Rain took Friday's install off the board by nine in the morning. Late September, that is less a surprise than a schedule.
Wade had texted Wednesday. A photo of a sheet of plywood leaned against a mailbox in Sherrills Ford with EVERYTHING GOES painted on it, then a second photo of the same sign from closer, then a call to make sure I had seen the photos. Man down there was closing out his shop.
So Crank and I drove down. Hour and a half, most of it in the rain, the last mile on gravel.
The place was about what you would hope. Two bays, block building gone green on the north side, a floor that had been swept every day for longer than I have been alive and was still dirty. Steel shelves to the rafters, and every single thing on them wearing a strip of masking tape with a number in grease pencil.
He was at the back bench when I came in. Nodded, did not get up. Said the building was listed separate. Said his son had done the tape.
That second part rode home with me. The son priced the parts. Somebody else priced the building. A man is coming for the lift, and the hand tools are going in one lot to whoever wants them. Every piece of that shop has a number on it now, and not one of the numbers is for the reason you would have driven down there five years ago, which was him.
Found a water pump for the '54 on the second shelf. Tape said fifteen. He took it out of my hands, turned it over twice, and told me the casting was good and the bearing was not, and to do the bearing before I trusted it. That was not on the tape either. Paid the fifteen.
Crank slept in the bay door the whole visit with the rain coming off the roof edge about a foot from his head. The man said he was the best customer he had all week, which is probably true and says something about the week.
Rain quit about the time I left. Sun came in low under the back edge of it and lit the wet lot up gold, and I sat in the truck a minute before I started it.
You can price every piece of a place, add it up right, and still not have priced the place. Pump is on the bench at home now, beside the Bustelo can, waiting on a bearing.