Read Online The Car by Gary Paulsen - Free Book Online Page B

The faster you go, the more air gets pushed, the faster you go.” Wayne was so excited he was hopping around. “We can do it all in a day, max.”
    â€œDoes it really make a difference?”
    Wayne stopped, stared. “A
turbo?
How about night and day? It will increase your engine power by up to forty-five percent—you won’t even know the car when we’re done.”
    Terry stood, one hand on the car, and shook his head. “I don’t know. How expensive is it?”
    â€œLike new the turbo is a couple grand. But I can let you have it for . . .” Wayne hesitated and looked out of the corner of his eye at Waylon, who shook his head. “I can barter it off. You help me clean the place up and I’ll put it in the car for you. Better yet, you help me put it in the car and we’ll call it square.”
    Terry looked at Waylon, at Wayne, started to say something, and stopped. How long? Three days—he’d been with Waylon three days and now he’d just met a man who was going to give him a turbo, seen a naked woman with violet eyes, and watched a fight he still didn’t understand. He sighed. “Thank you. But I think I should pay something.”
    Wayne shook his head. “No way, José. . . .”
    â€œLater. When I’m rich I’ll send you some money,” Terry said.
    Wayne smiled. “Right on. When you’re rich. Now let’s get to work. We’ve got to get the car inside and pull the exhaust system.”
    He went back in the side door and Terry heard chains rattling and the large door went up six feet. Terry started the Cat and pulled it in, and within moments he and Wayne were under the hood, loosening the exhaust manifold and the tailpipe assembly, the two of them working as hard as Terry had worked alone.
    It grew dark but it didn’t matter. The interior floodlights of the building were brighter than daylight.
    Suze sat reading for a long time—Terry saw the cover of the book once and it said
Kafka
in large letters—then relented and got up and went to the refrigerator and made sandwiches with turkey and lettuce and mayo. Terry and Wayne ate with greasy hands, ripping into the car, but Waylon didn’t eat.
    He sat outside, watching the night come down, leaning against the wall, his eyes open but not seeing, a small frown on his forehead.
    Hour after hour they worked, and once when Terry went outside to stretch his back he saw that Waylon was still sitting there, quietly looking into the night.
    â€œWhat’s the matter with him?” Terry asked Wayne when he came back inside.
    â€œNothing. He needs to think.”
    â€œAbout what?”
    â€œAbout himself. He’ll be in when he settles some things. Hand me that nine-sixteenths box and open end, will you?”
    â€œCan we help him?”
    Wayne looked out the door. “Did he go against someone?”
    â€œYou mean fight?” Terry nodded. “There were some guys in a pickup who threw a bottle at us. He made me stop at a garage and he did something to them. It wasn’t really fighting.”
    Wayne turned back, sighed. “They went down, right?”
    Terry nodded. “I was worried. I thought, you know, because he was so old they would hurt him. . . .”
    â€œOld—who? Waylon?”
    â€œWell, you know. Kind of old.”
    Wayne snorted and Terry thought it might have been a laugh but wasn’t sure. “Old doesn’t mean bad. It isn’t age, it’s where your head is at. And let me tell you something—where Waylon’s head is at is a very, very hard place. Hard and cold and lonely.” He shook his head. “Those guys are lucky he didn’t terminate them.”
    â€œTerminate? You mean
kill?
”
    But Wayne was back at work on the motor and didn’t answer, worked in silence while Terry helped him and looked outside at Waylon sitting on the ground, leaning back