When I casually opened my door and stepped out, I knew Paul and David would rip into me. Maybe, I thought, I could get away with telling them I had planned on scaring them straight all along; like some sick, perverted, twisted, Highway of Death real-life experience. For a few minutes the three of us stared in awe at the billows of dirt that refused to settle. I braced myself as Paul leaned forward and jabbed a finger in my face. “That…” he roared, “…was the coolest thing ever!”
“Totally!” David echoed. “Just like in the movies!”
“Where’d you learn to do that?” Paul asked.
“Well,” I replied, leaning on the side of the car as I continued to look at the street, “if you must know, it’s the Steve McQueen movie Bullitt meets The French Connection… with just a touch of driver’s ed.”
After hosing off the dust from the car at a nearby car wash, and after a series of “cross our hearts and hope to die” promises, we decided to keep our latest exploit to ourselves, and I slowly eased the Chevelle back into Duinsmoore. With a wide smile glued on my face I must have been extremely confident of our covert activity, until Dan nonchalantly strolled over, bent down, and removed several pieces of a bush from under the rear bumper.
Huddling together a distance away from Mr. Brazell’s garage, in whispered tones we replayed our adventure and planned new ones. Not only could we use the car as a sure-fire, pick-up-chicks and take-us-anywhere mobile, but it was now a chance to do stuff we had only seen on the big screen.
Later that evening with the car windows rolled down, the three of us made our inaugural cruise down California’s renowned El Camino Real—The Strip. The famed highway basically ran from the Bay Area and down past south Los Angeles. For years I had overheard about all the action—daring drag races at the stoplights, wild parties and tricked-out cars, and those wide-eyed girls who would do practically anything with any guy who just had a set of wheels. Now the three of us stood a chance with the opposite sex. Just days before, those stuck-up Farah Fawcett look-alikes wouldn’t give me the time of day, but now I had a car. A car that I hadn’t borrowed from my well-to-do parents, or a set of wheels some relative gave me as a present for my sixteenth birthday, but a car that I worked for, a car that belonged to me. And this car would surely prove to any foxy lady that I was definitely a guy worth her time and, possibly, her unbridled desires. Sitting tall in the driver’s seat and with the speed of a snail I drove David and Paul and joined the hundreds of cars that deliberately crawled from stoplight to stoplight. The only difference: While the souped-up cars raced their engines, I proudly blared my AM radio to the easy-listening station playing nonstop Barry Manilow songs.
Yet, after several loops on the famed strip within the confines of Menlo Park, the only attention we received were taunts from either the older, extreme-looking teens with their white T-shirts and black leather jackets, or the preppie kids with perfectly combed hair and sharp clothes who howled with laughter at us. The same girls who would usually slither on car hoods while showing off their eight-inch wooden platform shoes, black hip-hugger cutoff pants, and tight stretchy fluorescent tube-tops that seemed to reveal everything in the cool night air only offered us a middle finger thrust high into the air or buried in their throats, acting as if the three of us were so revolting they would throw up. But the highlight of our cruise down El Camino Real came unexpectedly at a stoplight when a compact car brimming with excited girls lurched to a sudden stop. Smiling at us, two of them seemed to become frantic as they screeched, “Oh, baby, baby! Take me, take me now!” as the three of us stared at one another with wide eyes and strands of dribble seeping from the sides of our mouths. A moment later the girls’ car rocketed away while they laughed aloud. Feeling humiliated, Paul, David, and I decided to call it a night. Besides, it was getting late. By the time I parked the car in Mr. Marsh’s driveway it was almost nine-thirty.
The next morning the three of us regaled in our adventure on The Strip. None of us seemed to realize reliving the event was more entertaining than actually being there. Then in the late afternoon, after hours of replaying every detail, Paul, David, and I became excited imagining how much more fun, how cool we would become, and how “lucky” we would get the next time we cruised El Camino Real.
But our adventures on four wheels were short-lived. In less than two months after buying the car, I suddenly became laid off from the plastics factory. As my luck went, when the loan officer from the car dealership discovered I was unemployed, and even after I proved I had enough money in my savings account to make payments for more than a year, I was forced to return my beloved Chevy. Within days, out of the blue, Mike Marsh phoned me at my foster parents’ home, informing me he would cosign the car loan. After hanging up the phone, I wasn’t sure how to feel. The more the car wasn’t mine, the more I craved it. But yet I knew how much Mike and his caring wife, Sandy, busted their butts working every day. During weekdays, as Mike returned home from work, he’d honk his horn the moment he turned into Duinsmoore. A second later, with Sandy perched in her ancient oxidized-blue VW van, she’d back out of the driveway ready to work a twelve-hour shift at the local hospital.
Over the years since I had first met the Marshes, the entire household adopted me like some quasi-nephew. They rarely turned me down for a place to stay when I visited Paul and Dave. But even when times were tough for them, I always had a seat at their table. That Friday afternoon, as Mr. Marsh and I waited at the loan office at the car dealership, I turned to confess for the millionth time my sincere appreciation. When he nodded back at me, I caught a look in his eyes. It was then I realized just how far the Marshes were sticking their necks out to help me. Suddenly I felt like a bloodsucker. As much as I thought I needed the car to search for a better job—anything other than the bewildering fast-food joints—and as much as I had seemingly become emotionally attached to that particular car, I suddenly felt slimy about the entire situation. In unison, the “Doc Savage” of Duinsmoore and his trusty young ward stood up and departed the dealership.
On the solemn drive to Duinsmoore Way, without thinking, I blurted out to Mike, “You would have signed for the loan. I mean, even though there’s a chance I could screw up and miss a payment, putting you and Sandy in a bind, you would have done it for me. I don’t get it. I mean, you really don’t know me,” I stated, realizing he didn’t know all of my past. “You’re constantly berating me and the guys because ‘we’re an aimlessly roaming herd of mindless bison,’ but yet you trust me. I just don’t get it.”
“I can read you,” Mike stated matter-of-factly. I looked up, shaking my head.
“I’ve learned a lot from ’Nam. A lot about myself. One thing is in the heat of battle, and I’m talkin’ about a really serious firefight when lives are on the line—and I don’t mean any of that dramatic Hollywood crapola you see on the big screen, but the real deal—you find out what you’re made of. I’m not talkin’ about killing someone. Any backwoods hillbilly idiot can do that. But living with it afterward, that’s the thing. Living with yourself after all the disgusting disturbing shit you’ve done just to make it out alive, that’s what I’m preaching. Or being there, to back your brothers in arms when all this bad crap is going on around you, that’s what I’m getting at.
“It’s kinda like this, my young apprentice: You’re on the cusp and your mind is a sponge absorbing everything around you. So absorb this: There’s a lot of folks that talk a big game. A lot of them just talk out the side of their mouths. I can back it up. Not with guns, explosives, or some James Bond kung fu moves, but here,” Mike emphasized, tapping the side of his head with his finger. “It’s all in the head. That’s it, plain and simple. All your troubles, all your woes are between your ears.
“Then, there are those who suddenly face a situation, a predicament they can’t snap their fingers and have it instantly taken care of. They lock up, they freeze, ’cause they’ve never experienced anything like that before—like at ’Nam in the bush, in the middle of a firefigh
t, and some of them can last for hours or even days. In my former career as a ranger, if you don’t pull your load, or if you lock up, or if you’re having a bad day out there, you can get someone killed. Then, there are the Jimmy Olsons—the do-gooder types from cornfed heartland USA, the skinny, moppy-head teen that never had a date, got egged at the high school prom; the kid that simply takes a lot of shit ’cause that’s what life gave ’em—those are the kinda folks who will do whatever it takes to get things done. I’ve seen it thousands of times in ’Nam; they don’t bitch, they just do! They’ll walk in a minefield to rescue a member of a squad. They jump in the middle of a firefight to carry off a wounded guy on their shoulders, the same jerk who gave the Jimmy Olson kid a truckload of crud a few days ago. And Jimmy Boy carries that lump of shit up a hill, through a forest, with bullets whizzing past them in full gear because that’s the type of guy he is. Not for fame, fortune, chicks, or a can of Coors.
“There are those who just do ’cause they’ve endured a lot already and try to make things better for others. Capisce, amigo?” Turning to me as he took off his sunglasses to emphasize his point, Mike conceded, “You know, David, one doesn’t have to go off to some foreign country armed with guns and grenades to fight and overcome one’s war.”
The statement hung inside the tiny Toyota as Mike weaved his way through the rush hour traffic. I wasn’t sure how to react, as I didn’t know if he knew how close he was to unlocking my own private hell. I swallowed hard and turned to stare at the passing cars. “Hey man, don’t sweat it,” The Sarge joked as he tapped me on the shoulder. “I’m just talkin’ trash. I know I get a bit long-winded, and half the time I’m full of it, but I know you and I would have signed the paperwork and not looked back. Mr. Pelzer, you’re okay in my book. Keep your chin up, and your eyes wide open. Tomorrow’s prince was yesterday’s frog. That’s not the only car in town—there’s a lot of Detroit metal on the road these days and tomorrow is another day.”
“Thanks, Mike,” I smiled.
“No sweat-de-da, Jimmy Olson. No sweat,” Mike chanted.
Whatever disappointment I might have felt for myself about the sudden loss of mobile independence dissipated by the time Mike and I arrived at Duinsmoore. When I confessed to David and Paul what had happened, they simply raised their shoulders as if it were no big deal. Then instead of blindly heading off at high speeds in search of unknown adventure, David and I now leisurely strolled around the block. If anything, I joked, the lack of wheels limited our chances of doing anything too stupid.
Stopping in front of my old foster home, where the Welshes had moved out some time ago, David said that a family from Italy had moved in and the father was an engineer who worked with NASA on the upcoming Space Shuttle Transport-Orbiter at nearby Moffet Field. In awe of meeting a real scientist, I instantly bombarded him with questions. How do astronauts go to the bathroom in space? Does the lack of gravity have any effect on how blood pumps into the heart? Or reduce the growth of hair? The engineer simply smiled at me, as he patted me on the head as if I were a dog, while answering, “Yes, yes, yes,” over and over again. It wasn’t until David and I came to Paul’s house that David informed me the Italian scientist understood very little English.
“But not to worry,” David smiled, “The Sarge has been dubbed the ‘Ambassador of Goodwill’ and has already taught him the meaning of Coors beer!”
Howard’s comment eased the tension I felt inside of knowing that once again I became overly nervous and had gotten ahead of myself by babbling in front of the NASA scientist. By the time I was eight years old I knew I wanted to either fly jets or become a volcanologist. To me volcanoes symbolized the creation of the world, but also held an alluring, yet incredibly destructive force as well. Meeting a real scientist that dealt with cutting-edge space products was not only cool, but suddenly made me contemplate my own future desires. It also made me realize that I had pushed aside a deep aspiration that seemed so attainable and important to me as a young child. For years I had always driven myself to survive, rather than focusing on what I wanted to do with my life. Meeting the NASA engineer made me think of things I had long since forgotten.
“Hey, Pelz,” David interrupted, “if you want to see something cool, you should check this out.” Moments later I stood in absolute awe of Paul’s recreation: an exact copy of the Star Wars R2D2. As Paul rattled off the challenges he overcame, I learned the replica was built without a single diagram and only what Paul kept in his head. Kneeling down, examining Paul’s droid, it seemed perfect—from the revolving head to the exact blue squares.
Praising Paul, all I could utter was, “I can’t believe it!”
Paul knelt down to adjust the droid’s eye. “If I had some servos and a remote control, I could make it move like the real thing.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, pal,” I praised. “In a word: It’s incredible.”
Paul simply nodded, brushing off the compliment as he fiddled with his creation. Later, as David and I walked off, all I could think to say was that Paul was an absolute genius.
“Yep, I know,” David echoed, “that he is. You wanna know how he did it?” I shook my head yes. “He disappears for about three weeks. I mean, after school he’s gone, invisible. Come to find out he’s at the movies. He must have seen Star Wars forty maybe fifty times. Then he basically locks himself in his room making notes, then he’s in Dan’s garage building the thing. He didn’t tell a soul. Is that cool or what? And hey, get this: The NASA guy, Franco, he checks out Paul’s work, and I mean he measured it from head to toe as if using some micrometer, and tells everyone, and I mean everyone, that Paul has what it takes to work for NASA! Franco says the NASA folks are always scouting for brainiacs like Paul. The younger they find ’em, the better.”
“No way!” I shouted. “Paul at NASA? Awesome!”
“The guy’s a bit moody and a total loner at times and I always knew he was smart, but man, I’m an idiot compared to him,” David commented. “Last week I was at Mr. Brazell’s garage and just hangin’ out when some of the guys were talking about Paul’s future with Houston or even Cape Canaveral.”
“But what about you?” I inquired. “What do you see yourself doing?”
“I like building things. I may go into construction, maybe carpentry, or a plumber.”
“And what’s the consensus from ‘The Think Tank’?” I joked.
“Yeah, they see me in that line of work. I helped Dan out a bit and he says I have good hands. But you…” David added.
My eyes grew wide as I imagined the group of men huddled close together, conspiring against me for all the chaos I caused. “What’d they say?”
“Well,” David admitted, “the odds are five to one that you’re gonna end up in jail or become a street sweeper.”
“Five to one? That sucks. So, who bet against me?” I pleaded.
Using his fingers to count the votes, David began with, “Um, Mr. Neyland for one, obviously. Mr. Jolly, Mr. Ballow for what reason I don’t know, but I do know he doesn’t like you. Anyway, Dan’s in your favor but The Sarge and I abstained.”
“Abstained? What the hell are you guys, the Soviet Union?” I fired back. “Why didn’t you two stand up for me, man?”
“Yo, Pelz, it’s just a joke. Take a chill pill. But seriously, what do you see yourself doing, you know, with the rest of your life?”
Stunned, I stood in front of my friend with my mouth hung open. “I… I don’t know.”
After a lapse of embarrassing silence, David said, “I sure do miss that car of yours.”
Feeling like a little kid that was grounded without his bicycle, I asked, “So, what do you wanna do this weekend?”
“Oh, man, I forgot to tell you. I gotta job. I work part time at the hardware store. I’m gonna be late, I gotta run.”
“A job? No way,” I shouted. “What for?”
“Duh, so I can get a car. Anyway, I gotta go. You’ll have to hang out with Paul this weekend. Catch ya lat
er.” Howard rushed before sprinting off to his house. Before I could yell at him that Paul would probably spend the entire weekend locked in his room, David was out of sight.
I stood in the middle of the street dumbstruck. When I turned away from the Howards’ house, I realized how still the neighborhood was. There wasn’t a kid in sight, and all I could hear was my own breathing. For some reason I felt scared. My only friends in the entire world and I were growing in different directions. And, for the first time since discovering Duinsmoore Way, I found myself completely alone.
9. Wake-Up Call
It was July of 1978. I woke up before sunrise, suddenly realizing in less than six months I would become a legal adult. David Howard’s off-the-cuff remark just days ago, of what I wanted to do with my life suddenly paralyzed all other thoughts. As I lay in bed listening to my own breathing, I now felt as though I had run out of time. Even though I had two more years of high school left—not only because I had been held back in the first grade but because I was born late in the calendar year—if I were to remain in school I would have to do so on my own support. For some stupid reason I had kept telling myself that as long as I stayed in school, I was somehow protected from stepping out into the void of a vast world. As much as I was excited about being my own person, I had always seemed safe since becoming an adult was so far off. But I was much older now.
At least, I told myself, I still had a fair amount of savings. But the short time I had the Chevy taught me that things unexpectedly can come up that can chip away at my financial safety net. I could only imagine what it would be like being “out there” when it truly mattered. I ridiculed myself that I was less than two hundred days shy of voting age now, riding from town to town searching for another job on a ratty temperamental ten-speed bicycle.
In part because I dreaded everything about high school, the sad fact that my grades hovered above dismal, and the painful fact that it was expensive, I never considered college. I had fantasized about enlisting in the U.S. Air Force and to eventually become a fireman like my father. But after taking the military entrance exam at school and failing miserably both times, I wasn’t quite so sure. I also toyed with the idea of attending a technical school so I could work with sheet metal and possibly one day work side by side with Dan, but I felt I was too inept for any of the classes, especially when it came to measurements. Just a short time ago I had convinced myself I knew everything I would need to know to survive in the real world. Now my stupidity and arrogance was about to bite me in the behind.