1
I've Just Seen a Face
==========DANNY============
It was the seventeenth of too many summers spent in that dumpy little town when everything life-changing happened. The intolerability of living in that town reached its peak when, during the fifteenth summer, I had my bike stolen from the beach and had to walk two hours home in a melting puddle of sweat. I needed a car.
Things did get better, however, when months before starting the sixteenth summer, after aceing parallel parking in one shot on the exam, I got my full-blown license and no longer needed Mom in the passenger seat to drive.
So that day I finally got my license, got in a car, and got to drive anywhere my heart oh-so-wanted to go, felt like the first day my life truly began. Even something about the way I listened to music changed when the sound came blasting (always blasting) out of the speakers of a car. From then on, freedom only went withheld by where I didn't steer the wheel. But mind you, that freedom was still limited to the streets of that shit town. My license was only a hall-pass from the prison of my dreams. Because, if I'm going to start being honest with you—the only thing I had ever really dreamt of doing, was running away.
So, all that being said, it half-killed me that morning when my mom had to drive me to work.
"And what did I say?"
"Seriously? Mom—"
"Do not take his car out. Drive it home. Clean it. And leave it at home."
She was talking about my boss's Porsche. Do you get why this sounds stupid now? But I'll continue to regurgitate.
"Yes, Mother," I said. "I get it. He trusts and respects me, and I need that job." Which was a complete and utter lie. I didn't really need that job. Mom and I were soon moving to California.
"Wow. Congratulations, Danny! Something got through your thick skull!" Mom said, scratching my head with her knuckles as we pulled up into the driveway of Superior Carwash.
"Mom. Mom. Whoa. My hair."
"Danny—you're going to a carwash. Come on. See you later. Love you."
"Loveyoutoo," I said as I grabbed my bag, shut the car door, and then went on to trudge through the open garage of Superior Carwash. In my imaginative little noggin, where most of my life played itself out, good ol' Superior was some sort of retro Ford Motors assembly plant.
Geez, now that I think of it, maybe I did have some sort of mental disability that at my then elderly age of seventeen-going-on-eighteen I was still playing in my head.
But, I guess I had nothing to truly fear, because for as long as I can remember, I always made up stories and scenarios in my head. Such as the time when I was in the fifth-grade, nursing a stupidly major crush on class hottie, Julie Holdaway, and had just discovered the religion I would soon become a devote adherer of: The Beatles.
My then growing obsession with The Beatles—in particular the song "I've Just Seen A Face"—led me to the point where I began living my life through the lyrics. It got so bad that at recess, I made sure to "look the right way" at Julie on the tetherball court, because "had it been another day, I might have looked the other way" to the basketball nets.
"Danny!"
The voice of my carwash manager, Rob, boomed as I walked into the garage, my rubber soles squeaking on the wet concrete floor. Inside the carwash, a conveyor-belt stretched through the rectangular building that shotgunned all the way back in a long open tunnel.
"Nice of ya to show up today, buddy," he remarked. Now, Rob was your typical American-Italian guy with a cropped goatee who always remarked. Always something dumb though, such as: "You're looking bigger" or, "you're looking smaller" or, "your hair's too long" or, "your pants are too low," "you look tired," etc. Rob was also one of those guys who wore white cargo shorts. But I never made that remark.
And then as I said, "Yeah, yeah. Thought I'd do you guys a favor today," he held out his fist for a bump. Rob was hip.
"I hope you showered this morning," he then said, shifting into all seriousness. "I know what you're up to, man. Banging all these chicks. Believe me. I was your age once too. I know you're getting blowies left and right!"
Now, that is where I tended to freeze up. As I never really knew if I should respond to Guy Talk with my forty-year-old boss. I just awkwardly smiled and went: "Ha ha yeah...."
Rob went on to tell me that it was alright. Healthy even.
"I just don't want you smelling like pussy hopping in these cars, buddy. You're gonna give the old guys a heart attack!" He then spun around to attend the cash register.
For some inexplicable reason, all the guys at Superior Carwash were under this belief that I was like this major Playboy. Possibly due to the rumors Rob spread about my sex life. Which at that point was, well, virtually nonexistent. Why? No reason in particular. It was rather simple: the girls at my high school sucked, and like, I don't know? Where does one four years shy of legally entering bars seek out girls to have sex with? How other guys my age found these girls was well beyond me. Certainly, they were not to be found within the confines of Superior Carwash.
But then in the instant that Rob turned from the register, I ceased being a delinquent and entered the world of Responsibility as he clasped the keys to the universe in my hands. Telling me, "Don't lose these," as I looked down at the glinting gold emblem and read the inscribed word: PORSCHE.
Rob warned me about what would happen if I lost them, which turned out to be a faux backhand to the face. He got a big kick out of my flinching. Guys like that are always getting a riot out of somebody flinching.
It was just then that the dryer fired up and quickly consumed all other noise in its vacuum; a car was coming down the assembly line.
Rob then did something totally unexpected.
He smacked my ass and said: "Hop in!"
I drive out cars. That's normal. It was the whole smacking my ass thing that was a little strange. Anyhow, I quickly slung my bag up on the hooks, snatched a pair of rags, hopped in the little Fiat (the steering wheel was practically sitting on my lap I was so cramped in there), slapped the gearshift into drive, and pulled out of the garage like an asshole clown in an asshole clown car onto the driveway where my buddy Max was drying down an Acura.
"Danny-O!"
"Maxwell!" I hollered back, returning the exaggeration.
After somehow managing to free my legs, I proceeded to basically flop out of the clown car and saw an old guy staring at me. Thank God I didn't smell like pussy, or I probably would've given that geezer a heart attack.
I whipped out the rags stuffed in the back pockets of my jeans and began wiping down the clown car.
"Rob give you his Porsche or what?" Max asked after the owner of the Acura got in and drove away.
I yanked the Porsche key out of my pocket and dangled it around my index finger, as I, using my other hand, slid the rags over the hood.
"Suh-weet!" Max said, "I love it when Old Robbie Boy goes to Fort Lauderdale for the weekend!"
For your greater comprehension of events, that was the first time Rob had ever gone to Fort Lauderdale.
While crouching down to clean the rims, I said back, "Yeah, but, dude, we can't. He paid me like, fifty bucks and everything."
"Shit! We take that fifty and buy beers, bro. They'll totally think we're legal when we pull up in that beast."
It did not occur to Max that that was rather illogical, but his absent rationale made much more sense a couple minutes later when we were back inside folding rags.
"Dude," I deadpanned mid-fold. "Were you smoking weed?"
Slanty-eyed and grinning larger than his face, Max snickered, "No."
He reeked terribly.
"Are you an idiot? Rob's going to know you're high."
"Danny. Man. You got to chill, dude. Old Robbie Boy burns all the time. He gets the gange, man. Trust."
Never trust someone who's high; advice I wish I'd taken a little further ahead in life. But I rolled along with it and did not doubt the fact that practically everyone who worked at Superior Carwash got stoned and went to work. I may have been the only one who didn't. Because, you know, hugs not drugs.
Stoned Max and I continued our duties folding the rags coming hot out of the dryer on this cheap wooden worktable that faced a window like a glass portal to the bright and green world outside the carwash.
"Dude," Max blurted out after we went through a silent folding sprint. "Concert's gonna be ill."
With my hands methodically at work, laying each rag precisely in line with the edge of the last, I made an agreeing mumble and then said, "For sure, man."
Suddenly from behind us Rob shouted, "Hey! What did I say about talking?"
At the exact same time, Max and I wheeled our heads around to look at Rob jutting his stocky finger out from across the conveyor belt.
"Dude—I swear that guy has ears like a cat."
"I know, he's like Miss Bergmann."
"She was such a bitch."
"Oh, she was a huge bitch."
Rob boomed Max's name again, and once more we both turned around to see that stocky finger floating in space.
"Max—" Rob said, his voice back at ease. "Go to the back with Joey, seeing as you girls can't shut up."
My automated sarcasm was obliged to remark on Rob's sexism. But, ah. Whatever.
"Dude. Literally Miss Bergmann," Max said as he threw his half-folded rag onto the counter and dragged his feet across a puddle to the back of the garage.
Work was dead to the point where I was able to wash, dry, and fold an entire new collection of rags before another car hovered down the assembly line.
Keeping up with my folding duties, expecting Rob to race up to the register booth, I ignored the woman waiting at the vacant window. But when realizing that the fans were getting louder, and Rob wasn't showing, I soon became aware that I was the only one up front, and so I lunged over the conveyor belt and despite my mathematical limitations, did the dirty work.
With the calculator close at hand, I cashed the woman out (without losing Superior any money...I think), and watched as her van rolled along the assembly line into the digestive system of the carwash.
From the register booth, the woman smiled and said, "My kids wanted to go for the ride."
In my head, I was imagining them going nuts over the brightly colored soap splashing against the windows. And then screaming in harmony after the older boy decided that with the whirling brushes lashing against their car, they were to meet their end.
I suppose that's because that was the game my brother and I used to play when we went through the carwash. It's the funnest thing in the world when you're a kid. My brother used to tell me that we were being digested in the belly of the carwash monster, and although the bright square of daylight shone before us, with the promise of Freezies awaiting at our next stop, the 7/11, we would together, in unison, let out a loud shrilling scream until it was over. There wasn't much else that he ever taught me. But I guess that was the most important. Imagination.
Me: "Y'all had a gud time there?"
I said as I popped into the driver's seat and guided the van outside onto the driveway.
The One Kid: "Yeah! It's like a spaceship!"
The Other Kid: "Yeah, yeah, like Star Wars!"
When in the midst of doing the dry-down on the van, their mom came up to the car, and so I ran over to open the driver's door like an excellent valet runner.
Their mom: "Thank you very much."
Me: "You's a very welcome, ma'a—miss."
(Trick: Older Women lose their minds if you call them miss.)
She patted my arm and smiled. It felt awkward. Probably more awkward that I was in East-Central New Jersey and had an Oklahoman accent.
When I was bored at work, I would change my accent up from car to car. Knowing I was on the money when I'd get asked, "Oh, so where are you from?" One time, Max and I had even successfully convinced an Australian couple that we were indeed Australian exchange students on working visas. Why? No reason other than shits and gigs. Plus I was always doing that, character voices and stuff. My best character voice was Rob.
But I never told him that.
It was after the family blasted off in their spaceship down the driveway onto Ridgeway Avenue, and then pulled into the grocery store next door, that another voice booming, "Rock Star!" grabbed my attention.
Rob's second in command, Miller, marched up from the back of the carwash.
"Stop wasting your time, holding doors open an' shit. Drive. Dry. Done," he said, puffing out his lower lip and shaking his head, staring at me with mindless eyes. My neck twitched nodding. Miller stared at me for a second longer. Then mumbled "Christ," under his breath before he turned to walk away.
In my opinion, Miller had no valid reason for getting all fidgety. I swear I had only thought: "What did I do wrong now?" but it turned out that I said it out loud.
"What did you do wrong?" Miller repeated, skidding around on his heels. "Rock Star, buddy." He lumbered towards me. "We're not one of your fancy rich places. We're not paid enough to do that kinda work."
With my eyes skimming side to side, not quite looking down at the ground or at his face, but somewhere in the middle, I asked, "What kind of work?" And readjusted my feet so I was one foot in, and one foot out of the garage.
"Rock Star? Are you getting mouthy with me?" Miller said, adjusting his posture to look at my chin, I guess. "All I'm saying is that I don't think Rob likes it too much. 'Cause then we gotta be doing that fancy shit all the time. You understand?"
I nodded. Though, there must have been something about my nod that did not please him because Miller jolted suddenly forward, completely invading my personal space, hovering his face inches away from mine.
(Coffee Breath. Bad Coffee Breath.)
"And what the hell have you been doing all day?" he barked, continuing his power-jaunt. "This place looks like shit!" Miller then broke away, walked up to the worktable, picked up a neatly folded rag. Studied it. And then threw it at my face. "Clean up a bit will ya, Bon Jovi?"
Triggers exist everywhere. And if you're like me, anything, at any second, can and will blow your head off. All you have to do is pay attention.
"Rock Star!" I squeaked to myself in my Miller-imitation voice as I pushed out the sudsy backwater using a squeegee into a drain on the driveway. "You lazy piece of shit. Clean up a bit, will ya?"
"What do you expect, Miller?!" Rob replied. "They're goddamn girls!"
One trigger. Boom. Two triggers. Bang!
Suddenly I was on high alert. On edge. Panicking. Afraid that just one more stupid thing would happen and a third trigger would fire back, driving me to some subversive anguish.
But that was when on the trail of the breeze, I heard what sounded like a river rolling over stones. And then leaning my weight against the handle of the squeegee, I looked up at the trees swaying ever so slightly on the opposite side of the street. The invisible wind rippled the leaves so that the shaded sidewalk danced in a beautiful patchwork of sunlight and shadow.
The tilted mid-afternoon sun beaming down transformed the color of my bangs from brown to gold, and pierced through the leaves. Playing with the illusion of being phosphorescently illuminated from within.
The sublime simplicity momentarily allowed me to forget. Forget that I was at work and in the same vicinity as the trigger holders. And that's why I whipped the handle of the squeegee against the brick wall. It fell and smacked the pavement.
What the hell am I doing with my life? I wondered, looking out onto Ridgeway Avenue. Confused as to why I held onto that crummy job, and why, when I was at home, with plenty of time spent alone, the desire for wanderlust never arose. But when I had to be locked in somewhere (practically every day of my life from the first one of pre-school to the last of twelfth) all I wanted to do was participate in the sunlight and discover how it re-energized the dull colors of the world.
The way that I undeniably knew how, that just down the road on the beach, the sunlight was bringing to life the tanned and toned body of a girl baking in the heat. How she was there ready for me to meet. With the tipping of her sunglasses and the split of an endearing yet cautious smile, I would see that her eyes were already a solar phenomenon.
What I had allowed my imagination to convince me I was missing out on infuriated me. There was an internal surge of angst matched with the never-ending urgency I felt for freedom. Then, in an alarming moment as all of my muscles aggressively tensed, I realized I was very well holding my own third trigger. The barrel aimed right at my head. In the seconds right before I tightened the fatal grip, I heard some birds sing. The tension that strapped my body eased and seemed to dissolve with the heat of the sunlight shining on my face. And with the sweet sounds of the birds chirping, I let the third trigger go. Other than the faint smell of a burning cigarette, blowing in from somewhere, I had found some sort of peace. I would be okay.
But in accordance to How Life Works, my bliss was disturbed and my peace instantly forgotten when the sound of a car grinding its over-exhausted engine, and blaring a bass-heavy song too loud for the speakers to handle, devoured the world. The birds' wings flashed white in sudden flight.
Of course, I heard it before I saw it, but I wasn't any less surprised when a black Chevrolet came racing in a zigzag down the road, and then stomping on the brakes, screeched in a sharp turn up into the driveway next door. The man driving rifled out of the car, slammed back the door, and chased a girl inside the grocery store. I couldn't quite tell if she had been in the car, but there was, in fact, a girl, and in the second that I turned to watch the action, I saw the long trail of her hair as she fled inside.
Alert with energy and adrenaline running high, my first instinct was to charge off after them. Something inside of us all intuitively knows when something just doesn't look or feel right. I dashed forward, but then my feet fell like concrete blocks. Not out of the fear of any danger—God knows that it didn't even cross my mind—but my comfort zone kicked in and kept me paralyzed. But I guess I was driven crazy by my hero's complex because, when I crooked my head inside the car wash, and neither Rob or Miller were anywhere in sight, I ran off in a sprint.
Nerves crept up, but I pushed them down and pushed my feet forward to the grocery store. What inspired me to find out what Chevy guy was up to?
Couldn't tell ya.
Either my intervention was going to save someone—again, hero's complex—or I was going to stumble upon a scenario I could write a song about.
I already had the opening verse composed in my mind by the time I twisted the blotched golden handle on the door and crept inside.
==========MARY==========
My sloppy, done-on-the-fly side braid kept falling apart about every two friggin' seconds. And well, at work, especially when you are bagging someone's groceries, playing with your hair isn't one of the more socially acceptable things to be doing. Like really, I wouldn't want some long scraggly strand of brown hair wrapped around my bunch of cauliflower either.
"Thank you for shopping," I said, doing my best telephone operator impersonation, waving goodbye to a customer.
There was no one next in line, so I had a chance to fix my braid. I undid my hair band and let my impossibly thick mane fall over my shoulder, then took it in three parts and started weaving. While using my faint reflection in the window to, y'know, make sure I wasn't making a disaster outta myself, I saw this mother and her two dumb kids get out of a van. The frumpy looking mother had one of those short haircuts women get when the reality of parenting had finally strangled that whole "losing the pregnancy weight" dream. And out from the trunk popped a stroller that the littlest of snots got to ride in, even though the dumb kid looked bigger than the actual stroller itself. This amazing stroller that I am spending way too much time rambling on about was seriously pimped out though. It had chrome rims with spinners and hydraulics, heated seats, satellite radio, everything.
Gotta love the shit rich people spend their money on! Jim would've said.
I then felt a sharp tug against my scalp as I wounded my hair too tightly while zoning out, examining this family. Goodness Lord. I couldn't even imagine being responsible for two human lives when I can't even get my hair in a proper braid.
Every Basic Bitch other than me could do this. I was always super envious of those girls who could just throw their hair in a bun or ponytail and still make it look cute. I mean, I'm often throwing my hair in a quick bun or pony too—I just don't think it looks cute. It's just convenient.
The electronic sensor beeped as the doors scrolled open and the stroller family walked into Wright Bros. I'm pretty sure the actual Wright Brothers were the dudes who invented the airplane. What's the correlation between aviation and locally jarred jam? That I have yet to figure out. But it wasn't until I wound down my weaving that it happened. I started craving a cigarette.
I know I shouldn't. I know in grade school all that was drilled into our impressionable (and vulnerable) young minds, aside from the multiplication tables (which I surprisingly still remember), was the fact that smoking will kill you!
Wanna know how it started? Doesn't matter. I'm gonna tell you anyways. I was fourteen and dating my first high school boyfriend, Simon Jenkins. It was kinda hilarious when we were together cuz I was a good two inches taller than him. But anywho—he would always smoke when we hung out, and believe me, back then I was grossed out. Especially when we kissed; I could literally taste the burnt nicotine on his tongue. But I joined the Dark Side when, one day, after this major fight I had with Jim, Simon offered me a cigarette and, well, I sort of liked it. And then Emmanuel, the dude who worked at the Chevron by my house, never ID'd me when I went to buy smokes, so, that's how he got fired, and how my addiction began.
On the stroller family's way out of the store, as the bowl-cut mom grabbed her grocery bags, the poor little turd who had to walk was babbling on and on to the stroller snot about the carwash being like a spaceship tunnel or something.
Kids. Can't stand 'em.
And, because you're sexist, you're assuming that, like most girls, my ovaries are exploding into overdrive at the sight of children, and then the next you thing you know, I'm poking holes in the next available condom so I can name my kid Xavier and post pictures of him wearing dumb outfits on the internet all for the thrill of a few extra followers. But after bearing witness to those dumb kids, I was just tempted to get my tubes tied and call it mission accomplished. Don't judge me. Did you see that bowl cut? And I thought the shitty blonde dye-job on the end of my hair was bad.
"Mary!" my manager, Linda, barked the second the family walked out. "Take your fifteen."
My inner philosopher was curious as to why this fat bitch had supreme control over my freedom, but the inner nicotine-addict was overjoyed as hell that I could finally go out for that smoke. Yes, I get it. It looks trashy as hell. Every damn middle-aged bitch that waltzes into my checkout line reminds me of it. Then, of course, there are the old creeps telling me, "You're too pretty to smoke!" and dumb shit like that. And then, when the regular customers catch me in the act, they forever have this slanted weariness when approaching conversation, and then, when my head's turned for a second, they begin sniffing like crazy as if they're gonna find me out. It's like, I can hear you whiffing like a dog, you senile idiot.
Sorry. I am a nice person. Really.
While sitting outside on the curb underneath the shade of the tethered yellow canopy, holding my smoke between my middle and ring fingers (because it just looks sexy) I got lost in my thoughts. Panicking over all the shit I had to do. Such as the cell phone bill that I'd been gloriously ignoring as it crept up. Life enjoyed compacting bullshit on top of the teenage-girl problems I already possessed, like period cramps and boys.
The canopy began flapping in the breeze that rolled through and redirected the fumes pooling out of the tip of my cigarette into my eye. After wincing and then rapidly blinking to water out my stinging eye, I turned my head away from the smoke and heard something smack the pavement.
A guy from the carwash next door was staring out at the road, looking at something. And as I began staring too, trying to see what he was looking at, from the same direction I saw it.
Charging in at a speed too fast for the engine, and blaring a rap song at a volume too heavy for the speakers, a banged up, black, 2006 Chevrolet Impala came screeching into the parking lot. I only know it's a 2006 Chevrolet Impala because it belongs to my—ex—boyfriend, Tanner. But I mostly know that it was his car because he would never shut up about that 2006 Chevrolet Impala and its custom spoiler.
He whipped to a stop in front of me and stomped out of the car, leaving me just enough time to jump up, toss my smoke (which wasn't yet finished), and march for the doors. Tanner chased after me, following me inside, and hollered my name.
"Mary!"
=========Author's Note===========
Thank you for reading this chapter of "Some Place Better Than Here"!
Writing this book certainly wasn't easy by any means. It was an honest-to-God from the bottom of my heart labour of love. And so, if the writing has touched you in anyway, please share your thoughts in the comments or vote on a chapter that you particularly liked!
Sharing a little bit of love back really helps me grow my platform as a writer so I can continue to publish great works for you and I both to enjoy !
Also, if you enjoyed SPBTH please check out my latest project "The Roar of Andora," a explorative fantasy that will be told over a three-part anthology.
https://www.wattpad.com/611263651-the-roar-of-andora-book-one-prologue-the-boy-king
Thank you for reading "Some Place Better Than Here"!
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