Berengaria's Best: The Ultimate Short Story Collection

Woody's Clean Cars

It's when the foam wash gets rinsed off by the high-speed jets that Woody is happiest, when he feels most at one with the world.

The roar of the water pounding against the glass and the entire body of the car is music to his ears. The sight of it streaming down in waves right in front of his face can lift him out of a bad mood faster than anything. It's like magic when very last speck of dirt is washed away by torrents of sloshing water for exactly twenty-two seconds.

Then the huge blue rollers come down and flip flip flip like crazy all over the car, tickling it from front to back. Then they reverse and tickle their way forward again before twirling off to the side. Then comes the second gorgeous wash cycle, another rainstorm, another biblical deluge to rinse away every sin known to man. Then the wheel buffs, the side buffs and the polish job. Once the air dryers are done and the Lincoln rolls off the rails on the other side of the wet cell, Woody feels like a new man.

He is a new man.

Woody isn't his real name, by the way. It's been so long since he went by his real name, he doesn't even turn his head anymore when he hears it spoken. He might not even remember what it is, now that you mention it. That's how long it's been.

He's Woody now, that's all anybody needs to know. And that's his name up there on the huge cherry red and white sign that can be seen from a good distance down the highway, in both the northbound and southbound lanes.

Woody's Clean Cars Carwash.

Get off at the exit where Woody's is, people say when they're giving directions to friends coming over for a barbecue or a kid's birthday party, you can't miss it. Woody's is a landmark. People would get lost without it. That thought makes him happy, too, but not as much as the intense wash cycles when water pounds against a car's exterior like one mean mother of a rain storm, but he feels blessed.

Woody's more religious than you might think, but he keeps it under wraps. There are no weeping Madonnas in his office or wooden crosses dangling from the rearview of his Datsun. He's a normal schmo, not a Jesus freak. Just a guy in a Hawaiian shirt who happens to own a full-service carwash. Which is maybe not the fanciest thing to have your name on, but it's fine for Woody and it has been for the last eight years.

See, he needed a change of scenery, his old job was starting to stress him out too much.

Back then, he went by the name of Lou. Before that, it was Anthony. Before that. . .ah, who cares. It was stressing him out. He was sleeping badly, watching too many political talk shows and yelling back at the screen. The night work, the long lulls between jobs and on top of that nit-picky rich bastard clients with bizarre requests even he thought was going overboard, were finally starting to drive him to distraction.

It's different now. He's got somewhere to go every morning, people who smile when they see him and a long list of satisfied customers who recommend his carwash to their associates. He sleeps like a baby. Hardly ever turns on the TV. He deals with his own kind, or near enough.

His life couldn't be better.

Woody drives the Lincoln he's sitting in to the rear parking area, reversing it into a special concrete box slot that can't be seen too well.

The car belongs to one of his best customers, Mr. Foretti. A little guy with the olive skin tone and the kind of wavy dark hair that screams MADE IN ITALY, although he's sure the guy's from the Bronx.

He doesn't know Foretti's real name, but names change like the weather, so who cares? All he needs to know is that Foretti ordered the deluxe clean, which means Woody does the honors himself.