by Tom Harvey
Joe turned the key.
The car refused to start.
In a blur of words I screamed, “If the car doesn’t start get ready to jump out!” With that, Ted grabbed his door handle and pulled. The passenger side door, with a fresh imprint of the guard rail crushed into it, didn’t budge.
The lights racing down the hill grew brighter.
“Start the car! Start the car!” Ted and I cried in unison.
The engine started on the second try (thank you Ford Motor Corporation) and Joe flipped the car around into the slow lane. Five seconds later, the big rig zoomed by a foot away in the fast lane.
Ted’s Mustang was totaled by State Farm’s definition, having suffered a bent frame (along with a crushed door and cracked windshield).
I have never slept in a moving car again.
1989 Fun Fact #1:
In November, the barrier separating East and West Germany–the “Berlin Wall”–came crashing down. German reunification formally concluded less than a year later. Prior to this, communist East German guards shot anyone, including women and children, attempting to “defect” to democratic West Germany.
CHAPTER 19
I returned to my job as clerk at the video store. Joe and I, having earned our yellow belt in karate the semester before, decided to continue on in Karate 2. This was a fortunate thing.
Video stores in the eighties retained personal checks to serve as collateral for damaged or lost videos. We kept these uncashed checks in a metallic box behind the counter. Before I go any further, you need to understand the layout of the store.
The business was set up with empty boxes lining the shelves around the store. This prevented people from grabbing a movie off the shelf and fleeing into the Chatsworth night. Customers exchanged the empty box (stuffed with fitted styrofoam and shrink-wrapped with plastic) for the movie located on shelves behind the linoleum counter separating the public area from the employee-only area. The counter was open on one end and bisected in the middle for easy employee access. Two monochrome monitors sat on the counter–serving as both cash registers and inventory control. Customers were not allowed behind the counter.
The twenty-year-old black dude started out respectfully with my boss as I watched a few feet away. Their conversation grew heated.
“I am not paying a late fee!” the guy yelled. “You were closed yesterday!”
My boss, a foot shorter and forty pounds lighter than the Skeezer responded, “We’re open every day of the week and yes, you will pay a late fee!”
“I don’t have to pay nothing, man!”
I looked around the store and the dozen people milling around had stopped browsing the shelves–this argument was much more interesting than hunting for New Release stickers.
My boss reached down and thumbed through the box of personal checks. With a look of triumph, the former high school principal produced the guy’s security deposit and waved it in the air.
“Well,” he grinned, “I guess I’ll just have to cash this, huh?”
The guy snatched at it from across the counter just as John whipped it back.
I looked at the Skillet for a long second then instinctively strode forward. As I closed the gap between me and my boss, the Homey stepped through the opening in the counter and there we were–the enraged customer in front of me, John behind me. For another long second, nothing happened.
The guy lunged his hand past my left ear, another attempt at recovering his check, just as John hopped and threw a punch over my right ear. It happened so fast, but I remember thinking, My little boss sure is brave with me sandwiched between him and this big mofo.
I shoved the guy backward, thinking he’d step back to his side of the counter, and shoved John backward thinking he’d retreat as well.
In what felt like slow motion, Kareem Abdul Ja-Wannabe, who thought he was above the law, trying to return Above The Law without the $2.49 penalty, threw a roundhouse kick. It was so slow and awkward that I laughed at the absurdity of it. He took two steps forward to my one as I grabbed him by the throat with my left hand and reared back with my right.
My brain kicked in, If you punch this guy in the face the cops will definitely have to be called. Do NOT throw the first punch.
I waited for Homey D. Clown, who was six inches taller than I was, to smack me upside the head but he just stood there, flailing and confused.
My left hand squeezed tighter and I pulled his face down to mine. What I whispered surprises me to this day.
“Well, c’mon motherfucker.”
We were nose to nose and his eyes shifted to my right fist, cocked and ready to crash into his face. I gripped my left hand tighter around his larynx and his face turned bright red. Both his hands locked onto my left arm. I backed him through the opening in the counter and shoved. He fell, hard, on his back and began gasping and coughing for air.
Every customer in the store stood transfixed. I looked around thinking, Not a single person stepped in to help me. The guy glared up at me, clutching his throat, coughing and spitting.
“Get out of here!” I yelled, and, for the first time, felt my heart crashing in my chest. “If you come back again, I’m calling the cops!” With that, John flung the check in the air. It fluttered and landed at the guy’s feet. He scooped it off the floor and ran out the front door.
In comical fashion, the business of video renting resumed without pause. A lady stepped forward with her video. I dropped the box on the floor, shaking all over. John picked it up and patted me on the shoulder. “I’ll handle this,” he said quietly. I stumbled down the narrow hall leading to the rear exit and bathroom, stepped into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. My body shook uncontrollably.
Even though the virtual fight card read: Harvey 10, Above-The-Law-Late-Fee-Dude 8, I fought back the urge to burst into tears. I sat down on the floor trying to regain control of my breathing. Five minutes passed. Then another five minutes.
By the time I walked back down the hall, the store was empty of customers. John stood behind the counter with a blank expression on his face. We were both in shock. It was 8 p.m., an hour before closing, and he said, “I’m going home.” All I could do was nod. For the next customer-less hour, I looked out into the night and thought, If that guy comes back with a gun and shoots me, at least they’ll have a pretty good idea who did it.
After locking up the store at 9 p.m. I noticed, taped to my timecard, a ten dollar bill with a Post-It note with two words, Thank you. I skewered the bill on the spike file (the six inch nail used for filing paid bills) with my own Post-It, Just doing my job, boss.
My college experience did not include living in a dorm at any point along the way and I sometimes wonder if I short-changed myself. Nevertheless, one constant in the years attending Cal State Northridge was our apartment in Canoga Park, eight miles from campus.
Another constant was the rotating turnstile of roommates.
There was Jennifer, Steve, Rhonda, Sunil, Karen, Jamieanne, Nadir and, oh, let’s not forget the three roommates that lasted less than a month. An incident I call the Roommate Revolt.
Joe took a semester off and stayed on at his California Department of Forestry (CDF) job–the guy had serious cooking skills so I can’t blame the CDF for wanting to keep him–so we vacated the master bedroom. Ted also bailed for dwellings closer to UCLA, leaving me, the solitary man, in our three-bedroom apartment. The rent, a daunting $850 a month, would have been an impossibility for me, so we devised a plan.
We posted a Roommates Wanted ad on campus with the intent of renting two of the three bedrooms, including the spacious master bedroom. Just before the fall semester began, the phone rang off the hook with students looking for housing. We decided on two pretty girls and one hulking surfer dude. The girls, strangers to each other, agreed to share the master bedroom for $250 each per month. The surfer, a massive Italian guy (I’ll call him “Frank”) paid $300 for his own room.
Do the math. Joe and I shared rent
of $50 a month. Brilliant!
It only took the three strangers a week to discover the inequity–to them, the injustice–of the arrangement. Their reaction, one of extreme displeasure, surprised us. We felt a certain ownership of the place since every scrap of furniture belonged to Joe, Ted, or me, and we kept the apartment year-round, even though none of us were there during the summer months. For this, we felt entitled to charge whatever we liked.
I returned one afternoon after class to find the three conspiring on the couch. The moment I walked in the door, their conversation stopped and they glared up at me.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“That’s what we’d like to know,” Frank snarled. The girls nodded in unison. He continued.
“How much rent do you pay?”
Survival mode kicked in. When in doubt, throw the absent guy under the bus. “Joe sets the rent around here. He’s the boss.” My heart pounded wildly.
“When will he be back?” Mr. Six-Foot-Five-Two-Hundred-and-Forty-Pounds snapped.
Sweat popped up on my forehead.
“He’ll be back this weekend. Let’s talk to him then!” I answered cheerfully then ducked into my bedroom. Behind me the grumbling continued.
I called Joe from work that evening and told him we may have a full scale riot on our hands. He answered calmly, “Hey, we never said everyone paid equal rent.”
“I can tell you one thing. Frank is pissed!”
“I can handle Frank,” Joe said calmly. “What’s he gonna do? Hit me?”
I hung up the phone and took another swig of Maalox, compliments of Dr. Brautman at the campus health center.
For the next few days, my three new companions didn’t say a word to me. I’ve never felt such tension.
When Friday came and Joe walked through the door, the Showdown in Apartment 801 was on. Joe and I sat on one couch, our three tenants sat on the other. Frank took the offensive.
“I want to talk about the rent arrangement,” he snapped.
“Yeah,” Joe said calmly. “I’m listening.”
Frank’s huge arms and shoulders began quivering and the volume of his voice doubled with each spoken word.
“I THINK IT’S REALLY FUCKED!”
I shrank into the cushions, hoping the couch would swallow me whole. Joe rose to his feet as Frank rose to his. The two stood with nothing but the small coffee table between them. Frank towered over Joe.
The girls, as wide-eyed as I was, sat motionless.
“We never said we’d pay equal rent,” Joe snapped. “You’re living in a fully equipped apartment. If you don’t like the arrangements, you can find somewhere else to live!”
Frank’s face distorted in rage, but all he could manage was a loud, low growl. The guy was the human equivalent of a severely pissed off Pit Bull. He sat back down and slammed his fist on the coffee table. Finally, he said, “You … you … you’re nothing but a couple of greedy bastards!”
I blurted out laughing. Nervous energy picks some sucky times to manifest itself.
Frank looked at us and shook his clenched fist.
Joe, still at his defiant best, said, “You must be a real tough guy, huh? Putting on a big show for these two girls! Why don’t you just hit me? Hit the little guy! Bet it would make you feel better, seeing how tough you are! Better yet, go ahead and hit both of us! I dare ya!”
I tugged at Joe’s pants to sit the hell back down. I couldn’t believe he was instigating the guy. My immediate thought was, I still have to live with these people.
Frank sprang to his feet again, spittle flying from his mouth, “I ought to just beat the living hell out of both of you, right here, right now! Yeah, I would feel better you little fucking worm!”
“Go for it Tough Guy!” Joe barked. “Show us all how tough you are! Got a little steroid rage going on, huh?”
Frank let out another loud growl and raised his fist to the huge pulsating vein bisecting his massive forehead. After the eternity that was three seconds, he stormed out the front door, slamming it so hard that the entire building shook. The girls turned and marched down the hall to the master bedroom without saying a word.
We adjourned ourselves to Malibu Grand Prix and a night of pinball.
The reason the trio didn’t pack up their stuff and walk out at the end of the month was that one of the girls had given us a deposit and paid two month’s rent in advance. Despite the fact that we were unable to get a deposit out of Frank or the other girl–and the two of them could have easily left at any time–they were now a unified threesome.
The next day Frank growled, “The girls and I are going to get a place together. How do you like that, you little fucking turds?”
“Fine by me,” Joe replied. “The sooner the better.”
“You need to give back the deposit and rent money you’re holding!”
“Not until you find replacements that are acceptable.”
Thus began another Roommates Wanted posting. With Joe gone during the week, I spent my evenings at work or the college library. Anything to stay away from the apartment.
We called the phone company and cut off outgoing call capability–afraid that our disgruntled threesome would leave us with an enormous long-distance phone bill. Frank was none too pleased. Cowering in my bedroom one night, I heard him scream into the phone, “No, I can’t call you back! My asshole roommates turned the outgoing phone off!”
I installed a lock on my bedroom door and survived on Maalox, nonstop, for two weeks.
The nightmare ended when we accepted the first two applicants who came to look at the place. It was an absurd scene as the five of us sat on the couch with plastered on smiles. One big happy family.
We learned that, true to his word, Frank and the girls found an unfurnished two bedroom apartment nearby. At $300 each, the big roided out surfer paid more for less. I suppose they figured it was all a matter of principle. Then again, what do I know? I never understood stupid people very well.
1989 Fun Fact #2:
Nintendo releases the Game Boy and Sega releases the Sega Genesis (Sonic the Hedgehog is born)–gamers rejoice!
CHAPTER 20
When Ray sat the Maintenance Supervisor down–a short, balding man named Paul–and informed him that he’d have a new man on the dayshift with weekends off, Paul was none too happy.
“I don’t have an opening at this time, Mr. Grant,” Paul said blankly, looking down at the floor. Paul’s hands were clasped together as he nervously twirled his thumbs.
Ray looked across his desk, unwavering.
“Tom’s a college student. Perhaps you have some paperwork he can help you with.” With that, he waved us out the door. The walk through the hallways from Ray’s office to the HR department was tense. The only noise from Paul was a low growl.
And paperwork was most of what the summer entailed–sitting at an industrial shredding machine eight hours a day destroying outdated classified information. I admit, reading all the old personnel files–who had slept with whom and which doctors had paid out million dollar malpractice settlements–was fascinating. Occasionally, Paul would swing the door open and bark, “Less reading and more shredding!”
It was mundane and miserable. He knew it. I knew it. Everyone knew it. But since I was supposedly Ray’s nephew–a rumor I chose to keep mum about–I was untouchable. The only way Paul was going to get rid of me was if I quit.
My only reprieve came doing other menial tasks: washing and sterilizing gurneys covered with blood and guts from the ER, collecting heavy bags of soiled linen22 scattered up and down the hallways, autoclaving surgical waste into trash appropriate for the landfill.23
One day, the shop phone rang from the surgery department. They needed someone to adjust the thermostat and I jumped at the chance to get out of the warehouse. After donning a disposable, white, Tyvek suit,24 and disposable shoe covers, I walked into the surgical suite.
Five people–the surgeon, his assistant, the anesthesiologist, and two n
urses–screamed in unison: “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”
Shocked, I stammered, “Uh, I’m here to turn down the thermostat?”
“WHERE’S YOUR SURGICAL MASK?”
I hastily retreated, found a surgical mask on a hallway supply cart, and re-entered the room.
“Now, where’s the thermostat, hmmm?”
The orthopedic surgeon, covered in blood and tissue as he worked to replace the ball of a broken femur, looked up and said, “This one’s not too bright, huh?”
I stood, mesmerized by the sight of a human hip filleted to the bone. For a moment I was transfixed. The barbarity of it all!
A nurse pointed to the thermostat. “Turn it down already then get lost!”
I did as I was told then fled to the solitude of the warehouse. Back to reading seven-year-old personnel files.
Today, I occasionally receive two-word emails from a few of my female friends on Facebook: Elephant trunk.
The summer started innocently enough. Not a lot of pressure working at the hospital while living on Mike’s living room couch. Joe’s mom hadn’t invited me back to the garage.
In August, Joe informed me of a one-night-only job.
“My sister’s having a lingerie party and we’re going to be the bartenders.”
“I’ve never mixed a drink in my life.”
“That’s beside the point. We’ll be the only guys there. It’s going to be wild. Trust me.”
On the appointed night, as promised, Joe and I were the only two guys among twenty riotous girls. As Joe’s sister, Anna, displayed various lubes, oils, and obnoxious latex appendages, Joe and I kept the drinks flowing.
One drink for this girl, one drink for us.
One drink for that girl, one drink for us.
Repeat twenty times.
Joe and I drank whatever nasty concoction we could come up with (“Here, drink this, I dare ya!”) until I couldn’t taste anything. Anna walked into the kitchen in a panic.
“My entertainment’s not here yet and the girls are getting restless!”