Automatic Transmission - 3

By Warren Buckles

I picked one up. It was a little wider than my palm and almost as long, oddly heavy and warm. It hummed quietly and the skin, or whatever its surface was, seemed soft, not like metal at all. I lifted it to eye level and looked into its snout. It was nearly identical to the driveshaft end of a transmission, a dark round nub recessed in a larger opening, the gap between them hard to see, shifting around like the lowest line on an eye chart.

I noticed two small bumps above the snout, located where the oil cooler would have connected to a real transmission, but there were no brass fittings, just the bumps. These, too, seemed blurry, a little outside the range of my eye. Soon it was humming louder, struggling against my hands as if weights were shifting inside the rigid case. I pressed the flat side against my chest and stroked the top of its rounded body, saying, “There, there, everything’s OK, just take it easy, I’m not going to drop you.” It stopped moving and the humming sound quieted. I felt an odd rippling and shifting through my shirt, something like a kitten’s kneading paws. Curious, I turned it over to look at the bottom. Suddenly upside down, it buzzed furiously, squirming and twisting in my hands so that I almost lost my grip. Cuddling and stroking didn’t work this time, so I put it back on the floor. It zoomed off then circled back to ram into my left foot. An electric shock ran up my leg and I jumped away, only to get the same treatment in the other foot. Whatever it was, the thing wasn’t domesticated.

I backed away quickly and sat on my workbench with my feet safely off the floor. The transmission followed and gave the bench legs a few bumps, sharp raps that I felt through the top. For a moment I wondered if it might climb after me, but it tired of the game and crawled back into the hubcap, forcing itself between the other transmissions. They all hummed and buzzed for a while then fell silent with their snouts together like a three pointed star.

I waited for a few minutes then got off the bench and tiptoed over to the hubcap. The shiny grey color was gone and irregular greenish splotches had spread across their curved backs. There were subtle differences in their shapes, curves and bumps that didn’t match, like three eggs laid by the same hen.

The cardboard box was still under my bench. I pulled it out and looked inside. The original transmission housing was there, broken into pieces that rattled on the floor like new pennies when I poured them out. None of the working part, the gears, clutches and brake bands, remained. I picked up a few housing pieces, but they crumbled into a powder that drifted away.

I looked outside, over the junkyard, then back to the pieces on the floor and felt a tiny shift, as if a few frames had been clipped from a film. The old trucks were still out in the yard, machinery in retirement waiting for the scrapyard, the big magnets and the final conflagration of the blast furnace before they emerged as new steel, ready to be shaped again. And I, someone who admired them, even loved them, was just another transient. Someday I would leave, too. I would find another love. Rockets or computers, maybe even people and their ills.

I walked between the old trucks, their grills and headlights like mouths and eyes, the round cabs like skulls. But these were just decorations, shells covering parts I knew: engine blocks, pistons, crankshafts, gears, axles, bearings. Nothing but a long yet finite list of things, all junk, scrap metal ordinary as dust, common as air.

Returning to the shop, I looked at the hubcap. It was just another piece of scrap, only junk filled with junk, something that belonged with the rusty trucks. I was ready to throw the whole mess out and get back to work. But the little transmissions were still there. I touched them, felt the slight warmth and the faint humming. They stirred at my touch and began moving. Soon they were crowded around my feet, pushing their humming snouts into my boots with surprising force. My resolve crumbling, I gave them a quart of transmission fluid, then another and was about to open a third when they crawled out of the hubcap and started to explore the shop. Their humming varied as they poked into piles of parts and rooted under shelves and benches, scattering what they could push and crawling over anything they couldn’t. I retreated to the top of my workbench and watched, thankful that they couldn’t yet climb its vertical legs. Eventually they tired of the shop and gathered just inside the door, staying on the concrete as if afraid to venture onto the dirt outside.

It was late and the sun was almost setting. Something seemed wrong with time; I remembered the morning sun on the workbench while I did something with a carburetor. With an effort I recalled the transmissions coming out of their box, but the rest was a blank. I hopped off the workbench and, moving quietly, picked up the hubcap. Then, taking the last few quarts of transmission oil, I slipped past the transmissions. I ran to the derelict International, poured some oil in the hubcap, pushed it under the rusting frame and tossed the other cans after it.

Wiping my hands on my pants, I turned toward the shop. The transmissions had gotten over their shyness about dirt. They were only a few feet away, bigger than ever and moving fast, the space under them the blurry grey my eyes couldn’t quite see. I stepped back quickly as they rushed past. They crowded around the hubcap, sucking it dry in seconds before they went after the unopened cans. These didn’t present any problem: one by one they shriveled and disappeared like collapsing balloons.

The transmissions moved farther under the truck and out of my sight. The humming got louder and the old International began to vibrate. Pieces of broken glass fell from its windows into the dirt. The truck rose a few inches off the ground. The tires, long flat and decayed to shredded rubber, tore free of the earth, little clods of earth falling into the ruts they had made. A grey haze formed under the old rubber and the truck slowly moved, turning its nose deeper into the junkyard, pushing smaller vehicles aside with a screech of metal. I watched as it plowed a path, zigzagging between the other trucks, scraping over piles of junk, flattening sagebrush and weeds. It went out of sight and the other old trucks began to vibrate, shaking off loose parts and starting to rise. One by one they turned and moved off, falling into line like a vanished convoy, the old Diamond Reo bringing up the rear.

They made a wide path through the junk, pushing lesser vehicles aside and leaving bare red dirt behind. Curious and apprehensive, I followed the road they made. It smelled of old gasoline and dust, gear oil and broken sagebrush. At first I walked past familiar things, cars and smaller trucks I had used as trash dumps. I kept going and came to the place where odd parts and unknown machines lay scattered on the ground, stopping when I saw the curved imprint where I had found the old transmission the previous fall.

I turned around several times, expecting to see my shed nearby. But there were only unfamiliar shapes, things I couldn’t name and scattered parts I had never seen. Everything was stained orange by the setting sun. I felt a rising panic, turning faster and faster until, too dizzy to stand, I fell down.

Time passed. I lay on my back looking at the sky. It was a perfect blue, a sunset blue that barely hid the black of night. Soon the first star appeared and, with some effort, I stood up. My shed was nearby, just across a strip of oil-stained dirt.

Inside, the shadows were deep and, at first, I couldn’t see my truck. But it hadn’t deserted me and I hurried to load my tools as twilight faded to night. Things were moving outside, too. I heard humming and scraping metal as the old trucks swept the yard, taking everything: scrap metal, scattered parts, even my other vehicles to a tribal gathering I wasn’t meant to see.

I quickly erased all signs of my presence. The last thing to go was the blue workbench, tipped over and piled on top. I got in my truck, turned the key, and, with some apprehension, pressed the starter. The engine turned over, misfired, and stopped. Black smoke smelling of raw gasoline drifted into the cab. I released the starter, took a deep breath and tried again. The engine caught and I floored the gas pedal. The shed filled with blue smoke and the tin roof rattled. I throttled the engine back, jammed the gearbox into low and let the clutch out. The truck lurched forward, groaning under the load of tools and equipment. As I pulled out of the shed my lights swept the yard one last time. There was nothing there but empty dirt, rutted in places where something heavy had been dragged away.

I followed the rutted road, past the old building, broken glass reflecting my headlights back into the cab. A shadow moved across the seat and I shied away, nearly running into a pile of boards before I regained control. Soon I passed the main gate and felt something let go, as if a net had broken and all the things I knew were flying away, leaving me free. I no longer had to learn everything; I could let it go and leave the mysteries to others.

I sped up, running through the gears and pushing the old truck past its limit when I got to the highway. A pair of headlights came toward me and I strained to see a human face behind them as the vehicle went past. I caught a glimpse of eyes and a mouth opening to shout at me as I swerved back into my lane. For a moment I thought it was Jerry, but the driver kept going, one arm waving out the window, the fingers bent in the universal salute.

The drive into town was long. I tried to look into every vehicle that passed, relieved at the honking horns and waving arms as I drifted into the other lane. There were some familiar faces, maybe old customers or people I had known long ago.

A few old and rickety trucks went by, too, but I wasn’t sure who or what was driving them. They didn’t honk or wave, just kept going straight down the highway, each one marked by a single red tail light fading in my mirror.

I kept looking back, watching the mirrors for lights coming up behind me, but nothing was there, only the night sky, starless and black.

I concentrated on the lights of town. Soon I was passing homes, their windows lit by the glow of TV sets. I stopped at a familiar place, a bar decorated by an animated neon cowboy who twirled a lariat that never dropped over the horns of the steer he was chasing. I pulled into the parking lot, stopped my truck and turned off the engine. The metal ticked as it cooled and a hot oil smell drifted into the cab. The pile of gear in the truck bed was quiet. I tied a ragged tarp over it and went inside.

The smoky room was full of people drinking, talking and playing pool. There was an old song on the jukebox, the one about a trucker and his rig, Number 409.

I sat down at the bar and ordered a beer. The bartender looked at me then glanced away, avoiding eye contact and possible offense. I had seen him do it before, only not to me.

"Everything OK, buddy?" he asked, looking past my right ear, one hand under the counter, perhaps reaching for his billy club.

"Yeah, I think so," I said, turning to follow his gaze. A woman in red slacks was dropping quarters in the cigarette machine. She pulled the handle and a pack thudded into the chute. A kid too young to drink circled the pool table, holding his cue up like an empty flagpole. The singer had come to the final verse and, just like every time before, the trucker crashed his rig to save the kid.

I looked at the juke box. The record was turning inside the glass case, the tone arm floating on its surface, the needle following the grooves, 'Phantom four—oh—nine' coming from the speakers one last time.

Something moved along the baseboard, three silver shapes a little larger than beer cans. I watched them slip behind the jukebox.

The song ended and I heard a faint hum.

This piece first appeared in Steel City Review, January 2008

© Warren Buckles 2008

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