600 Hours of Edward

again.
    I take a break from painting before I get to the garage door. I open the garage and look at The Big Project, gleaming in freshly painted glory. I dab at the body of it with my left forefinger, testing the paint and lacquer. It seems to be dry. I think it’s ready.
    I roll it into the front yard.
    – • –
    Kyle is a predictable boy, at least in terms of coming and going. I’m working the same corner of the garage eave, at the same time, when I hear his voice. This reliability is comforting to me.
    “Whoa! What’s that?”
    I climb down off the ladder, grinning. “You don’t know?”
    “No. It looks awesome! What is it?”
    “It’s for you.”
    “Really? But what is it?”
    I start telling Kyle a story. When I was a little younger than him, for Christmas 1977, my parents got me something called a “Green Machine.” They tried to tell me that it had come from Santa Claus, but the idea of Santa Claus never seemed logical tome, and by then I knew the truth. By then, I was tolerating their pretending that a fat man in a red suit could live in a place as inhospitable as the North Pole and deliver toys to kids all over the world in one night. The whole notion is preposterous.
    I leave out the fallacy of Santa Claus in telling my story to Kyle, though. It’s not my place to tell him such a thing. He’s a smart boy. He probably already knows that it’s not true.
    I tell him about the Green Machine. I say it was the greatest Christmas gift I ever received.
    It was like a Big Wheel in that it had a big wheel up front, but it was unlike a Big Wheel in every other way. You didn’t steer the big wheel. You had two levers that controlled the rear axle, which would swivel the smaller back wheels. You would sit recumbent style, pedaling the big front wheel, swiveling the back wheels and tearing around all over the place.
    “This,” I tell Kyle, “is your own Green Machine. Except that it’s not green, it’s blue. And it’s built out of way better stuff than the Green Machine. The sad truth of the Green Machine is that eventually the plastic would wear out and holes would develop in the wheels.
    “This one has an adjustable seat, so you can ride it even as you get bigger. It has shocks, so it doesn’t hurt when you hit holes on the street—”
    “It’s even got a cup holder!” Kyle says.
    “That’s for your Diet Dr Pepper. Do you want to try it out?”
    “Heck yeah!” He’s jumping up and down.
    I show him how the levers work—how if he pulls the left one back and pushes the right one forward, the axle will swivel in a way that causes his vehicle to turn left. If he reverses that and pulls the right lever back and pushes the left forward, the machine will make a right turn.
    “If you lean into the turn a little bit, it will help, but you’re not going to flip it. It’s very well balanced. Just ride carefully and watch out for cars, OK?”
    “OK.”
    And then Kyle hesitates. “Do you need me to help paint the garage first?”
    “No. I have it. You just give me a little shout when you pass by, OK?”
    “You got it.”
    “Hey, Kyle?”
    “Yeah?”
    “What are you going to call it?”
    Kyle crinkles his nose as he thinks for a second, then he lights up again. “The Blue Blaster!”
    And he’s off.
    For the next hour and a half, as I’m putting the finishing touches on the garage, Kyle is riding laps around the block, sticking to the sidewalk. Every few minutes, I hear “Hi, Edward” as he goes shooting by, a happy boy on his Blue Blaster.
    – • –
    At 4:36, Donna crosses the street and intercepts Kyle as he’s making his thirty-seventh pass around the block. (I have been counting.)
    “Whoa, mister. What’s this thing you have here?”
    “It’s the Blue Blaster, Mom.”
    Donna looks up from the three-wheeled vehicle at me. “Is this yours, Edward? It’s really cool.”
    “No, it’s mine,” Kyle says. “Edward made it for me.”
    “Really?” Donna does not look as happy as Kyle.
    “Look at this,” Kyle says, and he goes through the explanation of how the levers work and how the seat is adjustable and the cup holder and the rest. As he chatters away, Donna keeps glancing up at me on the ladder.
    “OK, Kyle, it’s really cool. Take it home now.”
    Kyle starts to complain, but Donna cuts him off with a stare.
    “See you later, Edward. Thanks again,” he says, and then he plops back into the Blue Blaster’s seat and pilots it to his house.
    “I need to talk to