Soap

This story is by Steven Dale and was part of our 2023 Fall Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.

As Sam shifted the boxes around in the garage, dust rose, riddled with light. They were a figment of Sam’s father, who was dead, forgotten under duress but still lingering. Sam ripped tape from the joints, strips and straps meant to hold for a cross country journey long past, but he had to stop to let things settle. Not just the dust. He had hated his dad, but Maddie, was exasperated with his reluctance to build the car. He’d protested that he had never constructed anything more complicated than Ikea furniture, and Sam doubted he could trust his work to safely carry their daughter Alli down the long hill at next weekend’s soapbox derby.

He let his hands settle on the green battery powered circular saw his father left him. There were other tools crammed in the box, an afterthought probably, from his brother, but it was the lightweight power tool he needed to cut up wood scraps he had picked up at a construction site. He had made a bench laying out two-by-fours on top of a pair of wooden crates that he hoped to convert to the body of a car. It would not be fancy, but they would provide a bit of protection for its precious cargo.

His girls’ excited babble approached the crowded garage, as he lifted the last of the tools, a German jigsaw he had never seen and the ancient Suizan, Japanese pull saw. His father had told him once that it was his favorite tool. He remembered vividly the day when his dad swore at him for using the saw to cut a branch off the pine tree in their back yard, chasing him out of the garage with his metal yardstick. It was nothing serious, not at all like the times when he was drunk, shouting obscenity laced threats, slapping his mother, belting his brother. It could have been much worse.

Maddie was worried and she surprised him. “Can you possibly finish this, Sam?”

“Probably.” He was not confident.

“Can I help dad?”

“It’s your car Alli, you must help. But this first part is probably all me.”

“Can I watch?”

“Of course, you can watch, honey, just don’t get in Dad’s way.” Her mom was distracted by the messy garage.

Allie had a wandering mind, and she was gone in ten minutes. Maddie moved the lawn mower and bikes out of the jumbled center of the space, freeing up more room for the project. No one parked inside and there was a grass smell from the weekend yard tools that littered the space. Half-finished projects were lying about, with the odd screws, bolts, hinges, light switches, screwdrivers, and hammers scattered on packed and dirty shelves. Cardboard boxes filled the back expanse, and were smelly with mold, the abandoned contents damaged from pouring rain that seeped in under the cement foundation. It was ancient ground, larger by far than any room in the house, and they had been arguing for two years about how to fix or replace the garage.

“Do you have a plan?”

“Try to copy what he did for me, I guess.”

“He made you a car?”

“Yeah, although I crashed it pretty quick.”

“Did he make you pay?” She didn’t laugh.

 “No. He and mom were close to the end, and I think Dad was trying to, I don’t know, be different.”

“You always make him sound so terrible.”

“It was pretty bad.”

“You turned out ok.”

Sam smiled and took her into his arms. He didn’t say it, but knew she was the reason he was not his dad. He smelled her, most Saturday scents were soaps from dishes, laundry, and bath, but there was something else that was uniquely hers, a savory nuttiness that he loved, and he wanted to bite her neck, but she jabbed him. Looking into his eyes.

“Don’t make this about him, Sam. Just get something with wheels.”

“You overestimate my abilities.”

 “No. I don’t.” Her smile held, changing from fond assurance to sassy, her chin came down, like: ‘I’m gonna get my way dude,’ and back to trust, in the blink of an eye. It was her ability to say so much with so little that had captured him.

Sighing, “I am here.” Smirky weariness writ large. “And I might be here for a very long time. Keep the coffee coming.”

“Oh stop. Pot’s already on.” Walking back to the house, she turned around once, holding her hands over her eyes against the harsh light to gauge the depth of his commitment. But he didn’t look up, he was absorbed laying out his wood and father’s tools. The power saw came to life and her wounded husband submerged. Sometimes it was annoying that he would get so far away in his mind, but she knew once he was in that space there was little, she could do to reach him.

Sam remembered the simple frame his father made for their coaster, but when he took it out alone on Elm Street, he had broken the car, swerving too sharply on the steep hill, it brodied out of control almost coming apart. It was never the same. For Alli he would solve that problem with lag bolts and a wider wishbone frame. The long-threaded steel axels would also be a safety improvement over the bolts his dad had used to hold on the wheels. The jig saw was amazing, and he sketched then scrolled a seat that would tip forward to allow access to the break housing, but which was tall enough to protect Alli’s head if something went wrong. His dad had wrapped a rope around a closet rod and attached the ends to eyebolts in the front axle, and his approach would follow, using a two-by-four but with the steel axel attached with washers and screws, the turning point secured with a single heavy bolt with multiple washers and nuts. He remembered his father chatting him through the logic of the car as it took shape. His initial unease with whiskey breath, was overcome by the gathering excitement of possibility. There had been few moments alone with his father with no angry words, but they had laughed when the steering wheel turned the wrong way.

“That will not work.”

“What’s wrong, dad?”

“Here’s the thing Sam, if you tie this rope to the hook from here, when you turn the wheel left, the car steers right. But switch the ends around, and it works. I should have remembered.”

Maybe his dad’s father had built him a soapbox car? Sam realized he had never asked.

When Allie came home after school on Friday, they screwed plywood to the frame so she could see how strong everything was. The seat was snug, and the brake worked after a few adjustments, and as the evening mists fell, they tested the car with a run down their long driveway, and at the end, Sam savored the moment, but had to turn away from the triumph, even as Maddie and Allie joyfully whooped and celebrated.

He had been in that place once; the fond memory washed away with grudge, and that night in bed he laughed in Maddie’s arms, about family lost and memories found, and later in a moment of reflection, his head upon her breast, he cried with her for the man at the center of himself, that he hardly knew.