Repo Man
A short story
He watched her mood change when she asked what he did for a living and he said he was a repo man.
“Like repossessing cars?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Callahan said. “All kinds. Usually nice ones, bought by folks who think they have more money to throw around than they do.”
Eileen leaned forward, taking a sip of her martini. “What was the nicest thing you ever had to repossess?”
Jay Callahan sat back, putting on a show of thinking about it, letting this beauty across from him see him deep in thought. He said, “There was a Maserati once. A navy blue one, not a year old. Beautiful. This was in Hamtramck, an okay house with a small yard, and the owner is out there on the driveway, washing the thing.”
“Do you usually confront the owners?”
“We don’t have to,” Callahan said. “But this guy’s out there washing his car, he’s several payments behind, so he’s defaulted on the loan. And he sees me coming up, I’m wearing my black shirt with REPO MAN on the front and back, and he says, ‘Come on, man, I’m good for the money.’ And I say to him if he was good for the money he’d still be driving this car tomorrow, and I get in — they give us a spare key so we don’t have to take his — and drive away, leaving him there with a bucket of soap and a hose.”
“That sounds rough.”
“Well, it can be. Sometimes you just hate to take away such a nice car from someone who looks like a decent person.”
“Do you always work alone?” she said.
“No, there’s another guy, Darren, comes with me sometimes. He’s a big guy, raised tough, did a tour overseas. He comes back, now he’s doing this.”
She finished her martini, and she turned to look where the waitress was. Callahan admired her. She had shoulder-length blonde hair and was wearing a blouse that he would say was salmon colored. It was a color he liked on women. He guessed she was closer to forty than thirty, but not much.
“This is a nice place,” she said, changing the topic.
“I like it,” he said. He’d taken dates here before. It was a mom and pop place, pizza the specialty, but it was classy without being expensive. Dimly lit, and garage doors that opened the restaurant up to the rest of Detroit.
A few minutes later their pizza arrived, and with it another martini for Eileen and a glass of beer for Callahan. She said to him, “What happens if someone doesn’t give up the car?”
“Well, if they’re inclined to keep it and won’t give it up to us, we can’t threaten them or get physical in any way. So we come back at night and take it, usually. Or we wait until they’re gone and take it. That works best for people who keep it locked in a garage.”
“How often does that happen?”
“More than you think. See, we can’t break into anyone’s house, either, so sometimes Darren and I follow the person into town, wait for them to park and go inside somewhere, and drive it away. Did it with a Range Rover just last week. Guy kept it in his garage all the time, even had a couple of dogs in his yard. I don’t know what kind, but mean ones. So we wait for him to leave, follow him to this grocery store over in Dearborn. Darren takes off in the guy’s car — only the guy brought the damn dogs with him.”
Eileen raised her eyebrows. “Did he keep driving?”
“You kidding me? With two big dogs in the backseat, trying to bite him? No, Darren hits the brakes and climbs out of the car, and I come up behind him in the follow car. Takes us a good ten minutes to get the dogs out and tie their leashes to a telephone pole, right there on the street corner.”
Eileen shook her head and smiled. “You tell these stories like you like the danger.”
“I love the danger.”
They’d each had two drinks, and now he was on his second slice of pizza — vegetable, at her request, and he wasn’t one to argue on a first date — and he said, “Tell me about yourself.”
She said, “Born and raised in Detroit. Haven’t been outside of Michigan except a couple times to Canada when my dad wanted to see the Tigers play the Blue Jays.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’m waiting tables at a Mexican place right now. I was laid off from GM six months ago.”
“Sorry to hear it.”
She shrugged. “I’m trying to maintain my old lifestyle. Still have the place in Bloomfield Township. I wasn’t being paid a ton at GM, but I was doing okay for a while.”
“You have to speak Spanish at the Mexican place?”
“A little. I’m not fluent, but I can take an order and ask if they’re ready for the check.”
Callahan smiled. “I wish I knew some Spanish. Would be helpful on the job sometimes.”
“I had classes in high school, but I didn’t remember anything. I took a couple lessons from a friend who’s fluent when I started, the rest I picked up working.”
“I see.”
They were done eating. He put cash on the table when the waitress brought the check. “You know, it’s funny that you’re a repo man,” she said.
He knew this was coming. “Why’s that?”
“You’ll laugh,” she said, her hair falling down over her eyes, waiting for her to brush it away. “Or maybe you won’t.” She paused, let him figure it out.
He put on an aw-shucks grin and said, “You’re kidding.”
“A 2018 Cadillac ATS. Leasing it still from the place that fired me.”
He said nothing.
“I don’t know why I kept it. I thought maybe I’d drive it around until they took it from me. Like a last little piece of what I had.”
He craned his neck to see if he could see the car on the curb outside.
She was waiting for his reaction to that. And disappointed, because there wasn’t one. “You knew.”
“Hmm?” He looked back at her.
“You knew,” she said, a little angrier now, and she sat back in her chair. “You son of a bitch.” She looked past him, out the garage door, where her car was supposed to be parked across the street.
He shrugged. “Darren drove off in it about twenty minutes ago.”
“Did you ask me out…?” She started to ask, but let it hang there. She knew. After a pause she said, “Because I kept it locked in the garage, right?”
“You have a beautiful house.”
She threw her napkin on the table and stood up. “Son of a bitch,” she said.
Callahan said, “Would you let me drive you home? I feel bad about this.”
“I’ll take the bus.”
Then she was gone. He could smell her perfume still. It smelled good. He sat there and finished his beer. When he was done he put some cash on the table and walked outside, headed to his car.
He had three more repossessions to do today.
