The Razz - Chapter 11

© surmon 2008

The Carwash Blues

So there I was — spending some quality time sleeping in the sun in the back of a utility truck. I don’t actually remember much about it other than that I was warm and comfortable, and dreaming that I was resting  in the sun down by the water, somewhere.

The owner of the ute must have returned and driven off because I began to dream that I was on a gently rolling boat out on the ocean, basking in warm sunshine, with a cool breeze caressing my face. Soon, I had the feeling that a storm was approaching. Then, the weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed, if not for the courage of the fearless crew....

The boat stopped and I could feel moisture in the air. Yes.....a cyclone was near, or perhaps it was a tropical typhoon. But I never did find out which it was because gush of water squidged on my face, instantly waking me.  I sat up and found myself still in the back of the ute but...  it was going through a carwash! Jets of water stung my skin and I could hear the menacing hum and sloppy thrashing of the giant rollers as they began their attack on the car.

I wanted to leap out but I couldn’t see for the spray. The car was shuddering as the flicking rollers lashed and massaged its body. What if they hit me? I’d be covered with millions of little whip marks that would would sting like mad. It would be torture. I’d tell them everything I knew, if they had a minute.  Panic was starting to get a good grip on me when I got a great idea. I crawled up to the front part of the tray and huddled down under the little ledge behind the cabin.

It worked. Although I got soaked through and flicked here and there with the big nylon cat-o-trillion tails, I survived the ordeal. Which is more than I can say for the bloke who came over to chamois the ute when it emerged from the car wash. When I thought it was safe to do so I sat up and looked around, much to the surprise of the poor bugger who got such a fright he jumped back, cracked his head sharply on some metal framework and promptly took the afternoon off.

The owner of the driveway got a bit snakey about losing his car-wash operator for the afternoon, perhaps even longer, and even went as far as to suggest I did it as a prank. So, to prove my good faith, I promised to take the place of the bloke who was going to be languishing on work cover (and yet another burden to business owners) for who knows how long. The boss accepted my offer, since he thought I was already dressed for the part - being both wet and covered with suds - so I squelched off to retrieve my bike from up the road and returned to start work.

Out of one job and into another with almost no effort at all. Not that the new job was anything to write to the business pages about but, at least I was working in a similar line of business to the one I had just left; the skills I learned in the mechanic’s job might serve me well in this new position. As I laboured in the car-wash I began to think that, with diligence and application, I could work my way up from a chamois-wringer in the car-wash to a grease monkey working in the driveway. And from there... well, it was only a matter of time before I owned my own oil refinery, selling Razz-zoom, pollutinng the air and squirting oil all over the world’s oceans and beaches.

I knew I was on my way when I got promoted to the driveway after only three days in the carwash. The boss said it was cheaper than replacing all the aerials and wing mirrors that seemed to fall off as soon as I touched them with the chamois. But whatever the reason, I was happy.

On my first day as a driveway attendant I was busy sweeping up all the left-over petrol caps when I was narrowly missed by a large hand-painted mural of the loaves and fishes story that strangely resembled a Kombi van. The windows were covered with “born again“ stickers and on the back was written, in clumsy black letters; “When the lord comes a-knocking, I’ll be a-answerin“.

The hubcaps had swirly pictures of clouds painted on them that - should you be foolish enough to watch them turning, that is - would instantly put you in a trance and when you woke up you’d probably find yourself a Moonie or a Rosicrution, or in a freindly alien space craft exiting the galaxy faster than a cult-leader’s Lambourghini, or something. Even the exhaust pipe bore the uplifting slogan; “This carbon-monoxide is blessed and won’t harm the ozone layer“.

I had just started telling myself that the person who was driving this travelling tabernacle must be a pull-through for a popgun when the driver stepped out of the cabin. I was right. It was none other than Hughie, from the Nullabor!  What a joyous re-union that was.

Whern I asked Hughie why he was not in Melbourne up to his elbows in horse shit, cross-breeding onions, he told me that he nver got there because a revelation had struck him shortly after he left me. About three minutes after, in fact. And it wasn’t exactly a revelation it was a Mazda being driven by a New Age Christian. The New Ager had obviously put his faith in the Almighty instead of his foot brake and run up the date of Hughie’s creeping car and trailer. It was also obvious that the New Age Christian had quickly taken advantage of Hughie’s mental vacancy to turn a bummer into a bonus and recruited him on the spot so that when Hughie regained a modicum of his senses, he found that he had already passed the initiation test, or whatever, bought the handbook and was in!

Hughie’s story, of course, was that he’d found God because of our little experience out in the wilds of the desert and I told him how surprising that was since I’d had a hard job even finding a tree to piss against out there. But it was of little consequence now. Hughie was happy and that was the main thing. Well, happy enough - he was having problems with the Kombi. It was burning a lot of oil.

‘They do!’ I exclaimed, drawing on my vast experience in the trade. ’They do. I’d recommend draining out all the oil so it can’t burn’.

‘But, what about...’ began Hughie.

‘Keep your Happy “T” shirt on,’ I interrupted, ’did Germany have oil wells when Hitler invented the volkswagen? No! But he knew inflation would send the price of oil through the driveway canopy so he made Veewees to.........’

‘Run on the smell of an oily rag...‘ suggested Hughie.

‘Right first time, Hughie. You must have the “gift”. Drain the block while I find a decent oily rag to stuff in the motor. Here’s one. Wanna bless it or put it straight in the blessed thing...? You do? Ok. Just a few words’.

And that was it. The blasted thing started up and ran like a prayer wheel even though the exhaust gas was popping out in little fluffy cotton balls. As the grateful Hughie and his heavenly Kombi purred away I thought  that perhaps it was I  who had the “gift”, and reasoned that I should let my creative energies flow into the very next vehicle that came along.

And while I was down on my knees, cleaning up the oil from Hughie’s heap that had missed the drip tray,  I was given the opportunity. But first I was nearly skittled by a red, convertible look-at-me car. I had to roll out of the way like a tossed rodeo star to avoid becoming a statistic and as I looked up to see who it was I noticed two rounded dents in the passenger door. It was the car that belonged to the muscular moron, Damian Fassaard,  Veronica’s  “friend”.

I jumped to my feet and kept my distance but he was into verbal abuse that day.

‘Well, well.’ sneered Damian, ‘If it isn’t Razz the grease monkey? We meet again. Ronnie said you’d re-surfaced - without your skateboard! Doing this kind of work must be an ambitious ask for you, isn’t it? Although being a baboon in the first place should give you a head start. Give my convertible some of your driveway service, monkey boy?’

‘Does it run on the smell of an oily rag?’  I asked in an interested way.

‘Better than you do, paw-paw head. Just do the work or I’ll tell your boss that you’re building a solar-powered car.’

Damian looked like just the sort of prick who would do that, but after such a pleasant exchange, how could I refuse to help him? While he was in the goodie shop running up a fortune on his parent’s mastercard I put my creative energy to work. I quickly drained the oil out of his engine block but I couldn’t find an oily rag on which to run the snappy red toy so, I improvised.

Boy, did I improvise. And I didn’t just confine my efforts to the oil filler orifice. Every trick I learned from the shifty mechanic was pressed into service at 96 mph. (see-before metric), and that was fast!

The Big Dill returned, pumping up his strangely bloated muscles, then hurdled the car door and had the motor started before the seat had finished exhaling under his weight. He gunned the motor and the little car squealed its way rudely out of the driveway. I started to worry that maybe I had improvised a little too eagerly because his cute little red convertible started complaining before it got off the premises. But it lasted the distance. He got off the garage property and out onto the road before the pretty little thing had its crack-up. You wouldn’t believe the things that flew out of that car. Pistons, bearings, grommets, even the tail lights deserted it. Things were popping like movie-theatre corn under the bonnet which madly assumed the shape of a 3-D map of the city skyline. When the wheels shot across the road Damien got such a fright that he abandoned ship and he took the steering wheel with him, his face all white but for the round red acne bumps that trailed over it and down his neck. Then he started shouting.

I disappeared until the verbal explosion and its echoes died down, hiding in a nearby coffee shop. I waited till Damien and the scrap truck, with the sad wreckage piled high on the back, turned the corner and lumbered away.

The boss was pretty wild with me when I got back, even though none of the blame actually fell to him, but when I outlined the whole story he soon saw the funny side and put me back in the car wash instead of covering me with petrol and torching me.

I didn’t mind. In my little world I considered any win is a win.  And, in the case of the Razz versus Damien “I’m-so-far-up-myself-I-can-fart-in-my-own-ear”,  I felt I’d picked up a blue ribbon.

I heard later that Damian was obviously pretty furious but, what interested me more was hearing that his father was even furiouser (You think of a better word that means the same thing and you can use it) - he’d bought the car for his little boy.

I enjoyed the car wash after that. I even felt a kind of “born-agen” kinship with Hughie as I shamoised or shammied — however you like it — the time away. That was until the filthiest car in the world pulled up for a tub. This thing hadn’t been near soapy water for so long it seemed to cringe and blink its headlights as it neared the spray. From the driver’s window to the back of the car was a coating of slimy scum as though the diver habitually blew his snot or phlegm – or both - out the window. The car, if you could still call it that,  reminded me of someone. And that someone got out of the front door - Piggy Sullivan!

When Piggy spotted me his face cracked into a grin so big that his top plate dropped and plopped his best tooth over his bottom lip.

‘Hey, dogthsbody,’ he spluttered, shooting his orthodontic prosthesis at me. It struck me on the forehead and landed in the slops bucket. Piggy retrieved the piece and sucked it back into his gob apparently suffering no ill effects from the filthy suds whatsoever. I had to have tetanus and distemper shots, later, because of the wound the tooth made in my brow. I still bear the scar now; I can show it to you, if you care to see it.

‘Right, do a good job or I’ll set my bottom choppers onto ya as well!’ He said, giggling so much as he departed he could hardly walk straight.

The ferocity of the tooth attack had left more than an impression on me so I set about cleaning Piggy’s car with inspired energy and enthusiasm. I actuall filled a rubbish skip with junk I found inside it, and then flung myself into scrubbing the car clean outside, inside and underneath with a bristle brush and a reservior of hot, soapy water spiked with a little hydrochloric acid to help remove the muck and scum.

I soon discovered that they don’t make cars like they used to - if they ever did! When I hosed off the suds all that was left of Piggy’s car was a skinny, soggy metal skeleton on four wheels. The bodywork had completely dissolved and was vaanishing down the drain with the suds.

I should have known that any car of Piggy’s would be just a mud sculpture with accessories but I had been too frightened to think at the time. As I stood staring at the remains Piggy returned, without his sense of humour.

He turned a deep red, pumped fire out of his nostrils, then hit me so hard I wore out a pair of runners getting back to the carwash. I might have over-acted that a wee bit just for the effect, but-it worked. It put Piggy in a better mood. When I finally arrived back at the driveway with my sneakers smoking and knuckles dragging, Piggy grinned, hopped on the naked chassis and started the motor. He waved goodbye, ran over my foot and my pushbike in that order and drove off.

It’s a good thing Piggy has a robust sense of humour otherwise he might have got really mad.

o-0-o

To Chapter 12 -  Scooting about