SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

The shop was in an old barn a bit further down from the house. The first few times I went there after his death, I sat at his welding station in the dark, listening to the silence, trying to feel if he was still here, if part of him was still around. The smell of his pipe tobacco and the damp coal in the forge lingered. I wasn’t able to stay for long. One day, I decided that it would be a good idea to straighten up the place. I had always been responsible for cleaning after we worked together. I swept the floor planks, making sure the metal sheathing around the welding station was clear of anything combustible. I straightened out the tools and cleaned the forging hammers with oil, then swept the two workbenches. I cleaned the shelf that had all the leftover parts like copper fittings, pieces of iron, steel rods, plates, and other items. I emptied the ash container in the forge, polished the anvils, and greased the spindles of the vices.

I had my own leather apron. It hung next to my father’s under a small shelf that had our gloves and welding masks on it. When I looked at it, I started to cry and couldn’t continue that day. I didn’t go back for a few days. One morning, I woke up thinking about him saying druhhh . I began to scribble the word on pieces of paper during class at school. ‘Draw’ was the closest I could come to making sense of it. Did my father, with his last word, tell me to start drawing?

That afternoon, I went back to the shop. I turned the light on, kindled a fire in the wood stove, and sat in the corner opposite the chimney. From there, I could see the whole shop. I had a large drawing pad and a pencil and began to sketch the room. First, I tried to get the right perspective and proportions. Then I added the chimney and the large workbenches. After that came the welding station, the forging area, the large shelf with the materials, the small old dresser that had been converted to hold small boxes of nuts, bolts, washers, rags, and smaller parts. From there I went to the tool carts, the other chairs, and the larger tools like the stand-up drill and belt grinder.

After a few hours, I was done. I hung the picture in my room where I could see it from my bed. I lay awake for most of that night. The moon rose around 11 pm and I took the drawing with me into my restless sleep. In my dream, the picture was made from charcoal from the forging oven. But it was washed out and almost unrecognizable. When I woke up again, my clock showed 1:45 am. Druhhh . Druhhh . Draw. I said the words out lout . Druwh. Drough. Drought. Dry. Draw . I looked at the drawing again. Drum. Drawl. Draw. Drawer. Drawer. Drawer.

DRAWER!

I sat up. Drawer. The moonlight on the wall was enough to illuminate the drawing. The old dresser. I’d never looked inside the drawers, hadn’t gotten to organizing them yet. I got out of bed, put on my thermal pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and a wool sweater. It had gotten cold during the last few days. The first flurries of snow had fallen yesterday. I went downstairs as quietly as I could and put on my boots. I left the house through the back door and walked along the silvery path toward the dark silhouette of the barn. My heart was pounding when I arrived. I didn’t want to turn the lights on so I grabbed a flashlight from the hook next to the door. I kindled a fire in the stove and stood in front of the dresser for a while. Part of me couldn’t wait to open the drawers and see what was in there. The other part wasn’t so sure. What if there was nothing? What if I was chasing a ghost? What if my dad had simply told me that he wanted water?

There was no point in stalling. I needed to know. I opened the first drawer. On the right side, an assortment of bolts of different lengths and widths was organized into sections, separated by narrow pieces of thin, dark wood. On the other side of the drawer were nuts and washers. Over time, the sizes had gotten mixed up and now it was just a mess of bits mingling together.

I should have taken better care of this , I thought. Instead, I’d let it get to this level of disorganization. The next drawer wasn’t as deep. It held a few pieces of sandpaper for the belt grinder. Nothing else. I closed it. Then I opened it again and looked closer. It wasn’t deep enough for the size of the drawer. I took out the sheets of sandpaper and placed them on top of the dresser. A false bottom. I could see it right away. There was a small gap between it and the back board of the drawer. I pulled it up. It dislodged easily.

The beam of my flashlight illuminated what looked like a spiral notebook. It was blackened from grease and metal dust and its corners were bent upward. Large parts of the spiral were missing. I carefully lifted it up. Below it lay what looked like a piece of metal sheathing. Maybe a square foot and a quarter of an inch in thickness. I took it in my hands, expecting its weight to be much more than it actually was. It felt like lead but without the weight. I tapped at it with my fingernail. The sound was similar to that of glass when touched with a metal object. Pling! I carefully laid it on the ground.

I went to the stove and added a few logs to the embers. The chill hadn’t left the room yet. I pulled a chair close, sat down, and opened the notebook. The first page, written in perfect pencil lettering, started with Table of Contents . Below that, and perfectly aligned according to its sections, it said:

1—Parts

1.1 Centrifugal Rotor

1.1.1 Core

1.1.2 Outer Ring

1.1.3 Connectors

1.2 Power Supply

1.2.1 Battery Compartment

1.2.2 Capacitor Board

1.3 Controls

1.3.1 Left Foot Pedal

1.3.2 Right Foot Pedal

1.3.3 Display

1.4 External Parts

1.4.1 Chassis

1.4.2 Faraday Cage

1.5 Traveler’s Chair

1.5.1 Head Rest and Neck Stabilizer

1.5.2 Seat and Back

2—Construction and Assembly

3—Setting Dates

4—Travel

5—Clothing and Accessories

6—Safety

7—The Traveler

What followed were twenty pages of neatly written text intertwined with drawings, sketches, and mathematical formulas. Then several pages with lists of materials needed. This list was separated into items we had in the shop and others that needed to be bought. The list had everything in it, from metal wire fencing to pieces of copper, from steel piping to Neodymium rare earth magnets that could be ordered through the mail.

The Construction and Assembly section described how to put it all together, piece by piece. I recognized my father’s writing—how he phrased certain sentences and how he began some of the lines with "Careful there!" He had used this phrase many times throughout his teachings.

"Careful there, don’t apply too much pressure on the welding rod. Let it be pulled into the steel rather than push it into the bead."

I could hear him as if he stood beside me, reading to me in his deep voice. I had to stop several times. During those moments, I felt both the pain over his loss and the love he had left behind.

I still had no idea what the finished product would be. Until I got to the end of the section. The drawing took up a whole page. It was detailed and seemed to be to scale. It took me all but two seconds to see what it was. One person could comfortably sit inside. The chassis was made from galvanized pipes. The cabin holding the traveler was surrounded by metal fencing. A faradic cage. There was an engine of sorts and two pedals, one for each foot, to control the machine.

Did he expect me to build this? He must have wanted to give it to me much later, maybe five or ten years from now. Surely he hadn’t expected to die so soon. I stared at the notebook for a while, then closed it carefully and placed it back into the drawer. I was cold all of a sudden. The fire must have gone out. "I’m sorry, Dad, but what you want me to do is impossible," I said into the silence. I listened for a moment, in case there was an answer. But the shop was quiet. When I left, the grey sky loomed overhead.