Kids called him Pike

Sometimes when I catch a whiff of gas fumes my mind goes back to these scenes from childhood:

 

Tar paper trailer just out of the picture on the right

Kids called him Pike.  Too much one of us for Mr. Pike, too old for Clarence.  

Just beyond the right edge of the photo a little tar paper clad trailer sat on blocks in a yard without grass.  Pike occasionally mowed the weeds.  In memories eye, he spent as much time outside as us kids, and always seemed to be up to something interesting.

"Whatcha doin' Pike?"   Four or five little kids, six to eleven or so in age, come running whenever the poor guy poked his head out of the house.  Only time we saw "the wife" was through a half-opened door a time or two when she called him in to take a telephone call.  She probably worked nights, shooed him outside during the day so she could get some sleep.

We had a good gang of kids there.  Billy the leader, oldest and smartest.  Knew a lot about radio, may even have had a ham license.  Year or more older than Justin.  Bobby, about my age or younger, then the two Mormon kids from the next house down.  Their old man came to the back screen and cussed us kids out of the backyard.  Probably worked nights as well.

Pike and his buddy Faguldi often sat around under the shade of the dry locus trees that grow in that place, entertaining us kids with stories and jokes.  War vets, south Pacific islands.  Only combat we heard about involved Faguldi on night guard duty.  Spotting an enemy soldier sneaking across the line, he attacked with razor-sharp bayonet.

See Pike telling the story as vivid as day.  Unsaved for the better part of a week,   jet black eyebrows seemed to want to grow together over somewhat sunken eyes, hand shading his eyes in mock reenactment of that morning back in the forties.  Guys calling out "what you doin' Faguldi?"  "Howd' you get your bayonet stuck in that tree?"

We figured the war must have been a lot of fun, begged the folks to let us get army helmets and little canvas backpacks at the Army Surplus outlet downtown.  Found where the old outhouse used to stand, easiest spot to dig a foxhole over behind the garage. 

One day Faguldi showed up with a starter's pistol, popping off blanks around the yard, generating shrieks of excitement from us kids.  Taking the show to the front yard, they made the kids hide in Pikes laundry room, six by ten shiplap boards and empty window openings on the front side of the trailer.  We could see everything through cracks in the boards and knot holes.

As a car approached heading east along Alder, one of the boys brandished the gun while the other backed away with arms raised, shouting "DON'T SHOOT!"

BAM BAM BAM and a dramatic death scene on the mowed weeds lawn.  Looks of shock and horror from the car; kids bent over laughing.  These days the SWAT team would show up faster than flies on stink.

Next act could have been a bit more dangerous.  Bill Brown ran a gypo logging outfit out of a barn that sit on a large lot behind the row of houses.  Usually had a big CAT sitting in the yard, log truck with trailer mounted often parked there, maybe more than one.

With the log trailer pulled up onto the truck, the way they run empty, a kid can just squeeze in between the truck's back wheels and the wheels on the trailer that are a couple feet up off the ground.  Getting the free-wheeling tires spinning created the coolest visuals as the treads spun toward or away from ones eyes.  Always half scared the heavy trailer could somehow bump out of its mounting and crush us added to the fun.

Bill lived in a room, or rooms that were attached to the barn.  Entered from the backside.  The boys, Pike and Faguldi tired of murder on the lawn after three or four times, took a notion to go give the business to Bill.  All I remember is hanging with the kids, sworn to silence and staying a little way back, as they stormed into Bill's room brandishing their pop gun.  Seems a lucky thing they didn't get a quick load of buckshot for that stunt.

Us kids figured that Bill Brown had to be fabulously wealthy.  Me and Justin knew because Billy said so, then indisputable confirmation dropped in our laps one day.  Everyone standing around Brown's pickup as he pulled in hot and dusty from the woods.  Bill and Pike joking around, kids hanging like a pack of friendly dogs in the yard.

Suddenly someone noticed that a check, written to Bill for what at least in kids eyes seemed like a vast sum of money had been carelessly left loose in the bed of the truck.  Mind's eye memory sees that check in amongst the stuff one expects to see in the back of a loggers rig, as if it just tossed onto one's desk top in the office.  Bill seemed unconcerned, folded the check into his shirt pocket and went on with the conversation.  Only one who possessed vast wealth could treat the valuable check with such indifference. 

It seems to me that Pike drove taxi cab at first, but by spring of the second year we were there he had a job with Bill Brown driving log truck.  One morning he backed into the drive between the trailer and Anderson's house to get his lunch.  As the wife handed up the metal lunch pail and Thermos, Billy shouted, "hey Pike, whach'a got in the Thermos?"

"Ice cold beer."

Later that summer dry conditions in the forest shut logging down for a few weeks.  In all likelihood, most of the memories us kids had about Pike stem from this time, summer vacation from school and us outside early morning till dark, and him laid off killing time at home.

At the time it seemed almost like magic.  From bits and pieces of this and that in his little tool shed and piles of what looked like random junk to us, Pike slowly began to assemble a car motor right before our eyes.

Two images of the work area seem to conflict.  Never think of Pike without the Pal-Mal straight cigarette.  Pungent smell of a fresh opened pack, zip of the lighter then sweet tobacco smoke swirling around his head.  Used to draw a mouthful of smoke, then a little pop of the lips as he inhaled.  Our church forbid tobacco use of any kind.  The body is the temple of the Lord, keep it pure.  Couldn't wait to grow up so I could be a smokn' man. Odd that I managed to avoid the habit in later years.

Second image of the work area would be a glass gallon jug of gasoline.  It is a great solvent, cleans everything from engine parts to a guy's hands at the end of the job.  Pike and Bill Brown always seemed to have plenty of gas around and sucked on cigarettes steady.  Odd that they managed to avoid fire and explosion. Whiff of gas fumes often brings me back to that patch of shade under the locust tree, smell of dry dust wood in a random pile close by, watch out for nails.

The car engine, four-cylinder flat head sat on a 2x6 frame supported with well braced 2x4 legs.  Fresh red and black paint, stub of exhaust pipe sticking straight up.  Cranked it up for the first time on a Sunday morning.  Hot weather the doors and windows open in the church me and Justin could hear the pop of the back fires as the engine coughed into life, sounds of the kids in the yard squealing in excitement,  we are stuck in church and don't even think about turning around to see what's coming down with our friends across the street.

After lunch, Justin and I ran over to Pikes.  Found him just putting a couple tools away, about ready to crank the engine up again.  Olympia beer stubby half full of gas sat on the fence post, siphon hose to the carburetor, wisp of steam coming from the capless radiator in front.  She ran like a dream. From what looked like a pile of random junk to a working engine.  I miss the days when a guy could fix anything on the rig with a few tools, half rack of animal beer, and a good shade tree.  My mother used to call someone with questionable qualifications, a shade tree mechanic. 

Hardly more than a month later I'm sitting alone in the principal's office, Largent School, Great Falls Montana.  Dad suddenly came up with a new job, fellows from the church up there drove a wheat ranch truck down for our stuff, and a new chapter in childhood days opened.  Never saw the Alder Street neighborhood, or any of those people again.