| (Free Thought On Really Clean Characters)
Castle Clean Car Wash
Indianapolis, IN 1998
…little Mickey is a retard. I know this not because of his gaited walk or the way his face droops on the left side, I know this because he constantly tells me. He is also fond of sharing his life long ambition: to self publish a book called “Porno’s Jokes” (which he pronounces poe-knowz-joes), the bulk of which would be nothing but violent and disturbing images of animals and humans copulating. He has decided he must include the old lady who runs the cash register. This is a problem. Until she agrees to get fucked by a Bengal Tiger and German shepherd, production is on hold indefinitely.
Many rumors circulate about Little Mickey. These rumors are varied and nearly impossible to decipher. Some say he was in jail for pouncing on old women from the tree tops and raping them, others say he is always in the bathroom “getting wet”, which apparently means he smokes weed dipped in embalming fluid. I thought it meant he was jacking off. Either way this bothers me because I have gotten high with Mickey on several occasions.
Most of this information comes by way of The Two Pauls. The Two Pauls could not be more different and share nothing but a name. Black Paul is old school, or at least he claims to be. His grayed dreadlocks are his proof and his trademark. He tells stories of working with Huey Newton, of freaking out at Haight and Ashbury, of seeing Hendrix, Sly Stone, Joplin, and Sam Cooke live and on stage at various points in his long career of wandering. Most believe him and those who don’t try to believe him. White Paul is the assistant manager, a former exterminator and Canadian bounty hunter. He tells stories too, but the only ones we believe are about rats and roaches and insecticides. We usually laugh at the bounty hunter stories and because he’s so good at telling them we call him Paul:Texas Ranger. He likes that and sometimes he’ll throw down and buy us all lunch from Rally’s, but more often than not he just stands around smoking Winston 100s and talking shit about bad-ass Canadian outlaws.
Then there is Big Eric, who, along with Black Paul, is part of the Car Wash elite. Big Eric is a former middle line backer for Ben Davis High School. Because of several run-ins with the law, he lost his anonymous Big-Ten scholarship and now dries cars for dollar tips. Eric is rather normal. Except for being big, of course, and his deep, booming laugh that fills the hollow car wash from end to end. The following has become Legend amongst the annals of Castle Clean, and that’s just what Big Eric wants:
Big Eric met a girl who’s just as big as he is. We’ll call this girl Steak-Ums. They got together very quickly and one night he fell asleep in her bed. He claimed to have awoken in the middle of the night to find her little black kitten, named Midnight, sleeping peacefully under his balls. As time went on, he said the cat wouldn’t sleep anywhere else, and it would cry and moan until he returned. He would tell this story nearly everyday, laughing mightily, expounding on the genius of such a small animal and the obvious comfort of his tremendous ballsack.
Much later Big Eric and Steak-Ums had a falling out and I had the chance to chat with Steak-Ums. At that point, she had labeled Big Eric as “Freaky Jason”, because he couldn’t except that it was over. Talk eventually turned to her kitten and she confirmed the rumor by saying, “Midnight loved Freaky Jason’s nuts. Put his little face down and go right to sleep. It was so cute. Just a’ snoring on his nuts.” The circumstances of how I came by this information were too complex for anyone to accept, myself included, so the rumor is still that, a rumor.
These are but a few of the usual suspects, the main core of car wash attendees I see on a day-to-day basis. All of these people are just co-workers, casual acquaintances, folks I’m confined with for thirteen hours a day. I’d have nothing to do with these people if I didn’t work at a car wash, and I suspect they’d have nothing to do with me. There is only one guy, who’ll remain nameless, that, at one time, I’d call my friend. He gave me the chance to drive a Ryder truck to Oregon for sixty dollars and a bus ticket back to Indy, if I didn’t want to stay in the great Northwest. The truck was loaded with everything he owned and he trusted me with it, and I drove that goddamned truck over mountains, through forests, past geysers, across the Black Hills, around the Badlands, over the high plains of the Dakotas, and down the Columbia River Gorge. He never bought me that bus ticket back, but I left anyway, and when I got back to Oregon a few years later I found we were no longer friends, though I cannot say why, exactly.
I chalk it up to yet another mystery of the car wash, a failed question that found no answer and was never taken seriously in the first place. I suspect I’m a bit like that myself, and that’s why I fit in. I’ve gone on and on about the others and I’m sure you’re asking about me. So, what about me? What do I do?
I watch, mostly. But, I also vacuum floorboards, smoke Newports, steal change from ashtrays, drink apple juice, read awful books, talk shit, flirt with the chick who works the Shell station next door, shovel sludge from storm drains, detail my car, give people rides home, drink whiskey when its cold, hit the occasional bowl, sit around, ogle nice cars, take notes when no one is looking, and hump the American dream like a fine white rabbit.
It happens everyday at the corner of 86th and Michigan road, right next door to Daddy Green’s Pizza and Subs. We open at 7:00, close at 9:00, and in between we all have try and have fun. No one cares that time is wasted, that time slips away, because we are all content to be characters in someone else’s story, whether we know it or not. After all, if there are no characters, there is no story, and many cars would never get clean… |
