Carhops

CARHOPS - Chapter 1.

Copyright 2017 by Nick Brady, all rights reserved.   

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 All I wanted was a bicycle. All the guys I knew had a bike and I wanted one too. I was thirteen, and it was embarrassing not to have a bike. Mom said I didn't need a bicycle. She said Watalekee, Oklahoma, was so small that if I wanted to go somewhere, I could just walk. Actually, she was right, but I still wanted a bike. Mom pointed out that on her salary as a waitress, she didn't have the money for a bicycle and couldn't buy me one even if she wanted to. She said if I really wanted one, I would have to earn the money by myself. OK, but how was I going to make enough money to buy a decent bike? 

I asked for work in every store in town, which didn't take a lot of time in a town that size. Either they didn't need anybody, or I was too young. In fact, most of them thought it was funny that a kid my age was looking for a real job. It was discouraging. 

My next door neighbor Robert had a suggestion. “Jimmy, you have a lawnmower. Why don't you mow some yards?” 

“Well yeah, but it's a reel mower. No motor, you got to push that thing. You can't mow grass more than an inch high with it. Who will pay to have their grass cut when it's only an inch high?”

“You mow your mom's yard with it.”

“Right. Every week. If I wait any longer, it takes forever,” I protested.

Jimmy shrugged, “You got a better idea?”

I didn't, so I went to every house in town. but with no luck. It was discouraging. Out of desperation, I went to where my teachers lived. Maybe since I was a pretty good student, they would take pity on me. No sale. Finally, I went to the house where Mrs. Finch lived. 

Mrs. Finch was my English teacher and she lives in a big pink two-story house. She was married to a rich guy and I guessed that she taught school for something to do. I don't think she really needed the money. She was smart though, and a pretty good teacher. I went there last because she had a great big yard and I wasn't sure I could cut all that grass with a push mower, but I was desperate. By the time I stepped up on her front porch, I was tired, sweaty and my T-shirt was stuck to my skinny body.

“Hello, Jimmy. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” she asked.

“Hello, Mrs. Finch. I wondered if you wanted your yard mowed,” I asked, almost hoping the answer would be no.

“I have a big yard,” she stated the obvious.

“Yes Ma'am, but I can do it, if you need somebody to cut it,” I assured her with less conviction than I felt.

 “I have to give you credit for confidence, Jimmy. It so happens that the man who does my lawn happens to be sick and can't come this week. I might give you a chance.”

“Really?” I wasn't sure how I felt about that. “Great. Can I do it tomorrow?”

“I don't know. Can you?” she smiled.

It took me a minute to get what was funny. “Um, may I cut it tomorrow? I'm sure I can.”

Now she laughed. “Yes you may. But you must do a good job. I don't want to see any patches of uncut grass, and please trim around my front sidewalk.”

I nodded and started to leave, then remembered I had one last question. “Um, how much will you pay me?” I hoped it wasn't rude to ask that.

“If you do a nice job, I will pay you ten dollars.”

Now, in 1953, that was a whole lot of money. I mean, she had a great big yard, but I might be able to buy a second-hand bike for ten bucks. And if she let me cut it every week, by the end of the summer, I would be rich. 

“Yes Ma'am. I'll start first thing in the morning.” I beat it before she changed her mind. 

I spent the rest of the day oiling up the gears and sharpening the curved blades that rotated around when I pushed the old machine. It was the first part of June and was already getting hot, so I flipped the mower over and freewheeled it over to Mrs. Finch's by 7:30 in the morning to get an early start. I began on the front and made fair progress, considering that the grass was kind of long. I did the sides and got that done by noon. I pushed the mower around and opened the gate to the back so I could eat the lunch I brought, and sat down with my mouth hanging open.

I had never been in Mrs. Finch's back yard before, and suddenly realized why this job was worth ten dollars. Her house was on the end of the block and there was a great big hedge along the street side. Inside the hedge, her back yard ran back for the whole block. It was huge. I ate my sandwich, got a drink out of the garden hose and squirted some oil on the blades.

It was getting hot when I started along the hedge, and by the time I had reached the end, I was covered in sweat. I turned and headed back for the house, leaning over to push the old mower through the rough grass. By the time it was almost dark, I was about half way through. I didn't say anything to Mrs. Finch because I saw her looking out the window at me a couple of times, so she knew how far I got. I would have to finish it the next day.

I started again in the morning and finally finished with the back around 4:00 o'clock. We didn't have any clippers, so I had hooked Mom's sewing scissors and started on the grass around the sidewalks. It was slow work. It was late when I knocked on Mrs. Finch's back door.

“Yes?” she stood there with her eyebrows raised expectantly.

“I'm finished,” I said hopefully. 

“Are you, now?” she came out and started walking around with her arms folded over her ample chest, looking around the trees for any uncut clumps of grass. I followed her around to the front so she could inspect the edges of the sidewalks. She turned and looked at me but was not smiling. I looked a mess, soaked in sweat with grass clippings stuck all over me.

“Well,” she said. “My usual man does a better job, but I suppose this will do.” After a long minute, she pulled a ten dollar bill out of her apron pocket and handed it to me. “If he is not feeling better next week, I will call you,” then she smiled and walked back into the house.

“Did you finally finish mowing that woman's yard?” Mom asked as I came dragging into the house.

I waved the ten dollars at her, and headed for the bathroom to sit in the tub and soak. When I dressed and appeared in the kitchen, Mom had some supper on the table for me.

“Are you going to be her regular yard boy now?” Mom asked.

“She said she'd call me,” I told her, hoping that she wouldn't.

Her yard man must have recovered because she didn't call, for which I had mixed feelings, mostly gratitude. During the next week, I scouted around and found out that my friend Almer's big brother had a fairly decent Monarch bicycle that he would sell me for the bargain price of ten dollars. I spent the rest of the week, repacking the bearings and oiling the chain. It was not a thing of beauty, but it was serviceable. I had a bike. Nothing fancy, no gears or anything, but if you stood up to climb the hills, a one-speed was fine. It beat walking, and the coaster brake would stop it pretty quick. Now that I had wheels, my range increased, and I looked for work at the few places out on the highway. There were a couple of gas stations, a tire store and a beer joint - Sparky's Pink Elephant. The gas stations and the tire store barely gave me the time of day, but to my surprise, the guy at the beer joint looked me over and jerked his head to invite me inside.

He looked me up and down. I was barely five foot tall, skinny and with unruly blonde hair.

“How old are you, kid?”

“Almost sixteen,” I stretched the truth considerably.

“You dependable?”

“Yes, sir.” 

“How you gonna get out here?” 

“I got a bike,” I said honestly.

“Can you make change?”

We had covered that in school, “Yes sir.”

“You like beer?” 

I wasn't sure how to answer that, considering the nature of the business, so I decided on honesty. “No sir.”

“You got a problem with niggers?” He raised his eyebrows.

“That was not a word that was used at my house, but I knew what it meant, so I gave him another honest answer. “No sir. Not at all.”

“What's your name, kid?” the man growled.

“Jimmy,” I told him.

“I'm Floyd.”

“Who's Sparky?” I asked.

“Ain't no Sparky,” he said with no more explanation. “Come out to the back.

At the rear of the place was a door with a small window next to it. On the wall was a hand-painted menu listing burgers, fries, ribs and a few other simple delicacies, along with coke, 7-Up, and an assortment of beer, and the prices for each. Against the wall was a short bench. Ten feet behind the place was a barrel for burning trash and a stack of wooden cases filled with empty beer bottles.

“I need a carhop,” Floyd said. “You think you can do that?”

“Sure. What do I have to do?”

“Most of my customers come inside and drink beer, maybe eat something. Some people don't want to come inside, like guys whose old ladies won't let them, or niggers who I don't want inside. So they drive back here, you take the order and give it to me with the money.  I give you the stuff when it's ready, and you hand it to them. Think you can do that?”

I was going into the eighth grade the next year, could read just fine and handle simple math.  I thought I could do this.  “Sure,” I said.

“I need you to be here from 2:00 to 8:00 Monday through Saturday. I got to close on Sunday. Can you do that?”

“You close at 8:00?”

“No, but I don't want a kid here after dark.”

I was a little unsure about this, but it looked like the only job in town. “How much do you pay?”

“You be here on time and you get fifty cents an hour, plus tips. You know how to keep your mouth shut?”

I did a quick calculation. That added up to eighteen dollars a week, plus tips. The tips were an unknown quantity, but eighteen dollars sounded pretty good and beat cutting grass. I could see a new bike in my future. “Sure. I can do that.” 

“Be here Monday,” Floyd told me and turned to go back inside without offering a handshake.

I knew I would have to get this past Mom, but figured I could talk her into it. I got on the old bike and rode home. 

“That's a dump,” she protested.

“I won't ever be inside the place. I just sit out back and hand stuff to the people that drive through, and I'll be back before dark,” I explained, leaving out the parts I thought she wouldn't like to hear. To my surprise, she agreed with a minimum of whining and begging on my part. I was employed.

I rolled around to the back of Sparky's just before two on Monday. A bicycle was leaned up against the back wall. Sitting on the bench was another kid about my age. He was a colored boy and told me his name was Henry. In spite of the fact that we both lived in the same little town, I had never seen him before. We had separate schools, as was the custom. 

“I do the colored folks,” Henry explained. 

“Have you done this before?” I asked. 

“I started a week ago.”

'How is it? Floyd seemed kind of rough.”

“He paid me on Saturday,” Henry shrugged as if that was sufficient.

“Do you make much from tips?”

“Not much.”

Henry and I lived in our own sides of town. Colored people all lived in the southwest quadrant of town. We had the rest of it. Mom never said anything ugly about colored people. We accepted that they were over there, but we didn't mix with them, even though they were about twenty percent of the population. The only coloreds I had ever been around were the lady who cleaned for my grandmother and the older man who did odd jobs for her. They seemed nice, but we didn't talk much. It was just the way things were. The fact that Henry didn't have much to say didn't surprise me. I was only thirteen. I didn't question the way things were. I had no idea how Henry felt about such things. 

The job was as simple as it sounded like it would be. Every so often a car would drive around to the back and look at the menu board. If they were white I would ask them what they wanted, write it down,  tell them how much it cost and pass the note and money to Floyd. In a few minutes, Floyd passed me a paper bag with the order and change inside. If they were colored, Henry would do it. If there was beer in the bag, we didn't see it. Most of the time we sat on the bench and waited until somebody drove around. I tried making conversation mostly out of boredom.

“I guess you go to school over at Lincoln?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“What grade will you be in next year?”

“Eighth.”

“Yeah? Me too. You like school?”

“I guess.”

“Do you like sports?” This sparked a little more interest.

“I like basketball and football.”

“Do you play on a team?”

“The high school has a basketball team. There aren't enough kids for football,” he shrugged.

A car drove through. I took care of it then it got quiet again.

“You got any brothers or sisters?” I asked.

“Two brothers and a sister.”

“You the oldest, youngest?”

“Sister's the youngest. I'm next.”

“What's your daddy do?”

“He preaches.”

“Really? Your daddy is a minister?”

“Yeah, One Way Bible Church.”

“Does he know this place sells beer?”

Henry almost smiled. “Hey, it's work.”

“He doesn't care?”

“As long as I don't drink it.” Now he did smile, and I laughed.

“What about you?” Henry asked. “What's your family?”

“I live with my mom.”

“Just your mom?”

“Yeah. Just me and Mom.”

At this point, Henry realized that he was getting familiar and remembered his place. As a result, he shut up and looked away.

“My parents divorced when I was real little. I don't much remember my father,” I volunteered.

Henry didn't say anything but looked back at me with a gentle face. Just then a family of coloreds drove up and he waited on them. It got busier about five o'clock when people started to get off work and look for something fast for supper. Sparky's was about the only place in town where you could get something to eat without getting out of your car. For sure it was the only place where you could buy beer from your car.

It went like this for the rest of the week and we got to be pretty chummy. Henry figured out I didn't care what color he was, so he got less guarded. I guess you could say we got to be friends. 

On Saturday, Floyd gave each of us an envelope with our pay inside. Mine had eighteen dollars in it. I don't know what Henry got. He took it but didn't look inside. Over the week, I got about three dollars in tips. Not bad at all, and I didn't have to push a lawnmower.

It turned out that what Henry really got excited about was fishing. He went fishing with his dad, with his brothers or by himself. They mostly fished for catfish and used dough balls, chicken livers, worms or stink bait.  He liked to fish.

“What's stink bait?” I asked.

“That's little cubes of sponge dipped in this rotten stuff,” Henry explained. “Catfish will eat most anything.” I made a face.

“Don't you like to fish?” he asked, as if surely everyone shared his passion.

“Yeah. It's OK I guess. I've been a few times,” I hedged.

“Man, I go all the time, whenever I can,” Henry was a true believer in fishing.

“Where do you go?” his enthusiasm was contagious.

“Down below the dam is a good place if I can get somebody to take me. Or down on Clear Creek. I can ride my bike over there. So could you.”

“Is that an invitation?” I grinned at him.

“You really want to go fishing with me? He looked surprised.

“Sure. Why not?” he made this sound like fun.

Henry looked thoughtful. “We could go on Sunday. You go to church?”

“Sometimes. But I don't do anything Sunday afternoon. We could go then.”

Henry smiled. “We could ride our bikes to the creek if you wanted.” He wasn't sure I was serious.

“Where can we meet?” I was serious.

“I guess we could meet at Elmer's,” he suggested. “Bring your fishing stuff. You got fishing stuff?”

I had a cheap little pole with a Zebco reel on it somewhere. I thought it might be in the garage, but it was pretty crappy. “Not so much,” I admitted.

“That's OK, man. I got plenty of stuff. I'll bring something for you,” Henry looked pleased.

“One o'clock?”

“Make it two,” he said. “Our church runs long sometimes.” It was a deal.

After church on Sunday, I made some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and threw in some apples. If he was bringing the fishing tackle, at least I could bring us something to eat.

Elmer's was a little station-grocery store on the east side of town. From there, it was about six miles to Clear Creek. When I rode up at two, Henry was sitting out front wearing cut-offs and a white T-shirt. I wore an old pair of jeans, a  long-sleeved white shirt and an old ball cap to protect me from the sun. Blonde hair and fair skin burned pretty easily. Henry didn't have that problem.

He grinned when he saw me. “Hey, man. You really came.”

“Well, sure. I said I would.”

“You ready? Follow me,” Henry took off in the direction of the creek. 

It only took about a half hour, and we rolled across the bridge, made a sharp right then walked our bikes down the rough gravel path to the water. It was pretty down there, and much cooler. The water was clear, turning greenish in the deep pools under the bridge. Henry had a big tackle box strapped on the back of his bicycle, and a bundle of fishing poles wrapped in an old sheet tied to the side of the frame. He unpacked his equipment and laid it out. There were four rods, each with a nice looking reel. Fishing gear was too important to skimp on. We sat down on the gravel bank and looked up and down the creek. The sound of traffic on the bridge thundered over our heads.

“This is nice,” I said. “I've ridden over the bridge before, but I've never been down here.”

“Yeah. This is one of my favorite places. It's a good place to swim too, if the fish aren't biting.”

“Do you come down here very often?” I asked.

“I go a lot of places. I like to come down here when it's hot. We can catch some catfish, and maybe some bass if we're lucky.” He was in his element. 

I glanced over at Henry. He was a nice looking guy, a little taller than me, slender but more muscular. He was very dark, deep brown if not actually black. The arms that stuck out of his T-shirt were full and well defined. His hair was kinky and cut close to his head. He looked good, now that I really took a look at him. I was aware that he was probably stronger than me, although I wasn't puny. He glanced over at me and smiled. His teeth were very white. “You ready to fish?”

“Sure. What's for bait?” I asked. This was basically new to me.

Henry opened the tackle box and we looked inside. There were extra reels, a lot of lures, silver spoons and something wrapped up in wet burlap. He unwrapped this to reveal a bag of chicken livers and a small jar with a tight lid. “That's the stink bait,” he informed me. “Let's try the liver first.” He baited the hooks of two rods and cast them out into the deepest part of the hole, letting the hooks sink to the bottom while the corks floated on the surface.

He carefully fastened a cork to the line of one of the other poles, baited it with liver and handed it to me. 

“Cast that out next to that dead tree,” he instructed me. “It should hang just off the bottom. When the cork disappears, jerk it hard.” I took the pole and did as he suggested.

Taking the last rod, Henry affixed a small jig with a silver spoon to the line and sailed it out across the pool. He reeled it back in with a few turns of the crank, let it sink for a moment, then turned the crank again. The lure rose and flashed, sank from sight, then rose again. When he had brought it back to himself, he cast it out again in a slightly different place and repeated the process as I watched with interest. “Keep an eye on your bobber,” he reminded me.

I sat down on the bank and alternated my attention between Henry's lure and my cork. Neither of us got a bite. After a few minutes of this, he cranked in the first two lines and saw that the hooks were empty. I pulled mine in and found it was the same.

“They's just sucking the bait off the hooks,” he growled. 

While Henry rebaited our hooks, I unwrapped the meager lunch I had packed. “Do you like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?” I asked. He nodded and took one appreciatively. We sat and watched the corks as we ate. 

When he finished the sandwich he squatted at the water's edge and took a drink from his cupped hands. “The water's good,” he said by way of explanation. Taking his word for it, I did the same and found it to be cold and sweet.

We drew in the other two lines and found the hooks to be empty again.  Henry scowled and said, “Wait a minute.”

He went back to his tackle box and unwrapped a bundle of small sponge cubes. He put one on each of the two bare hooks, then looked around to find a long thin stick. Opening the jar of stink bait, he used the stick to push the sponges deep in the jar and pulled them out. A powerful odor filled the air.

I wrinkled my nose and asked, “What's that?”

“They like it,” Henry laughed, then tossed the foul-smelling bait deep in the water and anchored the poles with large rocks. “They can't suck those off. Let's leave them for awhile and fish farther down the creek.” He picked up his rod and the rest of the chicken livers. “You ready?”

I followed Henry as we made our way down the gravel bank to where the creek curved under some overhanging willow trees. There was another deep pool there and we sat down to try our luck again. We baited our hooks, adjusted the corks and started to fish. At Henry's instruction, I cast upstream and watched as the cork floated past, looking for it to dip under water. We repeated this maneuver several times, checking the hooks and adding new liver as needed. Still no luck.

Henry sighed. “I wanted you to catch something, but they aren't biting right now. They should start to feed again when it starts to cool off.” He looked at me and grinned. “You like to swim?”

I looked at the clear water and nodded my head. “I do, but I don't want to swim in my jeans.”

Henry shrugged, “Take 'em off. There's nobody around.” With that, he dropped his T-shirt and cut-offs, revealing that he wore nothing underneath, and eased himself into the water. “Come on in,” he grinned.

I was a little surprised but quickly decided that this looked like a good idea. I slipped off my clothes and joined him. We waded out to where the water was just above our waist and squatted down to our necks. The water was cold, but it felt good. Henry leaned back and allowed his feet to float up out of the water, and I followed suit. 

I only got a quick look at Henry before he got into the water, but I saw enough to know that he looked pretty good. He was slender and very muscular. He also had a lot more between his legs than I had. I had only seen a few of my friends naked, and never a boy like Henry. The brief look I got made me curious to see more. 

We splashed around in the water and Henry tried to dunk me. I grabbed him and fought him off. In doing so, our naked bodies touched each other and I felt a wave of excitement that was new to me. I looked at Henry's expression and wondered if he was feeling the same thing. What I saw was his laughing face as he pushed my head under the water. When I opened my eyes, I could see his long cock floating up in the clear water with a bush of curly hair above it. He was uncut like me. Most guys I knew had been circumcised, so this also struck me as interesting. I rose up out of the water and jumped on top of him, but he slid to one side and put me under again.

Henry's black skin was shiny now that it was wet, and his hair was a mat of tight black curls. My white skin and blonde hair made quite a contrast to him. When we pressed against each other, the difference was striking. I liked the feeling of his muscular arms and shoulders under my hands. I liked the feeling of his hands on my waist. I liked it a lot.

It occurred to me that I probably shouldn't be doing this, and backstroked away from him to catch my breath. He laughed and splashed water at me, then leaned back and floated on his back again. I decided to do the same and looked up through the overhanging branches to the blue sky above us. It was very cool in the water and the air smelled damp and earthy. We could hear the sound of birds in the trees, and the croak of frogs from somewhere down the creek. The sunlight filtered through the leaves and flashed off the ripples in the water. This was a neat place, made better my new friend Henry. In a few minutes, he seemed to remember why we were here, waded up to the bank and pulled on his clothes. 

“We need some worms,” he said, and went up into the trees where he started pulling away leaves to dig into the soft earth. I watched him as I got dressed, and saw him stuffing things into his shirt pocket. 

Henry returned to our fishing gear and sat down to thread a squirming worm on the hooks. Handing one to me, he cast out next to the opposite bank and motioned for me to do the same. We sat side by side and watched the corks as they floated gently downstream. 

Suddenly, my cork disappeared. “Jerk it!” Henry called to me, and I did so. There was a struggle on the end of my line, and I reeled it in as quickly as I could. On my hook was a small sand bass. Nothing to brag about, but as the only fish caught all day, pretty impressive. 

Henry grabbed it as I pulled it on the bank, and tossed it behind him. He took my hook and attached another worm. “Good one. Now throw it out again!”

Between us, we soon had six nice fish for our efforts. None were large, but this had been fun, at least for me. The sun had started to drop behind the trees and Henry stood, pulled off his T-shirt and wrapped our fish inside. “We better start back,” he said.

I followed him back upstream to where we had begun, watching the muscles move in his back and shoulders as we walked across the coarse gravel. Henry pulled in the lines on the poles we had left behind and found a very small catfish on one of them. “Too little,” he said, shaking his head and tossing it back in the water. Pulling what looked like an old pillowcase from his box, he transferred the fish to it. He rinsed his T-shirt in the creek, wrung it out and put it back on, then he stashed the gear and tied it to his bicycle. 

“You want some of the fish?” he asked. I hesitated, then admitted that I had never learned how to clean fish. He nodded then stuffed them into his bundle. “We better start back,” he said.

I followed him out to the road and across the bridge in the direction we had come from. By the time we got back to Elmer's the sky was turning red over town. He gave me a wave and we separated, he towards his part of town, and me towards mine.

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To be continued.

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