Request for Support: Hot Mamas Garage

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From: Sabine Winemiller-Guerrero <mia.betty.madre@hotmail.com>
Sent: Monday, March 7, 2089 11:01 AM
To: B. Grant Winemiller <winemillerbg@pcc.gov>
Subject: HELP! ☺

Hi baby Bluejay!

I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since I saw your sweet face. I hope you’re doing good! Thanks again for coming to my graduation!

Remember that business Ilvy and I joked about starting when we were all at Pop’s? Well, we’re going to give it a real go! I know it’s crazy thinking of your mom running a shop, but what else is a college degree good for? ☺

I know you’re probably sick of looking at PCC forms all day, but Pop keeps insisting that you can smooth out our application before we send it in. I know he’s right, but I didn’t want to bother you (and if I am, please just blame Pop! :P).

I attached it here in case you feel like looking at it. It’s only the narrative part since Ilvy is handling the budget. It’s 100% up to you. I love you no matter what.

Lots of love,
Mama <3

* * *

From: B. Grant Winemiller <winemillerbg@pcc.gov>
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2089 4:33 PM
To: Sabine Winemiller-Guerrero <mia.betty.madre2@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: HELP! ☺

Good afternoon,

Thanks for the kind words, and please give Pop all my love.

I don’t typically take work home on the weekends, but I can take a run at yours and let you know. My comments will be in track changes.

Best,
B. Grant Winemiller (they/he)

Enterprise Advancement Associate II
Public Capital Commission
Chicago Area Field Office
Box 145688 | Chicago, IL 60652
Endowing the People’s enterprise since 2051
t: 312.421.4561.3881
e: winemillerbg@pcc.gov
follow: Instagram | Weibo | Myspace

* * *

Public Capital Commission

Form 4032-L
Resource Request Application
Public Proprietorship or Small Business/Service

1. Name of organization: Hot Mamas Garage¹

Comment [1]: Are you married to this name?

2. Date Established: December 7, 2088²

Comment [2]: Did you mean to pick Pearl Harbor Day?

3. Fullname(s) of Contact Person(s):

· Ms. Sabine Winemiller-Guerrero (she/her/hers). Labor spec: H (I-pending)

· Mx. Ilvia Guerrero³ Reyes (they/she) Labor spec: M

Comment [3]: You sure you want to mix love and business? It’d be better to apply on your own and list Ilvy as a collaborator. If y’all split again, it’ll be a major headache.

4. Full Postal Address: 11227 Pickle City Rd. Berea, IL 628120

5. Full Physical Address: ^same^

6. Telephone number: 1 -618-435-4108-2618

7. Email Address(es):

· hotmamasgarage@sba.gov⁴

Comment [4]:So you already signed up with the Small Business Admin. I guess we’re stuck with this name.

· mia.betty.madre⁵@hotmail.com

Comment [5]:I bet Ilvy’s girls appreciate being in your email address.

8. Website(s):

None yet⁶

Comment [6]: I can maybe put you in touch with a local dev to get one built quick. Actually, Mia or Betty ought to know somebody. Ask them.

9. Organizational Objectives⁷

Comment [7]: This is a solid idea, but they’ll be looking for something short and filled with their jargon, not yours (I know, it’s annoying). Here’s my rewrite. I can maybe tweak it in the coming weeks if it doesn’t sound right to you:

“The dream of Hot Mama’s Garage is to bridge service gaps in rural public transportation by restoring salvage vehicles from the Shawnee Strategic Material Repository into reliable emissionless personal vehicles — sometimes called ‘restomod EVs’ by locals — available at no cost to constituents. Meeting this need will help many stakeholders, especially rural under-contacted downstate Illinoisans who struggle to navigate the often-unreliable services of federal, state, and local aid programs initiated post-ROSE Act (which guaranteed public transportation in exchange for personal vehicle buyback). Hot Mama’s Garage will put safe transport back in their hands — this time without emissions and within a circular economy. The skilled local labor pool (including us, the proprietors) along with recent automotive advances — like piezoelectric tires, photovoltaic paints, and semi-universal bolt-on electric drivetrains—will allow us to launch the first of our fleet within three (3) months of funding. We will also contribute to the local childcare, refugee resettlement, workforce development, and transformative justice, systems, among others. [Listing your target groups will up your chances immensely. You’ll need a Form 4032-J] With your help, Hot Mama’s Garage can cleanly restore rural citizens’ freedom of movement, and much more.”

Free electric clean cars for rural Southern Illinoisans. All the green jobs and free clinics created by the ROSE Act helped a lot of people when I was a child, but decades later many of us in rural areas like southern Illinois keep slipping through the cracks. The bus schedule is unreliable, even for those who live inside city limits (and we don’t). If you don’t qualify for a vehicle ration (or can’t afford its tax stamp), then you’re left at the mercy of the shuttle dispatcher for your job, babysitting, eldercare, doctor, groceries, church, and anything else outside your home. If you’re lucky, you might have a neighbor or family to ask for a ride, but that’s only if they are lucky enough to have their own vehicle. Otherwise, you’re stuck at home, miles and miles outside of town.

That’s where Hot Mamas comes in. We aim to restore scrap vehicles from the Shawnee Heap for anyone who needs reliable transportation to call their own. Our mission is attainable due to our team’s experience and the fact that aftermarket self-charging technology like photovoltaic paint and piezoelectric tires and springs are now cheap enough to scale. That means we won’t need much of a battery ration and could even reduce stress on the supply chain. This tech takes a significant load off a car’s fuel cell so it can always stay charged. For instance, after I installed self-charging tires and suspension on my neighbor’s 2-ton wrecker, he could operate it all day and pull a snowplow shift in the evening without dropping below 70% charge.

With all this new technology available, we can make a reliable electric vehicle out of almost anything. These self-charging systems — along with an abundance of bolt-on EV crate motors on the market — are so easy to install that most of our labor goes toward repairing rust on salvaged vehicles — including everything from a decommissioned USPS truck to a bobtail semi.

So, with funds from PCC, Hot Mamas Garage can purchase parts, secure salvage rights, and pay living wages to start turning useless junk from the Shawnee Heap into a clean fleet of restomods for those who have gone overlooked by public transportation systems.

10. Primary constituents and (Sub)Groups served:

· Parents and legal guardians⁸ in our district come to mind because of my personal experience. We plan to have childcare on-site so workers wouldn’t have to be away from their little ones.

Comment [8]: Yeah, a decent vehicle would’ve made raising me a lot easier on Pop and G.

· BIPOC, especially those new to the area. Until recently, southern Illinois was mostly white, and that leaves a long shadow. White citizens like me still have advantages like land tenure to political connections that our shop will try to use in favor of the new majority.⁹

Comment [9]: Well-put, Mom. For specifics on how to do this, I’ll send you a contact over at EEOC. He’s great.

· Artists and entrepreneurs¹⁰ could use our vehicles to get their enterprises off the ground too. They wouldn’t have to leave home to seek greater opportunities in cities.¹¹

Comment [10]: Nice. In the appendix for this you should note the murals on the bioreactors. Or the festival when the yeast ponds shift from green to pink in spring. Or the glowing vineyard maze. Or, check this out, y’all could bring back the old car shows on the square.

Comment [11]: I’d leave this out. It’s a myth. Despite the fact I did it, it hasn’t been the trend for a good forty years or so.

· People trying to keep their sobriety.¹²

Comment [12]: Good idea. I’d get your sponsor to propose any programs you have in mind after the garage is already established as a public asset. Otherwise that’s another agency to work through at this point.

· Climate refugees¹³ especially would qualify. As a reforester, my dad joked that he settled us here “to put down roots,” but Ilvia understands this better than I do, being a refugee herself. She’s noticed that new arrivals have trouble using local transport, so a vehicle of their own will let them connect with the community, if they want, which can help them decide if they want to stay.

Comment [13]:If you’re wanting to also serve pre-documented climate refugees, be sure to state that here. That won’t harm your chances, it’ll just get y’all trained to get pre-doc people the resources they need/want.

· Those looking to get their H+ labor spec papers. I’d love to offer apprenticeships for anyone wanting to be a mech-tech so they won’t have to leave the county.¹⁴

Comment [14]: Ina Tech has free mechanist/techanist classes, though. So does the fed extension up on the square. In-migration is up in southern IL, so this “leave the county” line makes readers scratch their heads. Where are you getting this idea?

· Disabled people are welcome. Nobody should have to leave the county to find a workplace that works for them.¹⁵

Comment [15]: Sure, but I looked up accessible workplaces in the county and, other than a few utility crews, most of them offer accessible shifts. So, while it’s good you’re opening more options, truth is folks are sticking around.

Mom, honestly this feels like it’s aimed at me. You know why I left.

11. Values/Mission Statement:

It’s easy for me to say southern Illinois needs better public transportation, but for you to grasp how much Hot Mamas Garage would mean to the area, I’ll need to tell you a story.

When I was raising my first child¹⁶ on my own¹⁷ I had trouble getting thim where they¹⁸ needed to go, let alone keeping my shifts or making it to classes.

Comment [16]: Does this mean you consider Ilvy’s girls your second and third? Alright.

Comment [17]: On your own? What’d Pop say when he read this?

Comment [18]: Good job w/ my pronouns, at least. Thanks.

I felt like I was failing my child and my work crew, my church, my family — everyone. County transport helped but it was hard to rely on it, especially miles outside of town, like where we lived.

One day, I missed my work shuttle when another snow derecho blew through, making the school bus over an hour late. I wasn’t about to leave Grant, my oldest child, alone by the blacktop¹⁹ in the cold. So, after I finally got Grant on the bus, I started walking to my shift.

Comment [19]: I think we remember this differently.

Waiting four hours for the next shuttle wasn’t an option, and I told myself that it was only 4 miles²⁰. No big deal.

Comment [20]: Why didn’t you just call Pop for a ride? G. was alive then too.

But after about a mile, my hood was soaked through with snow and so were my shoes and socks. It hurt, especially with the wind off the hayfield to my west²¹. I worried I’d lose a limb and become even less useful to everyone I loved.

Comment [21]: Yeah. I felt it plenty over the years, waiting on the bus alone.

I thought of turning back, but I didn’t want to suffer the embarrassment of sending my manager a tardy explanation. I would have called my father for a ride, but I hadn’t spoken with him since he kicked us out of his home. I could still hear him saying, “You don’t even have bills to pay like we did — government made sure of that — so why can’t you get your act straight?”²² I didn’t want to prove him right, so I kept walking.

Comment [22]: Wait, why’d he kick us out? Did he really say this?

Not many people lived along that road, and none of them were outside during the storm. I thought I was alone until I saw my former neighbor, Captain Lucia Diaz Huerta²³, driving toward me.

Comment [23]: I liked her. She always had those lemon freezies.

But really, did Pop kick us out? He never talked about it. Did he catch you using or something? Even still, he shouldn’t have said what he did (if he really said it).

I thought I saw her little red truck getting bigger and bigger on the road ahead, but I distrusted my eyes because she’d moved in with her son the year prior so she could get sober.

I almost stepped off the road to hide in the windbreak until I recognized that the truck had to be hers because no one but her would drive a two-wheel-drive truck that fast in the snow. Eventually she slid to a standstill beside me²⁴ with her window down, shaking her head.

Comment [24]: I appreciate how you tell stories like this, but they want these things succinct and boring. It’ll take a couple weeks, but I can try a full rewrite once I’m done.

She’d been a logistics officer in the Air Force and she had really taken to Grant²⁵ when she moved in across the creek from us, into her late father’s carny house.²⁶

Comment [25]: I liked her too. It was nice having someone to rely on.

Comment [26]: The readers won’t know what this phrase means, and they won’t let me advise them because I know you. Instead of writing the whole “proper” name—carbon-rich concrete form house from the Homes Across the Heartland Act—just replace “carny house” with “place” and maybe mention that her father was a first-gen. climate refugee. He was, right?

I started crying the moment I saw her. She’d seen me do far worse and never blinked.²⁷ If she was still my neighbor, she would’ve showed up at my door to give me a ride or watch Grant without me even asking. But that day, the Captain said she was on her way to her old place to grab something, but I honestly think she was coming out to check on us.

Comment [27]: That makes two of us. Glad you had her too.

I said so, but she denied it, and when I got in her truck she had a lot to say about my choices that day.²⁸ She wasn’t as mean as she had been when she was drinking, just concerned, especially that I hadn’t applied to college like I’d promised her. I didn’t tell her all my family’s problems or that I was using again, but I told her enough to show her I was still trying my best.²⁹

Comment [28]: I bet. She was mean when she was telling the truth.

Comment [29]: Was this when G was out of remission? When you’d gotten prescriptions in her name?

She dropped me off at home to change clothes and ran to her old place, then picked me up for work. Between us on the bench seat was a little black tool chest.³⁰ A gift, she said.

Comment [30]: The Captain gave you that? It’s still in my closet.

On top was a pair of tall tan boots she’d worn in the service, battered but waterproof. She was grinning with her mouth closed, and I knew the boots were a half-serious joke. I made a big show of putting them on, but she just kept watching the road, almost-smiling. The boots fit me, almost perfectly.

After a quiet minute she held my hand and told me she’d be back that night to get my ex’s station wagon running for us. She gave me a list of prep work and the tools to use from the little black chest. I thought she was joking so I didn’t do any of the prep when I got home from work, but she truly did show up that night with her sponsee and her truck bed full of tools.

Comment [31]: Wait, is this where it started with y’all?

The Captain’s sponsee was Ilvia³¹, who at the time was working at the Shawnee Heap, where most lower Midwest scrap ends up. Ilvia ran data for the agent in charge of the Heap’s biggest waste streams — Chicago Municipal and City of St. Louis — so they could easily locate any salvage part we needed. They also had a friend at the railbase who needed to cycle out his stockpile, which is how we got new tires and brake lines. So, Ilvia located all the parts for us, and labor doesn’t get more skilled than her sponsor, the Captain.

The Captain had worked on every vehicle in Creation and she’d managed staff in the dozens. She had Ilvia and I going this way and that all over my garage, and not just handing her the tools. She would show us what to do and then make us do it. We started the job saying, “Yes Ma’am,” and eventually made our way through, “I’m on it Mama,” to, “Roger that, Hot Mama,” which is where our shop gets its name.³²

Comment [32]: Okay, I’ll lay off the name.

It took a few more nights, but we reformed all the rust and sealed the frame. Then we rebuilt the electric motors, brakes, and differential, and finally mounted four new matching tires. I was exhausted every day at work, but I didn’t care because I was so excited to get home at night to work with my mamas. It gave me hope, too. Even more than I had felt when I was drinking. It made me want to turn my life around and help others feel like I felt. It felt so easy and free doing it ourselves without having to climb a mountain of nonsense, hoping for a bite of help. No extra shifts to bank, no written proposal, no calls to an advisor with weeks in between.³³ It was just us making something better using what was already here.

Comment [33]: I get the frustration, but since this is the agency that makes those advisement calls I’d cut this.

Once we got the station wagon running, Grant never had to miss another show, game, doctor, sleepover, nothing, ever again.³⁴ Nor did I miss work or, eventually, college.

Comment [34]: Can’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.

That old station wagon gave us freedom and access like we’d never had, all because Ilvia and her sponsor (rest her soul)³⁵ lent us their skills for a couple evenings after work. If I was thinking straight or sober back then I would’ve opened a shop with those two that very day, but life happened³⁶ and here we are now.

Comment [35]: Sorry to hear that.

Comment [36]: And relapsed. And relapsed.

I want Hot Mamas Garage to pass on the Captain’s blessings to anyone in the district who needs a safe, reliable mode of transport. I want them to know that no matter what mistakes they’ve made or wrong paths they’ve taken, there’s always a chance to take a higher road. There’s never only one way forward.³⁷

Comment [37]: Then why do you act like I did something wrong by leaving? When you weren’t high, you were out trying to raise other people’s kids. Pop and G. gave me options for a future, and I took one. I hope you understand.

I know because I’ve been there. If not for those nights in the garage with Ilvia and the Captain I might have never gone to AA and found my sobriety. I might still feel trapped³⁸ in a life I don’t want and can’t change, hopeless to live up to my responsibilities, at the mercy of other people³⁹ with their own problems to bear.

Comment [38]: Okay, so you do get it, kind of. But you didn’t have to go through this as a child like I did. You had Pop and G growing up. Luckily I did too once you finally let me live with them.

Comment [39]: I felt the same way, even after I left. We deserved better, no offense. And hey, I’m really glad you’re sober.

But that’s not my reality now. I made it out, onto my own path, and I want to help others do the same for themselves.

Comment [40]: Mom.

My hot mamas helped me build a life I can feel proud of. If a nice rebuilt vehicle can make people feel more control over their own lives, then Hot Mamas Garage is going to give it to them. The world is huge, but it feels smaller when you and your loved ones can get across it with dignity, together or alone.⁴⁰

* * *

From: B. Grant Winemiller <winemillerbg@pcc.gov>
Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2089 9:10 AM
To: Sabine Winemiller-Guerrero <mia.betty.madre2@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: HELP! ☺

Good morning Mom,

I hope you, Ilvia, and the girls are having a good weekend.

Your project could be a real help back home, and it sounds like the stuff we’d fund. I made notes on your proposal, but it’d be more helpful if we just talked about it first. Let me know what times you’re free to talk this week, and I’ll try my best to open something up for you.

Also, I can tell you’re really trying. I want to help where I can.

Love,
Bluejay Grant Winemiller (they/he)

Enterprise Advancement Associate II
Public Capital Commission
Chicago Area Field Office
Box 145688 | Chicago, IL 60652
Endowing the People’s enterprise since 2051
t: 312.421.4561.3881
e: winemillerbg@pcc.gov
follow: Instagram | Weibo | Myspace

Sam Milligan (they/he/she) is a queer southern author, educator, and nonprofit fundraising professional who earned their MFA from the University of Mississippi. He was born in coastal Georgia and raised in Southern Illinois, and their extended family is rooted in central Appalachia. She currently lives in Lexington, Kentucky with their lovely partner and pets, and this is his first short story in print.

Stefan Grosse Halbuer is a digital artist from Münster, Germany, who has worked for brands like Adidas, Need for Speed, Samsung, Star Wars, Sony, and Universal Music, as well as for magazines, NGOs, and startups. Recently, he released his first solo book, “Lines,” a coloring book with a selection of his art from the last years.