Chapter 9
“Hey, boy! Who’s paying for that gas you’re spilling on the ground?” The sharp nasal voice rang out from the front door of the service station.
“What? Oh, shit!” Billy released the trigger on the nozzle and jumped back from the car, doing a little jig as the gas began to burn the skin down the front of his leg. “Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered, and then heard Dave laughing from inside the service bay. Billy’s face was red with shame.
All his attention had been on the two girls filling their bicycle tires over at the air pump. Now he gingerly returned the nozzle to the slot in the pump, and screwed the gas cap back on the car. Then he busied himself with trying to wipe the gas off the side of the car.
Looking hot and bothered in his tired, old overalls and grey fedora, the old farmer reached the scene of the crime and waved him away with cross words. “Quit wiping my car with that greasy rag. I’ll have to pay for a car wash, now.” He checked the numbers on the pump and handed Billy three dollars, and then counted some coins from the change purse on his wallet. “Here’s your money, minus the cost of the gallon you spilled on the ground,” the old man grumbled, punctuating his words with a squirt of tobacco juice that hit the hot, black asphalt and started steaming under the glare of the midday sun.
Billy took the money without looking him in the eye. He could still hear Dave laughing, and he was sure those girls over by the air pump were giggling, too. Old man McLeod afforded him no mercy. “Be sure and tell your father, boy. I don’t want him thinking I cheated him.” He was standing with the car door open, making it clear he wasn’t leaving until he got an acknowledgement.
“Yes, sir, I’ll tell him,” Billy finally answered.
“Better learn to keep your mind on your work,” McLeod barked, and climbed into his aging, grey Plymouth and started it up, giving it too much gas as it coughed and sputtered to life. Billy winced as the old man clunked it into gear and pulled away.
Then he had to walk back to the office with the money. He could see the girls from the corner of his eye, pushing off on their bicycles. It sounded like they were still laughing. And then there was Dave, hooting at him as he made his way into the office. “Old man McLeod gave you hell, eh? Did you tell him you were busy watching the girls?”
“Shaddap, will ya? This stuff burns.” Billy put the money in the cash box. He was glad his father wasn’t there.
Dave had come into the office, wiping his hands on a rag and grinning at his little brother. “Lucky you didn’t spill it somewhere else — you would have been doing the boogie-woogie out there, instead of the fox trot. Your girlfriends would have loved that.”
“Aw, jeez, will you lay off? I hardly know them.” Billy was still shaking his leg, trying to keep his wet pants away from his burning skin.
Dave guffawed at him. “Yeah, sure. That’s the MacDougall girl, Susan, and her cousin, Elaine Gravelle. You been going to school with them for what, ten years?”
“I only just finished grade nine, dummy. Besides, they live on the other side of town. What do you think I do at school, play with the girls?” He cringed when he realized what he had said.
“Hah, play with the girls. Little squirt like you? You’d be like a dog chasing a car. If you ever caught one, you wouldn’t know what to do with it.” Dave was having fun. At eighteen, he considered himself a grownup and past the pains of puppy love. Already inches taller than his father, he had the easy confidence of someone who knew for a fact that half the girls in town thought he looked like Jimmy Dean. In fact, he had been thinking of buying a motorcycle — except he knew the old man would never stand for it.
Billy knew that, too. Dave was still his big brother, who got to do everything first, but he didn’t hold him in awe like he used to. “Hah! Can’t you think of something original to say? Dad’s been telling you that for years.”
“Ouch!” Dave grinned and mocked him with an imitation of Elvis. “You’re so cruel, to a heart that’s true.” He finally gave him a friendly shot on the arm. “Truce, okay? I promise not to tease you about your girlfriends, if you promise not to spill any more gas.”
Billy bristled for just a second, and then remembered his father’s words about who was boss in his absence. “Yeah, sure.”
Dave noticed the frown but let it pass. “So, how much did old Henshit stiff you for?”
“Henshit?”
“Yeah, that’s what they call him, Henshit McLeod. Didn’t you notice all the hen shit on his car?”
“All those white splotches?”
“He’s been parking that old jalopy in his henhouse for years. People call him Henshit McLeod, to tell him apart from the other Dan McLeod that lives down the road.”
“What a name, Henshit. Does he know?”
Dave rubbed his chin. “Don’t know, never stopped to think about it. He’s not very friendly — maybe that’s why. How much did he hold back on the gas?”
“Almost fifty cents. Said something about paying for a car wash.”
“Shee-it! The old miser hasn’t washed that car since he got it.”
“He’s the kind of customer Dad gets mad about, eh?”
“You mean when he throws his tools on the bench and goes to the Ottawa House?”
“Yeah, but why does he get so mad, when there’s nobody even here?”
“Jeez, kid, why do you ask me this stuff? Maybe he’s just mad at life in general. You know, sometimes people get fed up with things. Running your own business isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be, you know — everybody’s on your back all the time.” He looked at his brother, whose forehead was still creased with consternation. “C’mon, kid, I’ll give you something to worry about,” he said, and threatened to rub Billy’s face with the grease rag he had in his hand. “Those girls’ll never recognize you when I’m done.”
Billy ducked and backed out the door. “You’re not fast enough to catch me, not anymore.”
Dave made a lunge for him, but missed. “Okay, kid, I’ll get you the next time those girls come by for air, and you’re staring at them like some love-sick puppy dog.”
They were both distracted then, by the arrival of Brian Weir on his bicycle. He was making his regular afternoon visit, checking to see if Billy would be working all day. It was two weeks since school had let out, and Brian was still having trouble getting used to the fact that Billy was working for his father five whole days a week. He was glad his own father was a barber. There was no way you could learn to do that job just for the summer, although his father did nab him sometimes to sweep all that disgusting hair off the floor. He skidded to a stop and jumped off. “Hi. What time are you getting off?”
“Six o’clock, same as yesterday. My dad says if I’m going to work, I’m going to work a full shift. No running off just because business is slow.”
Brian’s sunburned face broke into a grin. “Jeez, you’d think you’d get tired of telling me that.”
“Aw, go soak your head, Weir. It’s not my fault you keep asking me the same dumb question.”
Dave laughed at his brother’s attempt to get mad at his best friend. “You guys keep on blowing air. I have work to do.” He turned to go, then stopped and looked back. “By the way, Brian, you should get some air in those tires. We’re having a special today.” He laughed and disappeared inside the garage.
Brian quizzed Billy. “What’s he talking about?”
Billy shook his head. “Don’t listen to him. He’s just trying to tease me about Elaine and Susan, after he said he wouldn’t.”
Brian’s pulse quickened. “They were here again?”
“Yeah,” Billy had to smile, “getting air in their tires, again. They’re lucky they don’t blow them up. I saw a guy do that once. He was filling — ”
“Shit, Campbell, how long did they stay? Did you talk to them?”
Billy reacted to the urgency in Brian’s voice by studying him for a moment. Brian had always been bigger than him, and now he had shot up sooner than Billy. It seemed he was maturing earlier, without any of the awkwardness that was supposed to go with it. Brian was as self assured and relaxed as ever. He probably didn’t even realize he had developed a shadow on his upper lip that would soon give him an excuse to shave. And his voice had almost finished changing, while Billy was still croaking, halfway between child and man.
Brian got impatient. “What’s the matter with you? Did they say anything?”
“Sorry, I was just thinking.” Billy scratched his head, trying to remember the question. “No, I didn’t talk to them. I was working.” Then he added with a guilty grin, “I was pumping gas and watching them at the same time. So I spilled gas on myself, see?” He pointed to the wet stain all down one leg of his jeans.
Brian laughed. “Looks like you peed yourself.”
“Does not!” Billy reacted. “You can smell the gas.”
Brian waved a hand at him. “Okay, okay; I was only kidding. Now, what happened with the girls?”
“Nothing, they just took off. All they did was get me in trouble with Henshit McLeod.”
“Who?”
“Henshit MacLeod. He’s the guy from the ninth of Lancaster, who keeps his car in the henhouse. That’s why — ”
“Yeah, sure.” Brian was getting impatient. “But what about the girls?”
“I told you, they left.” Billy figured Brian was making too much fuss over two girls getting the giggles.
“Yeah, but what are we going to do about them?”
“What do you mean?”
Lowering his voice to a near whisper, Brian tried to impress Billy with the importance of this quest. “Next time they show up, you should call me and I’ll come right over, and we’ll talk to them. Maybe we could ask them on a picnic, over in the grove, eh? That would work.”
Billy was still puzzled. “Why can’t we ask them to play baseball, or something? That would be more fun. Or we could go and watch them work on the new arena. I was over there yesterday, and they’re starting to pour — ”
Brian’s whisper went the way of his patience. “Aw, shit, Billy! How are we going to get anywhere with girls, asking them to watch cement dry? Is that all you ever think about, hockey?”
“I didn’t say anything about hockey,” Billy protested. Then he started grinning. “Maybe if we played baseball, you could get to first base.”
“Don’t act stupid. This is serious.”
“You’re just girl crazy, is all.”
“Yeah, well, how come you keep talking about that car you’re going to get?”
“What does a car got to do with it?”
“You’ll see; you’ll be just like your brother.”
“My brother?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Campbell. Your brother takes girls out in his car all the time.”
“Oh, that. Looks pretty boring to me, riding around in a car all day.”
Brian threw up his hands in exasperation. “Okay, I give up. But what about my idea? At least if we took them swimming in the pond we could see them in bathing suits, or something.” Then his eyes lit up and his voice dropped a notch. “Hey, maybe we could talk them into skinny-dipping.”
“Don’t be crazy. The pond isn’t deep enough for swimming.”
Brian grinned. “Now you’re getting the idea.”
Billy took a step back. “Forget it! I’m not telling that in confession. No way! Father Sullivan would give me holy heck, and so loud the whole church would hear him.”
“Baloney. All you gotta do is talk fast and mumble. Anyways, which girl do you like best? MacDougall or Gravelle?”
Billy frowned at him. “You know I like Elaine best. She’s a good skater. I know, because I — ”
“Yeah, yeah, you told me a hundred times. You skated with her last winter. Big deal. Bet you didn’t even hold her hand.”
“I did so! How are you going to skate if you . . .” He stopped when he saw Brian grinning at him. “Aw, dry up, Weir. You’re just jealous.”
“Hah, Elaine’s just a skinny kid. Susan’s got a real figure. Especially when she wears those short shorts, and those blouses with no sleeves.”
“You mean those blouses Sister Thekla would never let the grade eight girls wear, no matter how hot it got?” He smiled. “Remember that time she sent Jackie Belair home?”
“Yeah, but that was grade school. Those nuns were nuts.” Brian started scratching his head then, asking himself why Billy always seemed to get him sidetracked. He tried once more to get him back on matters of importance. “Anyways, next time they come by, you can call me up. And I’ll come over, okay?” He pointed at the phone on the wall. “You can do it right from there.”
“Easy for you to say. What if my father’s here?”
“Yeah, yeah, but will you try? At least?”
“Try what?”
“Calling me, dammit!”
Billy grinned. “Okay, okay, don’t get so excited. I guess so. If my father’s not here, and Dave doesn’t start laughing at me.”
“Okay, great! We’re in business.”
“What kind of business?” Billy teased.