The Alternator

I don’t exactly fancy myself to be a mechanic. I do believe that I probably know more than most people, especially considering that most people don’t even know how to change a tire or put oil in a car but, most of what I know about the subject has been from setting on the side of the road broke down. 

Most things in modern vehicles though I struggle with where on older vehicles I did not. Changing an alternator for instance. Very recently I changed the alternator in my wife’s van, and utterly failed at the task even though I was standing right at the finish line but, this story isn’t about alternators or working on cars, directly. This story is about Kenny. (Names in this story will mostly not be changed to protect the guilty.)

For a brief time I lived in Indiana mostly as a vagrant, job hopping, migratory type glorified couch decoration staying with friends and family. People talk about Mexicans migrating to the states to work and how they will all pile up in the same house, well, poor white boy’s  aren’t any different which is how I wound up sleeping on my cousin’s couch. Of course my cousin’s wife had a friend named Kenny, who also had a wife( I mention her because she has a central part in this story.) Let me take a brief moment to tell you about Kenny.

While I was living in Indiana I was working at this restaurant and managed to make a lunch buddy. When he asked me where I was from I told him Kentucky. Somewhere during the conversation he just smiled and said that they have some hilljacks around there to. Now by hilljacks, I always assumed he meant hillbillies and specifically the “we can skin a buck, we can run a trot line, and a country boy can survive “ variety of hillbilly with a moonshine still, a truck and a mule. 

Kenny, was exactly that. I never went to Kenny’s house, but I always imagined it with dirt floors and the heads of animals he had slain hanging on the wall, a smoke shack or a pig buried in the ground. 

Kenny, in the brief time that I knew him, had hair down over his neck, graying black, always wore a toboggan and seemingly never bathed. He talked with a lisp but really didn’t talk much as far as that goes. I don’t know if he was quiet because of the lisp or if he only spoke when he had something stupid to say. 

So, as the story goes, it was a warm sunny day in Indiana where the subtle hills allowed for easy pushing of my cousins car to get it back to the one bedroom apartment where six of us lived and lo and behold, when we got it there,  there was Kenny and his wife and my cousin’s wife all setting in camping chairs by the door. Kenny had a camouflage cooler setting beside him that was full of beer, which was classic Kenny habit. 

Kenny’s wife was a short, round redheaded woman with a squeaky voice and my cousin’s wife was bony as a tooth pick. Her face seemed to always be shaking without moving at all.

The alternator had gone out in my cousin’s car and since this was also my mode of transportation I took it upon myself to work on it. I had changed alternators before and looking at this one, I knew it was going to be an easy job.

So, I’m standing there with the hood up, Kenny’s wife and my cousin’s wife are just chatting away and then Kenny does this thing where he twists his face up so that one nostril is kind of pinched off and then, he snorted through the other. When he did, the women went silent and just started at him. He says, “you can’t change that alternator,  you don’t know how.” The women looked over at me and were watching I guess to see my response. I just ignored Kenny’s comment and picked up a wrench. Then Kenny’s wife says, “ you cat change that alternator because Kenny said you don’t know how.” Again I declined to comment and went on working. The women went back to talking. They were still talking about me of course but, I wasn’t really paying attention to what they were saying though. I’m pretty sure it was a reference to my defiance against the proclamation of Kenny that I couldn’t change that alternator. 

Finally Kenny’s wife said to my cousin’s wife that I should ask Kenny for a beer. My cousin’s wife agreed so Kenny’s wife says, “Johnny, go ahead and ask Kenny if you can have a beer.” I didn’t really want a beer, but I complied for the sake of argument and ask Kenny if I could have a beer. He didn’t answer either way. He just snorted. So I went ahead and got one his beers. Deep down this was an act of defiance on my part. I was halfway trying to polite and halfway hoping that Kenny didn’t want to share his beer. 

The women continued to talk and gossip. I had the alternator job almost finished and Kenny’s beer mostly drank when I heard my cousin’s wife say, “Kenny doesn’t like Johnny.” 

Kenny’s wife responded, “I think it’s because Johnny has long hair. Johnny will have to get his hair cut so that Kenny will like him.” So then she turns to me and says, “Johnny you need to get your hair cut so that Kenny will like you.” I went ahead and drained what was left of the beer I was drinking then looked at her and said as politely as possible, “I really don’t care if Kenny likes me or not.” I looked over at Kenny waiting for a response. He just snorted and never looked my way. 

I finished the alternator job much to dismay of Kenny’s women. They looked at me like I was some sort of freak of nature to defy the decree of Kenny. That car ran for a couple of months until my cousin decided to quit putting oil in it.

I don’t remember if I ever saw Kenny again after that but, I know that my cousin’s wife eventually left him for Kenny. I don’t know what happen8 to Kenny’s wife.

Back then I was a different person. I was quite arrogant about my capabilities. These days I’m a lot more humble and mostly try to find nice things to say about people. If I were going to say something nice about Kenny….his black toboggan really complemented the black and dark green on his camouflage cooler. 

Salutation pending

Johnny R Draper