I was told about a writing competition and decided to give it a try. The name of the contest is Writing Home. They want a 900-1500 word essay with the subject being related to home. Being close to completion of my Mr. Toes book, I have to overcome my insecurities and lose the fear of rejection or I'll never get the book published. I think this competition is a good baby step for me. Here is the entry I submitted today:
Fill 'er Up Mack!
[FONT='Arial','sans-serif'] © 2009-B.R. Moroni[/FONT]I guess it had been a bad winter in Bridgeport. I don’t remember. But I do remember 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 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, my mother was always sick (at least that’s what they called it), my older brother was still at school and I was probably being a pest. So, at three years old, I was allowed to walk down from the third floor apartment 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 and 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. She would yell at my mother if I made any noise in the stairway and the back stairs were covered with wavy linoleum that crackled whenever a foot pressed down on them. I learned to walk on the aluminum trim at the edge of each step because if Mrs. Armor yelled at my mother, my mother would pass the yelling on to me, punctuated with at least a few slaps. Mrs. Armor lived alone. It seemed likely that Mrs. Armor had killed and eaten Mr. Armor. So, the new rule was that I had to stay behind the house, in the driveway where I could be seen from the third floor back porch. That’s where I was playing with Freddie.
When your playground is the driveway of a three-family house, cars are a part of every game you play. My folks had two cars there, both tremendous station wagons. They were from a time when all American cars were tremendous, when gasoline 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 you might see in hospital operating rooms, 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 initiate much yelling and slapping.
Freddie found a small door on the side of the green Packard. I say it was small only in comparison to the other 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. It had a raised lip under which Freddie stuck his finger and pulled the door open! Just like that! 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. He 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.
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!”
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. 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!”
“Okay Joe!” But we had no gas to pump.
I think the idea hit us simultaneously. 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 and grabbing two fists full of sand, he shouted, “Fill ‘er up Mack!” 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.
“Okay Joe!” shouted Freddie as he dumped his sand into the tank. And so began our marathon relay. Back and forth we ran demanding and replying 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 crossing our boundaries 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. 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 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 entire incident from his memory because he still denies any knowledge of why the green car never came home.
