January 2007, Templeton, Massachusetts

By George Raymond Davis

The boy’s face peered over the top of the stairway banister as I stumbled through the front door. A frozen gust threatened to rip the flimsy storm door from my hand.

Typical split-level ranch house. Oak floors. Nice furniture. Big-screen TV. I trudged up the stairs to the first floor, my tool bag jangling, the voltage detector chirping on every step. A mop of blonde hair framing dark-chocolate eyes met me at the top. The boy was at home with me instantly.

“My name’s Sam. What’s your name?”

I groaned silently, forcing a smile. This was going to be a long service call. “George,” I replied, finding the kitchen.

“George what?”

“Washington.”

“Are you gonna fix our dishwasher?”

“I hope he doesn’t bother you,” chimed his mother, a stocky blonde, smiling. She dragged a chair from the dining room table to watch the show.

“He’s fine,” I replied to her, laying out a mat to kneel on. “I hope so, buddy,” I said to the boy. I’m such an actor, I thought to myself. Academy Award-certified.

The boy plunked down next to my tool bag, eyeing it ferociously. If I’ve seen that look once, I’ve seen it 100 times. In candy stores, at ice cream stands, and in front of canvas bags loaded with shiny tools.

A growing irritation began to snake its way up my gut into my chest, settling in my jaw. I was the main attraction as fix-it man slash entertainer for a bored little boy and his mother. I figured the first wave of verbal niceties from the boy was just warming me up for the full-scale invasion of the tool bag.

The invasion began the moment I turned my attention to the disabled dishwasher. In a flash, the boy dove into the bag, grabbing needle nose pliers, wire strippers, a quarter-inch nut driver, and a Philips screwdriver.

“Hope you don’t care if he plays with them,” Mom smiled again. Big Cheshire smile. She obviously hadn’t had many service technicians over lately.

“Well, I’m afraid he may cut himself … ”

“Oh, he won’t,” she assured me.

“ … and we actually have a policy against it.” The policy was, restrain your brat, or I duct-tape him to a chair.

Mother pouted, finally relinquishing sullenly. “Leave George alone, Sam.” Sam was temporarily deaf. “Sam!” Louder, with an edge. He put the tools back reluctantly.

I was feeling exasperation with both of them, and I had hardly started the job. In my years as a service technician, there weren’t too many customers I’ve had to confront. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to a showdown today, but I never knew from moment to moment what to expect in people’s homes – like the guy whose German Shepherd decided to stand over top of me drooling, pinning me to the floor halfway under a dishwasher while the guy puttered around in the cellar.

To triple my frustration, the dishwasher was giving me fits as well. It was a broken latch handle. The geniuses over at the manufacturer have convinced the public that their machines are so good, they never break down. That’s why you see commercials of their repairmen all sitting around sleeping.

Apparently, their ad agency didn’t know about door latches.

“Is your father dead?” the boy asked with a serious look. In fact, he hadn’t smiled once since I arrived, but he sported the studied, concentrated look of someone always deep in thought.

“Sam … ”

“Yup, he’s dead,” I answered, wrestling the latch.

“How did he die?”

“Sam … ”

“Cancer. Cancer got him.”

“Is your boy dead?”

“I don’t have a boy. Just girls.”

“Are they dead?”

“Nope.”

“Sam!” Mom cut in. “I’m sorry, sir.” She sighed wearily and left the room, shaking her head. In a heartbeat, Sam found the tool bag again. I saw it coming and grabbed the wrench, hoisting the bag into the sink, out of temptation’s way.

Sam studied me thoughtfully. “I have Spider-Man underwear,” he offered at last. “What kind do you have?”

“Just plain white briefs. Pretty boring, huh?” He pondered the question awhile, no doubt wondering what kind of underwear Spider-Man himself wore: his own brand or white briefs? Finding the conversation less than engaging, he dug some plastic Playskool tools from a nearby toy box and began a long narration of how to use each one of them, if, by chance, I needed to borrow one of them.

I was busy pleading with my brain for information to help fix the door latch. I couldn’t remember if I had taken my Ginkgo biloba at breakfast, but I sure could use a handful now. I handed Sam the old door latch to keep him busy while I installed the new one.

“My daddy has a lot of tools,” he bragged, using a clothespin to “fix” a hole on the door’s inner panel.

“He does?” I replied. “Is he a carpenter?”

The boy nodded dramatically. “Cool,” I enthused. “Does he make houses?”

“No!” he exploded, thoroughly irritated at so dumb a question. Everybody knew his daddy didn’t make houses. In a huff, he was off to the toy box for a truck, then back again. He plopped down beside me and stared at me until he caught my eye.

“How old are you, George?” he finally asked. I figured he was trying to determine how someone my age could be so clueless.

“Fifty-four. How ‘bout you?”

“I’m 4.” As if to say you have all the information you need, buddy.

I was suddenly struck by how intelligent this little boy appeared. And not only smart, but maybe a little needy. Needy for a guy carrying a tool bag full of jangling, chirping tools to take special interest in him and his 4-year-old world.

The boy’s question reminded me of another boy 40 years ago having the same longings to bond with my father and his friends. I remember the sting of being ignored by the men while they talked, never introduced to them by my father. He must have been ashamed I was there with him, I’d thought. Finally, one of the men turned to me after an eternity. “How old are you, son? Twelve?”

“I’m 14,” I corrected, bravely addressing the man for the first time in my invisible presence. The man smiled graciously. “I guess you do have a few more years on you, now that I think about it,” he replied. I never forgot the brief attention he paid me, the offhanded compliment, nor my father’s irritation that he had done so.

The overwhelming cares and burdens of being 4 must have suddenly weighed upon this boy’s mind. Or maybe the effort of trying to bond with a stranger who apparently wasn’t up to the task was too much to handle. Too young for a cigarette, he produced a baby’s pacifier out of thin air and stuck it in his mouth.

“Hey, I saw some guys playing football the other day, chewing on one of those,” I teased. “At the Super Bowl. Did you watch it?” I felt lousy the moment the words came out of my mouth. Sam frowned, yanked it from his mouth and threw it across the kitchen wordlessly. It landed with a clunk in the toy box.

He apparently didn’t abide the game. He sat quietly on the floor, studying his hands. I suddenly saw how selfish I had been, worried about the work and my tools and putting on a good show. How I was more concerned with getting this job done in a hurry so I could plow on to the next one. I had been given a chance to be a bright spot in someone’s day and had squandered it.

“Say, do you want to help me put all these screws back in?” I asked him as I got out the battery-powered screw gun. “I really could use a hand.”

The kid drew a sharp breath. “Can I run the drill?” he asked, almost whispering, his chocolate eyes wide with excitement.

“Yep. I’ll hold the screw in the hole and help you hold the gun. It’s pretty heavy. And you pull back the trigger, OK? You’ve got the important job, so I’m counting on you to get us through this.”

Together, we ran all 11 screws back in place; me holding the gun, Sam squeezing the trigger. He was a natural, knowing just when to let off so as to not strip the screw. For the first time since arriving nearly 45 minutes ago, I watched a smile grow across his face. When we were finished, he knelt down beside me in his navy-blue corduroys, screw gun in hand, beaming proudly.

“Good work, Sam,” I enthused, shaking his hand. “If you ever need a job, we’re hiring.” I began packing up my things to leave. The boy’s mother appeared from the back room.

Thank you, she mouthed gratefully. I could see just the few minutes alone was a gift that had refreshed her. I felt ashamed that I had begrudged her that. I smiled back, hoping that she would know that I, too, had been given a gift.

“Is your last name really Washington?” she asked, seeing me to the door.

I shrugged dramatically, then grabbed the door knob and let myself out into the arctic winds and graying skies. The boy was in the bow window waving.

“’Bye, George,” he called, grinning ear to ear. Sunshine broke through the clouds at that moment, lighting him up with an unearthly radiance.

“G’bye, Sam,” I waved back with joy, pure joy, never once feeling the icy wind in my hair or the pelting snow on my face.

George Raymond Davis is an appliance repair technician for a major retailer by day and a frustrated writer by night. He had a humor column previously published in a regional weekly and is trying his hand at blogging.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Monday, May 21st, 2007 | Email This Post

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