Saturday, May 17, 2008

Another story, another voice

I was just poking around for something project-related and found this snippet of something I'd written maybe a year ago. It's so my brother's voice. How the hell would I ever know about towing cars?

I’ve been towing for Trigate three years now. That’s three years of weird and annoying, and sometimes funny, shit that I really should get paid more to put up with. Dudes who get in the truck, drink my Coke without even asking, yank out my radio to plug in their cell phone. “Does this look like your vehicle?” I asked the douchebag who pulled that one, it was maybe a year and a half ago when that happened. He shook his head. “That’s right,” I said. “Your shit is on the back of this truck because it is, in fact, some broke-dick piece of shit that I’m towing to the mechanic of your choice. Correct?”

He nodded again. I’m a big guy. You don’t have to be in order to do this job, but it helps. Especially when you get some dildo trying to rip your shit.

“So we’ve confirmed that this is not your vehicle. Now we can move on to point two. When something’s not yours, is it your right to touch it, or reconfigure it, or otherwise interfere with its operation?”

He started to open his mouth. Then he looked at me. I’ve mentioned I’m a big guy. It’s not just that. I’ve been told I have a bit of a prisoner look. Dates, dudes, even my mom on occasion. Mom will just say Jeremy, you look mean. You don’t mean to, but sometimes meaning doesn’t do for nothing. I don’t feel mean though. I just lay down the law in my vehicle and this, as we have established, was my vehicle.

There’s not much more interesting to that one. The dillweed pulled out his Motorola cord and I plugged my radio back in, and ten miles later I dropped him off at his mechanic, and the dildo even tipped me before he left, and then he got out of the truck, and that’s the last time you’ll see him in this story.

Three years now with Trigate. Three years rolling up and down, across and back. If I haven’t told you yet, I like the job. I’m not an office guy, don’t want these big bags of lubricant they call bosses breathing down my shit. My boss is cool, and as long as I keep him looking okay he stays off my nuts.

The weird and annoying and the funny. Sometimes I get them all in one night, sometimes only one, and sometimes it’s just straight boring, which is fine by me too. I’m a pretty even-tempered guy, pretty chill, easy to hang out with, but the demanding ones really spark my testes. I don’t mean to offend you, but watch out. I might.

A few weeks back there was this chick in the university parking lot. I get a lot of those, flat tires, dead batteries. This one, I show up and she’s in the front seat giving it to herself. Doesn’t even have the decency to try to cover it up when I pulled alongside. Just smiled and handed over her Triple A card. I like girls like that. She was cute too. Not beautiful, cute. I wanted to sketch her face. But by the time I got done with the call and she’d pulled off on her way and I’d turned on the dome light and rattled around for my pad, I couldn’t remember what it was I’d seen.

Then tonight. I get the call. Aw, shit, that’s my reaction. I was hoping to go home and get a nap in. She’s at the gym on Yayaquitos Road. Locked out of her car. Another Triple A member. I hate these fucks. I get paid like five bucks for these ones. Good thing is I don’t live that far from Yayaquitos, so after her I’ll go home. Doesn’t matter if there’s a goddammed pileup covering three different freeway interchanges. Let someone else clean it up.

They have these trainings for tow-truck drivers. At the last one they talked to us about how we can better sniff our customers’ balls. The dildo who was giving the training – sorry, I do like that word – suggested we keep a cooler with some drinks for them. They get flustered, she said. Flustered, that’s funny. They’re not the ones who have to hook the shit up and drag it all over the county for five-fucking-bucks.

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