The Missing X-Man:Origins

I read a lot of comic books growing up (alright, already! you got me, I would still read a lot of comic books if I had the time), which imbibed a sense of heroism that I was never quite able to shake. I'm not painting a rosy picture of myself, because anyone that knows me knows that my good intentions often fall flat on their face. But the move to Emily Griffith was not necessarily the whim it appeared to be.

In the years leading up to the return to school, and the dream of owning a auto repair shop, was a understandable chain of employment that on the surface had little to do with where I landed some time later. At the conclusion of my college years in Oregon, and full of piss and vinegar, I pursued a vocation that related to my degree as any naive college grad is prone to doing. I had resolutely decided that I would be a classical guitar performer and teacher and that the world would immediately recognize my talents as skilled composer and stringed instrument wizard (damn you again comic books!) When I was fired from my first job out of college at a music store a few months later, the fissures in my wall of denial became apparent. From fissures to cracks and cracks to gaping holes and finally the crumbling mortar of assumption scattered at my feet, the first dream died when the wall came down. This lead to a number of stints at coffee shops which kept me poor and humble. A break came when I was swayed to become a part on an Americorps program working with at-risk teenagers. Quite suddenly my perspective changed and I was drawn to more humanitarian work than I had ever suspected would interest me. I made a move back to Denver in 2000 and involved myself in the Public School system, day-treatment centers for youth and finally as a conflict-resolution trainer at a local non-profit.

It was in this final role that a new venture began gnawing at my brain. For nearly four years I hammered away at troubled teenagers by parlaying a message of peace and non-violence and a better life. In this post I was made aware daily of one all- consuming message: money. Always there was this struggle for money. The non-profit was in relentless pursuit of money to fund its mission, the students sought money to buy all the fancy stuff that Jay-Z had and maybe a little food, the parents worked three jobs to get the money to buy the house away from the violent hoods, my fellow employees became disillusioned by their work and pursued careers that would bring them more money. In this midst of this, I lost my ability to concentrate on the values I stood up for each day and could think of only one thing: what if I opened a business that provided money to a non-profit and a community? Let the business worry about the money and the non-profit continue it teachings. However, I was not willing to open any business, because I wanted to do something where I felt like I was actually helping people. I had dabbled in web-design, which I knew had a lucrative future, but was I really doing anything to better the community?

Instead of thinking of those businesses that I loved (restaurants and coffee-shops and music stores), I began thinking of those that I hated. It came to me as I listened to Click and Clack the Tappit Brothers one Sunday on Public Radio. Car repair - that was the business model that perturbed me the most. Its sleazy, pushy sales and veiled motives. The sense of entitlement that shop owners seemed to emanate, as if their low-profile post gave them the right to charge abysmally large sums of money to people for work that did not warrant such extremes. Plus, I liked working on cars, or at least thinking I could. And wouldn't the means justify the ends if the shop gave back to the community? Yes! Plus, I could put in a coffee shop and still have my dream, Yes!

I gave notice at the non-profit that I was going back to school and on a hot, end of summer day, began my new life.

Lab #1

Testing vacuum, testing compression, leak down testing, engine removal.

These were the instructions for our first set of labs. Anyone with the slightest modicum of knowledge about cars would categorize these things as easy ways to begin learning about cars and their function. However, this was the a.m. class of a morning and afternoon series. Translation: anyone not actually working in a garage was present in the a.m. and those getting off of work at a garage arrived in the p.m.
Further translation: no one knows what the hell they are doing in the a.m.

As we subdivided into groups, signed for and gathered tools from a somewhat secure cage where these items were loaned out and then, much later, tucked into waistbands and sequestered, the labs began. How a groups of completely inept students can be put to work with sharp tools on explosive objects so quickly was a mystery. Although Brad had at some point in his rambling lecture mentioned the importance of safety glasses, they went from eyes to foreheads to shelf within an hour. Stripped of protective gear, each group began pulling on fuel lines that wormed through engine compartments in vain efforts to disable start-ups.

In my group was a slightly more astute individual, John, who had some experience with cars. This would be to our benefit as the other members, one dread-locked guy who had as an end-goal the dream of repairing jet skis in some beach resort; and another a medical student with some time off and strange desire to fill in his knowledge of car repair; had as much experience as I did. John told us to pay the other imbeciles no mind and he searched amongst the fuses for a relay that would disable the fuel pump, thereby allowing us to complete our lab.

As John essentially did all of the work, talk turned to more important things like drinking beer, the strip bar across the street and why Pep Boys was the worst place to work in the automotive world. John outlined this last point explicitly siting his current line of work at the automotive repair giant. He let us know later and then continuously throughout the semester, how a simple felony in his younger years had landed him at Pep Boys and how he was stuck there until he finished school and could open his own shop. Much like B.A. Barakus, he asserted that he had been charged with a crime he did not commit. "Wrong place at the wrong time," he would say. When probed for details he declined to comment except to say that there was a firearm involved.

John finished the first part of the lab with us well before any of the other groups, but it could be said that we were just as confused about what had been accomplished at the end as when we had begun. We knew what compression was, we know what vacuum was and we knew which porn site Mikey, our dread-locked counterpart, preferred. As to how this related to engine performance was unclear.

At least we had jumped the first hurdle, which was more than could be said for the other groups which were dragging Brad between them like coyotes fighting over an antelope. Each time he moved from one group to another the team he had just finished visiting would generate ten more questions for each of the ones he had answered and would find themselves in holding patterns. Brad, at the end of the four-hour day looked haggard and dejected. He would confess later that he could foresee when a class was going to put him through the ringer, and this one had all the tell-tale signs of going south fast. When the clock indicated that time was up, he pinched the bridge of his nose hard between his fingers and made a beeline for his office, shaking off the students striving to drag him down with questions. In another hour his second class would be arriving.