- parts and service, pt. 4 -

When I get into work today, I'm taking dirty looks from everyone there. This is a game I immediately recognize, a game I associate with women and their hurt feelings: something I've done, they don't like. They don't want to tell me what it is, but they want me to know. It's a game I'm used to playing. I ignore them and talk to somebody better-looking, remind them that I'm in it for low stakes but that they can't afford to lose. Usually we're in a bathroom or the backseat of a car within minutes. Not the outcome I'm hoping for this morning, although better-looking would be easy to find.
Where's that Mexican chick?, I wonder.
But dammit, they're pressing the issue.
"Hey, man," Preston starts in, leaving the Viper he's fixing on blocks with the hood propped and approaching me with his arms crossed, "the way you've been treating people around here is causing a problem."
I look around to see who I've been offending, exactly. I can tell it's not Pres; everything about his stance, his tone, says he's sticking up for someone else. But he's the one to challenge me, and all of a sudden, I want to tear him down. "And what's the problem?" I ask him.
"What's YOUR problem?" asks the Asian one, emboldened by his confidence. Another protector, not a victim.
"Look man, personally, I don't like you, and I don't like your attitude." He's poking me now. "But we've still gotta work together. So how about instead of taking out your anger on Sparky, and treating K like her problems don't matter, you start treating us with some respect. We're like a family here."
Sparky lifts his head, showing wet, puffy eyes. "Some of us," he whines, "more than others."
"Look," I say, "I didn't ask for this pathetic 'family,' okay? You guys can cry and complain when the lights go out, but you don't know what real problems are. Now if you ever put your hands on me again, you're gonna find out."

We stand there, eye to eye, for minutes with the camera circling around us, cutting back and forth between our blandly constipated faces and the nail-biting crowd, full now of miscellaneous extras who have never before appeared in the series.

And then he pushes an outstretched palm lazily into my shoulder.
And then, mayhem.
I push him back, harder, and he stumbles backward over the lever of a jack, turning into the fall to brace himself against the front of the Dodge. As he recovers, to everyone's relief including mine, his arms go out in either direction to steady him, until one hand catches the hood prop, knocking out the only support from under the sheet of metal. Instantly, the jaws snap shut, and he screams out in terrible agony, in loss.

That night passes in snippets of sorrowful montage, with Preston taken by ambulance, me pounding whiskey and smashing a mirror, Kailey crying in the unlit garage (again). As the volume returns to our voices, attractive doctors tell Preston, with overwrought sympathy, that he's been castrated completely. I arrive to find the whole 'family' gathered in his hospital room, having heard the bad news in a message from Ed.
I look at Preston, and I fumble for the words. "Look, man... my bad."
He says nothing for a moment, still staring down at his Jell-O, or his changed body underneath it. The room is in suspense, until he looks up, actually smiling. "It's cool, man. We're a family."
Everyone cheers and embraces, and I can't believe I was ever so hostile to Pres. I think we could even be friends after this. Maybe this is what it takes.