Die Nasty was a 1988 Dynasty LE. In a Dusty rose metallic color which looked more like brown than rosy. The owner truly seemed distraught, wanting to save the vehicle from the scrapyard. Joe felt the sentiment. After all, a car was like a pet, it was part of your family. It took you places, you took it places. Letting it die and sending it to the scrapyard was a fate as bad if not worse than euthanasia. Especially when the image of the poor car crushed and twisted into a metal cube was brought to mind. or worse yet, left to be picked apart by scrappers and its exposed chassis left to rot in the elements and sun.

Driveshaft deformation had been its diagnosis and it wasn’t too hard of a fix, a three hundred dollar part if that was all that needed to be changed. Either way, Louis had done a few things himself, leaving the harder parts to Louis or him. He fetched himself some goggles and tied his bandana around the lower half of his face to keep any dust n dirt from falling into his eyes or breathing it in. He raised the car up on jacks. He removed the wheels, the 32mm socket and undid the tie rods. He had done similar jobs so many times that he simply went through all the motions, uncaring for the things around him. 

He only thought about his talk with Nara. They shared things in common that went deeper than just a surface glance. To be honest he hadn't expected her, who came in with such a strong presence, to be caring enough to make sure he got home safe. Especially after only seeing him a few times. The gangs truly were like family to her in a way. He didn't think he could ever feel that same kind of emotion about them as she did considering how she joined. 

Then he wondered about the lady at the cafe, did they share anything in common? Would it be better if they didn't so that they could learn more about each other? They did like the same drink.

All this thinking about girls reminded him of someone. Sandra. God, why did Sandra have to dump him? He had really liked her too but nooo she wanted him to work fewer hours to spend more time shopping and driving her around in his car. She was such a big number on his wallet that he simply needed those hours to afford her! Well, now she was gone and being alone was something that really ached. He missed being either a big or little spoon.

"Hey. Joseph!" It was Louis, not just because he could tell by the voice. But he knew those dark red converse hightops anywhere.

"Hey, what's up? Don't you see I got a big lady on my face right now?" Joe smirked as he pulled himself out from under the car. He wiped his hands on a shop towel he had stuffed through one of the belt loops of his mechanic's jumpsuit. "Come on, talk to me."

"Well, you didn't have to get out of there. I just wanted you to know that Nara's gang left a few guns. I know you're good with fiddly things thanks to your guitarist's fingers so I thought you could give em all a good clean and lubing? You'll get paid for each one." Louis tapped the end of his pen on his notepad as Joe got up onto his feet. "You know Vern's got them fat fingers. Strong but not good for the small stuff." He grinned. "What do you say? Deal?"

Joe squinted at the ground as if he was in thought then he stuck a hand out towards Louis. "Alright deal." He felt Louis take his hand in a firm handshake to which Joe only squeezed tighter. It felt like Louis wanted to crush his hand and so in return, he crushed the guy's hand, even more. The both of them stood smiling at each other like nothing was happening until Vernard walked past.

The big man raised an eyebrow, "What are you guys doing just standing there looking at each other's eyes, smiling, and holding hands?"

The handshake ended, both Louis and Joe cleared their throats.

"You know just-" Joe didn't really have an answer to why they began to crush each other's hands with their grip like that.

"It's a handshake man, can't two bros just shake hands over an agreement?" Louis shook his head.

"Get the fuck out of here, let me work!" Joe then playfull pushed Louis away, "Don't you got paper clips to yell at?"

"First of all, they're banker's clips, not paper clips. Know the difference, Joseph. Uncultured swine."

"They both clip paper and you know that." Joe got back down onto his back and pulled himself back under the car. Die Nasty wasn't going to fix itself. The rest of his mechanic work went uneventfully, things went in as they had to and Die Nasty would be able to get on the road with its replaced parts. He felt pretty proud of himself, it was another job well done.

Yet there was one job he had to still do. He had done the job before for other firearms per Louis's request, it's not like he hadn't before. He went to the office and took the case of pistols to the back of the shop. There were five pistols in total, some were gunked up and he knew what it was from the smell. The other two pistols weren't as odorous but had dirt caked into their mechanisms. He whispered to himself as he began to work on one of the bloody pistols, "What did these guys get into?"

He improvised with the tools he had at the shop, not that they were very different. He had wire brushes of different sizes and screwdrivers instead of rods to push some cleaning cloth through the barrels. He took his time getting all the gunk off of them and after lubing them up he realized he had to clean the case. It smelled worse than the time Sandra left a pot of food in his oven. He normally didn't use the oven, so when he realized where the smell was coming from, he threw the whole pot away and spent all day washing the oven.

He left the pistols, in their case, under the office desk for Louis to give back to the bikers. For now? He was going back home to the girl who would never leave him. She loved to whistle at him. She remembered what he said. Most of all she loved to scream his name and snuggle into the crook of his neck. Before he got home he needed to pick a gift up for her and he picked up a bag of pistachios from the gas station. She would like these, if not, he'd eat them. He was thinking of course of, 

"Queenie, baby! I'm home!" He announced as he stepped into the front door. He heard the flutter of wings as the Major Mitchell cockatoo flew over to greet him. It was getting closed to her bedtime but he had to give her as much attention as he could now that he was home. "Did you miss me, darling?" He took out the bag of roasted pistachios and made the back crinkle, "You wanna crack open some nuts for us to eat?" 

Queenie's feathers fluffed up and she bobbed her head. Her crest raised as she moved from his right shoulder to the left and climbed down his jacket's sleeve to try to grab the bag of nuts in her beak.

Joe sat down at the small square table and opened the bag, letting all the nuts pour onto the table. There Queenie and he could enjoy the snack together. He could always count on her to crack them open efficiently, sometimes not even to eat them but for the sheer joy of crushing the shell into pieces. He rubbed his finger on her cheek, which he knew she liked from the squint her cute brown eyes got.  He brought out some melon cubes from the fridge to share with her as well. But eventually she began to stick her head in her feathers and he knew she was getting sleepy. "Don't worry baby, the weekend is coming up soon and it'll be you n me all day both days. Tomorrow is a half day for me and you can come with."