THE MAN WHO DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT

by Harvey Jacobs

“The last few novels I’ve done have reflected what to me is a very surreal moment in history,” Harvey Jacobs said in a recent interview. “I get a kick out of the fact some of the critics call my writing ‘surreal.’ But then I pick up the daily paper and feel like a kindergarten student compared to what’s really going on…. You think you write about an extreme character, then the whole economy of the world collapses and you find out there are people like Bernie Madoff.” His latest novel, Side Effects, concerns a man who must sacrifice himself for the sake of the pharmaceutical industry. His new F&SF story concerns a different everyman, a guy working in a garage when things get strange.

Colin Kabe felt limited by his job at Max’s Automotive Rehab, the garage where he worked on coughing motors, squealing transmissions, and nicks and scratches that interrupted the performances or marred the looks of the world’s most spectacular cars. What he called his “pedigreed patients” included a full pantheon of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Daimlers, Aston Martins, Porsches, Packards dating back to the 1920s, Caddys with spreading asses built just after World War II, sleek Corvettes, Jaguars, MGs, Triumphs, Morgans, Rolls Royce Silver Shadows, Bentleys—even an occasional Thunderbird or Mustang (the originals) and a steady stream of Mercedes touring cars, rare gull-winged coupes, and one-of-a-kind sedans, some of which had belonged to members of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle, and maybe to Der Führer himself.

When they came for fixing or buffing, those anointed beauties sometimes seemed to groan in pain like wounded movie stars which, in a sense, they were. It was Colin’s mandate to make each engine purr and to coddle the silky skins of those magnificent machines.

After the servicing and repairs were finished, Colin took his time with the washing and polishing. He dealt carefully with the slightest blemish. Each car had been built to shine, to glow like a rolling rainbow. When they left Colin’s care, they were restored, as arrogant as they’d been before trouble struck.

Working with such beauties would make most men salivate, yet Colin Kabe was in a place beyond the pleasure he once felt when he fixed a dent or found an authentic replacement for a splendid hubcap. He was tired of his boss’s accolades and customer praise, indifferent to generous annual salary increases, immune even to the stock tips and gifts bestowed upon him by clients who treated Colin as if he were a great plastic surgeon with a practice strictly limited to royalty.

All the automotive adoration he justly earned seemed as superficial and hollow as an empty gas tank. Life was moving in fast gear. In a curious way, the iconic cars he dealt with reminded Colin of time, and he felt his time running out. Instead of fixing those classic cars for others, he wanted to own a few himself. But even more important to Colin than just making his fortune while he could still enjoy the comforts and delights of wealth was the way in which he’d make it. Those Nazi cars in his charge were built by slave labor. Colin resolved that his money would be clean, unadulterated by the indelible grime of guilt or compromise that often clings to treasure.

Before he’d lived out his life tinkering in Max’s garage, Colin needed to accomplish much more, make some indelible mark on history’s forehead, and get rich in the process. He sought a goal for himself as challenging as it was compelling, some task both financially and spiritually rewarding. Colin vowed to cross the horizon of hubris and burst into a land where wealth and altruism merged.

His vision of winning well deserved (and well rewarded) immortality took gradual shape. He was told in a dream that his destiny was to do something about it.

The terrible it, indefinable as the dark matter that fills the universal void.

The awful it more corrupting than eternal rust.

The it always talked about and roundly condemned.

The it so many pledge to face up to, do something about but for all that bravado, very few actually made the attempt and certainly nobody had succeeded.

It was out there, somewhere, maybe everywhere.

It left a trail of mayhem that probably tracked back to the Big Bang, it touched every life, but who had actually seen it and who could identify it in a court of law?

Colin knew if he could tame the elusive, ubiquitous, fearsome it, his contribution would benefit the nation, the planet, perhaps the very universe while rewarding him with a dividend of gratitude, respect, fame, gold, and enviable power.

While he filed, polished, tweaked, painted, and burnished bruised metal, Colin thought about gathering enough energy to catapult him past the ordinary, splitting the walls of limitation that boxed in his dream.

Classic Car Express magazine had dubbed Colin “the quintessential mechanical healer.” He reasoned that to crack the riddle of it shouldn’t be that much more difficult than turning a bashed-in car that barely survived a head-on collision with a tanker truck into a Monte Carlo Grand Prix champion. Doing something about it had to be approached with patience, logic, determination, skill, and the proper motivation. Colin Kabe knew he had the proper credentials.

One night, his boss, Max, stayed late to send out bills. He found Colin still in the garage, staring into space. “Are you all right?” Max said.

“Fine,” Colin said, in a resonant voice Max had never heard. “I’ve decided to do something about it.”

“About what?”

“Never mind,” Colin said in his familiar voice. Max shrugged and left. He’d always sensed that his star employee was a bit eccentric. Better to indulge than antagonize an artist, especially since it was Colin’s magic that brought in the big spenders.

Many evenings, after he was certain Max had left, Colin would raise the hoods a.k.a. bonnets of the magnificent assortment of vehicles assembled in the garage, flip on their ignition switches, and listen to the engines hum with the contented calm he occasionally experienced after good sex. In minutes, that calm was replaced by anxious impatience; he heard belts, gears, spark plugs, cylinders cry out for the jolt of fuel that would send them prowling the world’s best highways in bodies and insides fit, toned, good as new; made whole by Colin Kabe.

It was satisfying to share those joyous vibrations. But lately, even that satisfaction waned. He was just kidding himself. His plan to do something about it was still on hold while he tried to summon up the courage to venture into the uncharted territory where it made a home.

On one of those evenings, when Colin felt particularly useless in the infinite scheme of things, something went very wrong. The hoods of those iconic automobiles began raising and lowering, flapping of their own accord. Globs of oil spit from one engine to another, splattering newly waxed torsos and glossy windshields. It was as if the cars at Max’s upscale garage were involved in a bar brawl, a vulgar and noisy clash of drunken aristocrats. It was a disgusting display, absolutely the kind of it that needed something done about.

Colin was understandably startled, then frightened, then puzzled by such a wretched display of emotions (if the word emotions could be applied to a gathering of machines, however superior). After initial paralysis, Colin practically leapt from car to car, trying desperately to slam flapping hoods shut, holding down trunk lids which had begun to open and shut, using whatever tools he could grab, even pieces of duct tape in an effort to halt leaks and calm the turbulence. Nothing worked. Colin heard himself shouting at creatures of metal, rubber, and glass, “You, all of you, stop slapping those wipers, quit squirting Windex, quiet those horns, get hold of yourselves this minute, remember who you are. The best of the best! For God’s sake, end this nonsensical behavior at once!” He was showered with a mocking cascade of gasoline erupting from unscrewed caps. These were not children pissing on one another—these were vintage sophisticates behaving like delinquents.

Then Colin found himself surrounded by sudden silence as the insurrection ended; hoods and trunk lids clamped shut, there was no more spitting oil, no gushing fountains of high test, no swoosh-swish of wipers, only the usual after-hours quiet Colin used to question the meaning of his life.

The silence didn’t last—a burst of raucous laughter echoed through the room, ricocheting from car body to car body, tingling Colin’s ears. It was feminine laughter, no question, a unique brand of chortle he’d heard before in certain delicate moments, some of which he’d have much preferred to forget.

“Is someone in here?” Colin said. “Is this some kind of attempt at humor? If it is, I don’t find it funny, not a bit. Max? Are you behind this idiocy?” It was a redundant question since it was obviously not Max who was laughing—Max never laughed.

“Over here,” a female voice said. Colin looked around but saw nobody. The laugh came again. Whoever or whatever was teasing him was certainly having a fine time.

“Peek-a-boo, I see you,” the voice said.

“I’m beginning to feel angry,” Colin said. “Watch yourself. Despite my Buddhist inclinations, when taunted, I have quite a temper and certification as a black belt—”

Colin felt a thud inside his skull and found himself splayed across the roof of an Aston Martin that once belonged to the Duke of Windsor. “I’d hold back on the threats,” the voice said. “Now, look over at the gray Rolls. Yippee ki yo!”

Colin looked and saw a trim little lady riding the steer-horned hood ornament of a red convertible that had carried Roy Rogers around Hollywood back in the nineteen-thirties. She was about the size of Colin’s index finger, dressed in an outfit that seemed to have been spun from platinum wire. Her face was pleasant enough, cartoonish though, with a pink nose, orange lips, and violet Orphan Annie eyes. When she jumped off the steer horns and onto the running board, Colin saw she had the body of an athlete.

“It makes me nervous to have you staring at me, Colin,” the action figure said. “I’m getting the feeling that they fucked up, made me too small and much too colorful before sending me down here, which is ironic since I was told to blend in, observe the species, be as inconspicuous as possible.”

“How do you know my name?” Colin said. “And who made you too small?”

“It would take all day to explain. But I know your name because I was told that if anything went wrong you would be the man to do something about it. I hear you’re obsessive about fixing anything that moves. And I require your services in order to complete my mission and get on with my life. You are the best mechanic in this world, aren’t you? That’s what the magazine said.”

“Well, I do confess to a certain talent as an agent of vehicular balm. But I hope you’re not talking about any service even remotely medical. I mean, if you’re some kind of toy or robot, please find someone else to meddle with you. My specialty is cars. Sometimes, I do motorcycles, busses, station wagons, RVs, and trucks, but not often.”

“I know what you do. By the way, my name is Lullaby. At least, that’s the name on my inter-orbital passport. And I assure you, I am not broken or defective in any way. But my transport is having transmission problems along with a few other unexpected glitches. And I’m depending on you to correct the malfunction, do something about it.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Lullaby. I work only by appointment. All appointments are made by my boss, Max Ubberman, and I’m booked solid for a month in advance.”

“A month? Ha! I’ve got to get back for Diploid Plaxyrf’s Emergence Anniversary.”

“Diploid Who?”

“My mentor. My Illuminate. He is the Fountain of Wisdom in which I bathe. And he’s about to celebrate his seventh millennium.”

“Oh, that Diploid Plaxyrf,” Colin said. “Well, please wish him a happy Emergence and tell him to give Max a call.”

“You’re making snide remarks? About my Illuminate?”

“No disrespect intended,” Colin said. “By the way, is your Illuminate the one who recommended me? Because I have no memory of doing any work for any Illuminate—and how did you know that, if you ran into trouble, I was the one with the ability to do something about it?”

“Diploid showed me your file. It says you can always be counted on to do something about it.”

“My file? What file? Listen, Lullaby, I think you’d better let me in on—”

“I am in a hurry and it’s quite a walk to where my transport settled. There is no road. With my wee legs it will take us forever to get there. Unless you’d agree to carry me.”

“No problem,” Colin said. “But house calls and carry time count with Max and labor charges are two hundred dollars an hour. Double time for overtime. Your call.”

“Money isn’t a problem,” Lullaby said, reaching into a pocket and producing a credit card. Colin shrugged, plucked her off the running board, and lifted her in the palm of his right hand.

“Where to?” Colin said.

“Just outside town,” she said. “Over the peak of your mountain, if you call that lump a mountain.”

“Oh, it’s a mountain,” Colin said, feeling his dander rise. “It happens to be the seventy-fifth highest mountain in the nation.”

“That explains why they made me so small,” Lullaby said. “I see now that the scale you use to measure status maximizes minimums. We used it as our guide. By our usual standards your mountain is a pimple on a bug’s behind.”

“I don’t know if I can help you,” Colin said. “I’m not at all clear about who you are or where you’re from or what you’re talking about. All I do know is that to me a client is a client and I suppose I might consider some freelance work off the books.”

“What books? Do you mean repair manuals?”

“No, I don’t use repair manuals. I use my intuition. I haven’t consulted a manual since I was fifteen. ‘Off the books’ is an expression that means you pay cash. No credit cards. No receipts. No taxes.”

“Ah. Interesting.”

“Now, let me take a few basic diagnostic tools along. Hopefully, we won’t have to tow your car to the shop. If that’s necessary, everything is back on the books and Max has his hand up my butt if you follow me.”

“I don’t follow you,” Lullaby said. “You follow me. And it’s not exactly a car.”

“What? A scooter?”

“Can’t you walk faster? The Rebuild Crew will be along in a few hours. I would hate to be the one held responsible for slowing them down.”

“Rebuild Crew?” Colin said. “Slowing what down? Your mentor should teach you something about communication.”

“This is a rush job. There wasn’t time for nuance. What are these lines in your palm?”

“Natural crinkles. Some people believe they can tell your fortune and predict your life span by reading—”

“I’m sorry I asked,” Lullaby said.

Colin thought, “Well, here I go again. Same old same old. Colin Kabe off to another after-hours rescue of some weirdo customer who probably needs nothing more than an oil change or a jumper start. And here I had planned to use this night to think about really doing something about it. Okay, let’s face it. I can use the extra money and I enjoy screwing Max out of a few bucks, so what the hell.”

“Just past the snowline,” Lullaby said.

“The snowline? That’s a long, hard climb. I didn’t come prepared for—”

“I should have realized. Here, let me climb up your arm, around your neck and down your back.”

“This isn’t the circus,” Colin said. “Hey, watch yourself, lady. I’m not insured for—”

He felt his client shimmy up his arm, grab at a clump of his hair, swing around his neck, then lower herself hand-over-hand down the path of his spine. The next thing he felt was a tremendous surge of power as he was lifted off the ground, propelled up the mountain, flown over its icy peak, then deposited on a frozen rock.

“What just happened?” Colin said.

“This is the place,” Lullaby said.

Colin saw nothing but more frozen rock. “You’re parked here? I don’t think even a Hummer could—”

“Look up.”

Colin tipped his head back and gazed at a moonless, starless sky. Then he realized it wasn’t the sky above them. It was a huge, donut-shaped object that appeared to be made of some shiny metal with the same luster as Lullaby’s outfit.

The wind gusts that prowled the mountain stopped for a moment. Their howl was replaced by the sound of a pulsating hum. Colin recognized the complaint of a wounded motor. “What in creation is that?”

“My vessel,” Lullaby said. “He’s a Falx 458 D with Triple Vam. The model’s trade name roughly translates into your language as Chaos.”

“Into my language?” Colin said. “Where are you from exactly? Because there’s something highly unusual going on here.”

“Where I’m from is irrelevant,” Lullaby said. “Let’s just say a long way from here. I’m on a tight schedule, your planet isn’t my only stop tonight. For some reason, Chaos conked out on me. It made a kind of wheee wheee wuggg chirp uhhh noise and just settled on your firmament.”

“My firmament? Nobody but priests and ministers ever say—”

“Don’t nitpick,” Lullaby said. “This is a Gentrification lane and that’s the important thing. Can you get to work, please?” Lullaby gestured and a ladder descended from Chaos’s gut. “When you reach the belly, there’s a staircase to what I imagine you people would call the power port.”

“How can you know that the wheee wheee wuggg chirp uhhh came from the power port? That machine is enormous. There seem to be a thousand places that—”

“I know because it’s happened before. Something to do with the ecebular transmission indapavator.”

Colin had no clue as to what an ecebular transmission indapavator might be, but he kept a bland face. He knew better than to let a client suspect doubt or puzzlement. The mechanic in Colin had always loved a challenge. Challenge was nourishing. Taking on some new ailment and technology still gave him satisfaction even if it was still in the realm of being a glorified repair man. At least he could do something about fixing the glitch that stymied Chaos even if he couldn’t do anything about it. “I’ll have him or her purring in a while,” he told Lullaby. “I’ll get you back on track.”

“I’m surprised to find an Earthizen so cooperative.”

“We try to please,” Colin said, climbing.

“I’m coming up with you. In case you have any questions.”

Colin turned and looked down the ladder. “I usually work alone, but—” He found himself facing a different Lullaby. She had transformed into a more familiar-sized woman, entirely gorgeous, a sports car of a lady. He sighed. She smiled.

“Do you prefer this template?” Lullaby said.

“I was getting used to the other….”

“You’re just being gentlemanly.”

“I admit, your new architecture is easier for me to take.”

When he reached Chaos’s power port, Colin stood shivering in disbelief. He’d never seen such beautiful engineering. The room gleamed with brilliant no-nonsense design, a quintessential amalgam of art and functionality. There were thousands of gears, miles of writhing tubes, elastic as snakes, pastel-colored wires connecting with input jacks set into splendidly tooled mountings. The glow of a nuclear furnace was visible from behind a thick block of some transparent polymer.

The whole place was magical, with the throbbing engine adding mysterious, soul-soothing background music. Colin trembled when he thought of Lullaby’s ride along the Gentrification lane (whatever that was) suddenly interrupted by a malfunction. He snapped out of his trance and found what seemed to be the control board and went to examine it.

“Don’t touch anything before you consult with me,” Lullaby said. “Pressing the wrong button could be immediately lethal and I do plan to get home in time for—”

“Diploid Plaxyrf’s Emergence Anniversary,” Colin said. “You made that quite clear. But I must examine the patient before I can diagnose and correct the problem. I hope it won’t require any spare parts because I’ve never seen a machine like this. And, yes, I will consult with you before I do anything the slightest bit lethal. You did say lethal?”

“I did,” Lullaby said.

“Is this some kind of warship?”

“You could say that. It depends on your perspective. Chaos is a warship to the Luddites on the Preservation Committee but an ark of peace to the Society For Integral Social Development.”

“What’s your opinion?”

“I suppose I am in a war. Against clutter. Galactic clutter.”

“Something is cluttering up the Gentrification lane?” Colin said.

“Exactly.”

“And what might that be?”

“Your little planet of course. You’ve got to realize that we’re constructing a whole new upscale neighborhood and the residents will surely insist on a beautiful view of your sunball and perhaps your moonsphere if we can move it to revolve around some adjacent asteroid. View adds value.”

“You’re saying that we’re your clutter?”

“Nothing personal. But Gentrification does require some inconvenient displacement.”

“And Earth intrudes on the view from your new fancy neighborhood. So you and Chaos were sent along the Gentrification lane to clear out any rubble that might impede the Builders’ progress.”

“Exactly.You won’t recognize this area in a few days,” Lullaby said.

“Drastic, but interesting. I’m all for urban planning but this seems rather self-serving and extreme.”

“What’s drastic, self-serving, or extreme?” Lullaby said. “Our habitat is thriving. So we expand the suburbs. It’s a natural process and obstacles must be eliminated. Colin, may I ask you something sweetly intimate?”

“Please do.”

“Would you consider coming home with me?” Lullaby said. “I already have an apartment in the new complex. I can shift my shape if you get tired of any one structure so you wouldn’t ever be bored. And there is always need for a skilled mechanic like you. However fabulous, our appliances and transports have been known to break down, as you know. You could open your own garage, be done with this Max person. Most important, as a bonus, is that you’d survive evaporation. Think about it.”

“I’ll think very seriously about it. I absolutely will. It’s certainly a tempting offer. To live in a Gentrified neighborhood, have my own business, and be with you, Lullaby. But first things first. I’ve got to get this baby moving or you’re in big trouble with your Illuminate. Or is it the Contractor?”

“That is so considerate,” Lullaby said.

“I do appreciate your offer,” Colin said as he released a clip, loosened a few bolts, slid off the guard protecting the ship’s control panel. He peered inside the amazingly delicate mechanism. He wondered what would cause a wheee wheee wuggg chirp uhhh? “I have to climb inside behind the panel,” Colin said, lifting a small flashlight off a hook on his belt.

He climbed over the pilot’s seat, wriggled past the steering post, wormed behind the control panel. The more he saw in his flashlight beam the more astonished he was at this marvelous piece of equipment. Colin had never much believed in the existence of sentient life on other planets, much less intelligent life, less than less in aliens with brains capable of producing magnificently engineered machines like the one whose intricate innards he now explored. When Lullaby rocketed him up the mountain, then changed her structure, he’d suspected an extraterrestrial connection. Now, seeing into the guts of an object—a thing—perfectly fashioned, practically organic, intricate as an anatomical drawing of a dissected human body, he had no doubt that Chaos and its passenger were from somewhere out there.

What did all that signify for Planet Earth? If Lullaby’s mission was to destroy what her species regarded as nothing more than cosmic detritus, then fixing the glitch that frustrated their Gentrification plan would be the ultimate act of treason.

By not repairing Chaos, the diabolical destroyer, he could save the world that produced him—even if only for a few days, weeks, years, decades, millennia—who knew how “they” measured time? He would finally be doing something about it.

Colin explored the maze inside Chaos. He tapped his screwdriver gently against a lug nut that could have been sculpted by Brancusi. Lullaby’s invitation surely included the promise of exploring her own maze; if her equipment was half as tantalizing as her spaceship’s, well…. And then there was the matter of his surviving the apocalypse.

“How are you doing in there?” Lullaby shouted. “Did you find anything that might explain the wheee wheee wuggg chirp uhhh?”

“Not yet,” Colin said. “I’m doing my best. And my best is the best.”

“Just don’t dawdle. If the Builders get here and I haven’t cleared their—”

“I know, I know,” Colin said. “Your job is on the line.”

“Maybe more.”

At that moment, Colin’s flashlight spotted a curiously twisted strand of cable that had managed to wrap itself around what appeared to be the kind of alternator used in the 1951 Tucker sedan. That same renegade cable pressured a section of what could be a fuel line!

Colin chuckled to himself. There was the problem, no question. So easy to fix he could do the job with a wrench and a pair of pliers.

By restoring Chaos—an alien craft never before seen in the galaxy, Colin would be hailed as the most respected mechanic in the history of mechanics, the subject of books and ballads. Even Max would be impressed. Except that Max would have been vaporized before word of Colin’s triumph reached him. Or any other human. They would all be dead, their planet vanished. Poor disappeared Planet Earth turned into stardust. Hardly a memory. A dot on an antique celestial globe.

Meanwhile, Colin would be enjoying a life of bliss and luxury in an upscale, gated community with a goddess for a wife.

“No,” Colin whispered to himself, staring up at a pair of sinister torpedoes, armed and ready to fly. “It wouldn’t be right for me to profit in any way from fixing this lovely machine. Especially since I’d know that I passed up a big opportunity to do something about it.”

“Making any headway?” Lullaby yelled into the cave where Colin worked.

Colin felt the throb of the stricken motor. He reached for his wrench and pliers.

“Consider it a miracle if I can get this wagon up and running without the help of an owner’s manual. Tell your Gentrified friends that Colin Kabe did the job he was hired to do.”

“That’s wonderful,” Lullaby said. “You’re going to love my apartment. A terrace overlooking this very segment of—”

“About that,” Colin said. “I’m afraid I won’t be going with you to wherever it is you’re going. Where I’m going is back to Max’s Automotive Rehab to say good-bye to my four-wheeled kids.”

“But I can’t wait while you say your sentimental farewells,” Lullaby said.

“I know,” Colin said.

“I get it,” Lullaby said. “You’re turning me down. Foolish man. There’s nothing more futile than species loyalty.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll fix your buggy,” Colin said. “Chalk it up to pride of craft which, considering the circumstances, may be a sin.”

Colin climbed the ladder down from Chaos to the roof of Max’s Automotive. Lullaby, who’d agreed to fly him there, blew him a good-bye kiss. He waved back. “Good luck with your real estate,” Colin said. “Enjoy the unobstructed view from your terrace. You’d better get moving.”

“I still have a minute or so,” Lullaby said. “You work so fast.”

“I do,” Colin said. “Time is money.”

“It is?” Lullaby said. “I wish you had enough left to explain that to me.”

Chaos’s rockets burned blue flame. The craft soared through a layer of clouds, steadying when it reached attack position.

“Damn,” Colin said to the air. “I had every chance to finally do something about it.”

He entered his work space and hung up his tool belt.

“Hmm,” Colin said, washing grease off his hands in Max’s stained sink. “Maybe I did.”

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