“Well, I just got hollered at by the guy at the Tool and Die.”
Pete’s dad, President of Petersen Oil, had just taken a call from a pissed-off customer.
“He says you just dropped that barrel of oil in the middle of a field.”
That was only partially correct.
Yes, I had left the barrel in the field adjacent to the maintenance shop. But I hadn’t dropped it there.
I’d placed it there, after having made numerous inquiries as to where it should be delivered.
“Did you take it to the north side of the building like I said?” Pete’s dad asked.
He was funny like that. He had an innate sense of direction, like a carrier pigeon.
Whenever he gave Pete and me something to do, it always came with cardinal points.
“Make sure you trim the weeds on the south side of the road,” he’d say, or, “Paint all the curbs near the east entrance.”
I never had the slightest clue what he was talking about.
Put me in some random parking lot, and I wouldn’t know north from south or east from west.
Pete always knew. He’d inherited his dad’s sense of direction.
But that worthless to me back at the Tool and Die.
Pete was at the beach for spring break.
He’d gone with Arntz and Sloke and the other guys.
At that moment, he was probably sucking down Busch Lites from a funnel.
Lucky bastard.
Of course, my parents said I couldn’t go.
They assumed I’d get arrested or kidnapped or something.
Pete’s dad wasn’t concerned about any of that.
So, Pete went to the beach, and I stayed in Michigan to enjoy the dirty, melting snowdrifts and solid-gray overcast.
Pete’s dad said I could work at the station if I wanted.
If I can’t be at the beach, might as well make a little money, I thought.
So, I showed up every day to shovel, sweep, mop, scrub, and paint, just like I did with Pete during the summer.
It was all going fine until Pete’s dad told me to deliver a barrel of lube oil to the tool and die shop across town.
I hadn’t ever made such a delivery by myself. I’d only done it with Pete.
He was always the guy in charge.
And for good reason.
First, you had to manhandle the 400-pound, 55-gallon drum into the back of the pickup truck.
That was tricky, because you had to use the tailgate as a sort of lever and get the barrel at just the right angle and then lift and pivot at just the right time.
Pete understood how to do this intuitively, which I assumed he’d inherited from his dad, like his sense of direction.
Then, once it was in the back of the pickup and blocked and wedged into place, you had to drive to wherever it was being delivered and unload it where the customer wanted it.
And the unloading was dicier than the loading.
You put the tailgate down and stacked three old truck tires on the ground just behind and beneath it. Then, you rolled the barrel all the way to the end of the tailgate. Once it was there, you stood behind the tires, facing the tailgate, with both hands on the barrel. Then, you slowly rolled it towards you until it fell off the tailgate and onto the stack of tires. The barrel would bounce off the stack, and, as it did, you’d have to steer it in midair to one side so it landed upright on the ground next to it.
It was a total finesse move.
And not exactly OSHA-approved.
I wasn’t great at it. But I didn’t want to let Pete’s dad down, either.
I’d gone straight to the maintenance shop at the Tool and Die.
“I’ve got your barrel of SAE-30,” I told the guy sitting at the desk near the back. “Where do you want it?”
He didn’t even look up.
“I dunno,” he said. “Ask somebody else.”
Somebody else? Who?
The guy didn’t even respond.
I’d encountered his type plenty of times while working the register at Petersen Oil.
He’d roll into the parking lot in his crummy pickup truck, totally ignore the designated parking spaces, and park at a 45-degree angle to the front door, so close you could barely open the damn thing.
Then, once inside the station, he’d look right past me to the cigarette case behind the register.
“Pack of Reds,” he’d say, as in Marlboro Reds.
Hard or soft, I’d ask.
That was an important question.
Guys like this would lose their shit if you gave them a soft pack when they wanted a hard pack.
I’d learned that the hard way.
I’d slide the pack across the counter, whereupon he would pull out a wad of dirty bills and hand it to me, expecting me to count out the correct amount.
I’d give him his change, and, if I was feeling friendly, tell him to, “Have a good one.”
“Same,” he’d reply, shorthand for “Same to you.”
Then he’d go back to his truck and drive off until it was time to come back for another pack of Reds.
I can’t say this was my kind of guy. But I’d at least learned how to communicate with such people.
Or so I thought.
I found three other guys outside the maintenance shop, all of whom either ignored me or told me to bother someone else.
Eventually, I saw a barrel of oil sitting on a couple pallets by itself in the small field next to the maintenance shop.
That must be where the lube oil goes, I thought.
So, in plain view, with a least a couple guys watching, I drove the pickup out to the field by the barrel of oil and unloaded the new one.
No one said a word or tried to stop me.
I explained all this to Pete’s dad.
He wasn’t mad. But he wasn’t happy, either.
“Next time, just give me a call,” he said.
Fair enough.
“And don’t worry too much about it,” he added. “Those guys just like to holler sometimes.”
That was generous. And I appreciated it.
Thus ended my career as a lube oil delivery man.
Pete’s dad never asked me to deliver another barrel again.
Can’t say I blame him.
Hope you enjoyed the beach, Pete.
Spring break in Michigan sucks.