The High Priest
By Don / Date: September 11th, 2020
(For Leslie George – a man who knew…)
His father knew books, numbers, reports and words. So many words.
Not enough poetry.
His uncle knew the world with his hands and a precise eye. He did not know that at the time. He did not know how deep into the arcane his uncle had grown in his power. He did not know how much of it he owned and wielded. He only knew that his uncle had this thing with machines. They seemed to like him.
After the first time he had seen this man working under the hood of a car, his coveralls stained with the grease of high office, and the burn marks of many encounters with the more severe tools of his trade, Jon had a dream. He dreamt he saw his uncle in robes walking through his garage. The many machines; engines on stands. Parts sitting in trays, all of them alive and craning to see my uncle walking by. He looked on them lovingly, stroking the closest ones as he passed. Eye-lessly they regarded him with a love deeper, more complete and profound from the base ore from which over time their being had been wrought into existence. Like small animals of the forest they moved to him; in some steam-punk version of Snow White. He imagined some tool flying from its place on the well-organized wall and coming to alight on his outstretched arm to receive his uncles’ loving stroke and perhaps a tidbit of welcome grease; a precision, trained and micron-accurate bird of prey under the direction of a true Master.
That was the dream. And now came his initiation. He had been sitting in his fathers’ car when he heard him say a simple word; ‘Ooops!’. Looking through the back mirror his father had seen what he now turned and craned to see in his small body in the huge back seat. He caught a glimpse of a white cloud seemingly following the car. As chance would have it they were on their way to see his Uncle. His father turned slightly to him and said – “Well, it looks like we have a little problem. Good job we are going to the right place!” They continued driving.
The cloud behind them followed like an unwelcome shadow as they navigated from the highway into the narrowing streets to my Uncles’ house. Outside they stopped and the cloud overtook them, momentarily hiding the house from view. Then it cleared revealing my Uncle standing, staring at the car and my father and grinning. “Do you always just bring me your problems chum?” he smiled hugely at my father as he rose from the car. He advanced to shake my uncle’s hand his and clap him on the shoulder. In more recent times it would have been a full body hug. These were not more recent times.
The two men led the way into the house, leaving the cloud to dissipate fully and his younger self to tag along behind them to the sounds of their shared laughter. He remembered the smell in the house. It was different to his home. It smelled warm, but there was something artificial about it. Something that ‘forced’ freshness but was not quite the real thing. He felt comfortable here. Sort-of. His cousins were out, and so he got to sit in the living room with his elder cousin’s comic books and a glass of water. He buried himself into the cushions at the edge of the sofa, embraced and then fended off the affections of their slobbery, slow Basset hound as it regarded his presence in its domain with a canine shrug of acceptance and then a lick of belonging.
He did not have many comics of his own and so he basked in the chance to burrow into his cousin’s collection. The time passed with the slow tick of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. The sound punctuated only by the occasional laughter from next door as the grown-ups talked over their shared tea. He never knew quite what was so funny. Sometimes he recalled his father drying his eyes from mirth. There was something special between these men. He was curious, but not yet enough to attempt to break into their domain. Not yet.
He was almost through his third comic and was starting to get hungry when his father came back into the room. “Jon – you know the problem we had with the car on the way here? The smoke? Les is going to fix it and I am going to borrow his car to go to my meeting.” He let the words sink in and with them the meaning that, again, he would not have time more time with his father. The disappointment weighed on him like a sheet of wet cardboard over so many others. He looked down. “How would you like to stay here with Les and fix my car?” He stopped. A sudden bright sun rose over a desert island made of stacks of wet processed wood pulp. He looked up to see Les grinning over his father’s shoulder. “Yes please!” he almost shouted. His father looked relieved. Les looked happy too, and as his father turned toward the door, talking again to his brother, Les turned and winked at him.
His father drove Les’ car out of the garage and off down the road just as Les’ wife and daughter came into sight at the end of the street. His father stopped to greet them before driving off again. Les’ daughter was half of Jon’s age and not much company for him; tugging at her mothers arm. His aunt greeted him warmly and carried on into the kitchen to deposit shopping and keep her daughter occupied. After lifting his daughter high into the air and kissing her, Les turned to him. “Right, young man. We have work to do! First things first. Those clothes are way too nice for the garage. There is a hamper in the laundry room of old clothes. Go and find something that fits you.”
Jon ran off to comply. He found the hamper full of old ripped and torn clothes, and hand-me-downs. Finally he found a pair of torn shorts and an old button up shirt with what looked like moth holes. He put his own clothes to one side and transformed went through to the front of the house to meet his Uncle. Les had already driven his fathers’ car into the garage and was busying himself with removing the nuts that held the hood in place, having donned his coverall priestly robes. He looked up as Jon came around the corner of the garage. “Now that looks like you are ready to do some work! Are you?” Jon grinned back. “Yes!”
Ever since he was old enough to say the words, Jon had been fascinated by machines. Engines. Aeroplanes. Anything that moved, especially if it moved under its own power. His father indulged him and spent as much time as the frantic pace of his job allowed with his Son. But this man, Les, somehow time seemed to bend around him. There was always time. There was always space. And there were always machines. And somehow the machines knew what they were meant to do when Les was around. And they just did it. It was like Magic. It was Magic. He was enthralled.
The other thing Jon loved about being with Les is that he always talked to him, expecting him to know and understand. He did not talk down to him. He was straight. Jon felt respected – a weird feeling like he ought to be walking a tightrope, and instead found himself on solid dependable ground. He did not have the words or understanding yet to see how this might reflect on his home life. He just knew he liked it.
“So that big cloud of white smoke – big give away! Now, what kind of smoke do you know that is white?” Les posed the question to Jon and waited with crossed arms for his response. “Well, the smoke out of the chimney when Dad uses wood is white. But there is no wood in the car.” Les smiled. “You are right there – well, almost. But no wood in the engine or in the fuel tank. You are right there. What else looks like smoke, and is white?” Jon got it straight away. “You mean like steam? Clouds?” Les’ smile grew wide and he showed his yellowed teeth wide grin. “Yes! that’s right. Steam. So where does that come from?” Jon thought for a moment. He had seen his dad put water in the car, but did not know why. He said it. “Well, that water is really important in a car. It keeps the engine cool. But if the water ever leaks near the fire inside the engine, then it can turn into steam and blow out the exhaust making a big white cloud. You see?” And Jon did see. Somehow Les managed to conjour the image in his mind of water and fire meeting and steam blowing from the engine, just as he had seen. “Now, the problem is that leak is not good for the engine and it needs to be fixed. The good news is your Dad has the same engine in his car as in mine. I know what needs to be fixed and have the parts. The bad news is, it is going to take us all the way until suppertime to get it done. Are you going to help me?” Jon felt as if all of his dreams had come true. He got to play with the machines! And he got to stand at the side of the High Priest as he did so.
An hour later Jon stood on a stool, peering over the edge of cavernous engine compartment car under the light of a single bright bulb as his Uncle carefully passed a sanding block over the flat face of the exposed line of cylinders on top of the engine. His uncle stopped and turned to him. “So – you see those things there? He pointed into the cylindrical holes. Those are the pistons.” It seemed to Jon that the pistons turned to his uncle and now shared a sigh of understanding, now secure in the knowledge that they were pistons, and had an important job. It must be otherwise his uncle would not have given them such an important name. “Those move up and down and turn the crankshaft – that is down underneath in the crankcase. Now – you see beside the cyclinders there are those channels, holes? Right. Now look on the head.” Les stopped what he was doing and picked up the large metal block he had removed ten minutes before and showed it to Jon again. “Do you see those channels match with the ones here?” Jon looked, and saw. “These channels here,” he said, pointing to the larger ones around the cylinders “are the ones that carry the cooling water. Now this is what had gone wrong.” Les reached down and picked up what seemed like a thick piece of what looked like metal and thick paper that had come apart from the head when Les lifted it off of the top of the engine. “See this here?” With his little finger, Les pointed to a split in the material. This crack let water from this channel get into the cylinder. And it let hot gas from the cylinder get into the water. Bad news! It makes steam and stops the engine from cooling properly. It was good that your Dad was close when this happened.”
Les put the old failed gasket back down beside the head, sitting on an old bed-sheet on the garage floor. He straightened himself up, exaggerating the back bend and then walked down the side of the car toward his tool bench. On the way he reached up and lifted the twin of the thin material piece he had just shown Jon off a nail in the garage wall. “This, is a new one.” Jon looked. This one looked quite different; it shone and had clean markings and grooves. It was a piece of art. It had a quiet confidence to it. “That gasket that was in your Dad’s engine was a bad one. I have seen them like that before and they always fail – and fail badly too. This is a proper gasket.” Jon looked over it again with his eyes and agreed that this was indeed a fine gasket, if not the finest gasket he had ever seen. Indeed it was probably the first to which he had been properly introduced.
Les leaned back over the block he had now cleaned, and checked the gasket looked right. Satisfied he carefully leaned it on the windshield of the car, accessible now he had removed the hood. He reached for the hose attached to the compressor at the back of the garage and told Jon to look away and cover his ears. Jon got off the stool and covered his ears as Les directed the deafening hiss of the high pressure air across the top of the engine. “I did that to clean up any bits of debris. Machines need to be clean.” Around him in the garage, at the edge of his hearing, Jon caught the other machines agreeing with the High Priest and intoning the immense mantra; ‘clean’.
Jon stood back on the stool and watched enthralled as Les dropped the new gasket into place, matching exactly to the newly cleaned metal. Les stepped back. “And now, we must clean the head.”
After a few minutes Jon’s small forearms were getting sore. Les had handed him the sanding block and had securely attached a fresh sheet of fine abrasive paper to it. Under Les’ eye, Jon was using long strokes to keep the block flat as he passed it over the dull metal of the head to clean it and ready it for re-attaching to its partner with the new gasket sandwiched between. The metal was getting cleaner and becoming bright. ‘Nice work young man!’ Les clapped him on the shoulder after another minute of sweating effort. “That’s enough for now. Let’s see how it looks!”. Les unhooked the inspection light and passed it over the metal of the head, shining off the bright clean metal face. He took the sanding block from Jon and had him hold the light whilst Les expertly passed the sanding block over the face of the metal, increasing the smoothness and shine in a few short magical strokes.
“Okay – time to cover your ears again!” Jon turned away and covered his ears as Les blasted the newly cleaned metal with high pressure air once more. As he looked back, Les lifted the engine ‘head’ from the sheet on the floor and carefully carried the weight into place, lowering it down on the threaded ‘studs’ protruding from the engine block and encasing the pistons again in their dark, solitary caves. Satisfied it was properly in place, he turned to Jon and earnestly said. “Now, before we tighten the head down into place again – you need your strength. It is time for tea!”
Jon sat at the table contentedly working his way through a huge mug of tea, dunking special Chocolate digestive biscuits, reserved for the exclusive consumption of those working on cars. He diligently prepared himself for the next steps that Les assured him would need all of his strength. At length, with only two biscuits having disintegrated and been lost in the depths of his mug he finished the tea – except for the sludge at the bottom. With perfect timing, Les came back into the parlor from the Kitchen clutching an oil stained rag in his left hand. Jon saw the oil-dark outlines around Les’ nails and the charcoal grey palor that the machines gave his hands. He looked at his own and saw that he too had some of the marks. He was glad of the dirty clothes as he saw already how much he had wiped his hands without thinking and added even more stains to the rags of his apprenticeship.
A few moments later, he followed Les back through the door connecting the house to the garage and around to the front of the car. Les pointed to the eleven nuts arrayed on the sheet in front of the car. Les picked up the first of the nuts and a walked over to his workbench where he picked up a small jar of oil. He dropped the nut into the jar and gave it a swirl. “Now, when we put these nuts back on, they tighten down on those threaded studs that come out of the block – see? They hold the head on the engine. If they were not really strong then the explosions above the pistons would throw the head clean off the engine!” Jon’s imagination filled with the image of the head taking off and trying to go through the hood of the car with a mighty ‘bang!’. “So – these nuts need to go smoothly onto the studs and stretch them so that they hold the head down really tight. And that has to be done right, and so we use – this.” Magician-like, Les revealed a long silver rod from behind his back. He showed it to Jon. There was a long rod with a square fitting on the head, a black handle at the other end, and a pointer attached to the head that ran parallel to the main rod and marked a position on a scale mounted to the main rod. “This shows us exactly how much we are twisting the bolts in. The threads pull on the metal and stretch the bolts. If we know how much we are twisting, we know how much stretch we are putting on these bolts. And when we get it right – then the engine is incredibly strong.”
Jon looked on again, fascinated. He was now on a small stepladder that allowed him to see into the engine compartment as Les extracted each of the nuts from the jar and allowed it to drip a thin treacle of golden oil down the threads of each of the exposed studs before twisting the nut onto the top of the stud with his fingers. Using his fingers and then a long screwdriver-like thing Les spun the nuts down until he was satisfied they were in place. “Now for the torque wrench.” Jon passed the tool to his uncle who unclipped the thing he called a ‘socket’ from the screwdriver and clipped it on the square head of the torque wrench with a satisfying ‘click’. Without looking up, Les carried on talking. “Now, we have to tighten these bolts in a special sequence, otherwise we will bend the head and it will leak again. So – we start in the middle and then go diagonally.” Quickly he pointed to the nuts in the order they were to be tightened. “And we do it twice; first to 25 foot-pounds, then to 45 foot-pounds.” Jon greeted this last comment with a quizzical look that his uncle turned and caught. “Don’t worry – it will all make sense.” He grinned and went to tousle Jon’s hair – and stopped himself as he realized that his hands were right now too dirty. “Perhaps you mum would not like it if I did that eh?” Les held up his hand palm-out, showing the grimy oily blackness that was his badge of office. Jon grinned back. “Yes. I think you are right.”
In a few moments Les had Jon helping him pull on the handle of the torque wrench and carefully watching the pointer move with the increasing turn up towards the magic marking ’25’. “Is it there yet?” Les asked. “Not quite Jon said, a little more.” His small arms were putting their effort onto the handle of the wrench next to his uncles’ larger hand. “That’s it! Jon almost shouted.” His uncle slowly released the pressure on the wrench and straightened up, placing the socket onto the next nut in the sequence. They repeated the act another nine times snugging all the nuts down onto their threaded homes. “Okay – one more time! This time to 45 on the scale ok?” Jon looked at his uncle in some disbelief. That ’25’ had been hard enough. Almost twice that? “Really, that much?” he asked. His uncle looked at him “Yes. Those threaded studs are really strong, and they bolts need that extra twist to make sure they get stretched just enough. Are you ready?” That much force seemed scary to Jon, however he trusted his uncle knew what he was doing. He glanced around and imagined the machines, tools and parts ordered around the room also leaning in, giving him their complete faith.
It was tough. Jon pulled as hard as he could, and he saw his uncle working the additional force that was needed to have the needle pointer get up to the ’45’ mark. A couple of times the bolts cracked in protest as the final tenth of a turn was put on them to reach the magic number. Finally it was all done. “Now, I did not tell you all of it. The last bit I just need to do on my own, because they actually need to be at 50 foot-pounds. I will do this bit; just keep the light steady for me?” He handed Jon the inspection lamp that had seemed quite happy hanging from a hook in the roof above. Jon took it and shone it down carefully to aid his uncle’s focus as he snugged each bolt in turn down the remaining fraction of a turn to achieve the final magic number. With a flourish, Les stood up and clicked the long socket off of the torque wrench. “Ok – that’s done!; now just the tappets and the rocker cover, check the oil and the water and we are done!”
Les looked over at the clock on the wall. “Hmm. Your Dad will be getting back soon. I have just a couple of things to finish up. Why don’t you go to the bathroom, wash your hands really well – lots of soap and cold water first.” Jon was disappointed, he did not want the spell to break. His uncle again caught his shift in mood. “You have done amazing work today. Just imagine how you can help your Dad if this ever happens again? Maybe it will be on your car next time!” Jon’s imagination again caught as he climbed down from the step ladder and went through the connecting door and down the hall to the bathroom. As the door shut he heard Les call “And – don’t forget to change!”.
Ten minutes later Jon was back in his clean clothes and with only slightly grey hands. He watched as Les tightened the last bolt on the hood, grabbed it firmly and pushed it down into place with a satisfying ‘click’ and the dying ringing sounds of the spring that held it in place. He ran a cloth across the end of the hood to remove a small grease spot and then nodded his satisfaction. He turned and led Jon out of the garage and went down the hall to clean himself up. Jon looked quizzical; “Aren’t you going to test it?” Les stopped in his tracks and turned slowly to Jon with a huge grin on his face. “Nah. It will work first time. Just you watch.” He continued walking down the hall. Jon found his way back to the living room and sat on the sofa just as there was a knock on the door, followed by his father walking in. “Hello you!” he said, spying his son. “Did you have a good day?” Jon grinned and ran to his Dad. “Yes, yes we did – I saw the pistons and we torked the engine, and found the broken gask, erm.. gask” “Gasket?” his father added. “Yes! and then we put it all back together and did not even test it! It will work first time! He said so!” His father looked momentarily concerned. Les entered the room with a tray containing three mugs and more chocolate biscuits. “Not tested it?” his father asked. Les looked momentarily sheepish and then a mischievous grin crossed his face. “No need!” he beamed. “It is perfect, you will see.”
Tea and biscuits consumed and farewells said, Jon and his father went to the garage and got into his father’s car. Les stood beside the wound-down drivers window as his father asked; “You sure you did it all?” Les grinned all the wider; “Oh ye of little faith! You have eyes, ears and keys and yet ye cannot see!” He gave a little laugh. “Alright then.” His father pulled the choke out and turned the starter. The engine purred into life as soon as the starter bit. Jon remembered that his father sometimes cursed this ‘damned vehicle’ as many tries were required to coax the engine into rough coughing life. His father turned to look at his brother, who, arms crossed was smiling all over his face. “Well, I think I have to give you that one!” His father reached through the window and warmly shook his brother’s hand. “Thanks for everything Les – and for taking care of the nipper.” Les bent down to catch Jon’s eye in the back seat. “No problem at all – he was a great help!” Jon felt warm inside and waved to his uncle as his father pulled their now refined car gently out of the garage past its twin sitting on the street. As they pulled away he waved until he saw his uncle stop and turn away. Jon imagined some magnificent wrench soaring out of the sky to perch on his uncle’s shoulder as he stepped back into his house.
On the way home, telling his father all about the day and his initiation into his uncle’s world, he heard and felt the car purring around him in the mechanical ecstasy of having met, received teachings, healing, and being blessed by the presence of their living master. The enraptured car transported them smoothly and with renewed vigor into the darkness and back home. Jon did not notice his father carrying his sleeping form from the back seat and depositing it under the warm covers of his bed into dreams populated by immense powerful, smoothly purring engines, tended to by the High Priest with infinite loving grace.
I wrote this piece back in 2017, but it never fitted into the book I am now finishing. Time to give it a life of its own… (c) 2020, Don Goodeve