tire and repair shops and rows of small, cracked buildings
looking today (me thinking about upcoming Halloween) like
multi-colored teeth, some missing.
After driving down the main roads of Home Depot and Wal-mart
and all the stores we have everywhere,
it's a relief for the eyes to turn onto side streets
where they have what we don't back home:
Repair, upholstery, wigs, tire shops, bakeries,
piñatas, sugar skulls, altars and plastic flowers for upcoming Day of the Dead,
Bright green and orange fruit stands, tattoo parlors,
and one bright pink "xxx adult toy store"
Where I live--a few miles north --you rarely see repair
shops or mis-matched peeling buildings or signs.
You send what doesn't work back to Wisconsin or New Jersey,
call tech support, or give it to Good Will and get a new one.
Driving down Mission Road, I'm on a sewing machine mission,
nothing wrong with it except my inability to read instructions--
this two year old brand new machine intent on making a
trick-or-treat bag and sewing papers together.
I read the instructions, (my daddy called them
"the destructions") but I failed the test and the threads
from the bobbin never quite caught the threads
from the spool, or--turn the dial another way--made knots.
When I walk into Raul's Sewing Center,
the walls and tables are covered with ancient machines.
A man wearing an undershirt and a nice smile
sits down and threads it like the pro he is,
adjusts the tension, shows me what little knobs to turn, and has the little Brother from China,
humming along in no time.
"What got your started in sewing machines?" I asked.
"It's a long story!" he said. "But it was forty years ago and I was just a boy."
I want to hear him tell the story, long or not, but he's only charging
me ten dollars for this half-hour tutorial
and a man who can't walk has just rolled in with a fixer upper metal one.
If you want to find people who've been in any shop for 40 years,
or people who have long stories to tell, just not enough time;
If you want to get anything fixed, instead of
throwing it away and ordering a new one....
You have to go the South Side, off the main roads,
Call ahead to see if they are open, and take your net
for catching stories.
"Are you Raul?" I asked.
"No, but that's what everybody calls me, always has," Jerry said.
"I never got around to changing the sign when we moved in."
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