The Words - An Autobiography

My First Job

I found no additional motivation to study or pay attention in class when I transferred to the new school. So, the results remain about the same. I did barely enough to pass the courses required to graduate, and my mother continued her vocal displeasure with my lack of effort, while my stepfather had a different perspective. If I didn't intend to work at school, I should prepare to work doing something else for the rest of my life and insisted that I find a part-time job. No sense in delaying the inevitable

When I put the same effort into job hunting as I did schoolwork, he woke me on a Saturday morning several weeks later to ask what time I started work. I didn't need to be anywhere, I informed him. I didn't have a job yet. He yanked the covers from my bed in response and ordered me to get my lazy ass up, dressed, and don't come home until I did have a job.

I begrudgingly pulled on clothes and wandered down the hill to the carwash on the corner several blocks away. They happened to be short-handed, handed me a pair of rubber gloves, a brush, a bucket of some liquid that stunk like ammonia, and I started scrubbing whitewalls. When I finished the shift, I'd done a sufficient job that I should return in the morning and was scheduled for two evenings a week after school and alternating mornings and afternoons on Saturdays and Sundays. When I returned home, my stepfather was waiting to ask whether I'd found a job, but my filthy, sodden clothes were all that was necessary to provide his answer.

Working at the carwash was not such a bad experience, although elements of it were all but unendurable, especially during the winter. There was a relatively steady crew of other highschool-aged guys like me, working evenings and weekends, and a revolving door of men of various ages who worked the day shifts when school was in session.

Most of these men suffered recurring family drama and continual money problems. Some were married, divorced, or in relationships, some with kids to several different women, and their women with several separate men before them. Cars were repossessed, utilities shut off, brothers and cousins who needed to be bailed out of jail or picked up at prison or the bus station when released. A few of those working at the carwash had been in prison themselves, some more than once. There were sisters beaten up and guys who were about to be paid a visit. There were wives and girlfriends caught in bed with someone else, and violent instances followed. These men were periodically looking for a place to stay because they couldn't keep it in their pants. Jealous, possessive exes nearly murdered several of the wives and girlfriends.

Most of the men, and the younger guys who had anything worth adding, openly discussed their sex lives, in vivid detail; with their wives, current girlfriends, women they'd picked up at a bar over the weekend or the night before, or ex-girlfriends who'd liked kinky sex. I assumed more of the stories were exaggerations than not, but some must have been true. More or less.

One of the ex-girlfriends liked sex in public. The guy telling the story said he'd always been scared to death they'd get caught and arrested bare ass naked, drilling that crazy bitch, or recognized by a buddy driving past. She hadn't cared; being seen by someone else was the point, and if he hadn't gone along with it, she would have done it with someone else, someplace where she'd make sure other people saw her and that he wasn't the one fucking her. Which was precisely what eventually happened. Crazy bitch!

One of his coworkers who'd been married and divorced twice swore he was over all the drama. He was renting from then on. He'd hand over his money and open his fly, with no more bitching about cutting the grass or painting the fucking porch.

Another claimed that his wife told him he could have sex with whoever he wanted. She knew he would whore around no matter what. She wasn't asking where he'd been, listening to his lies. Please, don't tell her anything.

Was he taking advantage of this offer? Hell no! There was a catch somewhere. She was up to something. And he was keeping his pants on until he figured out what that was. Plus, whoring around wasn't near as much fun if he was allowed to do it. It didn't have the same edge of excitement unless she was married.