Chapter 15: Padlock

On Friday morning at nine, a sheriff's deputy parked across the mouth of Dean's garage.

Gerald's lawyer got out of the back of a grey sedan with a folder under his arm.

A locksmith climbed down from a van behind him.

Dean stood in the open bay door in his stained coveralls and didn't move.

"Mr. Tierney," the lawyer said. "The note on this property fell due at nine o'clock. It hasn't been paid."

"I know what time it is."

"Then you know the holder has the right to secure the premises."

"The holder is a man who wouldn't let my brother say his own name to his own girl."

"I'm only here to read the notice."

He read it.

It took four minutes.

Three customers stood on the gravel with their keys in their hands, waiting for cars that were still on the lifts.

One of them was an old man who had brought his truck to my father's garage every spring for thirty years.

"Dean," he said. "What is this?"

"This is Gerald Ashworth," Dean said, "doing what he does."

The deputy looked at his boots.

The locksmith went down the row of bays with a chain.

He ran it through the handles of the big doors, one by one, and snapped a padlock on the end.

The sound carried across the whole lot.

My father had built this place in 1989 with his own two hands and a loan from a man at church.

I had learned to change a tire on that floor when I was nine.

I stood beside Dean and watched it close.

"Don't," Dean said, very low. "Don't you hit anyone."

"I'm not going to."

"Good, because I'm going to, and I need you to hold my coat."

I almost smiled.

The lawyer snapped his folder shut.

"You have seventy-two hours to remove personal property," he said.

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