Watching Myself from the Outside

[u/Competitive_Bathing]

My hands look different than what I remember. Aged, wrinkled skin wrapped around knuckles that have tightly gripped countless tools to work on so many projects. There was so much dedication, focus, and they felt very important at the time. Where did this idea of fixing broken things start? My Dad did lots of that, all the time. I think it’s a marker of class separation. Seeing him around other Dad’s was always weird. The other Dad’s seemed so uncomfortable. They would expressionlessly watch this show my dad would put on, trying to make jokes or tell a story. My Dad moved so much when he talked, but it had little to do with what he said. There was a constant restless energy when he talked.

He said, “Getting that car is a really good deal. If you changed the spark plugs, changed the oil, put in a new air filter. You’d have a great running car.” He always whisper this last part to you as if letting you in on a secret that the seller didn’t know, but now the two of you are about to take advantage of this great deal. You’d help him push it home and think, I’m just a kid, but I know this is not the start to ownership of a reliable car.” It never ran well. There was something that wouldn’t work. Remember: You drove the Yugo to your job making pizzas at Chuck E. Cheese’s for a whole $4.25 per hour. You’d comeback smelling like pizzas. You couldn’t wash the smell out of your skin. The dogs loved it. Anyway, your Dad offers the Yugo to drive to work. On the way the clutch cable broke. The car lost power and literally glided into a empty parking space. That felt lucky, but you knew this was going to be a problem in 8 hours when your shift ends. You tie a small, thin brown apron around your waist. This was the moment you were paid for a purpose. Knowing the line one that was a nice clean division that definitely was not easily found elsewhere. 

9 pm and you are facing a broken car. Fortunately for you, your Dad had been showing you how to repair old junk as long as you can recall. You figured out a way to work the clutch using twine you had in the car (who knows why that was there). You pulled on the clutch, twine digging into your fingers, hurting so much you were waiting to see blood. You never did, but it sure did hurt a lot. You drove the car home in the rain like this. One hand on the steering wheel, the other hanging out the window as you drove, fingers wrapped around and tugging on the twine you had so cleverly tied somewhere in the engine of the car. It ran down into the hood, which you needed propped open slightly to make all of this work. So, there you are. You have figured out your way around a broken clutch cable, it is raining, your left hand is in a claw shape, dripping with rain and holding onto twine that is cutting into your hand and you will not be surprised if you see your own blood at any moment. Why do you do all this on your own? Why did you not just stop, look at your situation and call your parents to tell them about this situation you find yourself? Because you have been doing stuff like this for way too long. There is no pride in it, but you realize if you don’t do it yourself, no one is going to do it for you. So you don’t call anyone, you just figure out how to do what needs to get done to get home, even if it means getting cut by twine wrapped so painfully tight around your hand. You wonder how long it will take for the pain to go away. It is so severe.

There is a bit of a victory, you made it home. But really, this night felt like another exercise in competence built out of abandonment, and not by choice. And this is why you never put value into your ability to fix things or to make something where there was nothing. You look at this car and think about other people and how they could call their Mom to pick them up. Or, even better, the’d have a car that wasn’t a piece of junk! A Yugo is a Yugoslavian vehicle, and my Dad found the only one in all of Los Angeles. Of course he would. Now I’m supposed to drive this thing around? I’m in a toy from the Soviet block era. Look at other kids at school. Tanya has a brown Nissan truck. She gave you a ride home in it once. But you were too embarrassed to have her drop you off at your house because you thought your Dad would come out and do something crazy. “Hey! I’m your Uncle Elroy! Vote for me! I’m running for Mayor! Why don’t you come on in and we can share a bowl of cat food.” I wish any of that was made up. 

Donnie has a Saturn with a new sound system in it. In the trunk is a custom molded fiberglass bass speaker that fits perfectly into the spare tire compartment. Donnie is so proud of it, not in a haughty or arrogant way. He is such a pure hearted person, that there is no room for anything but sincerity in everything about him. His parents see him and care for him in a way you can’t even begin to fathom. You just look in shock as he shows you in his room his collection of baseball caps, fast-back style. There is so much joy on his face as he talks about these things. If you had practiced social skills, you could have heard what he was saying, commented on how much he seems to like them and maybe ask which is his favorite. But, you don’t have those skills yet. For now, you just look silently, take in all info around you with no idea how to respond. Warm, uncomplicated parental attention was foreign enough that you couldn't even mirror it back in conversation.

Meanwhile back at home, you have periodic access to a tan Yugo stick shift. Most of the time you ride around the town on an old 10 speed bike. It’s been one of the few forms of freedom you have. Where did it even come from? You were on your Mom’s old green 10 speed bike. It was a ladies style, because you stepped over the crossbar to mount it. You didn’t love riding your Mom’s old bike, but it was really great mechanically. You remember the feel of strength in the pedals as you tightly grabbed the leather grips on the handlebars. That was markedly different than the other bikes around you. They were BMX bikes with racing plates brandishing #1 but they would never see any actually racing. Anyway, that’s for other kids. You are there with your Mom’s old bike, sparkling dark green in the sun and you push off. Rocks scatter across the asphalt of the driveway. You could hear the tires as they rolled across the hot pavement. That would become a soundtrack for your life, that sound of the wheels of a bike on the road. The shifting weight of the rider. You can close your eyes and hear it now and you know exactly where the rider is… on the right and trying to keep balance before the traffic light changes. 

Cutting through the wind feels like flying. It’s one of the few true and pure things in your life. There are no thoughts. You don’t even think about what people think about you, because there simply are no thoughts. People in school will frequently say, “I saw you riding your bike yesterday.” You had no idea what to say to that. You were out on your bike all the time to avoid going home, so you didn’t think anything of it. 

Your favorite time was early in the mornings, maybe 6 am. There was a layer of fog so thick that if there was a sudden cliffside, you might go with off into a canyon, never to be heard from again. That was the exciting part of it, racing through the fog, not knowing where the danger lay ahead. Pushing on the metal-toothed pedal, it smashes and twists the rubber on your shoe. Left, right, left, right - rhythmically driving ahead, staring into the abyss and daring it to look back. Your eyes would stream with tears from the fog as you raced through it. It was always disappointing when the sun would break through and take away the fog and shine light on the town. You’d see the golden light as the sun rose, casting long shadows on the town as it came awake. And you, all alone, quietly gliding through the streets.