memories of gasoline

The gas mask story got me riffing on how gasoline seemes to always find its way into my boyhood recollections.  Not long after the buried alive adventure, Dad took a job down in WallaWalla. Little church building, next on one side to a grocery store where the take-out boys popped brown paper bags like ladyfingers on the fourth.

Parsonage across the street and up three or four lots. Busy street and be extra careful, kid got hit and killed several blocks uptown in front of First Church. Mom and dad were right there saw the whole thing.

Parents allowed me to scamper across the street on my own, but with the imprint of dad's description of the accident deep in my mind you can bet this little boy is damned careful.  First death of someone I knew personally. That family moved into our place up in Ephrata the same day we moved out a year or so before. Hot day and that kid still toddling around in diapers asking for wa-wa.  I turned on the garden hose. 

Dad scrounged a bike from the dump, fixed the spokes and tires in the dirt floor garage, and taught us boys to ride.  First solo I'm into the bushes, and the edge of that concrete street is the last thing a guy sees before going over the handlebars, but in no time both Justin and I got good on that little bike. Had a sort of dirt track around the driveway and open lot between our place and Pike's. Stayed off of Alder street.

Great kid gang in that neighborhood. We all listened to Rin-Tin-Tin on the radio, modeling out fantasy worlds after exciting episodes. Our leader, Billy even called his dog, singing out "Yoo Blackie - same as calling Rentie on the radio. TV had not come to any of the houses in our little neighborhood yet.

First night we moved in, Justin and I asleep in the upstairs front bedroom, mom hears the roar of motorcycles in the open lot next door and the sound of loud voices, even a woman scream //maybe my memory stretched that last//. She probably already disapproved of living next to a tar paper trailer anyway.  Lucky she never heard Rock-a-Billy music, would have shaved ten years off her life.

Pike, the guy who lived there with 'the wife' who we never saw, had the look of a fifties biker, even though I don't recall ever seeing or hearing another motorcycle on that place. Longish black hair, if they were doing the DA in '54 then he had the look, mostly it's just pulled back because it's been a while since he had the cash for the barbershop.  Workman's hands, blue jeans that always had the faint smell of gasoline. Keep a jug of gas with the other tools in an outhouse size shed at the back of his yard, clean rust off of things, and the hands at the end of the job, wipe dry on the pants if a clean rag isn't handy.

Pike with his war stories and greasy hands washed in gas, Olympia stubby always at the ready, smoking PalMal straights struck me as ever so much more manly than our dad with his scented soap and talcum powder, suit and tie lifestyle. He even took baths more often than Saturday night.

Spent half my working life with the diesel oil and grease and smell of fish in summer sawdust in my eyes wintertime, and the other half with the scented soap and powder.  Even put on a little show every Sundays for which people gave me money, but that's part of a different story.

Pike drove log truck for a guy who ran a gippo logging operation out of a big barn and lot behind our row of houses. Woods get shut down for fire danger and us kids out of school, so we are hanging around Pike's yard where he is holding court in the shade of a locust tree.  

Our little gang runs up, what'ch you doing Pike?  What does beer taste like, Pike?  "terrible kid, don't you ever try it ... same question about the PalMals, same answer.  Sure smells good when he opened a fresh pack, and the aroma of beer is ever so intriguing. In our church tobacco and alcohol were serious sin.  Sin is more fun, isn't it?

I love the sound of kids playing in their own yard two or three houses up the street, but glad they don't come around my yard the way we hung out in Pike's but he apparently didn't care. 

Must have been the summer between second and third grade for me. Every day Pike would be out under that tree at the back of his yard. At first, it seemed like just a pile of parts and pieces he washed in gasoline, unlet cigarette at the corner of his mouth, sip on the ever present Olympia stubby. 

Sometimes his buddy Faguildie stopped by, hang out spinning yarns.  Kids sitting in a half-circle, Pike telling us stories from his childhood. The full automatic .22 stands out in my mind. "Almost shot the roof off the barn before the old man came out and put a stop to the fun.  Us kids wide-eyed imagining feeding bullets threaded into strips of bed sheet into a machine gun, just like in the comics.

Pike and Figuldie must have been marines, WWII,  South Pacific islands Enimy close enough that night guards were important, nervous. Wondered about the two of them when I read Gualdlcanel Diary. 

The only story I remember Pike telling, Figuldie is on night watch at the perimeter when he spots an enemy sneaking toward the camp. Drills him hard with the bayonet. 

I can still see Pike reenacting the scene next morning. Puts his hand up in a theatrical gesture shading the sun, "Where's Faguldie?  Still digging his bayonet out of that tree? 

If they saw combat they didn't say, but us kids thought that WWII must have been endless fun.

Before long the pile of parts and pieces started going into an engine block. Flathead four-cylinder, hand crank start. Sometimes the smell of paint takes me back to those lazy afternoons watching Pike carefully brush red engine enamel while spinning some kind of yarn for us kids' entertainment.  Finally, the engine is ready to start and it's Sunday. Pike and Faguldi didn't go to church.

Hot weather Sundays the church doors wide open directly across from Pike's yard. Justin and I sitting next to Mom in our Sunday best and she keeps us still as an example for other families.  All her training put to the test that morning.

We hear the kids excitement across the street,  the little engine pops a time or two then the two foot exhaust pipe standing straight up from the manifold announced the summer project is running like a top, and mom will pinch our legs hard if we even so much as stir in our seats. Probably during dad's prayer at the end of the sermon. Hang on a few more minutes before everyone goes home for Sunday dinner.

Sang a hymn in that church one line of which always sticks in my mind, something about the things of this earth growing strangely dim ... That morning the things outside the stuffy little church hall seemed to sparkle ever so bright in the eyes of a couple little boys.

Before Halloween Dad landed a job up in Great Falls, Montana. First day at Largent School, historic landmark now. Half wall, glass between outer and inner principals office and my new teacher is arguing loudly she can't take another student. 

Never saw the Walla Walla gang again.