LNOYL

The lot had two rubber strips on the road that would activate the ‘ding ding’ bell when a car drove over them towards a gas pump. There was a whole lot less dinging past the dinner hour, so as soon as I finished up with the chores (clean the bathrooms, sweep up trash on the lot, then count everything in sight for the inventory clipboard), you could throw a mix tape into the boom box and watch the sunset over the pavement. You’d often wonder about the people inside the cars as you’d watch their tail-lights turn right and disappear out of the lot. You convinced yourself that their lives would always be more exciting than yours – because they were literally always going somewhere, and you always were stuck behind, just watching…

I worked with Cheryl every other week. She was about three years older than I was, which at that age meant she was a lot more mature, and therefore demonstrated a type of experience and sophistication that I found appealing. I looked forward to the shifts we had, because when she was on the lot, I’d feel like anything could happen. She was into Gish and other cool alternative albums I’d never heard of (I was all about obscure Hendrix tracks and Slash n’ Izzy guitar licks). Her brother, Adam, was a soft spoken, laid back guy who worked there occasionally; he’d listen to this one metallica tape on repeat while fixing cars now and then. Lazy Lloyd (as he was called by many) was probably in his late thirties/early forties when I met him. He was a ‘gas jockey lifer’, and during the summers when school was out, I’d be on shift with him during the day. Lloyd lived for the weekends, and he would tell you about his sordid sexual exploits over them in pornographic detail. I really didn’t want to know, but he’d tell anyways. I got along with him pretty well. Jason (another kid on the lot) didn’t, and smashed the headlight of Lloyds big grey 80‘s sedan with the handle of the window washing squeegee one night after an argument. When I started laughing, Lloyd took my limited edition Hendrix tape (‘Are you experienced’ on Side A, ‘Axis bold as love’ on Side B) out of the ghettoblaster, held it up high between his motor oil smudged hands, and threatened to smash it on the parking lot. I pleaded and yelled “don’t do it – I NEED that tape”. He must have heard the desperation in my voice, because he gave it back without a word. I know I know, I should have made a copy of that limited edition tape, especially to bring to work, but I couldn’t part with that original white plastic cassette; it formed a huge part of my identity…

I thought Dave was really cool, because he’d ride into work everyday on his honda motorcycle. It was styled as a classic road bike. Because I was a few years younger I kind of looked up to Dave in an older brother-ish kind of way; he’d actually listen to stuff that I would say, always had advice to give, and was patient with my varying levels of confusion or stupidity about things in general. I actually started putting some of my gas station money aside for a bike just like Dave’s. My dad, who was the family comedian when he was feeling good, would joke around with him on the days he dropped me off at the station, and called him “Captain Nozzle”. I got drunk for the first time in my life at Dave’s apartment after reaching my limit with my dad. When I was about 15, and my mom was away on a work trip, my dad, as per the norm in those days, changed from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. He could be happy with everything that life had granted him one minute, and hate the world in the next. He’d give the shirt off his back to try and keep us safe and content, and could fill the house with laughter, and at the same time his anger would fall like rain. You’d do your best to navigate between the drops.

My dad got upset that there was dog hair all over the carpet. I guess my mom wasn’t there that week to clean it up. To palliate him, I took Cody, the shedding Akita, out back to brush her down. I was able to get a lot of fur off, and halfway through brushing the dog, patchy thickets of white fur appeared over the back lawn. A bunch had flown out of the grocery bag as I was sticking it in. When he came out to check on my progress and saw the dog hair all over the back, he glared red rage. “What the fuck are you doing?” he said. “Get inside, now!”. I cant remember the argument that ensued, and by argument, I mostly mean that I’d sit there, head down and slack jawed until he got to the the final part and said “your attitude stinks, get out of my sight”. I got so accustom to the phrase “your attitude stinks, get out of my sight”, that like in an any other dysfunctional household, it can be parodied when you get older. You move out and are able to put it in perspective. Its sounds screwed up, but my sister and I will utter that phrase to each other nowadays, and it’ll just elicit laughter…

There was a some type of get together after work, and after he cooled off from the dog hair fiasco (some incidences were forgotten within hours, others led to days of the silent treatment), I asked my Dad if I could go when my shift was finished that evening. He was still in a dark, volatile mood, and wanted to know why I would want to go to such a thing in the first place. I could never explaining to him the truth (i.e. i’ve got no friends and actually got invited to something so I really want to go), so I just murmured something about that ‘it was at Daves house and you know Dave already’. He eventually relented – “just do what you want, I dont care”.

I didn’t go home after work, and rode the bus in my dirty oil and gas fumed clothes. It was tolerable, because I didn’t pump that much diesel that day (sunoco gas smelled like burnt raisin bran muffins; diesel smelled like rotten eggs). By the time I got to Daves apartment, everyone was already there. Dave just bought a new electric guitar, so I settled in pretty fast with that in the corner. I was probably playing “little wing”. I knew I smelled like a bottle of 10W30 and was a little bit embarrassed surrounded by girls in their summer dresses. Id talk to Cheryl when she talked to me, but I wasn’t really good at sustaining conversations back then. I had until 11:00. After eleven, I’d miss the connecting bus, and id be stranded in some London suburb, and would have to call my ol’ man to pick me up. The clock said 11:23. Sigh..

The thought of going home, or having him pick me up at Daves building (and chance a public scene in front of all these people) was too much to take. There is only so much you can hear of how much of an useless idiot you are in one day. There was a bunch of beer cans, liquor and shots on the table. I’d never had a whole beer before, and while I knew what Jack Daniels looked like, id never tried it. I drank that beer (i forget what brand it was, but it was so bitter that i couldn’t finish it). The shots on the other hand were downed before I even knew what they tasted like. They burned. I rambled on to the amusement to my workmates, then slunked on the couch…and then didn’t worry about anything at all for the rest of the night.

Fear. I can wake up, and immediately and instantaneously have a filled-to-the-brim onslaught of emotion press up upon my eyelids. It’s all physiological – it’s all fight or flight conditioning, and it took years to be rid of it. But that morning, I was in someone else’s home, so I put on my game face…but really, it was all shaky fear on the inside. In the movies, the teenage kid screws up, goes home, and gets grounded but is forgiven and everyone eventually laughs upon the days memory – cause the kid is essentially a good kid. I was a good kid, but just getting grounded and laughing about the past would always be the reality of someone else son. Ramping levels of fear at any wrong turn, inadvertent or not, was the deck I got dealt, and I was powerless against it. The glares, verbal onslaughts and threats were always possible and unpredictable (he’d never hit us – but he’d break and destroy things all around us as if to prove that point). And the whole time, you’ll do or say anything so everything would go back to ‘normal’ as soon as possible…because ‘normal’, believe it or not, was there on a regular basis, and was actually really good once you swept everything that had happened under the rug…

Dave passed me a helmet, and we took his honda back to my place. I’d never been on a motorcycle before. I made him stop two blocks away, so my dad wouldn’t see me arrive home on a bike (that would just add to the inevitable). The cycle was exhilarating. Joy on the surface as we rode and the wind blew against my face, fear at the bottom of my belly as we got closer and closer to my house. I opened the locked door, walked in, and he was sitting in his chair, just waiting…

What happens when you are middle aged, with kids you dont understand, working a low paying job you hate, after your business fails, and you still havent figured yourself out? When you dont have the tools to deal with your own personal demons and failures? When you dont have anyone in your life to confront you, to show you that there is another way? If you are this person, and then the depression sits in, you are going to do things that you wont be proud of years later. Things that you do your best to forget – I know this because he erased some of the family video tapes. My dad taught me that the most important relationships in your life are going to be the most volatile. Im trying to see the world through his eyes. But I learned all that much later, after the resentment began. After I learned how to get angry…