Every Act of Creation - Part V

I worked at rebuilding that garage for nearly three months. Every day after school until dark and all day on Saturdays my time was devoted to helping Mr. Alarcon get it back up. It was hard work. Hammering, nailing, sawing were daily activities, and I went home most every day with a new blister to show off to my brother.

Each time I went over to Mr. Alarcon's house, though, the guilt over what I'd done subsided just a little bit more. It helped to know that I was helping right something I set so wrong, even if it was an accident.

One by one the other guys came forward and admitted their roles in the affair, too. My brother was the last one to rat on himself. They all started coming over and helping, too, and before we knew it, the garage looked as good as new.

Not so with the Packard, unfortunately. I was irreplaceable, and there was nothing any of us could do to bring it back. It was gone for good. Many were the times when I would see Mr. Alarcon looking longingly at the charred body of his favorite possession. To this day I wish I could have resurrected the car right on the spot.

One day, several weeks after my confession, Mr. Alarcon put his grizzled hand on my shoulder. We were sitting on the roof of his new garage soaking in some of the cool air before we finished nailing on the tarpaper shingles. Turning my head, I looked up into those dull blue eyes and smiled. "Boy," he said in his thick Italian accent, "what made you come forward anyway?"

I pushed the lump in my throat a little further down so I could tell him of the guilt I felt and how I had carried it around for a whole weekend. But try as I did, the reason just wouldn't come out. Tears did, though, and lots of them.

Pulling me closer, Mr. Alarcon pulled off my ballcap, rubbed my head and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Mr. Alarcon!" I sobbed in his arms. "I didn't mean to do it!"

"I know, son," he said softly. "But don't worry. That car never ran worth a darn and I wanted to rebuild the garage anyway." That was all he said for a long time. Then suddenly, he sat down on a stack of shingles and laughed heartily.

The tears stopped momentarily while I fixed my own blue eyes on the tears coming from his. To my surprise I saw they were tears of joy.

"You know, son," he chuckled even harder. "I guess those hornets won't be coming back any time soon!"

Gathering my shocked senses, I sat on the roof next to the old man, and before I knew it I was laughing right along with him, tears streaming from my bloodshot eyes.

Pablo Picasso once said that "every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction." The day I burned down Mr. Alarcon's garage an eternal friendship was created. Until the day he died I went to his house every Saturday afternoon and listened to his fascinating stories. I loved him, and I guess it took burning down his garage to do it.

I grew up a lot thanks to him and his garage. I learned what hard work is and that work is what life is all about. It isn't about who's got the best toys or the power or the popularity or fame. It's about working hard and being happy. Helping him rebuild his garage I worked really hard for the first time in my life and I was happy - really happy.

Mr. Alarcon showed me how happy he was, too. His prized '49 Packard was a charcoal-broiled junkheap and his garage was a total loss. But he could still laugh at his misfortune. It takes a lot of character to be able to do that. It takes a lot of enthusiasm for life. Mr. Alarcon had it.

I've tried to emulate that kind of passion in my own life. I don't always succeed, but at least now I have the confidence to laugh at many of the ill winds that sometimes give me that wind-blown look. After all, tomorrow is another day.

Mr. Alarcon died about five years after we finished rebuilding his garage. I was only about 17, but I felt worse then than I'd ever felt before. It took me years to get over the pain. I still think of him often.

In his will, among several other things, he left me the hammer we'd both used to do all that work. It was all beat up and scarred, but he'd printed my name on the head with his shaky handwriting and on the handle he'd engraved the words "Thanks for your friendship. I'll always love you."

I'll always love you, too, Mr. Alarcon. I'm glad I burned down your garage.

"I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man." George Washington