10/28/13

WE ARE OUT OF BEENBROKE!  I have just received, essentially, a $400.00 per month raise!  It did not go as smoothly as I'd hoped, but it is over and we are out of Beenbroke for good.  Unless I have to help clear out Marty Smith’s stuff in the future, which will not surprise me one bit, I have no reason to ever darken that facility’s grounds ever again.  Here’s how it went down.  Friday afternoon I left a bit early to go to the new shop and pick up the trailer, the engine hoist, and an engine pallet.  I decided to swing by Winchester Gallery and pick up Thumper “on the way.”  I'm glad I did because I wouldn’t have made it in time Saturday… but I'm getting ahead of the story.  With Thumper behind the seat of Fifi, I rolled to the shop.  I was worried I would keep John waiting but we both turned into the lot at the same time.  He went to the door and opened up while I backed up to load the hoist and pallet.  With those things in the back of the truck, I pulled around back while John locked up the building.  We hooked up the trailer and talked about making a flat-bed tow truck out of a long-bed pickup, a van chassis, or other wacky vehicle choices.  Eventually we parted ways and went home.  At the house I decided I'd try to back the trailer into the driveway without hitting my brother’s truck.  I was successful.  Saturday morning, when my phone’s alarm went off at 0530 h as it does every morning, I rolled over and said to myself, “I’ll get up at 0730 h.”  When I woke again, at 0725 h, I remembered that to get to Beenbroke by 0800 h, I needed to LEAVE by 0730 h.  I got up and got ready.  I wound up leaving the house at 0745 h.  John texted me as I was turning onto 377 that the junk man had not moved anything.  He then called as I was talking to Marty Smith outside the gate.  I pulled in and dropped the trailer.  We unloaded the hoist and pallet, then began loading engines into Fifi.  A Z-20, a VG-33, two A-series with five-speeds attached, and two without were loaded into the truck.  The engine stands were piled onto them and two more five-speeds were set in.  Fifi’s ass was dragging pretty low at this point.  John had called Patrick, our new landlord who is a Datsun truck nut, and offered him the 620 out back.  He arrived about this time and grokked the thing.  As he was deciding against it, I called my junk man to check his status.  He was on his way and wanted to know if I still wanted to sell the Spit.  Hoping he hadn’t heard my price last week, I told him I was not giving that one away.  “Oh, I know,” he said.  “It was $300.00, right?”  I muttered “shit” under my breath and said I'd hoped he hadn’t heard that.  I told him that I was thinking about keeping it after all and he said he still needed the wife’s approval.  We agreed that I'd have an answer for him when he arrived.  Just as I was about to tell John this, John informs me that Patrick is going to drag the Spit to the new shop in exchange for a set of wheels and one of the five-speeds.  Had that plan not gone into effect, I probably would have sold the car… but we loaded it up on the wrecker for the trip to its new home instead.  Eventually Junky Von Junkerton arrived and got to work loading what we were abandoning.  John and I got to a point where we were ready to make a trip to the new shop and left JVJ with orders not to touch anything on “this shelf” or north of “this line.”  There was still plenty for him to load up.  We left.  At the new shop we unloaded the trailer and parked it since we wouldn’t need it for a second trip.  We unloaded all the engines and Fifi looked relieved.  John left his car and rode back to Beenbroke with me.  We stopped at Burger Box and got burgers at the drive through.  We ate them in the truck when we got to the shop.  There was a huge pile of wheels and tires outside and nothing missing from the back yet.  Inside we saw that JVJ had picked through a bunch of stuff and made a scrap metal run.  The facility guy showed up and said that he and JVJ were on the same page about what he was taking and that if we wanted, we could be out that evening.  John and I went to work sorting and grabbing the last of the stuff we were going to save.  With Fifi loaded, we headed out.  As we turned at the railroad tracks, John asked how JVJ was getting back in to load what we’d left for him this time.  I asked if he’d locked the shop and he said he had.  We turned around.  Once there, it was decided that there wasn’t really enough left over for another trip so we loaded, literally, the last smattering of things we were keeping and took our locks.  We told the facility guy we were done and out, the rest was between him and the junk man.  He put locks on the building and said he’d work with the guy.  John and I left for the last time… sort of.  I did go back Sunday to give the facility folks the title to the 510 wagon but THAT was the last time!  At the new shop… or just “the shop” now, we unloaded and sorted through some of the things.  John had some welding he wanted done so I fired up the heliarc.  I zooked his parts and we closed up for the weekend.  I followed him to his house to drop off the few items he had called “Dibs” on and then went home myself.  That evening I got a call from JVJ saying that the facility folks had told him he couldn’t come back Sunday to get the rest of the junk and that if he did they would call the cops.  I was shocked.  I told him that I thought the understanding was that he had until Thursday to get everything.  He said he did too.  I called the facility folks.  Well, it turns out that JVJ’s side of the story was only half of the truth.  Apparently he started getting all bossy and snotty with them, telling them they HAD TO meet the wreckers at 0800 h Sunday and collect the money from them, they HAD TO open the place up for him to get his stuff, and shit like that.  Well, Eva wouldn’t gopher that and finally told him “Nope, you’re outta here!  Once Tim said he was out and the gate closed, all of that stuff became abandoned and was property of Shoreline.”  I told her I understood and was not a bit surprised that he became a pain in the ass.  I apologized and said I'd call him back and explain.  I called John instead.  He, not surprisingly, did not volunteer to call JVJ for me.  Go figure.  I eventually called and said that once I said I was out, they cancelled my contract and all that stuff was legally theirs.  I did not go into how he had burned his own bridge and left him to think his big mouth got him in trouble by telling them how much he was going to make on the dead cars.  He was surprisingly philosophical about it though, I'll give him that.  And with that, apart from the aforementioned off-dropping of the 510 title, I am through with Beenbroke.  It still hasn’t sunk in completely… but I'm getting there.