Everlasting Love Chapter 8
NOTES: First and foremost, thank you all for the overwhelming favorable comments on Everlasting Love. Also, thank you for your patience between chapters, sometimes I actually have to do more than write the next chapter. I also appreciate that many of you are putting up with the details with which I am writing this story.
As most of you have noticed, I'm trying to keep this more romantic than sexual but sooner or later, the pants will come off. Also, some respondents have made comments or asked questions along the way about how and why certain elements of this story evolved the way they did. When those comments and questions do crop up I will do my best to work the reasoning and logic into a not too distant chapter of Everlasting Love.
This is a fictional biographic love story as Macy Strickland, his family and friends navigate their way through different stages of their lives. All of the characters in this story are fictional and resemblance to any one person whether dead or alive is purely coincidental. If you liked this chapter, please send me some feed back; I have a rough mental outline for how this goes but some extra details or inspiration along the way are always welcome. If you are offended by intimate male on male emotional and physical relationships, you should be questioning yourself why you are here in the first place. As always, please consider making a donation to Nifty to maintain this website.
Cal started each work week with a team meeting in the conference room. He used the time to find out where existing projects were in the pipeline, reprioritize existing orders if necessary based on materials as well as people who could work on the project and to assign new work. I shook hands with everybody as I met them, wearing the cleanest Carhartt work shirt in the room along with a pair of blue work pants and black work shoes. Cal reminded everybody that I was to be treated like anybody else and not the pay check signer's grandson before he paired me up with Lonnie Woods, Andrea's husband and one of Advanced Engineering's most senior employees.
"I thought I heard you were going to be a lifeguard this summer," Lonnie asked as we headed into the shop space, each of us holding a print out of Cal's design for the door sill rescue brace, "Cal must have made you a pretty sweet offer to get you to come here for the summer."
"He definitely made an offer that I couldn't turn down, double the hourly pay I'd make if I babysitting at the pool and maybe a car," I replied.
Lonnie nodded approvingly, spreading out the drawing on a large work bench with his large black hands and studying it, "you got any ideas how we should do this?"
"Well, looking at the drawing I say we find the 5" x 3" angle iron, cut five 4" inch cross-sections, then cut the remaining angle iron to length, bend it to form a 90 degree angle then weld the cut cross-sections lengthwise along the long leg," I said half asking and half confident I was right.
Lonnie nodded approvingly, "your on the right path, you got your safety glasses?"
I looked around then nodded no, having left them in the conference room as Lonnie continued, "go get them, don't ever make me remind you again. I'll go get the stock; meet me back here and you can start the layout and mark up."
"Yes sir," I replied, angry at myself for overlooking such a simple yet important safety rule.
Lonnie was waiting for me with a flat steel rule, T-square, a black Sharpie and a fine point white paint pen, "show me how you would lay this out."
I looked at the drawing again and with the cap still on the paint pen I pointed as I said, "cross cuts here, here, here, here and here and the bend should be right about here."
"That's good, what else needs to be done?" Lonnie asked, half quizzing half teaching me.
I shrugged my shoulders, "not sure?"
"We can only bend stock like this in one dimension and the angle iron is two dimensional so you are going to need to grind out a relief cut here, on the three inch leg, in line with where you want that 90 degree angle to be," Lonnie instructed, then pointing with the capped paint pen, "I'd say right about there."
Remembering Cal's adage "measure twice cut once" I asked Lonnie, "Okay, let me walk through it again with you."
Lonnie handed me a black Sharpie and I laid out the measurements once in black ink before handing me the white paint pen with the cap off, "okay, this time it's for the gold."
I worked through slowly and methodically, trying to be as precise as Cal before asking Lonnie, "yes, no?"
"You're spot on Macy, good job, almost as good as Cal," Lonnie said, "now mark off the cross-sections one through five and mark where you want the angle to be bent."
I carried the slab of steel that weighed almost as much as an Olympic bar at the gym to the chop saw table equipped with a 12" grinder wheel. Lonnie showed me how to line up the wheel for the cut and factor in the width of the wheel. He showed me the foot operated dead-man switch and I made the first cut under Lonnie's guidance and a shower of sparks. He reached in with his gloved hand and snatched the first cross-cut section as I took my foot off the dead-man switch and I prepared to line up for the second cut.
Lonnie was just a larger, African-American version of my grandfather, very demanding and very precise who with a firm voice that spoke in my ear to encourage me, "you're on it" as I felt his gentle hand on my shoulder while I made the second cut. Then the third, the fourth and fifth until all the cross-section pieces were cut. I wanted this project to be perfect; for Lonnie, for Cal, for Mitch and for whoever else might need this piece of metal to do its job.
As the grinder slowed to a stop we repositioned the stock on the grinder's table top and aligned the white paint mark for the relief cut under the grinder wheel, "Grind just enough to cut through this leg, don't cut into the other leg, got it?" Lonnie said, using his fingers to emphasize his point.
I nodded and we slid the stock so the widest part of the wheel would hit the steel just right before I stepped on the dead-man switch again and lowered the spinning wheel down slowly, letting the wheel grind away the metal under Lonnie's watchful eye, raising the wheel just enough to see that the cut was just about perfect, "any more?"
Lonnie stepped in to get a closer look and gave me a pat on the back, "nope, we're good, we can go a little more with a hand grinder if we have to. Over to the Hossfeld bender."
After some introduction and instruction on the components and accessories for the bender, Lonnie showed me how to set up the bender with the proper die for our intended task and then connected the hydraulic arm to assist making the sharp bend due to the thickness of the steel we were using. He went ahead and put the stock into the bender to check before yanking it and handing it to me, "Okay, you set it up now."
I knew what Lonnie was doing and I was okay with learning on the fly. I put the stock in easily enough and then Lonnie showed me how to line up the mark on the stock with the edge on the die where the bend would form and we were set. Another dead-man switch and I guided the work as the hydraulic arm made easy work of the bend in the 5/16 of an inch thick steel angle iron. The relief cut was ample and the crease picture perfect. I took my foot off the dead-man switch and the hydraulic arm released and I removed the properly angled metal from the bender.
Cal walked out on the floor to check on progress around shop and dropped Saturday's chunk of plastic on our work bench. I was eager to benchmark my work against the chunk of plastic and happy to see it was beginning to take a similar shape.
"He's a natural Cal, must be something in the gene pool," Lonnie said to my grandfather.
As Cal inspected our first hour of work, first looking at Lonnie then me, "not bad, I guess that apple fell pretty close to the tree. What's next?"
"Clamp and weld the first cross-section piece into the angle?" I asked.
Cal nodded his approval, "oo-rah, you got it....Lonnie, keep an eye on him, he'll get a little froggy on you with the welder."
"Aye-aye Gunny," Lonnie replied and now I knew the why of how Lonnie and Cal worked so well together as Cal walked on to the next project on the floor.
"Somebody likes welding?" Lonnie asked.
"It's kind of cool" I replied, "I ran a few hundred beads here, did some tack welding with Cal a couple of weeks ago for that smoker he was making."
"Alright, let's get this set up and clamped and then you can show me what you got," Lonnie said as we took all the parts over to the welding area.
I found some unassigned welding gear, a smaller leather shirt, helmet and gloves while Lonnie grabbed his assigned gear and set up the welder, connecting the grounding clamp to the work while I clamped the cross-section piece onto the long leg of the angled angle iron, measuring twice, marking with the paint pen before setting the clamp firmly. Lonnie did a double check and gave me the nod to go ahead. I squeezed the trigger and did my best to make a line of tight consecutive cursive e's, releasing the trigger and flipping the visor up to inspect. Lonnie inspected too, "you got a nice tight bead working there Macy, keep it going." I finished the first piece and repeated the process for the second, third, forth and fifth cross-section pieces, working through lunch until all the welding was completed. Just before Lonnie came back from lunch I snapped a pic with my iPhone and sent it to Mitch with the caption, "what do you think?"
"Dude, no way, it's done?" was his immediate response.
"Almost, needs to be cleaned up some, I'll let you know," I replied as Lonnie returned to inspect the almost finished product.
"K, call me later when you can, last night was the best," texted to end the session.
"Okay young man, get yourself a coarse grinding wheel and begin smoothing out the rough and sharp edges," Lonnie said bringing over an electric grinder and gently touching to feel where the most attention was needed.
I brought over two wheels, unsure which to start with and with some help from Lonnie, picked out the finer of the two, worked the bit into the chuck before putting my safety glasses back on and beginning to grind down the work to smooth out any sharp edges and rough spots. Then Lonnie showed me how to "swirl" so that I would leave a swirl pattern on the metal and that I would have to come up with my own trademark swirl pattern. I nodded for Lonnie to pick up my iPhone and got him to take my picture a few times at different angles as sparks were flying off the metal while I tried making my own swirl on the large flat spot along the upper leg of the door sill rescue brace.
Lonnie inspected it, kind of chuckled at my swirling and pronounced it finished. "Kind of hefty, feels like it will hold up half a house," Lonnie commented.
"I hope it does," I answered, "what's next?"
"Cal said something about going next door and starting to disassemble a Land Rover," Lonnie answered, "so get yourself some masking tape, your Sharpie and a bunch of different-sized parts bags from the Parts Room."
I grabbed the necessary items and we exited through the back roll up door that was open and into Hallmark Restorations through an identical open roll up door at their shop. Just like good neighbors, Lonnie knew the folks at Hallmark as well and they were acquainted with everybody at Advanced Engineering.
The beautiful Corvette had since been returned to the owner and the older Suburban had received a new blue paint job and was being re-assembled where the Corvette had been previously. Arnie Hall came over with a kind of worn red small plastic tool case, and after greeting Lonnie he turned to me, "here you go Macy, it's a Snap-on metric socket set, this should help get you started; keep it as long as you need it. Lonnie, you make sure he bags and tags every piece he takes off."
Lonnie turned to me, "did you hear Arnie, bag and tag everything. That's what the tape and the parts bags are for; put the smaller stuff in the bags and label them; the bigger pieces, take them off, put tape on them and mark what they are where they came from. Do you understand?"
I nodded, eyes wide: All of a sudden it looked like this Defender at a million parts as I pulled off the plastic before I turned to Lonnie, "where should I start?"
Lonnie looked over the 4 x 4 and then nodded to the after-market roof rack, "that's as good as place as any," he said, sliding a six-foot tall step ladder next to the left rear corner of the faded green body.
I began unbolting the rack from its brackets, then the brackets from the roof, bagging and tagging as I went before Arnie came back to inspect my progress. He smiled at the piece of blue tape on the black tubular frame of the roof rack labeled roof rack in my block printing, "he took you at your word," Lonnie said, "hasn't missed a bag tag either."
"Just do a little at a time Macy, nobody can eat an elephant in one sitting, she'll be here for you everyday and before you know it, you'll have her stripped down," Arnie said with encouragement, "you got an eye for detail like Cal and that's a good thing."
"Thanks Mr. Hall," I said, taking note that everybody was winding down for the day, I put the metric tools back in the case and handed it to Arnie.
"No, those are for you, you're going to need them more than me," Arnie said., "I'll see you guys tomorrow; time to go home and see what Ellie made for dinner and watch the Orioles lose again."
We returned to Advanced Engineering and I put the Snap-on tool set along with my safety glasses into an unlocked locker near Lonnie's as we got ready to end our own workday. We helped everybody else finish putting tools and equipment away before we cleaned up the shop space. Only items still out were the yellowish chunk of plastic and its steel replacement.
"Go get some bubble wrap from the Parts Room and wrap that piece of metal up good while I double check it one more time for any sharp edges but I think we're good."
"Sure thing Lonnie," I said with Cal now standing next to Lonnie, "anything else?"
"Go ahead Lonnie, we'll get this wrapped up, thanks for showing Macy how we do business," Cal said.
"No problem Gunny, my pleasure," Lonnie replied as he exited and I returned to the work bench with bubble wrap and packing tape.
Cal inspected it and nodded approvingly before I flipped it over on the underside, the part that would rest on the door sill and get dinged up and scratched up with use, "that's subtle, think anybody will notice?"
"I don't know," I replied, "Mitch just texted me, he's at the firehouse now, mind if we drop it off on our way home?"
We drove down York Road and made the turn onto Bellona Avenue, the firehouse was just ahead on the left. Mitch was in front wearing his red RECRUIT tee shirt taking turns with other firemen tying different knots to a post next to the overhead door where the heavy rescue was parked when we pulled into the parking lot. I got out in my work clothes and opened the rear hatch of Cal's SUV and brought over the bubble-wrapped package and gave it to Mitch, "one prototype, delivered," I said, watching his face register the weight of the solid metal object.
A college-aged firefighter named Darien Fox asked, "what you got there Mitch, prototype of what?"
Mitch put the package on big front bumper of the rescue truck and in one smooth motion pulled out a pocket knife and flicked the blade open to begin cutting through the package until it was exposed for all who gathered around to see, "Macy made this for us, lieutenant, to replace the plastic ones."
"It's heavy duty, 5/16" steel, it should be up to the task if I understand what it's for correctly," Cal interjected.
"There's a partially cut up car on the training pad, we could try it" Darien suggested, "be no trouble to pull 303 around and give it a shot."
Mitch flipped it over and saw the stealthy swirled curvy M&M on the bottom then smiled up at me, "that's sick; let me get some gear, you're welcome to watch."
"Can we?" I asked turning to Cal.
"Sure," he said, fishing his phone out to call Rita, "we make donations every year, might as well see them in action."
Lieutenant Fox picked up the phone and barked orders to anybody in the firehouse listening as another firefighter drove the impressive rescue truck around to the training pad. For the first time I noticed the heavy rescue even had a crane on top as the other firefighters walked to grab their gear and helmets and assembled around the remains of the semi-destroyed sedan, the doors and roof already removed during a previous training exercise.
A few feet away the truck hummed at idle while hydraulic hose reels were played out from the compartment with the rescue tools, one hose with the big cutter on the end and another firefighter carrying two of the hydraulic rams. Other firefighters standing around had out their smart phones to take video while Mitch made sure we were close enough to observe.
The firefighter with the hydraulic cutter made a relief cut on the driver's side as low as he could above the door sill into the sheet metal just behind the front wheel. He worked the tool easily and handed it to another firefighter on the passenger's side who made a similar cut. While the cutter was swapped out for a ram and a second ram connected to a second hydraulic hose, the steel door sill rescue brace was positioned on the driver's side against the B post, where the front door latches and it's plastic counterpart positioned similarly on the passenger's side.
The ram bases were seated against the rests on the braces and their extending arms were aimed high, just above where the top hinges once held the doors. Once contact was made above the hinge, full hydraulic force was applied and the dash of the car was easily lifted almost a foot from side to side until the brace on the plastic side failed but the firefighter operating the ram grabbed the hydraulic tool before any harm occurred. The ram on the driver's side did its job; secure in the door sill rescue brace.
The gunny whispered a hushed "outstanding" in my ear from behind along with the strong clench of Cal's hand on my shoulder. Mitch gave me a gloved thumbs up and a big smile as the other firefighters went to the driver's side to inspect and try out the new and improved version of the brace.
And I surprised myself, no flashback this time though I am not sure why; in fact, with Cal and Mitch and this, I was beginning to feel like a winner again.