it off. When ProMotive showed interest, I thought they might be the answer.” He grimaces a little. “Sorry, man.”
I can’t say I’m not disappointed it’s come to this, and I do my best not to let it show. He doesn’t need me to tell him to stay. Can’t ask him to if he’s already halfway out the door.
Either way, it’s going to hurt the numbers. I’ll have to work for it. Figure out a way through without losing what the shop is supposed to be.
Carter stands, takes his water bottle to the break room sink and washes it. He takes his jacket off the hook by the back door.
He stops in the office doorway on his way out, his eyes taking in Dad’s photo on the wall.
It’s him in his thirties, standing beneath the Torres Auto sign with his hand on the hood of a customer’s Buick, squinting against the sun.
He was a man who built something from nothing and didn’t get to keep it long enough.
“He’d have figured it out,” Carter says. “Whatever the problem was.”
I grunt.
“So will you.” There’s no doubt in his voice.
His truck starts in the back lot a minute later and pulls out of the Fourth Avenue. I listen until the sound fades down the street.
I have sixty days to come up with that amount of money, or I sell the place, take the payout, and watch my father’s name come off the building within three months.
I don’t think I’m built for that version of things.