Smiled. Added helpfully: “Sure. Of course they’re not the only ones; lots of AAs are involved in group marriages. You mean you didn’t know?”
Didn’t. Tee-hee. Wolf in wolf’s clothing. Lecher, profligate, lady-killer, rake, debaucher, libertine, playboy. Swath-cutter amongst Baltimore’s fair sex. Any and all of above. Says he.
Well, maybe. But just discovered mile-wide chink in macho armor: Adam dyed-in-wool, card-carrying, soapbox-standing, old-fashioned sexual conservative! Face-to-face encounter with evidence of honest-to-goodness ménage à trois leaves him breathless with scandalized, bluenosed shock.
Hope exists for Adam after all. Gladder I found him by the day. Glad is coming with us…
Adam not kidding about hating prospect of three of us living in small van. Nor about mechanical, electronic ingenuity, ability. Has been busy past few weeks; all to good.
Example: Now attached to van’s rear by heavy-duty, load-equalizing hitch is lightweight, self-contained, 25-foot travel trailer. Clever notion: Enjoy luxuries without disadvantages intrinsic to vehicle unwieldy enough to carry them — in pinch, can drop trailer, proceed in van alone.
Adam sprung it as surprise: Went through Yellow Pages, visited dealers, located suitable unit; found, mounted hitch; hooked up, brought home. Then installed kitchen equipment matching that in parents’ land yacht. (My taste buds thank you, my appetite thanks you, I thank you…!) Quiet, multikilowatt, 120/240-volt, engine-driven Honda alternator replaces LP tanks on trailer’s A-frame tongue; powers everything.
Then he went through van with mad inventor’s eye, determined weaknesses, corrected. Rebuilt engine, replacing nearly every moving part; all with what described as “competition specs” (sounds impressive, but don’t ask me). Same for running gear.
(Whatever… Bottom line, boy; don’t care how watch built — what time is it? Speak English! [Verbal inquiry worded more politely, of course. Some.])
“Okay, okay,” he agreed. Tone impatient, but eyes alight; clearly pleased with self. “What I’ve done will make the engine and drivetrain more reliable under load, and shifts the power range downward, which gives it more torque — makes it more powerful at low RPMs, and gives it much more traction so it can pull the trailer more easily and climb steeper grades.
“And it’s more efficient now; goes farther on the same fuel. Since we have to rely on finding cars to siphon from, which may or may not have enough to bother with, or a gas station whose tank caps we can force, that’s insurance.
“Sounds as if it was a lot of work.”
“It was.” He nodded. “But solving mechanical problems is fun; I’ve been doing it for years as a hobby — along with the electronic stuff.”
“How did a well-bred, artistic type like you pick up such a physical sort of interest?”
“You mean ‘rich and spoiled type’ and ‘filthy sort of interest.’ ” Adam grinned; displayed fine hands now covered with cuts, scrapes, bruises; embedded with dirt, grease. “It grew out of what you might call the ‘flip side’ of growing up terribly rich, with parents too wrapped up in their careers to spend time with me.
“I stayed busy. Even I could practice piano only so long; and I’m as quick a study as you, so academics took even less time. I whiled away a good bit of the rest following around my favorites among the house staff and learning their jobs. That’s how I discovered that I love cooking — and where the EMT training came from, of course.
“But that still left a lot of time. Now, I’d gotten a taste for approbation from performing on the piano, and I’d noticed that people were impressed by fast cars and people who built and drove them. It looked like an entertaining hobby and a good way to show off. Naturally, anything material I wanted, all I had to do was ask; cost was never discussed. That’s where the Lamborghini, the Ferrari, the Porsche, and the motorcycles came from — and, of course, the Trans Am I splattered.
“They hired Gus Wilson to take care of them. He was a proud old mechanic who used to run what he called a model garage. I became his shadow and he did his best to teach me everything he knew — it tickled him to discover that a rich, spoiled brat was genuinely interested in learning his craft, and didn’t mind getting his schoolgirl-soft hands dirty doing it. Gus taught me my rule-of-thumb engineering, mechanical, and electrical skills.
“However, in the process, he taught me one of the most important lessons I ever learned: You can fix anything — if you want to badly enough. Sometimes what it takes is knowing where to find special tools and parts; sometimes it takes being able to figure out how to make special tools and parts.” He grinned again. “Sometimes all it takes is a bigger hammer — you’d be surprised what you can accomplish with naked force.
“Back then, of course, all it took most of the time was to throw money at it. But anything can be fixed if you need to badly enough. Somehow.
“For instance — remember how you crossed the Susquehanna,” he said abruptly, apparently out of blue.
Statement, not question. Do indeed; experience intrudes into dreams with regularity. Wish wouldn’t: Wake up with racing heart, clammy palms. Balancing van on tracks on single-width railroad trestle at altitude barely inside Earth’s atmosphere not fun.
“Look…” Adam squatted down, pointed to double-scissor-hinged frames bolted to van’s, trailer’s undercarriages; “…this is my masterpiece: I fixed it.”
Perplexity must have shown on face.
Adam smiled, said, “Watch”; operated cranks protruding from underside of van, trailer, respectively — and additional sets of wheels lowered to ground. Tiny metal things, barely ten inches in diameter; located ahead of front, behind rear, wheels on van; just aft of tandems on trailer.
But even with demonstration, at first couldn’t divine purpose — and really wanted to: Adam’s expression appropriate for having solved Mystery of Universe. That he expected praise obvious; but would spot bluffing, and understanding nature of accomplishment prerequisite for intelligent head-patting.
Then light dawned; indeed understood — and pretty darned pleased own self: Wheels’ flanges match rails’ spacing, engage inner edges — singlehandedly Adam devised, manufactured rig permitting use of rails without drama, effort: Line up on level crossing, lower guide wheels — unnecessary even to steer.
“I reread that part of your journal after you pointed out the problems with the land yacht,” Adam explained. “I got sweaty palms myself, just thinking about it. I figured there had to be a better way.
“I remembered reading about railroads modifying cars and trucks like this for their own use. I drove down to the railyard, found a truck outfitted this way, and studied how they did it. Didn’t seem all that difficult a project, if you don’t mind getting out to crank the wheels up and down — the truck had hydraulics; the railroad people wanted to be able to deploy and retract theirs without getting rained on.
“After that it was just a matter of cannibalizing a couple handcars, and a little fabrication. Anyone could have done it.”
“I couldn’t,” I replied positively. “It never occurred to me even to pull a trailer.”
“You could if you were in my shoes.” He grinned. “We needed more room without incurring a permanent weight penalty; a trailer is the obvious solution. And the rail-riders are equally obvious: Without them, if we absolutely had to cross a railroad bridge, we’d have to abandon the trailer. I just couldn’t see leaving behind all my best tools and music and everything.”