Read Online The Concrete Pearl by Vincent Zandri - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Vincent Zandri
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at the far north end of the village, along the rural hinterland between downtown Saratoga Springs and the suburban enclave of Wilton. It had been converted from an old full-service gas station into a fenced-in ghost town for towed or repo’d cars, vans and trucks.
I pulled up to the first of the two parallel concrete islands that once-upon-a-time supported gas pumps. What had been the gas station now served as Dott’s office.
I knew about Dott through Jordan who used to come here to buy used parts for his vintage 1968 Chevy three-on-the-tree pickup. The guy was a local legend of sorts; a grease monkey who cherished Elvis, lived a fenced-in time warp, always complaining about a sex-stingy wife no one had ever met.
I got out of the Jeep and ran both hands through my hair. Just for the hell of it, I unbuttoned the third button down on my work shirt. A little skin and a black push-up bra never hurt. I stepped inside through the glass and wood door and was hit with the smell of motor oil. The toxic odor combined with a cloud of cigarette smoke. It made me wonder which site contained the worse interior air quality: the air inside Dott’s office or the asbestos contaminated air inside PS 20.
To my immediate left hung a wall-mounted bulletin board, its surface mostly covered over with key-rings that hung from little hooks and nails stabbed into the corkboard. Beside the bulletin board was an open door that led into a two-bay service garage. Both bays were occupied, the first with an old tow truck—the hoist and boom kind you don’t see much anymore. The second was occupied with an old black Cadillac convertible. Something you might see a president get assassinated in back in the sixties.
To my right was a vending machine that must have come with the place back when Dott purchased it from the gas company. Judging by the sun-baked wrappers, the candy bars it stocked had come with the machine too.
Directly ahead of me was an old metal desk like the kind my dad used to keep in the basement back before I was born when he ran Harrison Construction from out of our west Albany home. There was a man sitting behind the desk in a swivel chair. His jet black dye job was slicked back like an Elvis duck-tail. He was dressed in grease-pit overalls that looked as if they hadn’t been washed since “Jailhouse Rock” topped the charts. Elvis was sitting way back in the chair, eyes glued not to a desktop buried in paperwork, but to an old black-and-white TV set on a metal stand. On the screen the Yankees were playing the Boston Red Sox. Far as I could tell there was no score.
Having heard me come in, Dott took his time turning to me.
“Help you?”
“Please don’t get up.”
He smiled, sense of humor beaming through nicotine-painted teeth.
“I’ve come to collect my boyfriend’s car,” I said.
“You have I.D.?”
On the television Johnny Damon was up at bat against his old team. I was still having trouble getting used to his being a Yankee. The first pitch was too high, too inside. Damon had to pull his head back at the last millisecond or risk losing it completely.
Dott let out a groan.
“Sox are out to kill that boy for desertion.”
“Don’t you think he’s adorable?” I said.
He stood up. All six feet six of him. He squinted down at me, eyes locked on the narrow exposed space between my size Bs. On the television the game switched over to a promo for the upcoming Channel 13 news at noon. Field reporter Chris Collins stood in front of a PS 20 project trailer wrapped in red tape. “A local school under rehabilitative construction is evacuated after it’s discovered that deadly asbestos fibers have been contaminating the air for more than nine months,” she said into a handheld mike. “Just who’s to blame for the contamination? Tune in at noon to find out.”
I cleared my tight throat.
Dott said, “I brought in a black four-door BMW from Greenfield last Saturday night.” Pulling a ticket from the stack on
I pulled up to the first of the two parallel concrete islands that once-upon-a-time supported gas pumps. What had been the gas station now served as Dott’s office.
I knew about Dott through Jordan who used to come here to buy used parts for his vintage 1968 Chevy three-on-the-tree pickup. The guy was a local legend of sorts; a grease monkey who cherished Elvis, lived a fenced-in time warp, always complaining about a sex-stingy wife no one had ever met.
I got out of the Jeep and ran both hands through my hair. Just for the hell of it, I unbuttoned the third button down on my work shirt. A little skin and a black push-up bra never hurt. I stepped inside through the glass and wood door and was hit with the smell of motor oil. The toxic odor combined with a cloud of cigarette smoke. It made me wonder which site contained the worse interior air quality: the air inside Dott’s office or the asbestos contaminated air inside PS 20.
To my immediate left hung a wall-mounted bulletin board, its surface mostly covered over with key-rings that hung from little hooks and nails stabbed into the corkboard. Beside the bulletin board was an open door that led into a two-bay service garage. Both bays were occupied, the first with an old tow truck—the hoist and boom kind you don’t see much anymore. The second was occupied with an old black Cadillac convertible. Something you might see a president get assassinated in back in the sixties.
To my right was a vending machine that must have come with the place back when Dott purchased it from the gas company. Judging by the sun-baked wrappers, the candy bars it stocked had come with the machine too.
Directly ahead of me was an old metal desk like the kind my dad used to keep in the basement back before I was born when he ran Harrison Construction from out of our west Albany home. There was a man sitting behind the desk in a swivel chair. His jet black dye job was slicked back like an Elvis duck-tail. He was dressed in grease-pit overalls that looked as if they hadn’t been washed since “Jailhouse Rock” topped the charts. Elvis was sitting way back in the chair, eyes glued not to a desktop buried in paperwork, but to an old black-and-white TV set on a metal stand. On the screen the Yankees were playing the Boston Red Sox. Far as I could tell there was no score.
Having heard me come in, Dott took his time turning to me.
“Help you?”
“Please don’t get up.”
He smiled, sense of humor beaming through nicotine-painted teeth.
“I’ve come to collect my boyfriend’s car,” I said.
“You have I.D.?”
On the television Johnny Damon was up at bat against his old team. I was still having trouble getting used to his being a Yankee. The first pitch was too high, too inside. Damon had to pull his head back at the last millisecond or risk losing it completely.
Dott let out a groan.
“Sox are out to kill that boy for desertion.”
“Don’t you think he’s adorable?” I said.
He stood up. All six feet six of him. He squinted down at me, eyes locked on the narrow exposed space between my size Bs. On the television the game switched over to a promo for the upcoming Channel 13 news at noon. Field reporter Chris Collins stood in front of a PS 20 project trailer wrapped in red tape. “A local school under rehabilitative construction is evacuated after it’s discovered that deadly asbestos fibers have been contaminating the air for more than nine months,” she said into a handheld mike. “Just who’s to blame for the contamination? Tune in at noon to find out.”
I cleared my tight throat.
Dott said, “I brought in a black four-door BMW from Greenfield last Saturday night.” Pulling a ticket from the stack on
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