Mechanics 101 -- Shifting Gears By Lugnutz, with OCC

Chapter Three

We had our celebration, even though we did not win the event. We lost in the semi-finals. The weather was getting better, so we changed the time on the car to compensate, but we were just beaten. Fair and square. That's racing.

At the party, it was Nigel and myself, Jake and Jeremy, and Mollie made an appearance with her boyfriend. It was not a big affair, just a few friends having some fun.

I ended up drinking too much, and thrown up. Good thing it was outside. But nothing will grow in that part of the yard again.

Later in the evening, when it was just Nigel, Mollie and me. We were talking about nothing in particular, when I decide to play wiseass.

"Hey Nige, I'm going to move in with Mollie. I'm going straight."

"Really now...." Nige scratches his chin, contemplating.

"Yup, and he's going to share my bed" Mollie said, giggling through a hiccup.

"Need help packing?" Nige asked.

"Nah, I got it covered." I said, playing this out.

"Mollie, just one thing before you take him over." Nigel said.

"What's that?" Mollie inquired.

"Darren farts in his sleep." Nigel said, deadpan.

"I do not!!!" I cried Trying to act offended.

"Darren, I think it's off. I can't have someone tooting in MY bed. besides, that's my job." Mollie said. She dumped me. boo hoo. We got a good laugh from it.

Did I ever say I love my life now? Well, I do. Nigel does so much for me, my head. I know it works both ways, I just don't know what my life would be like without him there.

I was going to find out just how much he really does love me.

The phone rang while we were having dinner Wednesday eve. I went to get it.

"Hello."

"Oh, hi mom. How are things?"

"Could you say that again, I don't think I heard you right."

"Yes, we can be there this weekend" I give Nigel a look that says 'later'.

"I'll talk to him about it, I can't promise anything. "

"How is he doing? This has got to be rough."

"Ok, we'll see you Saturday morning. Love ya mom"

"Bye"

I hang the phone up, and stare at the wall, until Nige gives me a bump.

"What's going on, Dar?" He said, sounding very concerned.

"We need to sit down, before I fall down." I had to sort out everything my mom just told me.

Once on the couch, Nige pulls back, and looks at me.

"What's going on at home?"

"It was bad news, and it was great news, I just don't know where to start." I was starting to shake. Nigel pulled me to him.

"Can you start from the beginning? You can have all the time you need."

"Well," I started. "You remember seeing, on the news about a multi-car pileup, with casualties?" I get a nod. "Some of those were my family. My aunt, uncle, and 14 year old cousin were killed in the crash, along with the inferno that consumed their car, and two semis." Nigel was holding onto me tight. "But there is a silver lining to this misery."

"What could that possibly be??" Nigel almost shouted.

"My 4 year old cousin wasn't in the car, he was at a friends house that day."

"Oh god." Nige muttered. "What's going to happen to him?"

"It's why we need to go to moms this weekend. I have a question to ask you." I said in all seriousness.

"What is that?"

"Would you like to share guardianship of him?" I asked, plain and simple.

"Wh....wh......what? We would have a 4 year old boy living here?"

"What do you say, Nigel? Do you want to be somebodys daddy?" I asked, full of emotion.

Nigel jumped me on the couch.

"I love you so much, Darren. We'll be the best two dads the boy could want." Nige was crying.

"Let me call mom back and let her know. She has power of attorney over her sister- my aunt's family. Mom said that she couldn't properly care for the boy, and there were no other options. She want's us to take him." I informed Nigel of the situation.

"If it's possible, we can leave in tomorrow morning, I'll hook the small trailer to the van and we can go." He suggested.

"I'll ask her, I don't see a problem with it. Just call Jimmy and let him know we're going to be gone till Monday." I informed him of something he forgot about.

"It will be fine. Does the sprog have a name?" Nige asked.

"Sprog?"

"It's a English word, meaning young one, or child. So, does he have a name, or will he answer to 'hey kid'?"

"His name is Kelton Louis Hoffman." I said with a wide smile.

"Excellent, you call mom, and I'll see what I can do with the extra room, move things about." He was excited.

We've talked once in a while about kids, neither of us thought it could ever happen. Now, it has. At a great cost. I sat on the couch and cried, for the loss of family, and for the gain of my cousin.

"Hi mom."

"Yes, we talked, we want to do this."

"Oh, he's upstairs now, working on his new room. He's so excited mom, you should see him."

"The funerals are going to be Saturday also, huh? Is everything set, or is help needed?"

"Ok. Oh, is it all right if we got there tomorrow? Nigel wanted me to ask."

"Ok. We'll be bringing the van and a small trailer to bring his things back with us."

"Was their any objections to us taking him in over here?"

"I kind of figured that, but they don't have any bearing on this either, at least we are family."

"I know, It's going to be rough on him for a long time, but we will do everything in our power to make the pain go away and have him happy again."

"I know, don't push things. He's young, he will survive. What's to come of the house and everything else? What about insurance?"

"That's cool, once everything is sold and the insurance settled, it will go into a trust fund for his future."

"There will be a monthly allotment for expenses? Not that it's going to be needed, but it will be nice to have something for him to fall back on."

"Ok mom, we'll see you tomorrow night, let him know we love him very much. Love you too mom. Bye"

It's good to hear things will be taken care of, and Kelton will be able to get a good education and go to collage, when that time comes.

The accident happened two days ago, and in the last two hours, I've lost family, and gained someone precious. It is defiantly a cruel world. A child shouldn't lose his parents that young, and in the manner it happened. It was because of a thick fogbank covering a three mile section on highway. It just happened too fast. People were taken from us. It just isn't fair.

I cried again.

I awoke to Nigel, rubbing my back, next to me on the couch.

"Thanks hon. This has been rough. " I told him about the conversation with mom, and everything else.

"I'll get the van ready and have the trailer hooked up so we can leave first thing in the morning." Nigel stated.

We packed our bags, and got things ready for the trip.  Then looked the sprogs new room over. What does a four year old like? What are his favorite foods, TV shows, what kind of games does he like? A whole slew of thoughts were running through my head. Were we doing right by him? I just hoped that we weren’t making a huge mistake.

I gave a look to Nigel, he knew what was going through my mind.

"It will be fine, I know it will be rough for a while until things even themselves out, but this is something we can do. We will be doing the job his parents started. Have faith Darren." He gave me a sound hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"Lets get some sleep, we have to be on the road early." Nige suggested.

We hit on the road about 8am, and made our journey home.

"How does this sound," Nigel said, out of the blue. "Once we have him settled, we get him a dog, a nice, gentle and goofy dog. We can call it Spaz. How does that sound?"

"I think it sounds great, a bouncy playmate for a energetic boy." I concurred.

"Do you think Mollie has room in her daycare center for him? For the first couple weeks, we can trade off days at the shop and hang out with him until he gets used to us, and the house." I mentioned, after a few miles of silence.

"There is something I didn't think of. Let me give her a call." He pulls out the cell and starts dialing.

"Mollie, hi, how are you doing?"

"Not too bad here, actually, this is a business call."

"Quit laughing, I'll give you the short version of the story for now."

"Yes, it's serious. There was an accident involving Darrens family. It left his four year old cousin without a family. We are going to his hometown now, and we will be picking him up along with his things and bringing him home with us."

"No, it's not short term, it's permanent. Darren and I will be his family, we will raise him. What we were wondering, is there room there for daycare until he starts school in a couple years."

"That sounds great. We'll have you over to the house next week, so you can meet him and get aquatinted."

"I know, it's going to be tough for a while, but their is a child here, and we won't fail him."

"Thanks allot Mollie, we love you lots, don't know what we would do without you."

"Yeah yeah, I’m a big sap, so sue me. We should be back home sometime Sunday. We'll figure Tuesday or Wednesday for your visit."

"Sounds good, talk to you then. G'bye."

"She says we will owe her bigtime." Nigel summed it up.

"I'm not going to bed with her though, she farts, you heard her." I tried saying with a straight face.

"Yeah, but YOU still fart in your sleep." He proceeded to punch my arm.

"Bum! I'm fragile you know." I feigned injury.

"You got tossed around in the car and only got your bell rung. and a busted limb." He summed up my wreck.

"Doesn’t mean I'm not fragile." I bat my eyelashes at him.

"Shadup and drive, will ya?" Hehe, I got him worked up.

We mainly listened to tunes during the ride, and switched off driving chores when we fueled.

We pulled into the city around 5pm, what a drag. I hate traffic. I decided to call mom and let her know we would be there in about 30 minutes.

"Hi mom!!" Nigel and I said, in stereo.

"You boys have a good trip?"

"Sure did, except this lump," I pointed to Nige. "Kept hitting me." I put on a pout for mom.

"I'll bet you deserved it, you usually do" She smirked to Nigel.

"Are we going to do this again? You know I'm a perfect little boy. We established that fact already." Trying to repair my wounded pride.

They both went off like a cannon, with guffaws. They couldn't speak for a couple minutes. Finally mom comes out of it.

"Thanks Darren, we needed that." Mom said through the last chuckles.

We grabbed our things and went into the house, to our room.  After getting settled, we gathered in the living room.

"Mom, this has me scared shitless. What if we screw this up? I couldn't live with myself if anything happens." I told my mom.

"You have every right to be scared. Your going into this dry, but you also have good instincts, trust them. You both will be good fathers." Mom stated, with a smile.

"What does sprog think of this? It has to be difficult for him to understand."

"Sprog?" Mom questioned. Nigel filled her in.

"He knows what happened, and what is going on. He's not been doing well at times. He is out right now with a friend of mine, while we talk. He's sleeping on a cot in my room at the moment, just so he has someone right there if he has troubles. if you would like, we can move it into your room." Mom laid it out.

"It would probably be for the best, he has to get to know us anyway. We'll talk to him when they get back." Nigel stated the fact.

"What is the plan for the next few days? We need to get to know him before we head back home. And when we get his things." I questioned

"You'll have plenty of time. Tonight, Friday and Saturday. He's out of sorts right now, and is a bit pushy. But, he is not normally like that. He is a bubbly bouncing active four year old. He has quite an imagination, artistic and smart as a whip. I think he will take to you two nicely, just give him time, and lots of attention." Mom said, since she knew him best.

"Are his things sorted out yet at his house? What he wants, furniture and such?" I asked.

"Nope, not yet. We can do that tomorrow, and park your trailer in my garage so we can take care of other things Saturday." Mom said. I know this is going to be very hard for her too. It was her baby sister. She was close with the family.

"Sounds good, need to get it out of the way so we can move to happier things." Nigel added.

"Has he said anything to what he would call us? Our names? Have you filled him in on us? Our situation?" Nigel questioned.

"I have told him all about you two, names, what you look like, what you do and where you live. He likes the idea about living in the country. As for names, you will find out for yourself. I told him he didn't have to call either of you dad. I think he has something in mind." Mom informed us, to some detail.

"We have daycare set-up already too, my best friend, Mollie has a center and we talked on the way here. I'm having her stop by the house next week to meet Kelton and get to know eachother." Nige filled in mom on something she forgot.

"That's excellent then. It seems everything is all set but the moving." I seen a shadow cross her face, and a tear rolled down her cheek.

"It'll be hard mom, I know, but it will get better, I promise." Nigel told her, with confidence.

About this time, a knock on the door is heard.

"Come in" Mom says.

The door opens, and in walks the sprog. About three and a half feet tall, hair so blonde it's almost white, and those eyes, the happiness, the pain. We stand as moms friend walks in behind Kelton and closes the door. Nothing is said for a couple minutes. While we are getting sized up.

Little Kelton walks to us, looking at us. Then he speaks.

"Are you my new daddies?"

To be continued.............