Mechanic (Not Finished...)

Jethro pulled himself out from under the machine. Wiping his oil drenched hands off on his pants he sat up and leaned against the metallic exterior. Everything seemed to be in order, the filters were clean, oil changed, the engine was brand new and the gears were more lubricated than his grandfather's beard.  
He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving a thin trail of grease. In his mind he ran over scenario after scenario searching for anything that could have caused the aircraft to collapse.
“Puzzling like this won’t do you any good, boy.” His grandfather slouched in the doorway, his fingers locked around a grimey bottle.
“It’s better than waiting for it to work itself out.” Jethro shot back as he pulled himself up and walked to a small table that was covered in various tools and papers. He leafed through the pages of a notebook apparently oblivious to his grandfather’s disapproving grunt.
“This obsession of yours,” Ollie tsked with a couple of drunken steps forward, “not healthy.”
Jethro ripped a corner of the blueprint he had been surreptitiously studying.
“Keep at it and you’ll end up like your parents, you will. They worked on this baby every bleedin’ minute of every bleedin’ day. Bunch of fools that they were.” Ollie slapped the side of the craft. “And where did it get them? Huh?”
Jethro let the paper fall and gripped the edges of the table.
“Nowhere.” The old man barked, spit flew from his mouth, “It got them nowhere.”
Jethro’s fingernails dug into the soft wood.
Ollie let out another grunt before downing the rest of the bottles content. The stretching silence was interrupted as Ollie slammed the empty bottle on the cement floor where it shattered into dozens of pieces.
“Enough!” Jethro whipped around, “It wasn’t their fault that they died. You act like they had a choice but they didn’t. This baby was their ticket out of here and now it’s mine. Any day now she’ll be ready and when she is she’ll fly higher than any of the Contingent’s war drones.”
Ollie scoffed, “You sound just like them, ranting on and on about your little day dream.”
“I will fix her, Oliver, and when I do I’m gone.” Jethro pushed past Ollie, slamming the door to the workshop behind him.
Jethro ran up the flight of steps that connected the garage to a small room over top. The room was mostly bare. Two mattresses lay in opposite corners of the room with a short dresser connecting them. A stove and cupboard sat along the east wall and in the middle of the floor a table with three wobbly legs stood.
Jethro absconded to the mattress that lay underneath the only window in the room. He wiped his hands on his pants again and then pulled on a dark grey jacket. He closed his eyes tightly for a moment before reaching up and opening the window. Using the sill, Jethro hauled himself out. He carefully closed the window and began to scoot down the protruding awning on his hands and feet.
He paused at the edge listening to the string of curses coming from inside the shop. His face flushed with anger and he let himself drop to the ground.  His feet stung with the impact but he shook it off.
“Stupid old man.” He muttered, pulling his hood up as he turned into the frigid wind. The cracked sidewalks were covered in a thin layer of grime that covered everything in the Lower City. Jethro glared miserably at his own caked hands before shoving them into his pockets.
The Lower City was long and narrow and stretched for nearly nine miles. Nothing grew there except the occasional hardy weed. Dilapidated apartments rose along the sides, windows shut tight against the persisting chill.
Jethro turned down the alley and encountered a group of factory workers hanging around the entrance of Silverman’s Bar. It still seemed too early in the night for their shifts to be done. He wondered blithely whether it was a holiday of some sort. But why would they chose to remain outside when the bar’s warmth and light taunted so alluringly? The bar was one of the busier places in the Lower City but there was always room for an extra paying customer.
Jethro pushed back his thoughts in an attempt to clear his mind. It was too busy, too many thoughts swirling around. If he could just focus on the machine.
“Understatement of the century!” He overheard a worker declare.