The Answer Man (Part 3)

    





    The only other person who worked at the station was Tom Campbell.  He had a cool old car, a young wife, and some kids.  I liked him a lot.  He would say things like, "No sweat" and "Bye, now."  Ever since then, I like to use those expressions because they sound folksy, sincere, and reassuring. He didn't seem to pick up on the extent to which I was an impostor.  Or if he did, he didn't let on.  He only worked there one, or at most, two days a week and I wished he were there more often. 

    There was a kid in my school who didn’t normally ride our bus, but one day, freshman year, he appeared in the seat in front of mine.  I didn't like the look of him.  His name was Victor.  As he turned to yell across the aisle, I involuntarily popped him.  Not hard enough to cause any real injury, except maybe to his pride.  It was the sort of thing a much (much) younger kid would do.  Just a knee-jerk reaction to some ugliness in front of me.  He didn’t retaliate, but hitting him was a bad idea. (Well, again, it wasn't so much an idea, it just sort of happened.)  I didn’t see him around after that and I felt bad about what happened.

    My pre-closing routine included jotting down on my clipboard the readings on the pumps.  As I was walking back from the diesel pump one night, I heard talking.  I walked through the store and saw some kid sitting on the window seat in the office.  He looked at 
me with a what-are-you-gonna-do-about-it expression.  Who was he talking to?  I walked into the office and Victor was sitting in my chair.  No, Don's chair!  

    After a three-year absence, Victor had recently reappeared at school, and he seemed to hold a grudge, made some vaguely threatening gestures in the hallways.  He had long, thick, greasy blond hair.  Victor had filled out and was getting pretty big.

    I can't let these punks disrespect Don's office.  They started making dumb wisecracks and laughing, acting like they owned the place.  (Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe he was Don's nephew or something, and Don sent him down to show me how to do the job without fucking it up.)  I told him he couldn’t hang around in there, had to buy something or get going.

    There was going to be a reckoning.

    Presumably, he was younger than I, but he was a farm kid.  ‘Course I was a farm kid, too, but he was a real farm kid, whereas I was more of a gentleman farmer's kid.  My family farmed just for the experience, so we could say that we’d done it.  Maybe Victor was going to kick my ass just for the experience, so he could say that he’d done it.

    It didn't occur to me to make a phone call.  I had to defend the fort.

    Hey, I can throw 50-pound bales four tiers up.  Five tiers on a good day.  I’ve held on for dear life when a horse with a bad attitude tried to run me under low-hanging branches. I’ve stuck an old, weathered pitchfork through my left foot, and subsequently watched that foot blow up like a balloon with infection. (My dad had pulled it out suddenly in the middle of saying, "Okay, so I think the best..."  Talented though he is, he apparently didn't have the necessary materials on the farm to manufacture a tetanus shot and didn't think a drive to the city was called for.)  Hurt like hell.  I can take it!

    The showdown started in the store area and then sprawled out to the garage.  I didn’t remember much of what actually happened.  We were both flailing; I tripped over a lift and hit the now-closed garage door. I would employ the rope-a-dope strategy and then lay him out, I thought. We were pretty much tied up when suddenly it was over.  I could see Victor standing there with a big smudge of black grease on the side of his face, looking less sure of himself. I guess he'd had enough. His buddy must've skedaddled.

    Had I battled Victor to a draw?  It could be done!  I felt a surge of confidence.  The defiant voice of Roger Daltrey boomed in the back of my head.  

Out here in the fields, 
I fight for my meals.  
I get my back into my living! 

    

     I had defended the fort.  Be gone, you ruffian!

    By the time I got my glasses straightened out, I could see more grease all over Victor’s neck.  Oh, and there’s Vern.  Unbeknownst to me, one of our best regulars had been in the back, up to his armpits in his Mack’s tranny, when he caught wind of what was going on. 

    “No fighting in my garage!”  Vern barked.  Victor headed for the exit.  “Don’t let me catch you in here again.”

     "Yeah." I added, in case he didn't get it the first time.  

     After Victor was gone, I wondered, "How’d he get grease all over himself?”

     Vern shook his head and said, “I had to grab him.” 

I don’t need to fight, 
to prove I’m right 
I don’t need to be forgiven...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah-eh, yeah-eh!

    

      I had never been in any fights until senior year.  Then, counting Victor, I got into four.  Went through a phase.  Boys go through this.  Everything bugs them; everything is a showdown.  Farm life kept me in pretty good shape, so I mostly held my own.

    During gym class, a kid named Ed took issue with something I said, and we rumbled in the locker room.  Coincidentally, Ed ended up getting into a car accident not far from the Shell station, and when he and his passenger came in to call for help, looking pretty traumatized, he acted like we were best of friends.  And why wouldn’t he?  Why shouldn’t we be friends?  Water under the bridge.  The things that cause fights in high school...

    Junior year, a guy on the wrestling team named Kevin gave me a hard time.  He would knock stuff out of my hand.  I remember saying, “You do that again and you’ll suffer the consequences.”  His younger brother,  Nathan, was standing by at the time, and henceforth would  taunt me by calling out, “Hey, Mister Suffer-the-Consequences.”  By senior year, I heard from a sweet classmate that Kevin had been murdered.  What?!  I didn’t know what to say, and didn’t ask her about it.  Never heard anything more.   At the end of the year, Nathan signed my yearbook:  “Chris, we had fun in typing and gym.  Your friend, Nathan.”   As usual, I didn’t know how to answer.