Bluto, parts 3476 - 3479

 3476. Bluto and I got a lot done that Saturday after we finished our coffee and donuts on the stoop. He showed me how to take copper pipe apart with a blowtorch and a clamp, and I was not delayed or interrupted by lectures about the soda companies.

 3477. It was a big cavernous building and we were down in the cellar. We threw the pipe on the floor and it rang out and echoed in the silence and in the distance we could hear a train pulling out of the station.

 3478. It was a strange morning and all the time Bluto was silent and frowning, thinking about something. We left at 11:30 because Bluto wanted to get to the scrap metal yard before noon. 

3479. Bluto backed the truck out into the street, turned it around and parked it in front of the warehouse. He opened the door, got out and said, “You drive Albert.” 

Bluto, parts 3472 - 3475

 3472. At that time the economy was booming, and Pop would just get another job. Once it was plumbing supplies, and so I learned how to plumb, then it was roofing supplies, and we would be up on a roof someplace seeing how copper flashing was nailed down, and how the nails are always hidden by the flaps of the tar paper.

 3473. That was Bluto’s explanation of how he happened to know how to do so many things. I had my doubts however. I watched my mother thread a needle one time, and after than I knew how to thread a needle. I watched a boy on my class playing the violin, and it looked so easy that I tried but it turned out to be much more difficult than it looked. 

 3474. None of that mattered however, the more serious question was this: If Bluto was so smart that he could learn numerous skills by accident, was that proof positive that all his theories and ideas had to be correct? 

3475. If a person is a master of one thing, can he automatically assume some indirect mastery of all things? Is the mastery of an art composed of certain inevitable steps so that the procedure is predetermined?

Bluto, parts 3468 - 3471

 3468. “My father was a delivery man for parts supply stores and he would always take me with him when he made his rounds. He was never one to go in the front door of a business if he had a delivery to make, but would go by the side door where the work was being done.”

 3469. My father liked to chat with the workmen while they were working, and that was the reason he liked to deliver parts to the workers, and not to some secretary at a desk in a front office.

 3470. Sometimes we would be in transmission repair garage, and he would deliver a box of gears. Then he wanted to have a look at the deconstructed transmission and see how the work was going. In this way I learned how to rebuild a car transmission, just by watching it being done, since I had nothing else to do while I waited.

3471. My father was constantly being fired, because he took so long with his deliveries; always stopping to talk with the workman at their various jobs.

 

Bluto, parts 3464 - 3467

 3464. Even if Bluto’s ideas about the government, politics and the crimes of the soda companies were just a lot of silly bluster, on the other hand Bluto knew a great deal about the procedure of disconnecting and removing copper pipe in an old building.

 3465. He had to find the main water pipe and shut it off, and then he had to turn off the various valves that led to different parts of the system. That, however was not enough because water seeped through the various valves and there was enough water in the line so that his torch would not get the pipes hot enough.

 3466. Then he had to unscrew certain openings on the valves themselves to drain out the excess water. After that he would have me hold on to the pipes with pliers while he heated the pipe with a torch and when the solder turned from gray to silver I would give it a twist.

3467. All this complicated and difficult work was done by him with great accuracy and concentration, and little by little he improved on my part of the task with little suggestions that would never have occurred to me. I asked him how he knew how to do all these things and if he was a plumber and this is what he said.

Bluto, parts 3460 - 3463

 3460. Then he began one of his lectures, but he did not get very far. All he said was, “It is because you are…”  Then there was a long silence and he began again with, “They are always going to…” Then, in confusion or embarrassment he gave his explanation up completely, and instead of the lecture we set to work removing the copper pipe in the basement.

 3461. Working with him that morning was a very strange experience for me because he obviously had something specific to say about me and my predicament, but what ever it was, there was something about this explanation he was obviously very loath to tell me. It had to be some sort of thing that would involve the prospect of hurting my feelings is what I presumed.

 3462. There was every likelihood that his explanation would turn out to be some outlandish concept like his ideas about the Coca-Cola Company; some convoluted qusi-political theories that would present a half-baked analysis of the behavior of my teachers and myself. But even so, as useless as his ideas were likely to be, I was intensely curious to find out what it was. I was so curious in fact that I said not a word more about it.

3463. Even if Bluto’s ideas about the government, politics and the crimes of the soda companies were just a lot of silly bluster, on the other hand Bluto knew a great deal about the procedure of disconnecting and removing copper pipe in an old building.

 

Bluto, parts 3456 - 3459

3456. That Saturday Bluto did not start in removing the copper pipe right away. We had to have coffee and donuts first. I told him I didn’t drink coffee, but he said it was a part of my job. He parked the truck behind the building and we sat on the steps of the entry of an old warehouse.

 3457. We were directly across from the old train station. There was an engine idling in the distance, and the smell of diesel fumes in the air. The sounds and smells gave me an odd, anxious feeling. I decided to tell Bluto about my problems with Mrs. Hagner, it seemed like a good time. 

 3458. I explained to him how she was going to flunk me unless I got at least 90 on both the math and science exams. I said it was because I disrupted her class, but the truth was that I had never disrupted her class at all. “She hates my guts and I don’t know why.” I said.

 

3459. Bluto did not say anything at first. He was so struck by what I said that he just sat there on the stoop looking at me. He stopped chewing his donut and sat looking at me with his mouth partly open. Wrinkles appeared on his forehead. 

Bluto, parts 3452 - 3455

 3452. But the immediate problem was how to replace the mirror of Mrs. Hagner’s antique car. The company that had manufactured it didn’t even exist anymore. What was I to do? One solution suggested itself to me, and that was to simply purchase some cheap replacement mirror and hope she didn’t notice the difference.

 3453. On Friday morning I went to the most unlikely place to purchase a mirror for a car, I went to the Dawes Drug Store next to the Grand Union Supermarket, which was on my way to school. I hardly thought a Drug Store would have a car mirror, but I thought I would just ask anyway.

   3454. Unfortunately that morning Jason was with me, as he wanted to help me find the mirror. He didn’t care about it one way or another but he had his own reason for coming along and I knew what it was. He was there simply to steal candy bars while I was distracting the sales help.

 3455. I was very amazed to discover that the drug store sold a replacement rear view mirror, and it was on a shelf in the house wares department. I presumed it would not match but it turned out to be exactly the same as the broken one I had from her car. Just my luck, the mirror on her car was a replacement to begin with.