Thread: A Story for Your Enjoyment ( some adult language)

Fill ‘er Up Mack

-B.R. Moroni

I guess it had been a bad winter in Bridgeport.
I don’t remember.
But I do know there was a whole lot of sand
Left in the gutter early Spring of 1962
I was outside, playing with Freddie, my pal from next door.
I wonder if Freddie remembers me.
I don’t really remember Freddie.
Hell, I was only four when we moved from Bridgeport
To the small house in Stratford my father worked three jobs to buy.
That’s why I was outside for the afternoon.
My dad was sleeping and I was probably being a pest
And my older brother was still at school
And my mother was always sick (at least that’s what they called it)
So, at three years old, I was allowed to walk down
From the third floor walk up in which we lived.
Like probably a third of the houses in Bridgeport, It was a three family house.
Behind the house, on Garfield Avenue, was the wide driveway
The whole back yard was asphalt driveway
It began at the gray, wooden stairs
That led down from the back of the house.
It ended at the chain link fence that separated our driveway
From Freddie’s driveway, which ran alongside
The three family house in which he lived.
But at three years old, I was not allowed past the fence
Nor was I allowed alongside the house
Not since the time I borrowed a tablespoon from the drawer for digging
I didn’t see any harm in digging a hole next to the house
But that old lady, Mrs. Armor told my mother I was eating dirt
Hey, I only tasted it.
That Mrs. Armor was a pain in my ass.
She lived on the second floor, but there was no Mr. Armor.

And it was obvious why she was alone.
She was a mean, old bitch.
It seemed likely that she had killed and eaten Mr. Armor.
She would yell at my mother if I made any noise in the stairway.
And the back stairs were covered with linoleum that crackled
Whenever a foot pressed down on them.
So I learned to walk on the aluminum trim at the edge of each step.
As the saying goes, shit rolls downhill
And it seems to pick up momentum while doing so
Because if Mrs. Armor yelled at my mother
My mother would slap the shit out of me.
So, the new rule was that I had to stay behind the house,
In the driveway, where I could be seen
If they looked down from the back porch.
And that’s where I was, playing with Freddie
One Spring day, in 1962.
We were always playing with the cars.
Which is natural when your playground is the driveway
Of a three family house.
My folks had two cars there, both tremendous station wagons.
They were from the time when all American cars were tremendous,
When gas was cheap, and had lead, and would last forever.
My mother’s car was a 1958 Ford Ranch Wagon.
It was two tone, white on gray.
My father had a green Packard
It was a green you don’t see on cars anymore.
A sort of green that you might see in hospital operating rooms.
It was a very “clinical” green.
We played in between my parents’ cars and the fence.
Playing around the other cars, especially Mrs. Armor’s car
Was a very good way to bring much shit down the hill.
Freddie found a small door on the side of the green Packard.
I say it was small only in comparison to the other doors.
The doors through which we would get in and out of the car.
But this small door was still easily bigger than my head.
It was a very big little door and it was right at eye level.
And it had a raised lip under which Freddie stuck his finger.
And he pulled the door open! Just like that!
And when it was pushed shut,
The big little door slammed with the most satisfying THUNK!
It seemed to almost ring like a bell.
Freddie knew about the round metal cap inside the door.
Freddie knew that was where the gas went.
Freddie knew how to take the round cap off with a push and a twist.
Freddie knew everything.
But I knew it was always fun to go to the gas station.
I liked to jump up and down on the hose that made the bell ring.
And the air hose was fun to play with too.
Sometimes there’d be open oil cans that would be left for empty
But if I held them upside down, eventually, a thin string
Of golden, honey colored oil would stretch from the triangular opening
Punched in the top of the metal can.
It was so thick you could make designs on the pavement next to the car.
In retrospect, the gas station attendants
Probably enjoyed my visits to the gas station, less than I did.
Well, Freddie and I decided it was a good time to play “gas station”.
I opened the big, little door and yelled to Freddie,
“Fill ‘er up Mack!” and Freddie yelled back,
“Okay Joe!” and we both burst out laughing
Because we didn’t know anyone named Mack or Joe
But when men go to a gas station, at least in those days
It seemed they all new each other as either Mack or Joe
And to a three year old boy, that sort of thing is very amusing.
Then Freddie took off the round cap,
Placed it on the fender and yelled,
“Fill ‘er up Mack!” to which I replied,
“Okay Joe!” But we had no gas to pump.


I think the idea hit us simultaneously.
It was after all, only a few minutes earlier
We were playing in the long, deep sand bar
That had been piling up all winter.
The strip of fine sand ran against the curb from the corner
All the way down the street,
At least as far as we could see.
But Freddie ran to the curb first.
Grabbing two fists full of sand he shouted,
“Fill ‘er up Mack!” and as he ran back to the clinically green car.
I ran past him going the other way, cheerfully answering, “Okay Joe!”
I grabbed as much sand as I could hold, and while giggling wildly,
I put the sand into the gaping filler pipe of my father’s station wagon.
With a hearty, “Fill ‘er up Mack”, I started back toward the curb,
Passing Freddie who replied, “okay Joe!”
As he dumped his sand into the tank.
And so began our marathon relay.
Back and forth we ran, fill ‘er up Mack, okay Joe
Handful after handful of sand we put in my dad’s gas tank.
We were running out of sand at the end of the driveway.
So, incensed with the game, we threw caution to the wind
As we expanded our sand retrieval toward the corner
And well across Freddie’s driveway.
We were working so furiously it became impossible to shout
So as we passed each other between the car and the road
We were reduced to huffing “fill ‘er up Mack”
And puffing the only acceptable response “okay Joe”.
Freddie and I may have worked an hour or longer
But we eventually filled that green car’s gas tank with sand.
We filled it so full that we had to scoop some out with a Popsicle stick
So we could get the round cap back on.
And when the big little door slammed THUNK!
Freddie and I shook hands, satisfied we had indeed
Filled ‘er up Mack.
And our timing was impeccable.
Because not five minutes after
We moved on to shooting each other with our fingers,
My dad came down the stairs to leave
For his second shift job at Jenkin’s Valves.
Freddie and I stopped our game so my dad could say good-bye
We saluted him as we proudly informed him his car was
“All filled up”
My old man, no clue what the Hell we were talking about,
Just got into his car, started it up and backed out of the driveway.
He drove out of site heading south on Main Street.
That was the last time I ever saw that car.
But my dad came back around the corner
Only a few minutes later, walking very, very fast.
As he headed toward those gray wooden steps,
He snapped toward Freddie and me,
“What did you say you did to my car?”
“We filled ‘er up Mack!” we proclaimed.
I am to this day amazed at my father’s control
As he silently walked up the steps.
Soon my mother appeared on the back porch shouting,
“Freddie go home, Brad has to come in now”.
But no one spoke to me at all
Until my brother came home from school
And my father seems to have blocked
The whole incident from his memory
Because he still denies any knowledge
Of why the green car never came home.

Great story icedog!! Real or BS!I can imagine your father. Reminds me of the time I painted the nieghbors car.

If that's real and you're still alive (obviously), I can't imagine your dad's control! I don't even want to think of what would have happened had I done that Very well written though- it was hilarious!

reminds me of the time that my brother an I made ethanol by shelling corn into the gastank of my dads snowmobile. I still have no idea how he came up with that one. this was about 25 years ago, our punishment was getting all of the corn out of the tank after he had drained the tank and removed it from the snowmobile. we never did that again.

Great story!!

Thank you. I have many stories and I will gladly share them. I hope they will entertain.

Brad

Great story Brad. A child's logic is very fascinating. Ive never met anyone with that much control...