Only the clergy and doctors are asked to perform more miracles than auto body repairmen. But Mothers get asked to perform more than all three combined. I've been in this business for twenty years and I can't count the number of people who come in with their buckets of rust, waving a hundred dollars and saying "make it look like a new car!"

Yeah, right. Even worse are the ones who try to fix it themselves and bring it to me after they have made it look like a sack of antlers and just want me to smooth out the rough places. Mostly I just grin and give them the address of the local church. Bodywork is an art. And artists get paid very well for what they do.

The first time I saw Kenny and his rattletrap of a car, I thought here is another miracle seeker. Boy was I ever right! All he wanted was for me to restore this 1965 mustang to original condition and let him pay for it a little at a time. He could give me eight hundred dollars now and then pay off so much each week. Folks, it just doesn't work that way. Not unless you're a brother- in -law and I happen to still love my wife and that doesn't apply to me because I'm not married.

When Kenny heard what I had to say, crestfallen wouldn't come close to the look on his face. He began explaining how the car was a gift from his mother's boyfriend and he knew it needed a lot of work but if I'd just do what I could for the eight hundred and maybe keep it in the garage until he saved more money and on and on, until I stopped him. I told him the car wasn't even mechanically sound and he would be better off spending the money on engine repairs than on bodywork but he wouldn't change his mind.

The kid was a talker and a dealer. He had me convinced that this car was the most important thing in his life and getting it in prime condition was the only goal worth pursuing. By the time he left that day he had talked me into hiring him to clean the shop and putting his pay towards the bodywork on the car.

Whatever Kenny lacked in social skills he made up for it with grit and determination. I learned two things about Kenny in that first meeting, one was that he saw challenges as opportunities and the other was that something about him wasn' t quite right. I couldn't put my finger on it then but later it would become crystal clear.

I worked on that old mustang of his at my leisure. I figured I'd never get paid for it and one day Kenny would just stop coming in and I'd be stuck with another clunker that cost more than it could be sold for to anyone. One month later I was still waiting for him to stop coming.

To tell you the truth, Kenny was beginning to worry me. He wasn't like other customers I'd dealt with before. The ones who were always asking questions and wanting to know when their car would be ready, or why I did one thing but not another. Kenny just came in every day and went to work cleaning up the place and never, once did he ask about the car. He always asked about the bill though. He worried more about what he owed than anything else.

Folks, that isn't natural! Mostly people let me worry about what they owe. But Kenny kept everything written down in a pocket notebook he carried. How much he had earned and how much he had paid was carefully written down at the end of each day. Then he would show me what he'd written and wait for my approval before closing the pad and leaving the shop.

Something else about Kenny was kind of odd. He always stopped at the soda machine on his way out and got a cream soda. Always. Never had a coke or a root beer. Always a red cream soda. And he always counted the money he pulled from his pocket and it was never more or less than the soda cost.

Some other things about him were beginning to show up as odd, too. Things like how sometimes his belt loops were torn away from his pants but his belt was still where it should be. Once he came to the shop and his shoestrings didn't. I saw him shuffling around and asked where his shoestrings were and he just said they had broken. I found an old pair of boot strings and gave them to him and I noticed he still had them in his shoes days later.

Occasionally he would show up all red faced and sweating but he never said why and I never bothered to ask. I should have. Maybe then I would have seen what was so obvious. Kenny could have been the poster child for the adage, looking through a glass darkly. He was the unsolvable puzzle. Everything outwardly appeared normal but underneath something was askew. He never talked more than was needed and he never shared anything about his personal life.

From the first day we met I wondered why his mother's boyfriend would have given him the old mustang, and why I'd never seen him. Most men will check up on something like that. But Kenny never mentioned it or said another thing about the boyfriend or even his Mother. He was odd and it was beginning to bother me.

Mostly it bothered me because it was beginning to rub off on me. I had started doing nice things for no good reason folks, which really is unnatural. Sometime ago I'd quit charging Kenny for anything besides the cost of material. Don't ask me why because I don't know. I just did. Not only that but I'd also started doing little things, like adjusting the carburetor and tuning the motor. I didn't tell Kenny about it, either. I convinced myself that if he didn't pay for the work already done to the car, at least this way I'd have something worth selling. But that was a lie and I knew it.

It was on a day when Kenny had come in red faced and sweating that I finally began to see what should have been easily noticed if only I had been paying attention. He was standing at he soda machine at the end of the day, fidgeting with his hands and checking first one pants pocket and then the other. He looked at me as I approached and said, "do you want to buy a stamp?" Just like it was the most natural kind of question a person could ask.

"Do you mean a postage stamp? " My mind was trying to sift through the surprise of having been asked the question, but Kenny was eagerly finding the neatly pressed page of stamps tucked inside the secret fold of his wallet and completely ignored my query.

" My mom always says not to borrow any money but it's okay to ask people if they want to buy a stamp if I ever need money. Sometimes I spend more than I 'm supposed to and sometimes I have emergencies." He was holding the page of stamps and looking at me, waiting for my answer. " They're thirty-three cent stamps and I only charge thirty cents for them."

Boom. There it was. Like a ton of bricks. All those days Kenny showed up for work with his belt loops destroyed, his missing shoelaces, the red face and the sweating, those were the signs I kept ignoring. Kenny was the kid we all knew in high school. The one everybody picked on and made fun of and even took advantage of when we were bored with our own lives. We tore his clothes and took his shoestrings and sometimes we stole or talked him out of his money. No one ever stood up for him or took his side because that would have marked us as fruits or geeks or whatever today's term is for people who do the right thing. The only emergency Kenny ever faced was whether or not he could outrun his tormenters. I guessed that on this day he hadn't been able to get away.

"Sure Kenny, I could use a stamp two." I was digging for the money but when I pulled out everything that was in my pockets I came up with a grand total of fifty cents. I held it out to him and gave a pleading look and a slight shrug. He took the money and said, "okay, that's all I need for the soda but you owe me a dime." Yes, I thought and probably a lot more than that. He plunged the coins into the slot and for a moment I thought he might be thinking of getting something besides a red crème soda, as he hesitated before punching the button for his usual choice. He pulled the tab and drank a long gulp before taking the can away. "See you tomorrow." And he walked out as if he hadn't just told me all the secrets he had.

I looked around the old shop and realized for the first time how neat and clean it was since Kenny had come to work. At the far end of the shop sat the old mustang that had brought Kenny to me and I felt a little ashamed. All this time and I still hadn't given it the attention I would have if it had belonged to anyone besides Kenny. I thought about the pure genius of Kenny's mothers' idea of having him carry stamps to help him get through his every day life. Not many self-respecting bullies would grab a guy's stamps. It would make them look stupid themselves. Who knows, it might even be a class one felony to steal stamps. What I do know is we don't always get a chance to atone for past mistakes. When that opportunity does come, don't complain about the noise made by the knock on the door.

In the morning I was going to begin turning that mustang in to a piece of art. Kenny deserved it and I owed it to all the kids I'd tormented when I thought different meant less than.

The End

All rights reserved. All characters are fictitious in this story and no reference is intended to any person living or otherwise.

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