Jack leaned into the engine compartment and wrestled the water pump out. He had to admit that he was moving a lot easier after the massage. It had been tough getting up off the floor when she finished working on his back muscles. He had been tempted to take a long nap, but he had too many things to do before it got too dark to do them. Abby had driven him to the auto parts store and dropped him off before leaving for her apartment.
Standing up, he examined the old water pump thinking that metal shouldn't ever wear out like that. He sighed and asked the million dollar question, "Should I rent a room to her?"
"I think she's got a screw loose with all of that talk about a commune," he said. He put the old water pump on the ground and picked up the new one. He looked over at the sun and knew that he was not going to finish fixing the truck before the sun went down. The massage had been nice, but it had eaten up the little time he had to fix the truck.
He leaned into the engine compartment while he said, "She's nice enough to look at."
He slipped the water pump into the engine with a grunt. It didn't want to cooperate. Of course, these kinds of things never went easy. He struggled getting the water pump fastened in place for five minutes. He had just finished when he realized that he had left off the gasket. He said, "I can't concentrate worth a damn tonight."
He pulled off the water pump and looked over the engine. Deciding that it would be easier to inspect the engine from underneath, he crawled under the car. He muttered, "I don't need a woman in my life that I'm not screwing taking over things."
The old gasket was still on the engine. He realized that he would need to clean up the area where the gasket was before putting on the new one. He crawled out from under the truck and went over to his toolbox looking for something to clean the old gasket off the engine. As he sorted through the tools, he said, "It is going to get dark soon and I'm going to be cooking my dinner in the dark."
Finding an old thin bladed putty knife, he crawled under the truck again. Maybe fixing the water pump was a one man job, but having a helper to fetch tools might have been nice. Having someone fix his dinner before it got too dark would have been nice, too. He scraped a knuckle and swore. While blood welled up around the scrape, he said, "That woman has put some bad ideas in my head."
The gasket peeled off nicely. He strained his neck trying to get a good view of the area to make sure that there weren't any bits and pieces left that would prevent a good seal from forming. He absently wiped the bloody knuckle against his pant leg leaving dark red stains on his pants. He said, "The damned thing about it all is that she's right. She's at home cooking a meal that I won't get to eat. She's probably cooking something better than canned stew, too."
He put the gasket sealant around the engine and slipped the new gasket on. He put some more sealant on the new water pump and put it in place. It wasn't any easier working on it from under the car than bent over the engine compartment. Working more by feel than by sight, he muttered, "This would be a whole lot easier with the right tools."
He tightened down the water pump and looked at the job that remained to be done. There was no way that he was going to get all of the rest of the parts on before it got dark. Shaking his head, he said, "I'll have to finish it in the morning."
Stretching a little, he couldn't remember his back feeling so free of tension in ages. Putting his hands on his hips, he looked down at the parts scattered on the driveway. He said, "I've got to admit that massage did make me feel better."
After a minute, he said, "Damn it, I don't need a woman running my life."
He started picking up the parts making sure not to disturb any of the bolts that he had fitted through them. He put the parts with care into the back of the truck where they wouldn't get kicked around. Once the parts were taken care of, he packed up his tool box and carried it to the garage. In the garage, he picked up a piece of two by four and poured a little gasoline on it. He carried that out to the cheap barbecue grill that he had and put it in. With the flick of his lighter, the piece of wood was lit.
He went into the house and returned a minute later with a can of stew. He pulled back the top and set it aside while the piece of wood burned down. He looked to the west and watched the sunset. It was getting dark. He watched the fire for a minute and then said, "I might as well walk to the library tonight. At least it will be a little cooler and well lit."
An hour and a half later, Jack walked into the library. It was only going to be open for another hour, but he figured that would be enough. The woman at the reference desk looked at him and shook her head. She noticed the blood stain on his pants mixed in with the smears of engine gunk. She asked, "Can I help you?"
Not wanting to tell her that he came there just to have a place with lights and air conditioning, he picked the first topic that came to mind. He asked, "Have you got any books on communes?"
Looking up at him with a surprised expression on her face, she asked, "French communes, sixties communes, modern communes, or Israeli kibbutz?"
"Uh, I guess something about modern communes?" Jack asked rather surprised by the list of topics.
"Ah, there was a good article in one of the news periodicals. Hold on a minute," she said typing on her computer. She smiled and said, "I thought I remembered correctly. There is a good article on the topic."
"Really?" Jack asked surprised by her interest in the topic. He wondered if it was a female thing.
She tapped a few keys on the keyboard and answered, "Yes. I've always thought it would be a good idea, but there's nothing like that in this area. If you know of one, let me know."
"Sure," Jack said with a frown. He took a minute to look at her as a woman. She appeared to be in her mid-forties. There wasn't a wedding ring on her finger. She wasn't exactly an attractive woman, but seemed pleasant enough. She could use to lose about twenty pounds.
"Life as a single woman is rough. My toilet doesn't flush like it should and it costs me a hundred dollars just to have a plumber come out to look at it. There are times when I would kill to have a man handy with tools around the house," the woman said.
"Oh," Jack said looking over at her.
The printer spewed a couple of sheets out and she rolled her chair over to the printer. Picking them up, she gave a little kick with her foot and rolled back to the desk. She handed the stack of papers to him and said, "Here's the article."
"Oh," Jack said looking down at the sheets of paper. He had expected her to send him into the area with books.
"That is a reasonable introduction into the topic. You can use one of the computers to search out some more background from what is in that article," the librarian said.
"Okay," Jack said eyeing the row of computers with suspicion. He didn't exactly get along with the machines.
Seeing the look Jack gave the machines, the librarian said, "We have classes on Thursday nights on how to use computers to look up information on the web."
"I don't really like computers," Jack said.
The librarian smiled at the comment that she heard only too frequently. She said, "You will."
Jack went over to one of the tables and sat down to read the article. Much to his surprise, it was an article about middle class communes. The California commune that was described in the article had people of all ages living in it. The place described wasn't what he had imagined. It sounded more like a condominium complex with a common kitchen than some sixties love nest. He frowned and re-read the article thinking that he must have been missing something in it. Shaking his head, he said, "Those Californians are all crazy."
There were some names in the article, so he decided to find out what he could about the people involved. Looking over at the computers, he sighed and said, "I'll never find what I need. I'm going to need some help with this."
It seemed to Jack that the phrase, 'I'm going to need some help, ' was getting old. He was saying it too many times a day. He rose from his chair and returned to the librarian. He said, "Ma'am, could you help me?"
"Sure," the librarian said standing up. She headed over to the row of computers knowing exactly what he needed.
Jack followed behind wondering if he was wasting his time. The librarian showed him how to use a search engine to look things up on the web. Using one finger, he typed in the name of one of the people mentioned in the article. There were a number of web pages returned and he clicked on one of the links. He discovered that the web was addicting and lost all track of time. After reading one article, he sat back and said, "This can't be real."
"It almost feels un-American," he said after reading another web page. To him it read like some sort of socialist society. He shook his head and sat back in thought.
A tap on his shoulder brought his mind back to the present. The librarian said, "It is closing time."
"Oh, sorry," Jack said.
"That's okay," she replied with a smile.
"Let me use the bathroom and then I'll head out," Jack said. The chance to use a well lit bathroom was too good to pass up. He was tired of pissing in the toilet by candlelight at night.
"No problem," the librarian said. It would take at least fifteen minutes to get everyone out of the library.
Jack finished repairing his truck and had one carpet laying job early in the week. He worked on Mrs. Johns' porch in his free time getting it into pretty good shape over three days. She was appreciative of the work he had done and paid him ninety dollars for his time. He had spent every night at the library reading up on modern communes trying to figure out how it could work. He had learned that the librarian's name was Mary and she was a pretty nice lady who helped him get started every time he needed to use the computer.
Thursday night finally rolled around and Jack was at the library waiting for the class on how to use the computer to start. A young kid, maybe twenty years old, walked over to the row of computers and said, "Welcome to the Thursday night class on computers. I'm Daryl, the instructor for the class. Who is here for the class?"
Jack raised his hand and looked around. He was the only one with his hand up. Feeling a little uncomfortable, he said, "I am."
"At least I have one this week," Daryl said. He was getting paid for teaching the class whether or not anyone actually showed up. It was better when he had someone, but he didn't care one way or the other.
Going over to Jack, Daryl said, "Let's go through this a step at a time. It is really simple once you get the basics down."
"I hope so," Jack said. He appreciated having access to so much information, but he didn't like using the machine. The alphabet was arranged weirdly on the keyboard, the mouse tended to not move at times, and he never really understood the program he was using.
Daryl asked, "What topics are you interested in learning more about?"
"Communes," Jack answered.
"Interesting. I wouldn't have taken you to be a hippy," Daryl said looking over at Jack. The guy struck him as a construction worker rather than some free-love spouting hippy. Rather than long hair and a beard, Jack wore his hair short and was exhibiting the onset of male pattern baldness despite being in his mid-twenties.
"I'm not," Jack replied beginning to appreciate how Abby must have felt with that charge being leveled at her each time she mentioned a commune.
Daryl said, "Well, the first thing we do is open a browser. You have your choice of browsers."
"I have a choice?" Jack asked staring at the screen of the computer. He didn't see anything telling him that he had a choice. He asked, "What choices?"
Smiling at the confused expression on Jack's face, Daryl said, "Do you see these icons on the screen?"
"You mean those little pictures?" Jack asked. He had wondered what they were.
"Yes," Daryl answered. Pointing to them, he said, "Each of those represents a program that you can run by double clicking on it."
"That's a program?" Jack asked leaning to look closer at the screen. He wasn't sure what a program looked like, but it was kind of surprising to discover that it was a picture.
"Basically it is a link to a program. If you double click on the icon, it will start the program."
"Okay," Jack said. He had wondered why Mary had done that every time she came over to the computer.
He read the writing under the icons thinking that the names were rather confusing. He said, "So I have the choices of the following browsers: Computer, Network, Internet Explorer, Recycle Bin, Firefox, Opera, and Chrome."
"Well, not all of them are browsers," Daryl said with a frown. He was going to have to go real slow with this one.
"Computer allows you to browse the files on this particular computer. You won't find that to be very useful," Daryl said.
"Scratch computer as a useful browser," Jack said. He felt that there had to be something better to tell you how to use the computer than just a bunch of pictures that didn't mean anything.
"Network will show you what machines are on the network. Again, that won't be very useful for you," Daryl said.
"Scratch network as a useful browser," Jack said thinking that the choices were getting a little narrower.
"Internet explorer is the browser that comes installed on this computer," Daryl said.
"So that is what I want to use," Jack said thinking that if it came with the computer that it had to be the best.
"You can use that," Daryl said although he didn't really like that one.
Jack moved the mouse over the picture and clicked on the mouse. He stared at the screen and said, "Nothing is happening."
"You need to double click the mouse," Daryl said.
"Why should I have to click on it twice?" Jack asked.
"You just do," Daryl answered.
"Okay," Jack said. He clicked a second time and nothing happened.
"You need to click two times real close together," Daryl said.
Jack clicked two times fairly close together and noticed that something had happened. The little arrow had turned into an hourglass. He stared at the hourglass wondering if there was something significant about it. He was about to ask a question when a browser window opened. He looked at it and said, "This is a different thing than what Mary showed me."
"Don't worry; we'll get to that one in a few minutes. For now, let's go over this browser," Daryl said.
For the next two hours, Daryl led Jack through using the four different browsers. Each time, they put in a query about communes. Daryl showed him how to use the different search engines pointing out that they usually gave different results. Daryl read a few of the articles over Jack's shoulder finding that the topic was a little more interesting than he had imagined. Jack said, "I think I understand how to use this computer a little better now."
"That's good," Daryl said. To tell the truth, he didn't think Jack would have learned anything without the individual attention he had received.
"I'm trying to find an article on how to start a commune. Typing in commune isn't getting me anything like that," Jack said.
Daryl smiled and said, "Just type in your question and let the search engine do the work for you."
"I thought you could just enter a topic or a name," Jack said looking at the screen.
"No, you can type in phrases and whole questions," Daryl said.
"That sounds useful," Jack said. He typed in the question using his hunt and peek typing approach. Grumbling, he said, "Why do they have the letters arranged randomly around the keyboard?"
"That is so that you can't type too fast," Daryl answered with a grin. Just about everyone new to the computer asked that question at some point in time.
"I'm serious," Jack said thinking that Daryl was making fun of him. He figured that having the alphabet in order would make more sense.
"It is the truth. They arranged the letters that way so that it would slow down typists on old fashioned typewriters. If you typed too fast on them the keys would get stuck," Daryl said.
"That's crazy," Jack said thinking it was strange to intentionally do something like that to make people work slower.
Daryl shrugged his shoulders and said, "It made sense at one time. It doesn't anymore, but that became the standard layout for keyboards. Use of that keyboard become so entrenched that changing it is basically impossible now."
"Okay," Jack said. He hit the enter key and looked at the results. There were a couple of results that looked promising. After reading the first few articles, Jack was seriously depressed. It seemed to him that the few articles that were actually about starting a commune assumed that he wanted to live off the land. One of them talked about building mud houses as a way of saving money when starting a commune. Frowning, he said, "This sucks."
"What?" Daryl asked from the computer station next to Jack's.
"All of these articles assume that you want to be a hippy and live off the land," Jack answered pointing at the computer screen.
Knowing that the web contained just about everything known to man, Daryl said, "Let me search around a bit."
"Thanks," Jack said. He sat back and thought about Abby. She had put this stupid idea in his head and he hadn't heard anything from her since she had stopped by his house that one day. He rose from his chair and said, "I'll be right back."
"Okay," Daryl said. His fingers flew over the keyboard and screens popped up so fast that it hurt the eyes.
Jack went over to Mary's desk and asked, "Is there a payphone around here?"
"No. Use this one," Mary said pushing her phone over to him.
"Thanks," Jack said. He reached into his wallet and pulled out the scrap of paper with Abby's telephone number on it. He dialed the number and waited for an answer.
"Hello," Abby said into the phone.
"Hello, Abby?" Jack said not quite sure that he recognized her voice. It sounded a little raw -- like she had been crying or something.
"Yes," Abby said.
"This is Jack."
"Oh. Hello, Jack," Abby said hoping that he had some good news for her. It seemed to her that she would never hear from him again after their conversation the previous Sunday. Her idea had gone over like a lead balloon.
Jack asked, "Are you still interested in my spare room?"
"Yes," Abby answered feeling hope for the first time in a week.
"You can move in this weekend," Jack said hoping that he wasn't making a mistake.
"Can't I move in tomorrow?" she asked feeling like a ton of weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She wanted to get out of the apartment as quick as possible. The manager was harassing her about the rent and moving out.
"I've got a job tomorrow that will last most of the day. It'll be dark before I get home," Jack said.
"Okay. I'll be over early Saturday," Abby said realizing that she needed the time to pack up her belongings.
"Great. I'll see you then," Jack said. After an exchange of good-byes, he hung up the phone.
Mary had followed only a bit of the conversation. She looked up at him and asked, "Thinking about starting a commune?"
"I don't know. I'm taking in a boarder until I can get a little more stable financially," Jack said. He wasn't sure if he was doing Abby a favor or not. All he knew was that he was getting tired of living in the dark and having to search for payphones everywhere he went.
"That might be a start," Mary said.
"At what?" Jack asked.
"At starting a commune," Mary said with a smile.
"I doubt it. I still don't know what I think of the idea," Jack said with a sigh. It was a crazy idea and there were so many things that could go wrong. He had read one website that was making fun of the hippy communes of the past. Although it was a tongue in cheek satire, it pointed out a thousand little things that could go wrong. After reading that article he had basically come to the conclusion that the people attracted to the idea of a commune were basically potheads who were lazy jerks.
Mary said, "I understand. I've thought about it for years, but figured that I'd wait until I found one that was really functional before joining."
"What is stopping you from starting one?" Jack asked.
Mary shrugged her shoulders and said, "Fear. I'm not the courageous type."
"Oh," Jack said with a frown. In a way he could understand exactly what she was saying. It seemed to him that he stood to lose a whole lot more than he would gain.
Jack returned to the computer to see what else he could find. He reached it and found Daryl holding out a stack of papers with a smile. Daryl said, "Here you go. I couldn't find a do it yourself manual, but there's enough information here to give you some ideas."
Looking at the stack of papers, Jack frowned. He had discovered the hard way that it cost twenty five cents a page to print out pages from the internet. There was no way that he could afford the stack of papers Daryl had in his hand. He took the papers and said, "Thanks."
Seeing the frown, Daryl said, "What's the matter? Isn't that what you wanted?"
"I can't really afford this," Jack said holding up the stack of papers.
Daryl laughed and said, "I work here. It comes out of my budget for the course."
"Oh," Jack said looking at the stack of papers. There must have been sixty pages of material there.
"The library is closing soon. I figured that you wouldn't have a chance to read all of that before closing time. You can take them home and read them at your leisure," Daryl said. He had all of the web pages bookmarked so that he could read the articles in greater depth the next time he came to work. Reading about communes was a lot more interesting than looking up information about the gall bladder.
"That's great," Jack said thinking that it wouldn't be until the weekend when he'd have a chance to read them at home.
"I thought that was a pretty interesting topic. It was a whole lot better than helping some old person look up their latest disease online," Daryl said rolling his eyes.
Jack asked, "What do you think of it?"
"I'm still living at home with my mom and going to the community college otherwise I'd join one of those communes if it was set up right. It seems to me that the urban commune is a pretty good idea for folks just starting out," Daryl said. He wasn't all that worried about his future. With a degree in computer science, he was going to be making very good money. The problem was that he wouldn't have the time to mow the lawn, fix meals, and take care of the hundreds of other details of living on one's own.
"Oh," Jack said puzzled by Daryl's interest. He was wondering why so many people seemed to find the idea of a commune so attractive. There was interest, but there were even more excuses to not join.
Seeing the expression on Jack's face, Daryl said, "Look at it this way. If you have a problem, then it is likely that there are a million other people who have the same problem. If you have a solution, then there are a million people who will be interested in your solution. Sometimes your solution solves other problems too."
"I still haven't made up my mind if it is a solution," Jack said.
"I guess I can see that," Daryl said shrugging his shoulders. He wasn't about to join in anything since he still had more than two years of school to finish before he'd be moving out on his own. Even after graduating, he was thinking about staying with his mother.
Jack left the library after spending another fifteen minutes talking with Daryl. He drove home in his truck through darkened streets. It seemed to him that the town had stopped lighting the streets like they had in the past. He drove the short distance to his house and pulled into the dark driveway. The dark house loomed in the night lit only by the lights of his truck and the lights of the neighbor's houses.
Jack got out of his truck with a flashlight. He turned it on and walked up to the house. Shaking his head, he said, "Having a roommate won't get the lights on."
He dropped the papers on the table by the door and headed to bed. Tomorrow he had a job and would hopefully earn enough money to make a reasonable paycheck. With the two dozen hours of the previous week and the fourteen hours this week, he'd get a paycheck of about five hundred dollars. With the three hundred and fifty from Abby, he'd be able to pay his mortgage that month. He still had seventy dollars from fixing the porch. A weekend spent mowing lawns might give him enough to fill his gas tank and buy food for the next two weeks. He realized that he had forgotten about his car insurance that was due.
Standing in the middle of his dark bedroom, he said, "My life really sucks."