Something for nothing

Wayne B, an old friend of the Mechanic’s, came to dinner one night. It must have been about fifteen years ago. We probably made something vegetarian and he probably griped a bit before sitting down and hoeing into it. Then he told us a story.

In the 1980s Wayne had briefly owned a wrecking yard in south east Queensland specialising in 70s Japanese cars. Datsuns, Toyotas, Mazdas, maybe Hondas. He would receive wrecks and break them down and sell the parts. One day a bloke arrived wanting a windscreen for a Homer T641 ute. If you’ve never heard of this model, it’s because they were not a common vehicle even at the time. But Wayne happened to have a T641 sitting in the yard; he’d been weighing up whether to just sell it for scrap, but here was someone wanting the windscreen off it, and that was something.

But Wayne didn’t like the look of the guy. Something about the way he was dressed (Aviators? Really?), the way he jumped to the head of the queue. And that was just the start. Wayne took him down the yard to check it was the right model (it was), then he calculated a price for the windscreen using that time-honoured formula – How much does the guy need it? How likely is he to find another one? How much do I want to get rid of it? – and after some petty haggling, during which Wayne used his newly-acquired anger-management techniques to avoid decking him, Aviator Guy agreed. Back to the shed.

But far from being a done deal, this is where Aviator Guy excelled himself. Sitting at the dinner table that night, listening to the story, even I wanted to deck him. Wayne B managed to keep his cool but after some terse words the windscreen was disposed of in spectacular fashion.

After dinner, as soon as it was polite to do so, I left the table to greedily scribble the story down. At the time I had no idea that many years later, somewhat embellished, it would inspire the founding scene in Wayne and Gracie Penny’s thread in my novel Garnet – ‘Something for nothing’.

Maybe that’s where the Mechanic learned his sales techniques. Wayne and the Mechanic had driven long-haul trucks together in the 1980s. That’s when they became friends. When the Mechanic got sick of driving trucks and Greyhound coaches he settled down in Quaama to be a glass artist, selling his wares at craft markets. One day at the Bus Depot Markets in Canberra a woman was looking over his display and couldn’t decide what she wanted. One after another the Mechanic would bring down a vase for her inspection, then put it back again and bring down another. After about half an hour of this she appeared to have chosen one. With relief he boxed it and pulled out his credit card machine.

‘No, wait,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have a think about it. I’ll just have a walk around and I’ll be back.’

‘Of course,’ said the Mechanic, stowing it under the display table.

An hour later the woman was back, taking her purse out. ‘I will take that vase,’ she said. ‘It’s perfect.’

‘Sorry,’ said the Mechanic, shrugging. ‘Someone came along and bought it. Just five minutes ago.’

I digress, but you can see why Wayne and the Mechanic were friends.

About ten years ago I had the opportunity to read an early draft of the T641 windscreen story to Wayne and his extended family at a gathering at their sprawling property near Cooma. I remember Wayne looking shy and proud as his kids and grandkids laughed and applauded him. I’m glad I read it then because Wayne is now well down the road to dementia and probably wouldn’t even recognise his own character. And I’m not sure if that’s why I wrote dementia into the character of Gracie, Wayne’s fictional wife in Garnet.

As Margaret Atwood said, every novelist is a kleptomaniac at heart. And this novelist, I hope, still has a literary wrecking yard of parts ready for the right vehicle when needed.

But thank you, Wayne B, for your story. You’re a hero. I truly hope that somewhere in that declining, rambling memory there are still stories like that Homer T641 windscreen to grant you fleeting moments of satisfaction with your long and colourful life.