Cheviot Machine and Screw

NOTE - This section of American Project contains adult language and content and is therefore not suitable for minors.

Episode 11

The water cannon was manufactured in the tiny Cheviot Machine and Screw shop on Glenmore, before Harrison, and after Gamble. The one in the basement of the storefront building, with the awning, with the apartments on the second and third floors for bachelors with hot plates, who liked to masturbate at pictures of glossy Ass Thumper magazines.

Len Wiedeshofer owned Cheviot Machine and Screw. He inherited it from his dad, and his uncle, both of whom had been dead since the late seventies. Len himself was in his early sixties. He wore jeans and a polo shirt to work every day. In the winter he would come in with his Cincinnati Reds silk bomber jacket, hang it up on the hook outside his office, and brew coffee.

He would pull out the work order docket for the day, and hand it over to his two employees, Sax Taxson, and big Ernie Shores.

Sax loved the universal milling machine, so he usually got all the orders with angle iron and flange shaping. Big Ernie was great with the horizontal miller, and he was an expert welder.

Len had spoken, informally, with Henge at Frisch’s a week and a half ago over a Big Boy dinner. Henge had the liver and cottage cheese, and the soup salad and fruit bar.

“Bubba,” Henge said to Len. “I was wondering if you could make me a water cannon,” he said.

On a napkin, Henge began scribbling a design for a cannon, able to be mounted on the bulkhead of his small snipe, manual with a vacuum pump mechanism, and accurate up to nearly fifty yards. Henge had heard somewhere that geniuses invented things on napkins.

Len breathed, and eased back in the smoking section bench, and took the limp napkin as Henge handed it to him.

Straitening the napkin out, Len examined the sweeping scrawl of the design.

“Ah huh,” Len said. Len nodded his head, and furrowed his brow.

“I think we can make this,” Len said.

“That would be great, Len.”

The waitress asked if anyone wanted dessert. Henge opted for the cheesecake, and some coffee. Len, who claimed an Adkins type diet, said no, he was fine.

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Photograph by Nythan James.