Isn’t it funny, the memories from childhood
that remain fresh in your mind? Some small grief that broke your heart, a
hardship you had to overcome, a joy you felt with childish intensity. The event
may have been small, but the emotion was strong enough to press itself into your
softness. It made an impression.
When I was a small boy, my family regularly
drove 700 miles from El Paso to East Texas, where both of my grandparents lived.
A 700 mile journey is emotionally and intellectually incomprehensible to a
child. You might as well tell him you are driving to Jupiter. My memories of
those journeys are a disconnected jumble of images and impressions. Car sickness. Intense heat.
A shimmering mirage on the road ahead. Silent white lines zipping under the car
in the light of the moon. The names of towns tossed into the back seat by our
parents so that we would know we were making progress. Telephone poles, fence
posts, and signs rushing by our car on a frantic journey to places we had
already been. These are the kind of things I remember.
On one of these epic journeys, something
happened to me that was burned into my childish memory. It is a small thing. It
is a thing that no grownup would remember. I know it was an event of no special
significance, but my memory of it is vivid. I remember the way things looked to
me on that day. I remember the colors and tastes and feelings. I remember how
small the world of a little boy can be.
Those were the days of full-service filling
stations. Their primary purpose was indicated by their name. You stopped at them
to fill your car with gasoline. And if you had engine trouble, these stations
had mechanics on hand who could fix your car. Fixing and filling - these were
the functions of the old gasoline station.
My brother and I had been promised a cold soda
when our father stopped to refuel the car. Having a soft drink was an exciting
thing for us. My parents never kept them in the refrigerator at home; no one did
in those days. A soft drink was a special treat, something we looked forward to.
And we did not have soft drinks often enough to dull the intense pleasure that
came with the promise of receiving one.
The station we pulled into had the classic,
greasy look common to service stations of that era. There was no convenience
store and no bright colors. Everything was the color of worn metals, tools, and
engine lubricants. The men who worked at the station walked back and forth
between the pumps and the mechanic’s bay with a sense of purpose. They were
constantly wiping their hands on little red towels that they pulled from the
rear pockets of their coveralls. The place had a smell that I still associate
with hard, manly work.
There was a simple office with a grimy linoleum
floor and a battered desk covered with invoices, oil cans, pens, and some
assorted tools. Outside the door
of the office was a soft drink machine. I remember this machine very well. It was
taller than I was, of course. You put in a quarter and opened a glass door.
Inside the door was a vertical rack of bottle necks sticking out of holes.
Having paid, you grabbed the neck of the bottle you wanted and pulled it out.
After that the machine clamped shut and you couldn’t pull out another bottle
unless you paid again.
I fidgeted with excitement as my father put a
quarter in the machine. He opened the door, and I pointed to a bottle of Grape
Nehi soda, which was my favorite at that time. You didn’t want to pull a bottle
halfway out and then let it slip out of your hand and back into the hole. You
could lose your soda that way. So I was happy to let my father pull out the
bottle. He stuck it into a slot that contained a bottle opener and pushed it
sharply downward. There was a hiss as the cap popped off, and he handed me the
cold glass bottle filled with bubbly, purple goodness.
This was the moment I had waited for. The long,
hot drive was made bearable by little pleasures like cold, grape soda. As I
walked toward our car, a fly landed on the lip of the bottle. I stared at it for
a moment, unsure of what to do. While I stood there with my mouth open, the fly
suddenly dropped down into the bottle where it floated on the rolling waves of a
small purple ocean. My father was busy paying and taking care of grownup
business, so I was left to solve this puzzle on my own.
I tipped the bottle, hoping to pour out the
fly, but instead the fly floated away from the lip and toward the bottom of the
bottle. A small amount of grape soda was lost. I tried again with the same
disappointing result. Frustrated, I turned the bottle carefully in my hand,
hoping in some way to position the fly so that I could pour it out along with a
small, sacrificial portion of soda. It never worked. I tried and tried until the
bottle was empty and the fly was left sticking to the bottom.
My father didn’t have any more change, so I was
not able to get another soda. I was obliged to absorb the loss with my own
coping mechanisms, which were not very well developed at that time. Of all the
soda bottles in the world, the fly had chosen mine, and the whole thing seemed
like a terrible injustice. There would likely be another soda offered at some
other gasoline stop, but that reality was tenuous and in any case too far into
the future to be a comfort.
As we drove away I brooded over this event. It
shouldn’t have happened. I should have been sitting in the back seat, merrily
sipping my Grape Nehi. I turned around and stared at the station as it receded
in the view from our rear window. This was a bad station. A station with mean
flies and drab colors, and it wasn’t the kind of place that made allowances for
little boys. You could lose your Grape Nehi and that was it. There was no
recourse, no easy solutions, and no rescuing. You lost and you dealt with that
loss on your own. I didn’t like the station and hoped never to return to it.
I was unable to let go of my sorrow. So I sat
and fumed until my limited attention span brought other things to mind and the
black fly and the grape soda were allowed to turn slowly from present pain to
painful memory.
Your world is made of your memories, and your
memories are given to you by your world. The whispering voice of happenstance is
always in our ears. “This is the world. This is the way things are. Look. Pay
attention. Remember.”
rlp
