The Car Wash Story

There are many ways to tell a story. I've told this one for years as just a recounting of facts and a lot of people seem to like it. However, telling a story is a lot different than writing one. I'll give it my best shot here.

My friend Derek lived around the corner from our high school, so we'd usually hang out there after class until my mom picked me up a few hours later. Sometimes we'd stop off at this convenience store along the way and get sodas or try to buy cigarettes. On one particular day, we saw a pair of old jeans laying on the sidewalk. This was kind of funny to us, the thought of somebody just walking along, removing their pants, and continuing on their way. Probably not how it happened, but we were fifteen and goofy. Anyway, I don't who came up with the idea of burning the jeans, but nowadays I picture us having the idea at the same time, looking at each other and nodding without having to say a word. I guess I'm still goofy.

Derek and I went into the convenience store and recognized the clerk as somebody that would sell us matches, though not cigarettes (some would sell neither to minors). We bought a pack of matches for a nickel and walked to the side of the building and tried to get the jeans ablaze.

Here I have to mention that it was a windy day. Denim isn't especially flammable to begin with and the wind wasn't making it much easier. Every passing minute and wasted match just pushed us harder to see these damned pants on fire. Should you ever be in a similar predicament, you can do what we did and turn the pockets out. They are much more flammable and we soon had our short-lived dream come true. The reality turned out to be short-lived as well, because the fire quickly spread to the rest of the pants and we were in trouble. We then became frightened that this act, in broad daylight, could be mistaken as vandalism instead of an obvious act of science, so we looked for a quick remedy. We needed water and the nearest source rested just on the other side of the wall: the convenience store was attached to a car wash.

We quickly turned the corner and looked for a puddle or anything that would get these alarmingly flaming pants doused, but found nothing but dry concrete under the unused-for-hours machinery. Thinking fast we dropped the pants on the ground and quickly exited the car wash. The assumption, though I'm not sure that Derek and I traded notes on this, was that the next customer to go through the wash would provide the water that would put out the jeans and all would be right with the world soon enough. All the same, we picked up the pace a bit as we headed onward to Derek's place.

It was about a minute later that we heard the fire truck sirens. What we had failed to understand is that nobody is going to drive their car into a burning car wash. This is a fundamental of life we hadn't grasped until that moment. We looked at each other for a disbelieving beat before running full speed in opposite directions. That time we really didn't need to say a word, though we might have tried to agree on a destination.

The story pretty much ends there, though there is a postscript that I believe is the reason why I still remember this story now. The very next day, we actually had acquired some cigarettes and needed matches. Not thinking about the previous day's event AT ALL, Derek and I went back to the same convenience store, to the SAME CLERK and asked for another pack of matches. As he took our nickel and handed them to us, his face suddenly turned red with anger and he shouted at us, asking if we had anything to do with the fire the day before. We quickly said we didn't and said that it was probably two other kids, not thinking that the number of perpetrators was a weird detail to include.

One final note: my father was a Huntsville firefighter for 37 years, retired in 2012. He would not approve of any of this, but he'd be the first to admit that he'd done far greater dumb shit in his life.