Don't Start with Me, Starter

This is how I spent a good portion of my weekend -- helping our youngest son replace the starter on his Ford Expedition.

I've never done something like this before; he's the auto tinkerer. He's never done it before either, but a few months of hanging out with a gearhead friend convinced him it's something he wants to try, and I'm there to support him in that.

My job consisted of:

1. Fetching things.

2. Buying needed tools.

3. Weeding the nearby potentilla (thus the gardening trowel) until I was needed for either 1 or 2.

There's the naughty one.

Thing is, once the new starter was in place, it chose not to work, so we ended Saturday in defeat.

He, however, did not give up. He spent a lot of time online looking at things and then Sunday afternoon, success: Had it going. He figured out his shift lever may be wearing out and while in park may have been sending the signal it wasn't in park. He did get things going, and is now looking forward (I think) to fixing his shift lever.

I'm just glad he didn't give up.

 

Short Story Alert: The Mechanic-Priest

The door opened suddenly, quietly, as if the entrant didn’t want the light from outside to stain the carpet. He pulled it closed as gently as he could, but it was one of those doors designed to shudder and slam and shoot echoes no matter how gently it was closed.

He stepped off the patch of carpet at the door and walked, his feet clomping echoes across the cluttered, cavernous room. It smelled of oil and grease and dirt, but part of that came from the debris, the busy street outside. Pale light poured in through the windows, silhouetting him as he passed.

The nave was empty of souls.

He walked faster. His echoing feet chased him.

He reached the tiny cubicle, wrenched the door open and threw himself inside. The small dark therein felt colder somehow than the vast darkness outside. He collapsed into a rickety chair and listened for a few moments to the sound of his pounding heart, throbbing at the temples, rattling the eardrums.

A cough, then a grate on the wall slid back.

“Yes?”

The voice: quiet, penetrating; innocent, accusatory; froze his heart mid-thump.

“It’s—“ he shivered as warmer air poured through the grate on the wall “—it’s been more than six months since my last . . . my last . . . “

“Take it easy, son,” the voice said not unkindly. “I am here to listen and to help, not to accuse.”

“Okay,” he said. “It’s like this. I’ve come a long way—“

“I’m sure many have come further, son,” the voice said.

“I have come a long way,” he continued, as he sniffed at a hint of cloves and tobacco on the noodles of air streaming into the room from the open grate. “More than six—more than six thousand miles.”

“Yes,” the voice said.

His voice lurched forward to fill the void.

“I think I made a mistake,” he said. “Well, I made a mistake. And I feel stupid about it. Really. Stupid. Really stupid. About my mistake.”

“We all make mistakes from time to time,” the voice said. “Yet we all manage to roll along. You feel remorse. That is good. And perhaps you are not too far gone down the path to redeem yourself from your error. But you must tell me, son, you must tell me what it is you did.”

He paled. Though he drove to the building thinking, knowing he would confess, preparing what he would say, imagining the responses through the grate, it now dawned on him he would have to tell. He would have to tell. He had not even told his wife what he’d done. He thought he’d covered his tracks well on that account. But now the thought of the voice knowing, of his wife knowing, of the souls who might soon populate the nave outside knowing, filled him with dread and shame.

“I—“

Again he shrank.

“I know it’s difficult,” the voice said. “But for me to help, I have to know what it is you have done. So I can assign a penance.”

“I—“

“I can find out by myself,” the voice said, loudly, wearily, not accusing. “But, invariably, that always takes longer. There are more questions. More parts to the process. More time wasted. And more penance to pay.”

It was a hard love offered through the grate, he thought. Accented with cigarette smoke and cloves. He coughed.

“I put power steering fluid in the brake fluid reservoir,” he said, the confession suddenly gushing like a river undammed. “Not much, maybe two or three tablespoonsful. I put it in and then I drove around and the steering was still squealing so I got home and opened the hood and looked in and walked around and then I saw the cap marked ‘Power Steering Fluid’ so I realized what I’d done and I ran into the house. I didn’t even put the cap back on.”

It was quiet in the cubicle.

Then with a crack of thunder, the voice said, in an audible whisper: Thou Shalt Not Mix Incompatible Fluids.”

He buried his head in his hands and slumped in the chair.

“Wow,” the voice said. “Sounds like rain out there.”

He whimpered.

“I sense, son, that the story is not finished,” the voice said. “Pray, continue.”

He sat quietly in the chair a few moments, willing his heart to start beating again as rain thundered on the roof above.

He finished his story with the patter of the rain. “I went inside, see, and I thought, well, it can’t be all that bad. So I got on the computer. I read some forums and I watched some videos on YouTube. The videos frightened me, all those melted parts. I think I panicked. I ran upstairs and grabbed the turkey baster and ran out to the truck and I siphoned out as much of the brake fluid as I could. I just squirted it on the ground, on piles of leaves in the gutter. Oh, I’m so ashamed.”

“It is true, son, the EPA curses such onanism.”

“Then I put fresh brake fluid in. I drove the truck around. Everything seemed to work just fine,” he said.

Rain on the roof, falling heavily, the only sound.

“Yet you are here,” the voice said. “Is everything working just fine?”

“Yes, oh yes,” he gushed, pleased to grab at any straw thus offered. “No trouble, no trouble. Oh, the brakes might be a little mushy, but I think in doing the siphoning, I might have gotten a little air in the system. But those bubbles’ll work themselves out, right?”

Rain on the roof, falling heavily, still the only sound.

“Yes, they may, they may, as you pump the brakes,” the voice said.

“Oh, good,” he said, slumping into the chair again, the tension of the moment melting like butter on fresh toast.

“Your penance,” the voice said.

He jolted as if the chair were electric and his mouth ran dry.

“Son?” the voice asked.

“I am here,” he said. “And I washed the baster. Several times. With lots of soap.”

“Your penance,” the voice continued. “Watch the parts. Watch for melting. For leaks. And if the brakes get mushier, you’ll have to come back.”

He wept quietly in the chair.

“That’s embarrassing,” the voice said. “And I have other clients. Leave now. And have your oil changed.”

He rose from the chair and burst from the cubicle as the cover over the screen slid home.

In the nave, quiet, gritty, oily, dusty, grey sunlight filtered through the patina of raindrops rippling down the windows.

At the far end, the door opened quickly. A man rushed in and tried to close it quietly, but it pulled itself shut with an echoing slam.

They glanced at each other but avoided each other’s eyes as they passed, feet clattering on the echoey concrete; he toward the door and freedom and penance and the quick lube, the other to the cubicle of the mechanic-priest smoking, chewing clove gum, reading a three-day-old newspaper turned to the comics page.

Not Dead, Jut Broken

It's so infuriating.

I drove the truck down to Iona today to the mechanic, so he could find out why the brakes keep locking. Yeah, I had to drive it. I'm too cheap to call a tow truck. And it's not exactly next door, this mechanic, either. 27 miles from door to door. But you know how it goes: You find a mechanic you trust, you keep on going back. We've tried several local shops. Have NOT been impressed.

The brakes did indeed lock up on the way down. First time was by Thornton. Michelle, who was following me, and I sat in the Pilot for 20 minutes or so until the brakes cooled. Then we were able to get through road construction and Rigby before the brakes locked up just before the Bonneville County line. Sat there at a church for 20 minutes, then drove only two miles until they locked again. Sat there a while, then drove a little bit further before they locked again. So we left the truck there, went into Iona, now just a few miles off, to get gas, then we stopped at the mechanic and basically said, well, we got it that far. Can you take it from here?

To their credit -- and this is why we love this shop -- they went and got it, no questions asked. And no charge, either. We've done good business with them, they know I've got a big mouth and send other people their way, so they treat us nice. (This is LARSEN REPAIR in Iona, Idaho. Most excellent mechanics in eastern Idaho.) They drove it back to their shop. And then drove it around and around and around a few other times that day, and the darned brakes wouldn't lock up at all. Finally, shortly before 3, they started to grab just a little as he was pulling into the shop. So it looks like we get a new master cylinder, which they can't get until probably Wednesday. That's fine, as long as it gets fixed.

It's just infuriating, however. The darned thing locked up on me three times on the way there, and then it took them all afternoon to make it maybe even start to even try thinking about locking up. Urgh. I half wonder, however, if there was a big fat guy like me behind the wheel if the thing wouldn't have locked up on them sooner. But the other guy who drove it around isn't exactly as sweet petite either, so that throws that theory out of the window.

Is the Toyota Dying?

We may be on the verge of retiring the Toyota.

And here’s the thing: I can’t really see us buying another vehicle to replace it. Even though we got a zero percent interest loan on our other vehicle from the First Bank of the Father-in-Law, that was because we bought a car from him. No such luck this time around. And that’s fine.

Do we need two vehicles, I have to ask. Yes, I use one to get to and from the bus every day. But all it does all day is sit on that hill with the other site worker vehicles, until I’m ready to go home. Though it’s kind of a pain for Michelle, she could easily pick me up. And take me there. And if we don’t replace it, I’ll ride my bike to the bus stop when the weather’s good.

Then there are the weekends. On rare occasions we’re off in two vehicles, but more often than not, if we go anywhere, we’re all going together. So we could easily get along with only one vehicle.

Not that there’s a lot wrong with the truck, or at least I hope. The brakes are acting funny, again. Have to take it down to Larsen Repair to get them fixed. But it does have nearly 200,000 miles on it, and you know, even Toyotas don’t last forever. Maybe it’s time to bid it farewell.

Or not. We'll take it to the mechanics on Friday and see if they can do their voodoo again. When it comes to vehicles, better the devil you know, I say.

I Need Mechanics Like This

Larsen Repair Again Hits A Home Run

I feel like explaining, once again, why we insist on taking our vehicles to Larsen Repair in Iona to get work done on them.

You've read here earlier about the brake trouble we had on our Toyota pickup over the weekend, and our interactions with yet another Rexburg-area auto repair shop. To recap: They had the truck in their shop for two hours and "Couldn't find anything wrong," but wanted to charge us $400 for new brake pads, turning of the rotors and other ancillary repairs, on top of the $88 they were already charging us for the time spent "diagnosing" the problem.

We demurred, and took the truck -- which was drivable, but evidently only just -- the 26 miles to Iona. Kevin -- in an act of derring-do the others evidently didn't try since they could not "find" the problem -- actually drove the truck around and, for a while, couldn't find the problem either. Then as he was pulling the truck back onto their lot, the brakes locked. He quickly jacked the truck up where it was and found that the master cylinder -- a part the other mechanics didn't mention in their promises of exploratory surgery -- was faulty. We'll get a new one put in tomorrow, for about $200.

So, on the one hand, we had a mechanic who wanted to charge us nearly $500 to guess at the problem. On the other, we had a mechanic who actually drove the truck around until the problem duplicated itself and can fix it for $200. Is it any wonder we keep going back? Oh, and the brake pads and rotors the Rexburg guys wanted to replace and turn, respectively? Kevin says they're just fine.

Kevin and Greg keep singlehandedly repairing the reputation of mechanics everywhere, and we're now 0 for 3 in Rexburg-area mechanics. That's not a good average.

Anybody Want to Buy A Van?

Remember that serpentine belt on our van? Well, it slipped off again today, this time due to a loose crankshaft. So klunk goes the van on the side of a fairly busy road in Idaho Falls. My only consolation: I was at work at the time. I only found out about it when I called home to report an errand successfully completed and ended up talking with our nine-year-old, home with the seven-year-old while Mom and the youngest were stranded. Fortunately, Michelle's family (and mine, for tnat matter) live in Idaho Falls and they were able to help. And Kevin, our mechanic at Larsen Repair in Iona, also made the half-hour trek to Michelle to see if he could fix things on the road. How many other machanics would do that, and not charge for it? I know one, and his name is Kevin.

So my Uncle Med (and Michelle's longtime backyard neighbor) came to help get the van to Iona, after the roadside repair proved futile. Then Michelle's Dad gave her a ride home.

Irony: We're trying to sell the thing. It's emblazoned with for sale signs. And while Michelle was sitting there, awaiting rescue, a local policeman pulled up behind her to see if she needed help. Her first words to him, after he studied the signs on the windows, were "I really, really need to sell this van." That gave the cop a good laugh.

So we'll get it fixed. Again. Anybody want to buy a van?

More Automobile Leprosy -- SOLVED!

Again, I've got to give a plug to our mechanics at Larsen Repair in Iona.

We own a Pontiac Montana minivan that's going through the standard General Motors Automobile Leprosy, wherein parts wear out and fall off at an alarming basis. You've read on my blog about the serpentine belt issue, the second serpentine belt issue, the windows switch issue. Well, this week we had a windshield-wiper issue. The wiper on the driver's side suddenly got all floppy after trying to carve through some rather stiff snow on the windshield. The wipers wouldn't wipe, they'd just cross as if they were fencing. So we went a week -- a snowy, rainy week -- without wipers. Not fun at all.

I figured the wiper arm had sheared its teeth and needed to be replaced, so I started looking for one. First checked online and found that a new wiper arm would cost $26. A bit high, yes, but I'd do it for safety sake. Then I noticed something. They were only selling the passenger side. That made me suspicious, so I called a parts store. Indeed, they had the passenger side, but the driver's side, she said she'd have to order. Then she plugged away at her computer and came back with this: "Sorry. Looks like I can't order that for you at all." Huh?

So, throwing caution and reason to the wind, I called our local Pontiac dealer. Yes, he can get the arm for me, but it'll cost me $95. And we wonder why these auto companies are going out of business, with prices like that (I know, I know. GM buys them from someone else. Still. $95 for an arm? Outrageous.)

So Michelle calls Kevin at Larsen Repair. His suggestion -- which I didn't get from the other places I called -- was to tighten the nut at the base of the arm where it attaches to the wiper motor. Did that this morning. The wiper now works. No charge, except that whenever I listen to Kevin talk I want to pass out because he talks really really really fast and never seems to pause for a breath. But a good mechanic, one who will tell a guy like me how to do something at no charge. That, again, earns them customer loyalty when we have something that breaks that I can't fix.

So if you're in eastern Idaho and need a mechanic, go to Larsen Repair. Highly recommended.

One Switch Later . . .

We have the van back, and in complete working order. I've probably just jinxed us by typing that.

Trouble with the window was a burned-out switch, which, for some reason Detroit is still trying to puzzle out, was simple to replace and did not involve tearing the door apart, removing the wheels or otherwise involve insane amounts of labor to replace a $50 (still, $50!) part. (As for the cost of the USED part, I have to wonder. I can buy switches at Radio Shack for a couple of dollars. What makes the power window switch so special?)

Obviously, it could have been worse. It could have been the window motor which, according to our mechanic, would have required a trip to the (cue evil music here) the dealership. We know what that means. Last time we took our van to the dealership they found, in addition to a broken $45 sensor, that there were about $3,000 worth of repairs that URGENTLY needed to be done so they could make their boat payment for the month.

Automobile Leprosy

You remember our van, of the failed tensioner, belt and battery fame. Well, this past weekend, the drivers' side window decided it would roll down, but not roll up. Fortunately, I recognized the problem before I slid the glass entirely into the door. Driving with a window open a crack of about two inches is one thing in east Idaho's winter weather. Driving with it all the way down just isn't done.

So today, it went to the mechanic. Again. This time, a faulty switch. So about $80 later, we've got it working again.

I'm just tired of the automotive leprosy we've been dealing with this year. All I can think of is: "What next?"

Slowly We Turn . . .

Because of the global reach of this blog, we've received many concerned e-mails (OK, one) from folks all over who are on tenterhooks to know what else is going to break down in the Davidson household.

So far: Nothing aside that which has already broken, or has remained unrepaired since it broke down outside of Black Week.

The van (cross fingers until the knuckles turn white) is fixed. Dead battery. We've owned the van for about five years now, and had not replaced the battery in that time, and have no idea how long it had been in the van before we bought it. So it is reasonable to assume that the battery, sucked of juice for the brief minute we drove when the serpentine belt broke, just gave up the ghost. But we'll see. I am a darkly pessimistic soul when it comes to getting auto repairs to stick. Good news is our next door neighbor Brian Wood is a mechanic, and was able to help us with the replacement. Ordinarily I would have done it, and have done it in the truck. But the van battery was buried under a number of other items, so I decided to seek guidance in getting it out. Good thing I did. He had the tools to do it, and struggled himself to get the thing free.

Now if only we could get our microwave back. I'm jonesin' for some popcorn.

Additionally: When I popped the hood, I found a tool one of the mechanics who worked on our van in the past few weeks left there. If it belongs to Larsen, I'll give it back. If it belongs to the rude folks, I'll have to think about it.

And then ask myself: What Would Wally Do? Neither. He'd just keep it because it was too much of a hassle to track down its rightful owner. I won't do that.

It's A Simple Wish

It can't be that hard. But, apparently, it is.

I have one wish, and that is to find a mechanic in the Rexburg area whom we are comfortable doing business with. This goes beyond being able to trust them, as there are many, I'm sure, who do competent work. But when my wife gets her head chewed off my a mechanic because she dares suggest that a van that won't start might possibly have a connection to work they did earlier this week on the serpentine belt, I choose to send my business elsewhere.

It was, I thought, an innocent question. Maybe something didn't get hooked up right. What I thought was more likely, however, is that the battery just chose this coincidental time to die. We've had the van for several years now, and have never replaced the battery. But a connection to the earlier repair was not entirely out of the question.

So we're back to visiting the one mechanic we trust, whose shop just happens to be 30 miles away. It's not convenient, but I do like it when I call that they do not scream at us at the suggestion their work might not have been up to par. They calmly point out what's possible, and what's likely. In a very nice way. Not condescending. Not screaming. They make one mof my least favorite activities -- dealing with balky autos -- actually somewhat pleasant.

So here's a commercial for Iona, Idaho's Larsen Repair. Quite possibly the best -- and nicest -- mechanics around.

Ah, the Irony

Wrote my traditional I'm inbetween meetings at church blog post today and the iPod Touch went kerflooie. The irony will become evident shortly.

They say, of course, that bad things happen in threes. So until the iPod went frrpt, I was waiting for the other thing to go boom.

Friday night, the microwave went south. The little computron or whatever it is that makes the microwaves won't make the microwaves any longer. That means I spent the entire weekend absolutely surrounded by no microwave popcorn. I am in hell.

Then Saturday, a clicking under the hood of the van turned into a wet slapping sound that suddenly turned into more master alarms, cautions and warnings than the Apollo 13 crew got after they did their cryostir. We either lost a belt or a pulley, because everything went south as we limped the van to the mechanic -- we lost power steering, the water pump, and the alternator was going HELLLLLP! as well. So we sat there in the snow at the mechanic -- luckily we were able to get there -- trying to figure out what to do. Michelle got on the cell phone and started calling people for help, while I did my traditional guy thing by popping the hood and staring at all the hoses and wires and thingabajobbies that lie underneath. I know enough about cars that I knew the symptoms meant a lost belt, and I could see it there loose and floppy, but durned if I knew how to fix it. Liam thought the entire event -- we were all there, eating chocolate cookies -- was pretty scary. Now, I've broken down in Island Park and waaaaay out in Squirrel, Idaho, where I was lucky to only have to walk a half mile before I could find someone to help jump my battery, so being stranded in the middle of Rexburg at a mechanic's shop wasn't high on my list of scaries. Fortunately, Robert Shultz, a ward member, was in town and was able to come get us to take us home. And fortuitously, he also repairs electronics, including microwaves. He's already working on a subwoofer for us -- he wants to fix ours and then try it out to see if they make enough of a sound difference to buy one himself. He was in fact fixing the avionics on a plane at the Rexburg airport when his wife called him to tell him of our distress.

So the worst that'll happen with the microwave is that I'll be off popcorn for a few days. The worst that'll happen with the van is that it'll be in the shop for the day. And the worst that happend with the iPod going south is that I had to reset my configuration and then do this entry from scratch.

We have sooooo much to be thankful for.

Truck Update II

Yesterday at work, I got two phone calls from the crook mechanics.

The first was, ostensibly, to follow up on whether the clutch was working. I chickened out and said yes, failing to add that it was working because we had another mechanic fix it. Then they asked about the ball joints. I got braver. Said we had another mechanic look at them, and he said they were just fine.

"Ooh," the caller said. "Because they were really loose." She knows this because she's reading from the computer (the description plus its accompanying exclamation points) not because she actually saw the loose ball joints.

I sense they're late on the boat payment and are fishing for dumb customers. And I admit, when it comes to car repair (and, I admit, to most things) I have dumb written all over my face. See this entry for the reasons why.

So I leave it at that.

Later, while I'm frantically trying to get some paperwork done, they call again. Thank heaven for caller ID. I let the phone ring, then go to my handy e-mail to listen to the message (a distinct advantage of VoIP over ordinary land line). This time, it's the mechanic, in full Consernation Mode, offering to show me the loose ball joints if I cared to come by the shop. Uh huh. As if I could tell a loose ball joint from a badger hole. Buddy, we got our second opinion, from a mechanic we've been going to for years. He says the ball joints are fine. If anyone is going to stop by your shop to observe the loose ball joints, it's going to be our mechanic, not me, because then you two can have a Godzilla-Mothra style battle while I watch from the sidelines.

Two different worlds, I suppose. In 2005, when the truck threw a rod, we took it first to the crook mechanic, and then our regular mechanic. Both offered to fixy fixy. But our regular mechanic did the fix for $2,000 less. The crook mechanic only comes into the mix because the regular mechanic is a 60-mile round trip from home. But we still go to him, for obvious reasons.

Truck Update

Contrary to popular belief, our truck is not about to explode, incontroverting passers-by with automotive shrapnel and making me look really silly sitting in the middle of the highway, amidst the wreckage, clutching the steering wheel, as is called for by comic convention.

In the words of our trusted mechanic: "Those guys are crooks. None of that work needed to be done."

He's fixing the clutch, which I know through use isn't working. He's also going to pack the truck's bearings, as they need to be packed, But the other dire emergencies the first mechanic saw do not exist, at least to his worldview.

Truck Update -- and Another Video

Just to stave off the curiosity of the scores of blog fans anxious to know what's happening with our truck: Nothing. I drove it this morning, with only minor, clutch-related incidents, 30 miles to the one mechanic in Eastern Idaho whom we trust. Then I had to hitch a ride back home with my father-in-law and associates, all dressed for church while I was dressed as if I were late for a hobo parade. But I didn't mind, of course.

Went an entire Saturday -- one whole day -- without Internet. Finally got through to our ISP's tech support last night, to find out that our account had been suspended for non-payment. Apparently, they don't call if your credit card expires, they just figure you're a deadbeat who doesn't want Internet service any more. So we got them straightened out, thank goodness.

This Truck Will Self-Destruct

Of the many things I have to deal with in life, one of the things I enjoy the least is getting a vehicle fixed.

The Davidson Gene insists that vehicles be driven into the ground, much like in that old Gordon Lightfoot song. Don't know why that came to mind. SO when my truck started having shifting trouble Tuesday night, I knew the inevitable was beginning: The visit to the repair shop.

I'm not a Catholic, so I've never done a proper confession, in one of those booths with the priest on the other side of the grille. But I think I know what it feels like, every time I have to get a vehicle fixed.

Oh, my son, the mechanic says. I have here a list of your sins. The list is a sheaf of printer paper, stained with greasy thumbprints, of the many, many, many things wrong with my vehicle. The list always contains a string of excalamation points, declaring each of my automotive sins worst than the last. I fidget in the confessional, wishing I had one of the fan belts hanging on the wall behind him to finger like a rosary. For each sin, a penance, an indulgence -- cash from my pocket to his will make the sins go away, my automobile will appear as white as the driven snow.

The punctuation is there to remind me that if I dare leave the cathedral of grease without seeking absolution, I am in danger of losing my soul, or at least at risk of having the lower ball joints on the front wheels break down completely and deliver me not through the green pastures and still waters but to the abominable field of misery and woe, where only tow truck drivers dwell. If absolution is not sought, the face of the priest darkens. "Oh, I should make you sign a paper," he says. The paper is to absolve him of any culpability lest I lose my automotive soul; lest the vehicle explode spontaneously as I pull out of the lot, determined to find someone who can fix the clutch hydraulic system for less than $140, the ball joints for less than $570. If I dare mention my blessed ignorance of my sins before I came in for confession as a reason to continue driving until I find another priest with more reasonable rates, his face darkens further. He has seen my oil, unchanged for 5,000 miles, and knows it is black. His head shakes. I see, in his eyes, the fear that the four mechanics of the apocalypse will descend upon my huddled form, broken down, miserable, on the side of some lonely highway, to whisk my soul to eternal damnation in a waiting room filled with the smell of grease and rubber, old golf magazines and a friendly dog who sheds loose hair on my jeans, forever.

"You don't owe him an explanation," my wife says, innocent of the sin of having the vehicle in need of repair, thus heedless of the misery of a soul unrepentant leaving a mechanic knowing his truck could self-destruct if the mechanic-priest wishes it. "Don't tell them you're shopping around," she says. "Just leave."

Just leave. The mechanic who knows the flight of a single loose bolt, the grind of a single underlubed differential, will follow me to the ends of the earth, even as I seek solace and absolution at another cathedral. He'll know I drove the truck home, doomed to explosion, death, endless torment and Hell. He'll know.