Day Thirty-two - Thursday - Day one of our new life
The phone was ringing. I didn't even realize we had hooked it up.
The phone was still ringing.
I slipped out of bed looking at the clock, five-thirty.
"Hello."
"Steve, I'm glad you're up. This is Gene and I really need your help. I heard you were not going on a honeymoon, so I knew you were going to be in town."
"Gene, it's five thirty in the morning. Couldn't this wait till, oh, I don't know, maybe seven?"
"No, no, it can't wait Steve, I've been up all night waiting to call you and I couldn't wait another minute."
"Okay, what's up."
"Last night my whole team was practicing out at the Lakeland track. Two of them got tangled up and damn near killed each other. Their cars are both gone, destroyed. I have to have two frames today to get in Sunday's race. I'll make it worth your while, I promise."
"Can't you use the new stainless steel frame?"
"NASCAR isn't done testing it, and they won't let me race the car that's built on the new frame until they are done."
"Okay, I'll be over about eight and we'll work on getting you fixed up. It might be really late tonight to get two done."
"Whatever it takes, Steve, whatever it takes."
When I went back to the bedroom, Sue was sitting up with a concerned look on her face. The clock on the headboard now said quarter to six.
I explained what the deal was as I crawled into bed to give her a kiss this first morning of our marriage, the first morning of our new life.
She said, "I guess we better get going. It's going to be a great way to start our new life, our marriage, our partnership."
I started coffee, then we showered and dressed in our coveralls. I went outside and turned on the light, then came back for a cup. Sue was busily making sandwiches from the leftover sandwich stuff the caterer had left over from the day before. I asked her how many she was going to make. She said she would probably eat two, and she knew I would need at least four, as it was going to be a long day.
She smiled at me saying, "Besides, if we don't leave to go get lunch, we'll pick up at least a half hour."
I nodded agreement and went out to get the cooler I had bought for beer. I filled it up with ice from our new ice-making refrigerator and put a bunch of Diet Coke in it. I didn't particularly care for Diet Coke, but it was what we had.
Sue had a big thermos, filled it up from the coffee pot, and then started another pot. She went out to the patio to join our friends who were gathering. I put the cooler and the thermos in the pickup, then came back to join the group.
When they heard what the deal was, they understood why we were early and ready to get going. I gave out some extra keys we had, giving one to each household, telling them to enjoy the coffee as we needed to hit the road early.
We drove to the storage place and swapped trucks. I checked the supplies on the big truck then we left for Gene's. On the way there, we stopped at a Burger King for a couple of sausage, egg, and cheese on a biscuit sandwiches to give us some energy to get started.
When we arrived at Gene's at seven-fifteen, he came out to greet us and thank us for doing this for him. He congratulated us again on our wedding and complimented us for the great party we had.
He had already trucked over two sets of tubes and plates. We tacked up the blueprint and set up all the equipment, including dual arc welders.
In well-practiced moves we measured, cut, and bent pipe for a solid hour and ten minutes. We re-measured to make sure making sure each piece was marked correctly. Two cars cut and bent.
Next we began tacking the front and rear sections then jointly doing the center cage, and then finally setting everything up on stands and tacking the parts together. That took a little over an hour. We measured and gauged, measured again, then assured we were correct, we both started welding. This time we were completely done with the welding in a little less than an hour.
Because Sue's welds were getting smoother, we were done cleaning up welds and drilling holes in another hour.
Four and a half-hours for the first one, a new record time for us. As soon as we stood back and looked at the frame, before we could re-measure and gauge one last time, Gene had his guys pushing the frame to his other shop.
We stopped for lunch relaxing for fifteen minutes. Sue was making a list of the grinding bits we needed to replace, as we had been doing a lot of work.
We took a deep breath and started on the second frame. Right at three hours later, we stood back and looked at it. We re-measured lengths and angles, checking the holes I drilled, until we knew it was exact. We pushed the finished frame into the working part of the garage. Gene came up and asked, "How did you do that so fast, that's an hour faster than the other one?"
"When we cut up the first one, we did both at the same time so this one didn't take the extra set up time," I said. "Now Sue here is getting better and faster at this everyday. I don't think we can beat an average of three and a half hours, ever."
"Write up your invoice for me right now, I can't tell you how much you've saved our bacon. Tell you what, I want to order two more right now. Do them now, tomorrow, or as soon as you can, but I want them on the shelf as insurance."
Sue motioned for me to step aside, "How about let's work straight through and do the two more. If we work at it ten, eleven at the latest, we can get it done. We have enough supplies to do it, why not try since we are mentally ready to do it."
"A girl after my own heart," I said.
"I already have it," she smiled.
I told Gene that if he would get me the tubing we would do the other two right then. He nodded, then had a guy running.
We started again in the exact same order, but even more efficient. We were done with the prep right at fifty minutes.
We started tacking and finished in under an hour. Next we finished the welds and did the double-checking, then pushed the finished frame to the side. Completed in less than three hours. That was really fast.
We stopped and ate. I was glad she made me two sandwiches for lunch and two for supper, as I was starved.
Even though we were getting tired, we were inspired by the speed we were working at. Two hours later, we pushed the second frame next to the other and began cleaning up. When our equipment was put away and Gene's shop cleaned up, we made out the invoice for sixteen thousand and went to find him.
Gene looked at his watch, it was going on eight thirty, "Wow, I know you're done because I keep coming in to watch you two work. You're a team, you really cook."
He was looking at us and said, "If I had to have those done by the other shop, they would have screwed around till Saturday doing them and we would miss the race. They would have done only one, you guys did four today. Amazing. Thank you both for your efforts."
Gene looked at the invoice and said he would be right back. He came back with the check and gave it to me folded in half. I put it into the breast pocket of my coveralls and thanked Gene for his business, saying I hoped he would get permission to use the stainless frames.
He reminded me to call the other team owner, as he needed help.
When we got to the storage place and put the cover over the big truck, Sue pulled the check out of my breast pocket, saying she wanted to make sure we didn't wash it. I was putting the cooler into the pickup bed when Sue whooped real loud.
"What's that about?" I asked.
"Gene made us a nice day; he wrote us a check for twenty grand."
"He's paying us too much as it is. We should be doing these frames for a max of two each, at our speed we could do them for less."
Sue said, "We can in the future, but right now, we are going to bank this and call the next guy. The slow shop set the price, or a shop up north did, but we're going to enjoy it while we can."
We drove home excited; excited about our joint accomplishment today, excited about having made twenty grand, and still excited that this was the first day of our new life together. After a shower, we sat out on the patio with Charlie and Jim having a beer. Sue fixed us some TV dinners then we went in and crashed. We only had energy for some kisses.