“He can blow me.” Pops held his head high, refusing to back down. “I wanna go see my girl.”
“All right, all right. We’ll go.”
Pops’ girl was a slick black 1972 Nova SS. It was a two door hardtop coupe with a four speed manual transmission and a Turbo Fire 350 engine. He said it was the last real muscle car ever made, and he had bought it new before Mickey was even born.
When Pops had gotten ill and lost the farm, he had to sell the car too. It had taken some time and some heavy-handed persuasion, but Mickey finally found it and bought it back for him.
They kept it at a storage facility a few miles outside of the city, and Mickey took Pops out there a few times every month to visit. The condo Cold had set Mickey up in was very nice, but there wasn’t a garage, and Pops didn’t want his girl out on the street.
Strassen Springs Store-URself offered large bays for rent, and so that’s where Pops’ girl stayed. They’d open the garage door, crank the old girl up, and go for a leisurely spin at an electrifying twenty-five miles per hour around the parking lot.
Mickey was not allowed to drive, only his grandfather.
“You can have these keys when you pry them from my cold dead fingers,” Pops would say.
“You got it, Pops,” would be Mickey’s dutiful reply.
Mickey had to help him get in and out of the car because he couldn’t walk on his own. Sometimes he had to reach over and change gears for him because his hands were too weak to pull the knob. But never once did Mickey’s hands touch that steering wheel.
He did, however, occasionally punch the radio. No matter what they did, it would come on at ear blasting levels whenever the car cranked. The only thing that seemed to work was a few well-placed taps.
After a few laps around the parking lot, Pops drove back to the storage unit. Mickey pulled the knob into reverse so he could back in.
“Work going okay, Michael?” Pops asked once they’d parked.
“Real good, Pops. You need something? Want a bigger TV?”
“No, no, I’m fine. I was actually about to ask you the same thing.”
“Me?” Mickey blinked. “You think I need a bigger TV?”
“Do you need something, is what I mean. You know, like…” Pops gestured helplessly. “Like a friend.”
“A friend?” Mickey didn’t understand where this was going.
“I worry about you, Michael. You work all the time, you keep crazy hours… I just…” Pops frowned, clearly struggling to articulate his thoughts.
Mickey leaned back in the seat, and he quirked his brows at his grandfather. “What is it?”
“I want you to meet somebody, okay?” Pops huffed. “Somebody special.”
“Oh, God.”
“I wouldn’t care if you wanted to bring a guy home. I want you to date, kiddo.”
“Oh,God.” Mickey held his face in his hands. “Pops, I’m not dating anyone. I’m too busy working.”
“Well, your neck looks like a vampire got a hold of you.”
“It’snothing.” Mickey would much rather be shooting someone than having this conversation.
“You know I want you to be happy,” Pops soothed. “There’s more to life than working all the time and carting my old ass around.”
“I’m fine, Pops.”
“This vampire of yours got a name?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
