Dennis stared through the chasing raindrops to the scrap yard below. He could never seem to get the damp rust smell out of his clothes and hair, no matter how many times he bathed or did laundry. It had been a long time since he’d had a customer, and even then it was for an alternator, a piece of dash plastic, an indicator glass. The heaps of car-casses piled on top of one another almost up to the window of his shack, which tottered on stilts above the wastes.
Every now and then – perhaps once or twice a month – one of the cars would awake from its slumber, and provided it wasn’t at the bottom of a pile, slowly drag itself on flaccid tyres towards freedom. Headlights dangling from ruined faces, wing mirrors twisting on their sinews in the metal breeze. They would creak and roll as quietly as they could until Eric pinned them to the scrap yard mud floor with the crane, like a shiny boot on a fox’s neck.
Dennis wiped his nose on the sleeve of his branded sweatshirt. The scrap yard sighed beneath him. Once, he’d found a naked woman tied up in the boot of a Pontiac. He’d stared at her waxy naked flesh, closed the boot, and made a cup of tea. He came back later that day to check on her. She was still there. He’d thought about calling the police, or a priest, or a mechanic. Then the Pontiac went to the crusher in Eric’s jaws. That was years ago.
Sometimes, when Dennis blinked in a very dark room, he would see the woman’s terrified eyes blink back at him.
He heard rolling, deflated rubber.