PART 2 — The Comment Section Doesn’t Know How to Solder
Four years after that Thanksgiving in my garage—four years after I almost wrote Jax off as a walking bad decision—he showed up at my door with a smile, a toolbox… and a camera pointed straight at my face.
“Don’t panic,” he said. “It’s just a quick clip.”
A quick clip.
That’s how it starts now, isn’t it?
A “quick clip” and suddenly strangers are arguing about your soul like it’s a sports team.
He stepped into my garage like he owned the place. Not in a disrespectful way. In the way someone does when they’ve bled in the same room as you. When they’ve fixed something with you at two in the morning and listened to that first warm bloom of sound like it was a heartbeat.
Sarah followed behind him with a paper bag of pastries and that look in her eyes that said, Be nice. Be normal. Don’t turn into the Thanksgiving version of yourself.
Jax set his phone on a little tripod right next to my bench.
“I want to film you,” he said.
I actually laughed. “Why? So people can watch an old man squint at wires?”
“Because,” he said, adjusting the angle, “you’re the reason I didn’t quit when everybody told me I was just… the ink.”
The ink.
That phrase hit harder than I expected.
I glanced at Sarah. She leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching us like she was guarding a fragile peace treaty.
“Okay,” I muttered, already uncomfortable. “But don’t put any of that… internet music over it.”
He grinned. “No cheesy music. I swear.”
I should’ve known better than to trust a man who can solder with surgical precision.
He didn’t film my face much. Mostly my hands. The old wood cabinet I was refinishing for a neighbor. The careful way I cleaned the contacts, checked continuity, replaced brittle insulation that could’ve sparked into disaster.
Jax narrated softly behind the camera.
“This is my father-in-law,” he said. “He’s old-school. He thinks everything new is suspicious. He also taught me the difference between noise and signal.”
I shot him a look. He only smiled wider.
Then he posted it.
Not with my permission exactly—more like with the confident assumption that I’d forgive him later, the way young people do when they believe love is a blanket you can tug without tearing.
He titled it something simple:
“Before you judge the cover… check the connections.”
By the next morning, my phone wouldn’t stop buzzing.
I didn’t even know my phone could buzz that much.
Sarah called first.
“Dad,” she said, voice tight. “Have you looked at the comments?”
“No,” I said. “And I don’t want to.”
“You should,” she whispered. “Because people are… being people.”
That afternoon, Jax came back over—alone. He walked in with that careful calm he gets when he’s bracing for impact.
“Okay,” I said, wiping my hands on a rag. “Tell me the damage.”
He held up his phone.
The video had millions of views.
Millions.
It made my stomach flip.
I scrolled.
Some comments were sweet. Strangers saying the world needs more patience. People telling stories about their own grandpas, their own garages, their own second chances.
And then… the other half.
The other half was a knife fight.
One person wrote: “That kid looks like trouble. I wouldn’t let him near my daughter.”
Another: “Boomer dad probably hated him until he needed something fixed. Typical.”
Another: “Trade school is for people who couldn’t hack college.”
And another: “College is a scam. At least this guy has a skill.”
It went on and on like a brawl nobody called the cops for because it wasn’t happening on a street—just in that glowing, endless arena where everyone feels brave.
I stared at one comment for too long:
“He’s got that tattoo for a reason.”
No accusation. No proof. Just a sentence that carried a whole verdict.
I felt something hot rise in my chest.
Not anger at the commenters.
Anger at myself.
Because I recognized that first instinct. That reflex. That lazy little mental shortcut that says, I know what you are, before you’ve even said hello.
I used to live there.
I used to be the comment section.
Jax sat on the stool across from me, elbows on his knees, ink crawling up his neck like a storm map.
“You okay?” he asked.
I swallowed. “I’m embarrassed.”
He shrugged, trying to act casual, but I could see the tightness around his eyes. “It’s the internet. People throw rocks because it’s fun.”
“It shouldn’t be fun,” I said, surprising myself with how sharp my voice sounded.
Jax looked down at his hands. Those steady hands. Those hands that had rebuilt more broken things than most people ever notice exist.
“I thought,” he admitted quietly, “if they saw you and me… if they saw the garage and the work… it would shut them up.”
“And?”
He laughed without humor. “It didn’t shut anybody up. It just gave them a bigger stage.”
We sat in silence while the garage heater clicked and popped.
Then he said something that made my throat tighten.
“Sarah cried last night,” he said. “Not because people called me a criminal. I’m used to that. She cried because they called you a monster.”
I looked at him. “A monster?”
He nodded. “They think you’re either a bigot who got educated… or a manipulator who’s pretending to be kind for views.”
I felt my face burn.
“Views,” I muttered, like the word tasted wrong.
“Yeah,” he said gently. “They can’t imagine two people changing without someone getting paid.”
That’s what the comment section does. It takes something human and turns it into a conspiracy.
I wanted to say something wise. Something fatherly. Something that sounded like a speech.
Instead I said the truth.
“I don’t like how it feels,” I said. “To be judged by people who’ve never even shaken your hand.”
Jax’s eyes met mine.
“Now you know,” he said softly, “what it’s like to walk into your Thanksgiving dinner.”
That one sentence did more than any argument ever could.
It rewired something in me.
Two days later, the other shoe dropped.
A man in a crisp jacket pulled into Jax’s driveway in a shiny SUV and marched into Jax’s workshop like he owned the air.
I was there because Jax had asked me to help carry a heavy cabinet—one of those older amplifier heads that feels like it’s made of pure stubbornness.
The man didn’t introduce himself politely. He didn’t ask questions.
He started with a threat.
“My unit was supposed to be done,” he snapped. “I dropped it off six weeks ago. You’ve got a lot of nerve posting videos while you’re behind.”
Jax stayed calm. “Sir, you were quoted ten to twelve weeks. It’s written on your intake form. You signed it.”
The man waved his hand like paperwork was beneath him. “Don’t get cute with me. I looked you up. You’re that guy from the video.”
Jax nodded. “Yep.”
The man’s eyes flicked to the tattoo on Jax’s neck like it offended him personally.
“I don’t care about your… inspirational nonsense,” he said. “I care about my gear. I got a tour coming. If you can’t handle real clients, say so.”
Jax’s jaw tightened for half a second, then relaxed again. “I can refund your deposit today if you want to take it elsewhere.”
That should’ve ended it.
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