My name is Sullivan Lee and shortly after I turned eighteen I became a man. Becoming a man had nothing to do with my age - that was just coincidence. It could have happened when I was younger or when I was older. It just so happened that when I became a man I'd just turned eighteen.
At the time I'd been working at O'Grady's garage, the only garage in our small town of Two Creeks, for near on three years. I was a mechanic. Floyd O'Grady owned the garage where I worked and after who the garage was called. Some people thought the garage should have been called the Two Creeks garage after our town, to be civic like. But Floyd, the only adult I ever called by their first name, said O'Grady's sounded just fine.
Floyd and I didn't talk much and that suited me good. Since if he wasn't talking to me that must've meant I wasn't doing nothing wrong. I didn't know much about him and almost never saw him outside the garage. Which was no mean thing in a town as small as ours. In three years we'd never mentioned anything but cars to each other.
It was just me and Floyd fixing the cars and pumping the gas. Mrs. Shaw came in every Friday to do the books. Sometimes on a Monday as well if she hadn't finished what she was doing the Friday before. Floyd always said that Mrs. Shaw was a lifesaver since he'd never had no head for figures. Later I thought about that and laughed to myself since I couldn't imagine Mrs. Shaw jumping in our creek to save no one.
Mrs. Shaw was married to Mr. Shaw the town councilor. Mr. Shaw and his wife were proper people. Attended church on Sundays and were always dressed in their best. Mrs. Shaw was a fine woman and Mr. Shaw was a fine man. That's what people said and I saw no reason to disagree. They were the kind of people you called Sir and Mam even when you were older, like my Ma and Da always done.
Mrs. Shaw was right kind to me at work. She was what I reckoned our Reverend would have termed a charitable person. Always asked me how I was and how my mother was and how I was enjoying my work. I didn't like work, never had and never would, although I was always careful not to let on to nobody about it. There was nothing much that could be done about not liking some things. It was just feelings you put away and didn't think about much after you had em.
Ma only worked at the local guest house part-time, and she'd needed wages from me since the time my Da left when I was fifteen – left this earth that is. That's what Ma always said at the time and afterwards – 'Your Da's left this earth'. I knew at the time it wasn't true because there was no where else to go and nothing I'd learned since had changed my mind. I didn't know where he'd gone but it was to no place else. Of that I was sure. I thought that people thinking there was somewhere else to go after you was gone was a product of fear. And I thought that fear was just something you had to learn to live with. It didn't matter much since without Da's wages Ma couldn't pay the rent so something had to be done. The only job going was at the garage. So I left school and worked there. And I never complained about it. Didn't really seem reason enough to in the end.
Ma and I lived together on the same street as Mr. and Mrs. Shaw tho' no two houses could have been more unlike. Ma always told me to be polite to Mrs. Shaw since she deserved it - always having been kind to my Ma and because Ma said Mrs. Shaw never being able to have kids must have made her broken-hearted. Ma knew about things better than I did. So I was always polite to Mrs. Shaw.
I was thinking about what my Ma had said one Friday afternoon when Mrs. Shaw came up to me after work and asked me whether I'd mind coming around the next day to fix her back tree for her. Apparently it had some dead branches on its trunk that one day might fall on her or Mr. Shaw's head. It wasn't such a funny request since I'd done such like for Mrs. Shaw over the years. If I hadn't been doing that I'd just have been penciling away somewhere on my own.
That's what I did mostly when I didn't work – draw. Drawing kept my head straight. I didn't have no one I'd call a friend. So I had to find something to do on my own and drawing seemed just the thing. I had a mind for it to. Just like Floyd had a mind for fixing cars and Mrs. Shaw for numbers.
I walked home on that Friday as usual, thinking how strange that fixing cars never seemed to pay enough to have one. When I got home I found I didn't have my key with me and that Ma had already left for work. It was only early and she wouldn't get home til later.
So there was nothing much to do for it but sit there outside the house. There was no use breaking a window just so I could sit inside and there was no place else to go. When you couldn't do nothing else you just did what could be done.
I'd barely sat down before Mrs. Shaw came past.
'Lovely evening isn't Sullivan,' she said.
'Yes Mam it is.'
'A nice evening to be passing the time outside,' she said as she lifted her head to look at the sky.
'It is Mrs. Shaw, and that's lucky for me, since I've got no choice in the matter right now.'
'Why's that Sullivan?' 'I'm locked out Mam. I forgot to take my key with me this morning and Ma's away at work now. Which means I don't have no choice but to be sitting out here. And that's no bad thing as you said. Since being out here is alright on a night like tonight.' I said it like those was the facts and I was happy with the facts the way they were.
'I suppose you have not had any dinner,' Mrs. Shaw said then with sympathy in her voice.
'No Mam. But there's bound to be tea inside for me and it won't get any colder now.'
'Well Mr. Shaw's away at the moment. Why don't you join me for something to eat?'
'That doesn't sound right Mam, you going to that trouble. I can wait. Seems right since I was the one who forgot my key.'
'But you can't sit out here on this porch all night. What would your mother think if I'd not invited you in? You might catch cold.'