LNOYL

I needed a job. Watering lawns and odd jobs were not getting me any closer to my new desire. I didn’t want the money for clothes (although I should have – my catholic high school had a dress code, and on occasion you could wear whatever you wanted on “non-uniform dress days”. I hated those days, cause I’d be utterly embarrassed in one of my few ill-fitting “outfits”…usually a pair of black jeans, an over-sized white sweatshirt paired with white running shoes). I couldn’t imagine having enough cash for a car, so I didn’t even care about that. But the sunburst strat that was still hanging in the shop downtown…that I could imagine. I swore that guitar was going to be mine, and every week I went to go check on it. I’d talk to Peter, the guy who worked there, and he said he’d do his best to keep it out of main view.

I went from getting bullied or ignored to full force I don’t give a shit guitar obsession in two years. There was this other unpopular kid in grade eight (except he was big for his age, so no one gave him a rough time), and he brought this grey, pointy head-stocked guitar into school one day. The kids flocked around him, and for all the awkwardness that he was, it didn’t matter once he held up that guitar. He couldn’t even play it that well, but it didn’t matter. It was like there was something about that instrument that would make things copacetic. When I left for London, I became aware of my first adult thoughts. They were provoking…and they were all focused around that instrument. I would never think the same way after that kid brought that grey guitar to school. It’s amazing that a life long path can stem from a  single day in your life.

There was a full serve Sunoco station in the south end of London, and my dad knew Dan, the owner of the garage the gas bar was attached too. They made a deal, and Dan gave me my first real job that paid “real money”. I pumped gas, checked oil and washed windshields at the full serve. I cleaned up the lot, and eventually would break dawn or close up after sunset on my own. It was London, so cleaning the station bathrooms and killing the night shifts wasn’t that bad at all. It was minimum wage, but at fifteen, cash meant independence, it meant I could get an axe and start a band. Friday and Saturday nights, until I was about nineteen, I was on the corner, pumping hi-test to make my coin.

I didn’t know anything about cars, and being a full serve station, I quickly found myself under the hood, putting on the occasional tire, and inadvertently sniffing gas within the tanks of every make and model. I also didn’t know much about dealing with the public, and as fate would have it, on my very first day, one of my customers was a grey haired jackal. I still remember her glares and insults mouthed through the windshield, her pointing fingers, and cackles of “whats a matter with you boy?” She pulled up in one of those old four door sedans, a battered land boat that took up most of the isle. I ran out, and she said ‘eh boy – check that oil”. She popped the release, and I couldnt find the lever under the six foot grill to pop the hood (on older eighties cars, those levers are all over the place under the grill or recessed within the hood, and have different mechanisms; in time you just know what hand gestures will pop the thing in a few seconds on any model). When i finally got the thing open and secured up with its rusty support, I couldn’t see a damn thing. This car was one of those weird ones with some type of insulation material underneath the hood. It was rotting, so lengths of it fell all over the engine. Everything else in there was camouflaged in dirty soot coloured black grime. I moved all that crap aside, but I couldn’t find the dipstick to check the oil (it was old school – made out of little black plastic knob, and tucked underneath a big circular air filter – effectively invisible to virgin eyes). I tried to gesture for a fellow “pump jockey” to come help me out, but the lot was completely full and everyone was preoccupied with doing their own cars.

After about 30 seconds of me searching under the hood, the lady rolled down the windshield, and barked out a train of “whats a matter with you”, “do you want me to get out of my car and do it myself”, “you aint found it yet – whats your problem boy, you a little slow?”, “what, you some kind of idiot – it’s right over there”. Her glare and tone was just nasty…and even at that age I knew there had to be more behind it than not finding a dip stick fast enough. She watched my movements like a hawk, and my lack of progress was met by reprimand at any available opportunity. If there were less people in the lot, I think she would have just said what she really wanted to say: “why don’t you just fuck off back where you came from immigrant”.

She got loud enough that Dan came out of the shop to see what was going on. I was relieved that someone was coming to back me up, especially since I didn’t know how to react to verbal onslaughts on the job. Dan looked at me, looked at the late forty something woman in the car, and then apologized to her for the delay. He said “I know ‘mam your busy and in a rush, we will get you taken care of right away”. He found the stick, pointed at the oil cap and I finished up the car. When I walked inside the gas bar, Dan came out of the garage and said “I saw you fumbling around with that car – that was bullshit! Just what the hell were you doing out there – goofing around?” I gripped the oil rag that was hanging out of my pocket…I was pissed off but I needed this job. I wanted that strat. I was fifteen, and didn’t want to look like a sissy…I forced my eyes not to water up. Tom petty was playing on the radio – “im learning to fly, but I aint got wings, coming down is the hardest thing”. On the way back home, I stopped by the library, and picked up this cassette called “GNR’ lies”…

Over the next few months, the London gas bar got real busy…and I got much faster at doing my job. I’d listen to Guns N Roses and run around the lot with a smile on my face. I still screwed up from time to time; I poured tranny fluid into someones oil reservoir once, and I pumped a tank full of diesel into the gas only tank of a Lincoln mercury (the dude parked right beside the diesel pump, pointed at it, and said fill er up). Once, when I was the only one on shift, and the lot was chock full of people upset about the wait time,  I left a gas nozzle into some ladies car as I rushed to start the fifth vehicle waiting in the lot, and she drove off. The nozzle anchored into the car and ripped the hose out of the the pump. Gas started shooting out into the air. I had to hit the emergency shut off, and the yelling customers got real quite; they didn’t say a word and just drove off. My dad came down to help me clean up the lot, and that was the first time I think he ever heard me cussing. The lady, who’s car was all bent up, was an angel…she was kind and didn’t make me feel any more stupid than I already felt. Dan, to his credit, never gave me a hard time after that first incident, and never fired me either. He’d fix all the mistakes and would just say “shit happens”. He gave people second chances, and because of that, he’s a good guy in my books.