Are You My Dad? Looks Like!

I wrote all these stories, years ago. Thousands of pages.  I had no aspiration with this. I would put up blog-post-sized story pieces.  People were laughing and engaged. They’d ask questions and I would respond with another story.  I had no plan.

Eventually, someone showed up to edit them. This man came up with an idea how to put them in a book.  He had a vision and this was fine with me.

The stories that made it into my book were not necessarily my best stories, but the stories that told the larger story he wanted to tell.  Also, fine with me.  But there was a lot left on the cutting room floor. He intended to use the other stories for subsequent books, but this never happened.

These bits concern a man name, Jim, who was a big help to me when I was a teenager.  He’s in my book, but only briefly.  This situation is hard to fathom, especially when you compare it to life today.   But this is exactly how it all went down.  

The hotel in this story is pictured.  You can see the little store. I lived in the room, second window from the right, on the second floor. It was fine, until it wasn’t.

When I was fifteen years old I lived in a decrepit hotel. It was one of those places that ever city has. A landmark hotel, that had been left to deteriorate. Prime location, one block from the local University. The furnished rooms were rented by the week to the desperately poor. Drug addicts, the mentally ill, a few students, a few prostitutes, a few retired people trying to live on a tiny fixed income, and me.

On their way up or on their way down, everyone there was either just off the street or headed there. We were all just a hair away from homelessness before homelessness was common in this country. It was not that many months later that the place would be condemned, leaving everyone living there scrambling for housing.

Miserable as it sounds, I was grateful to be off the street and saving every cent I could to upgrade. I had lived there about a month or so, and was expecting to live there several months more, when one day I went downstairs to the store.

I lived on the 2nd floor above a small convenience store enclosed in the hotel, but open to the street. I was in there, or by there, regularly and by my nature had chatted up everybody in the place. On this day I stopped in, hair wet. People do this in Arizona, or at least I did. One of the guys asked me if I had just taken a shower.

I had, and I said so. He said, “So it’s you.”

“Huh?”

Turns out, the pipes leaked. Every time I took a shower, water would pour down into the store. They had to set a bucket in the aisle to catch the water.

Now for some reason this made me terribly ashamed, and it was not because of anything anyone in the store said. They quite liked me. They told me that it had been this way a long time, and when my specific room was rented this occurred with the shower.

I offered to talk to the front desk and move to a different room. They told me that if I didn’t live there, someone else would and that it was not a big deal, but it was to me. I was mortified. Maybe it was the lack of privacy, or maybe it was the idea of water running off my body into the public, but I decided to move as immediately as possible. I just didn’t think it was possible to stay, I was so ashamed.

I suffered all day with the shame, deciding I had to move.   It was a dilemma though, because I was so poor, I did not want to spend the ten cents to buy a newspaper to see if there might be a room somewhere? I also had no car so you see what I mean.  Move, how? But the shame was intense so that night, I put the dime in the newspaper machine. I scanned the paper with my fingers crossed and there it was. “Room for rent $70 a month.”

I was paying $95 at the hotel, reflecting a five dollar discount for paying by the month. Another dime for the phone, I dialed the guy up and he told me to come over.

When I met Jim… well I hitchhiked over to his place from the hotel, and knocked on his door. I had just turned sixteen, and I must have been a sight, but I would have been oblivious to that. I just know I wanted a place to live where water did not run off my body into a bucket in the middle of a store. This had to be done. He was renting a room in his house and the price was right. In fact it was the only thing in the paper that day that I could possibly afford, so I was keen to rent it and get this done.

Besides being highly motivated to move, I’m efficient by my nature. I had two jobs and little time to be hitchhiking around looking for a place to live. I mean, moving was a problem I didn’t need, but I just couldn’t bear the shower thing. When I saw his ad, a room priced less than I was paying at the hotel… well, let’s just say that I was there to close the deal. I think Jim was thirty-one at the time. He looked me up and down and invited me in.

He wanted to know if I were Italian. I said I was and we looked at each other smugly. You know. Like two Italians who think they’re hot shit. There was an instant affinity like that. This was common in the desert. There are very few Italians living there. When a collision like this occurred, it was always cause for celebration.

Jim said the $70 rent included everything, and I would have run of the house. I’d have to pay on time but other than that he couldn’t care less what I did. I should stay out of his way, and he’d stay out of mine. “Where do you work, Elsa?”

“I’m a bartender,” I said. I named Scott’s mother’s bar.

“Really?” He looked skeptical. “You work in a bar? How old are you?”

I didn’t have my lies down pat, so I scrambled in head. I’d just turned sixteen, but I couldn’t say that, of course. They thought I was twenty-two at work. I’d said I was twenty-one, but I’d had a birthday and, well shucks. That’s how that happened. Anyway, I was dizzy being that old, so I took a year off.

“Twenty one!” I said, smiling.

“Twenty-one, my ass. You aren’t twenty-one. How old are you really?”

“Sixteen.”

He laughed. “And you’re a bartender?”

“Uh. Yeah.”

“And they think you’re twenty-one?”

“No. They think I’m twenty-two.” I laughed again, loudly. I could already tell he liked me.

“Twenty two? Well I guess they’re not from New York.” We both laughed.

“So, Elsa? Do you think that you want to move in?”

“Yes! Yes I do.”

A few days later, I moved in. Jim and I quickly become major buddies. We related on all levels. There was a heavy family thing about it.

Jim was a Cancer. He quickly became my surrogate Dad and I, his surrogate daughter. I mothered him at times. How? Well, I cook. He cooked too and there was a bit of sparring about it. You know. Two Italians. Who makes the best sauce?

I’d walk to the store for groceries. I’d walk home with my celery and stew meat for the sauce. I only did this a couple times before he started letting me drive his truck. He even let me drive his corvette on occasion, but mostly I took his truck. It was a huge rattling white paint truck with equipment jangling.

“Can you drive, Elsa?”

“Yes.” This was sort of a lie. I could drive. Just not exactly properly. I’d learned when I was ten.

“Do you have your license?”

“No.”

“Well you should get one. You can use my truck to take your test.”

See? He’s my Dad.

Once licensed he let me use his truck when it was convenient for him, and when didn’t need it himself. It wasn’t the frequent, maybe once every couple weeks. Then one day, Jim was out and I took his truck with permission. I can’t remember what I was up to, but I was approaching a red light by our house when the brakes went out. No really. They totally failed and instead of stopping, I went right into the intersection and I clipped a car. Crap!

I was in major trouble now, but I had an even more immediate problem. The truck didn’t stop when it hit the car. There was enough of an incline, I continued to roll, only to gain speed in an inevitable sort of way. People were chasing me. Chasing me on foot, waving their arms. I’m thinking… bye? I mean, if they can’t stop me and I can’t stop me, I’m apparently leaving.

Emergency brake?

What the hell is that?

Totally lacking experience, I turned off the main street and into the neighborhood where we lived. The truck and I went rolling down the residential street as I frantically pushed the brake. I was doing a fine job of this, believe me. The pedal was to the floor but I was still gaining speed, so I was wholly screwed. In fact, I was very much expecting to die unless I could get myself out of this, which is always possible, right?

I turned the corner towards, “home” on pure instinct, because the street sloped up slightly which slowed the truck just a tad. I took the next right towards the house, careening around the turn in a runaway truck.  It felt like the tires on one side, left the ground!

Where are the police? That’s what I was wondering. I’d just left the scene of an accident and it had been going downhill since!

But really, I hoped they’d get here, because I needed some help. I’m a kid, you know! Somebody Heeeeeeeelp!

One more turn. I was almost up on the curb this time. I couldn’t help it. The truck was going that fast, ladders on the truck jangling, and I see our house.

Having no other idea what to do and afraid I’m going to kill someone, I turn into the drive. The truck plows into the backyard gate, taking out part of the chain link fence, never mind the fence that is shared between the back yards of Jim and his arch enemy, the next door neighbor.

Like I said.

Crap.

But at least the truck is stopped and no one is dead. I was lucky and I knew it.

I put the truck in reverse and backed off the fence. Remembering the brakes were out, I was careful to hit the gas lightly so the truck stopped in the gravel drive. That’s that. I went inside to wait for the police or the wrath of Jim, whichever came first.

Hours passed and no one showed up. Jim didn’t have a schedule. Four o’clock came and I had to go to work. I left to hitchhike to one of my jobs, leaving Jim a note that the brakes were gone in the truck, and “Sorry!”

I thought it likely they were gone because of something I’d done, but I wasn’t going to point that out to him and I did not mention the accident. I mean come on. I’ll tell him that in person.

I expected him to show up at my job with the police, but he didn’t. I didn’t see, Jim, until the next morning, and he was completely chipper. He was happy because the neighbor he hates is an idiot.

“Hey Elsa. Good morning. You knocked the fence down with the truck, right?”

“Yep.”

That guy next door thinks the wind blew it down.

I laughed. “You’re kidding.”

“No. He says he is going to call his homeowners.” He laughs.

I didn’t know what “homeowners” was.

Jim says, “What a shithead that guy is.”

He apologized to me about the truck. He said he was glad I didn’t get hurt, and you know what happened to me. Nothing.

I couldn’t bring myself to cop to hitting the car. Jim was so happy about the neighbor’s stupidity, I didn’t want to spoil his good mood. Besides that, I didn’t have even two dollars to do anything about it, I didn’t understand insurance and worst of all I was afraid I’d go to jail.

Epilogue –

It’s twelve years later. I’ve left the city, to work in a small town for Frito Lay. There’s Italian guy, a sales rep who comes from the city, a couple times a month. We see each other, how could we not?  It’s the “no Italian people factor” in the area.

We’re friendly. For several years, this is. Actually, I think he asked me on a date once, but I was already involved.

One day he showed up wearing a badge with his name on it. Eureka! I read that last name, looked up at his face…

“You’re Jim’s brother?” I ask.

“You know my brother?  My brother, Jim?”

“Yeah. And your mother. She has pink carpet. No one can walk on it.”

He’s incredulous. “Who are you? How do you know that? How do you know them?”

“Elsa.”

“Elsa! Elsa, that used to live with my brother? You’re that Elsa?”

I’d lost touch with Jim, but this fixed that. He drove down to see me that weekend. I handed him a VO. That’s what he likes drink. VO and water, short glass.

“Hey Jim. You know, it’s really good to see you. Remember that old white truck you had…?”

~~

That’s, Jim, in the picture and me with my infamous yellow pants. He looks a little lit there, but can you see the proud dad, energy?  He didn’t like, Scott at all.  He used to meet him at the door when he came to pick me up and give him a ration of shit.

He’s also was the only person to ever have the privilege of sitting in a room with me and my sisters, while we reminisced, telling stories of our childhood. Just blunt and funny, uproarious… he was stunned. He had to leave the room at times, “You three make a New Yorker, blush.”  He sat there with his head in his hands, not sure whether to laugh or cry, as three young women, with Jupiter moons, told stories of their childhood travails, laughing, laughing, laughing and laughing for a half a day, non-stop.

Cancer with a Virgo moon conjunct Neptune opposing Mars in Pisces.  Jupiter in Gemini, squares all.  Venus in Cancer, opposing my Capricorn. Marvelous thing for both of us.

Jim was into disco and petite blondes. He and his corvette, scored all day, every day, in case you’re wondering.

I just think it’s something, how God does this.  Makes good things come from bad things, as a matter of course.