Leon flinched. The handle struck the floor with a clatter when he let go. Frank saw the reaction and felt an unpleasant tightening beneath his ribs. "I'm not mad," he added, awkwardly enough to sound almost angry. "Come look at this."
The boy approached in small steps. Frank lifted one of the clean metal components. "See those teeth?"
Leon nodded.
"They have to meet in the right place. Too much space and they beat themselves apart. Too little and they bind. Everything in an engine has a job, and half the time the trouble starts when a part gets forced into doing a different one."
Leon looked from the gear to the workbench. "Like the wire?"
Frank exhaled. "Exactly like the wire."
For the next twenty minutes Frank explained just enough for the boy to follow. He did not turn the lesson into a lecture about things Leon could not yet visualize. He moved the pieces slowly, described what they were intended to do, and let the child predict which one might stop if another were jammed. Twice Leon gave an answer that was wrong. Frank started to correct him sharply, caught himself, and tried again in a lower voice.
Leon barely noticed Frank's struggle. He was busy discovering that grown-up knowledge was not a single locked door. It was a series of smaller doors, each one opening toward another question. He felt the same fascination he had known while watching machines through the garage's dusty windows, except now someone had invited him close enough to ask why.
Frank pointed toward a covered cleaning station at the far end of the bench. "There's work you can help with safely. Small hardware, warm water, brushes, sorting and inspecting. You leave the harsh chemicals and power tools to me. Got it?"
Leon nodded. He had been allowed to scrub greasy fasteners before, sometimes with whatever cleaner was nearby. Frank had looked at his hands on Friday and disliked how little thought he had given that arrangement. He brought out gloves sized as closely as he could manage, a safer cleaner, and a stack of old towels. The boy regarded the gloves suspiciously, as though protection were a luxury reserved for people who owned matching socks.
"Wear them," Frank said. "You're not getting paid in damaged fingers."
That was when the truck arrived.
The sound came from the gravel outside: a tired engine turning over unevenly, suspension creaking, tires crunching over broken stones. A primer-black Ford pickup rolled to a stop near the open bay. Leon looked up from the bolts he had been sorting, and Frank's stomach tightened before he recognized the driver.
Big Jim got out wearing a faded black T-shirt instead of his usual leather vest. His tattoos showed beneath the sleeves, old dark designs that had softened into the lines of his skin. Wilson emerged from the passenger side, chewing gum and looking amused with himself. Neither man hurried to explain why they had come back.