The Car Wash

Workin' at the carwash...

We're going to take a little break from Francis stories for awhile and I'm going to share some stories about how a $2 Car Wash changed my life. I'm not sure if it was for better or for worse, but it certainly gives me and my friends lots of things to laugh at.

Let's just get this straight first, I had a real job. I worked at the car wash, drying cars, when I was bored and wanted to get high and make money while doing it. The car wash consisted of several interesting characters. First and foremost, there was Lenny. He was the manager; a short fat man with a molester mustache, a full body snowsuit, and Hooters stickers on his Buick something. He was a major perve who went to Nudes a Poppin', some event where woman walk around naked, every year. He always was taking pictures of all of us girls with both a regular camera and a video camera. Plus, he always had a pocket full of "Lenny Joints", which we called them, so that we would always come around. They were named after him because they were so small and mostly paper. We all knew that he did that so the pot would last longer, thus more visits from us, and we had to smoke like 10 of them to get even the weakest high. When he was feeling really generous, he would give us one on our way out. We found out later that not only was he a perve, but possibly a dangerous one and also a pedophile. We knew he had a screw loose, but we liked getting high for free.

Me and about 10 of my friends all hung out there. Mostly just 4 of us, but others would pop up there when they wanted to hang out and they always knew where they could find us. It was pretty cool though, despite the nuts that worked there, because if you were bored, you could just go to the carwash and there would be at least 4 of your friends there. We used to get stoned and play cards, or shoot dice, or dry cars and get paid.

We all felt safe there in numbers, but if you went up there alone, it wasn't as much fun. You could still get high, but Lenny would always take advantage of the situation and say that dope couldn't be smoked there and that you'd have to go for a ride. He never tried anything with me, but asked for a kiss every once in a while. I didn't do it, of course, but it's still scary. He tried that with my best friend once when she was only 16 and he scared her half to death. I guess he thought she was an easy target and was a little more pushy. I think he knew that I would stab him, and she would not.

One day my friend Stephanie fell right through the grates in the floor of the carwash. We played on the tracks often while smoking, and I guess they had moved or something because she took one step and the floor gave out on her. She fell right into that nasty carwash water. It sounds like a horrible experience, and it was for her, but it was still damn funny to us.

My friend Ron, the one featured in the last Francis story, also worked at the car wash. He walked with a cane, due to getting hit by a car, drank non-stop, listened to Slayer and King Diamond, and laughed like a woman. He was great. Except he always tried to make out with me when he was wasted and we were alone. It would take me an hour to get him out of my car. That was not funny, no sir.

We used to go over Ron's to drink and party so often that we would leave our pipes there. Plus, they were safe from our parents. One day we went over there to hang out. I pull out one of our pipes, packed it, and took a big hit. I started coughing and instantly knew something was wrong. I looked over at Ron with his round face and red cheeks, and he was giggling to himself. I asked him what he was laughing at and he said that he let this guy Ron B. smoke crack out of it. Funny. Not for me. Well kinda. Crack sucks.

Ron B. also worked at the car wash back in the day, before my time. Lenny fired him for being too much of a retard. It's pretty hard to out-shine the rest of the land of misfits, but not for Ron B. Once he came through the wash in his car, drunk as hell, and forgot to put his car in neutral. He drove straight threw, jacking his car all up. Class A retard. But he was hilarious to hang out with. He would get so drunk that he would start zoning out and just fall side-ways out of his chair. That's quality if I do say so myself. He would stay with Ron sometimes. Once he stayed one night, he would never leave. We were never really sure where he came from. He would just pop up twice a year, stay for a couple weeks, then disappear again. A wanderer, if you will. Ron always got so pissed about it. He had "the guy on the couch" pretty often and it wasn't always Ron B.

to be continued...I'm tired of typing.