The mechanics of Syracuse Auto Works - with wigs and silver spray - and their Halloween inspiration, Dave Brown, second from left. Credit: Sean Kirst | Central Current

I was in the customer service area of Syracuse Auto Works on Friday, waiting for a little fix on the windshield wipers on our car, when one of the mechanics walked in with some paperwork for his colleagues at the main desk.

He handed the packet to office manager Amanda Norton, who was sitting next to service manager James Flynn, who was sitting next to shop owner Tim Donohue. I had been watching the cold morning rain fall on West Fayette Street, and I vaguely noticed the mechanic had a gray beard and this big and distinctive shock of long, thick and tumbling gray hair.

It was the kind of hair I always associated, at least in my oh-so-long-ago youth, with folks who loved metal bands.

The rain kept falling, the mechanic walked back in, I half-registered that big swirl of gray hair again. But wait a minute. Was this or was this not the same guy? Now I was curious … was this a cluster of like-minded, metal-loving mechanics? … and I kept watching the door to the garage until it swung open again, and yet another mechanic — this time, Mateo Hernandez — brought in another work order.

Same wild tangle of gray hair. Same silver tone to the beard.

Forgive me, but it took that long for all of it to hit me.

Of course.

Halloween.

“Amanda,” I asked Norton, a constant presence at the desk. “What’s up with the beards?”

She replied simply: “Dave Brown,” and the whole place — she and Flynn and Donohue — started laughing hard, as in belly-deep hard, with such wonder and sincerity that pretty soon all of us waiting for our cars joined in.

The mechanics of Syracuse Auto Works huddle with service manager James Flynn, over a car: They kept their ‘Dave Brown’ costumes on all day. Credit: Courtesy of Amanda Norton

This is the tale, which is both beautifully funny and holds a touch of heartbreak: Brown, 62, is a mechanic who’s worked at the place for six or seven years. Raised in Cazenovia, he always wears jeans — his own little statement, since most of his mechanic brethren at the shop wear work pants — as well as a blue Auto Works sweatshirt.

That is his routine, his everyday uniform. He also has a gray beard and keeps his hair pretty long, shoulder-length. It’s been that way, he said, since he got out of the Army in 1984, and he embraced the chance to wear his hair as long as he wanted. And yes, he is a devotee of metal and country, two types of music whose practitioners often love long hair.

Brown works in a building near the back of the auto works with fellow mechanic Dorian Ortman – AC-DC was on the radio when I walked back to their spot – while Daniel “DJ” Coogan, Hernandez, Lukas Smith and Max Bubela are all stationed in mechanic’s bays up front. Coogan said Friday’s idea came together one day last spring as they all worked on engines.

Coogan looked up and said to Smith, in a burst of inspiration:

“For Halloween, let’s be Dave Brown.”

Eureka. Instant agreement. The four mechanics told no one. They made a trip not long ago to a Spirit Halloween shop in Mattydale, loaded up on gray wigs and silver face paint, and arrived early Friday to snip and paint and get everything together in a room above the office, before they even flipped open a single hood.

At 8:15 a.m. or so, Brown was reaching up to do repairs on a Subaru that he had on a lift when Dorian said:

“Someone here to see you.”

He looked up. Standing there – shaggy, gray and bearded – were four Dave Browns.

Mark Covich: At Halloween, his fellow mechanics remembered a legend. Credit: Courtesy of family

The real Dave Brown, in appreciation, called them a familiar and hearty Dave Brown word, which he keeps on mental file for special occasions.

The best part of it: His buddies stayed in costume until they knocked off in the afternoon. As for their bosses, they loved it — especially since Flynn was pulling a similar prank, and had shown up wearing the exact same outfit of dark sweats and a company jacket worn every day by Larry Stirpe, a parts salesman from United Auto Supply and a frequent visitor.

Yet there was also a beautiful and aching element: The earliest version of the plan, going back maybe all the way to last Halloween, involved a tribute to an Auto Works colleague — and a neighborhood legend — named Mark Covich.

For Halloween, Syracuse Auto Works service manager James Flynn (left) dressed up as auto parts salesman Larry Stirpe. Credit: Courtesy of Amanda Norton

Covich used to do some work at the place when it was called Hank’s Auto Service and was operated by the late Hank Zaborowski Jr., who had been there since 1959. Ten years ago this month, Zaborowski retired and sold the garage to Donohue, who came in one day not long after he got started to see this guy he had never met trimming brush along the fence line.

Donohue walked over, surprised, and asked what was up.

“Looked like it needed it,” said Covich, who lived across the street.

A bit stunned, Donohue asked, “I mean, do you want a job or something?”

“Sure,” Covich said, taking the question as an offer, and that was that.

He was a beloved character who represented the soul and deep history of the place, which caused Coogan and his fellow mechanics to decide long ago they would surprise Covich by, well, being him for this Halloween.

But Covich died unexpectedly, last spring, at 56 — a matter of lingering grief around the shop. The mechanics decided to go through with the Halloween gag in his memory, but it seemed more appropriate to think of him as the inspiration, even as they chose another model.

Looking around, they saw it as an easy choice:

Dave Brown, under the lift. Credit: Sean Kirst | Central Current

Dave Brown, who they often note bears a resemblance to longtime professional wrestler “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan.

This was a Halloween to forget for the children of Syracuse, forced to trick or treat in cold rain and a big wind. It was easier for the mechanics inside Syracuse Auto Works, who wore their costumes of wigs and silver facial hair as they worked indoors all day. They stayed in character and did not explain the gag to customers, who had to piece it together for themselves — which, once the revelation hit home, was maybe the best part.

As for Dave Brown, he walked into the garage while I was talking to his buddies and said the same memorable word that summed up how he felt about it all. No need to repeat it here, but it was salty, it was rough and yes, it even held some love, which is what you often find in Syracuse, once you open up the hood.

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Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Central Current. He has been an Upstate journalist for more than 50 years. He held his first reporting job as a teenager and worked for newspapers in Dunkirk, Niagara...