Fifteen
I’m waiting in line at the fast-food burger place near my job with a coworker. I swore to myself that I would never eat here again because of the rough atmosphere yet I’m here. It’s lunch time and the place is packed. The seating area is filled with all the down and outers and crazy folks off the streets nursing their cups of water. It’s noisy with street talk and I try to not let it get to me and listen to my coworker talk about hockey. He orders some sort of combo meal and I do the same. While we’re waiting for them to be prepared and handed over to us, I strain to ignore the gangster just in line. He changes his order at least three times and then harasses the Yellow girl working the register over ten cents. I get tired of him and place a dime on the counter. The gangster keeps making a scene and removes a big roll of twenty-dollar bills from his pocket and peels off one and slaps it on the counter. He gets his change and moves on still talking to the cashier not respecting the fact that I put down a dime in order to shut him up, so I comment on the fact that that here he is with a big roll of bills arguing over ten cents. It is the wrong thing to say. The gangster blows his top and puts his face right up to mine screaming like a maniac. I don’t bulge and just try to glare him down. He calls me a White devil and tells me to mind my own mother-bleeping business and then he steps back and goes over to the counter that has the extras and grabs a handful of straws and throws them in my face. The manager leans over the counter and begins yelling for the gangster to go and after getting his food he does, but not before threatening my life. I watch him leave and the manager apologizes to me and my coworker and I tell him it was my fault. I said something I shouldn’t have and not to worry about it. My coworker is basically in shock, and I have so much adrenaline coursing through my veins right now I feel like Godzilla and force myself to try and act cool and like it was not a big deal as we leave and walk the few doors to our building’s entrance. We get to the lunchroom and my coworker tells everybody what happened. I need to learn to keep my big mouth shut. Seriously.
When I was about sixteen years old my family and I were on one of our annual road trips. This time we were on our way back from the lake of the Ozarks somewhere in Missouri. My Mom and Dad knew someone who ran this resort and we stayed at this swanky place bowling, swimming, and eating. The main thing I remember was that it was oppressively hot and humid and extremely green with vegetation. Anyway, we were on our way home in our truck and camper, locked into the driving marathon where my parents and I would take a shift driving, allowing each other to sleep in order to be clear headed enough to take the wheel for four hours or so. It was about two in the morning, and I was driving. Everybody else was asleep and I had the vents of the driver’s side window cracked open directing wind to my face to help keep me awake. A truck with a camper on it is different from a car in that you are top heavy, and any sudden turn can cause you to rock, as in shake, and even bring your wheels off the road. So, there I was, barely sixteen, a scrawny kid in charge of captaining this big vessel through the waters of Missouri at two o clock in the morning. We weren’t on the interstate highway. We were on some two-lane blacktop short cut road, and it was pitch black. All of a sudden things changed. I could feel the air get warmly metallic and from out of nowhere lightning started crashing out of the sky. Great booms of thunder clapped, and a strike hit a telephone pole just off to my right causing it to catch fire. I was in the middle of some kind of electrical storm and all I could think to do was keep driving. My dad who was asleep in the back of the cab was now awake and he joined me in the front seat. I was terrified and I gripped the steering wheel so hard my hands were numb. My dad reassured me that I was doing fine and told me to just keep my eyes on the road. His calmness was quite a contrast to the scene outside. Lightning was zapping all around us. The way it lit up the sky reminded me of bombing scenes in war movies. The storm subsided and I pulled over and let my Dad drive. I sat and watched out the passenger side window. Eventually the sun rose causing everything to be bright and safe again.