Was that a Hook? by Jamie Paul
Jamie Paul
So I have a lot of stories set in Flag.
I arrived here at 18 with about as much life experience as my indoor cat.
Freshman year I complemented this guy on his paint can opener while we worked on
the homecoming float. I had never seen a bottle opener.
Sophomore year at a party I very loudly asked my friend what sort of funny bubble
blower that was.
Bong.
It was a bong.
Junior year we drove to San Francisco for fall break and ended up hitching a ride back
with a truck driver named Byron and a nice girl named Lori whom we never saw again.
It was October and Amanda and I and a bunch of other friends had planned on camping,
but it started snowing. So at about 11 PM on maybe a Sunday night, we clearly had two
choices, make more lemon cookies or drive to San Francisco in the small white truck
that had broken down every time it left the driveway for the last year.
If we’d been making chocolate chip cookies, we may have chosen differently
But they were only Lemon.
So.
Amanda called up her new friend Lori, who seemed fun and game for an adventure, and
we set out for San Francisco a little after midnight in the poor much abused truck. It’s
not that we didn’t think about it breaking down, we just thought that what with a new
radiator and clutch and starter and breaks I had pretty much rebuilt the car that year.
What else could break?
We asked.
Outloud.
As we added a quart of oil at the Shell station and hopped on I-40.
We had the pulp fiction soundtrack in - it was stuck in the tape player in my truck for
much of our undergrad years, and it was either counting flowers and sons of preacher
men or silence.
So.
We laughed and talked and drove and had bagels in Bakersfield.
We heard strange noises which we ignored as long as possible, and then we replaced
the air filter, because it was accessible cheap and potentially effective.
And we drove on.
We skidded through Yosemite on ice and eventually arrived in San Francisco in time to
be stunned at the difficulty of driving a stick in traffic on gigantic hills laced with
pedestrians and cable cars. Keep in mind I’d rarely driven outside of Sierra Vista or Flagstaff. We parked on a relatively flat stretch and tumbled into a delli lookingex ceedingly collegiate, T-shirts, cutoffs, cameras around our necks (Amanda and I werein a photo class that semester).
We were trying not to spend any money, we had brought Ramen and jolly ranchers and applesauces in a laundry basket in the back of the truck. So this delli was our fancy stop.
The guy behind the counter noticed our cameras, and my NAU T-shirt. Turns out he was
also from Sierra Vista, and NAU, had been in Randy Rhotans photo class - the one
Amanda and I were in - the year before. His name was Eric and his roommate, also from
Sierra Vista, had a mother who was the counselor at my elementary school.
We were immediately friends, and he asked where we were staying.
We were like, we have no idea ,because hey, is that a paint can opener, and he was like, you can stay with us!
So after a quick talk, in which Lori bega n to doubt her decision making skills and Amand a and I tried to reassure her that we had a hatchet and so really, what could go wrong? We agreed to stay with Eric and this other guy who’s name is lost to the trauma ofwondering what the fuck we were thinking.
These guys had steak and frozen french fries and beer in the house.
Nothing else.
They made us dinner, we drove to the Golden Gate and hung out and watched a movie
and slept in our sleeping bags on their floor.
The next day we woke up to find that my wallet and the bag of jolly ranchers had been
stolen out of my pickup. Whoever it was left the Ramen.
I was kind of sad about the wallet.
But I hate Jolly Ranchers.
We called in the card and continued on our mission of fun.
Eric took us all over the Height, we toured the Museum of Modern Art, I pointed and loudly commented on the sell of a dime bag on the bus, and we watched another old movie on TV.
It was a G-ratedly magical few days, and then we headed back to Flag with some rad new photos for class and a new appreciation for home fried french fries.
It was all fun and games until the noises really asserted themselves again, even louder
than Jack Rabbit Slims Twist contest, and the truck stopped.
Completely.
And with what seemed to me a rather unexpected abruptness.
We called from one of those emergency boxes that California excels at providing on
their freeways. Of course it was the middle of the night again. The tow truck came, we
gave Amanda's mother's AAA card, and rode into Needles with a tow truck river who had a
ZZ Top beard, a hook on his left hand, and a passel of peppermint candies that he didn’t
believe we didn’t want.
We slept in the truck at a truck stop / garage on the edge of needles.
Or perhaps in the eye of Needles?
I didn’t know if Needles has a middle per se.
So now we are in Needles with no money, no credit card, a broken car, and a hatchet.
The hatchet was not very useful at fixing the truck.
Neither was I.
Lacking anyway to pay, neither was the garage.
But we didn’t want to sleep in my truck - his name was Charlie, my poor little truck -
we didn’t want to sleep with Charlie indefinitely, we couldn’t call home, because, hello
my Dad said we would break down and he might still be suffering from the illusion that he was wrong.
So we again had two choices.
You might call it a lemon cookie moment.
Walk from Needles to Flagstaff, or hitchhike with truck drivers.
Walking would definitely make us miss our Monday classes.
And, as I explained multiple times, my Grandpa was a truck driver. And he was a really nice, if slightly racist man. And we had a hatchet.
So we grabbed our backpacks and went up to a pair of drivers - a couple - and told the woman we needed a ride back to Flagstaff. They weren’t going that way, so they got on their radio and put in a plea for us,. She told everyone we were 15. Not 19.
It’s like she really knew me.
This guy, Byran, eventually stopped.
He had a puppy with him, the kind with all the wrinkles.
He was a huge white guy with plenty of ink and lots of stories.
It was snowing again, and he explained to us that if the ice is splashing off the road you can still pretty much go as fast as you want. We made very good time and learned a lot about buying your own sleeper cab.
He dropped us off at Little America, and we went in to buy him Reeses Peanutbutter Cups
to thank him. But by the time we got back outside, he and his truck and the pup were
gone without a trace.
Sam and Funk were there to pick us up.
We dropped Lori off at her dorm, and never saw her again.
Was she busy making better choices, or endless Lemon Cookies?
We may never know.
So I have a lot of stories set in Flag.
I arrived here at 18 with about as much life experience as my indoor cat.
Freshman year I complemented this guy on his paint can opener while we worked on
the homecoming float. I had never seen a bottle opener.
Sophomore year at a party I very loudly asked my friend what sort of funny bubble
blower that was.
Bong.
It was a bong.
Junior year we drove to San Francisco for fall break and ended up hitching a ride back
with a truck driver named Byron and a nice girl named Lori whom we never saw again.
It was October and Amanda and I and a bunch of other friends had planned on camping,
but it started snowing. So at about 11 PM on maybe a Sunday night, we clearly had two
choices, make more lemon cookies or drive to San Francisco in the small white truck
that had broken down every time it left the driveway for the last year.
If we’d been making chocolate chip cookies, we may have chosen differently
But they were only Lemon.
So.
Amanda called up her new friend Lori, who seemed fun and game for an adventure, and
we set out for San Francisco a little after midnight in the poor much abused truck. It’s
not that we didn’t think about it breaking down, we just thought that what with a new
radiator and clutch and starter and breaks I had pretty much rebuilt the car that year.
What else could break?
We asked.
Outloud.
As we added a quart of oil at the Shell station and hopped on I-40.
We had the pulp fiction soundtrack in - it was stuck in the tape player in my truck for
much of our undergrad years, and it was either counting flowers and sons of preacher
men or silence.
So.
We laughed and talked and drove and had bagels in Bakersfield.
We heard strange noises which we ignored as long as possible, and then we replaced
the air filter, because it was accessible cheap and potentially effective.
And we drove on.
We skidded through Yosemite on ice and eventually arrived in San Francisco in time to
be stunned at the difficulty of driving a stick in traffic on gigantic hills laced with
pedestrians and cable cars. Keep in mind I’d rarely driven outside of Sierra Vista or Flagstaff. We parked on a relatively flat stretch and tumbled into a delli lookingex ceedingly collegiate, T-shirts, cutoffs, cameras around our necks (Amanda and I werein a photo class that semester).
We were trying not to spend any money, we had brought Ramen and jolly ranchers and applesauces in a laundry basket in the back of the truck. So this delli was our fancy stop.
The guy behind the counter noticed our cameras, and my NAU T-shirt. Turns out he was
also from Sierra Vista, and NAU, had been in Randy Rhotans photo class - the one
Amanda and I were in - the year before. His name was Eric and his roommate, also from
Sierra Vista, had a mother who was the counselor at my elementary school.
We were immediately friends, and he asked where we were staying.
We were like, we have no idea ,because hey, is that a paint can opener, and he was like, you can stay with us!
So after a quick talk, in which Lori bega n to doubt her decision making skills and Amand a and I tried to reassure her that we had a hatchet and so really, what could go wrong? We agreed to stay with Eric and this other guy who’s name is lost to the trauma ofwondering what the fuck we were thinking.
These guys had steak and frozen french fries and beer in the house.
Nothing else.
They made us dinner, we drove to the Golden Gate and hung out and watched a movie
and slept in our sleeping bags on their floor.
The next day we woke up to find that my wallet and the bag of jolly ranchers had been
stolen out of my pickup. Whoever it was left the Ramen.
I was kind of sad about the wallet.
But I hate Jolly Ranchers.
We called in the card and continued on our mission of fun.
Eric took us all over the Height, we toured the Museum of Modern Art, I pointed and loudly commented on the sell of a dime bag on the bus, and we watched another old movie on TV.
It was a G-ratedly magical few days, and then we headed back to Flag with some rad new photos for class and a new appreciation for home fried french fries.
It was all fun and games until the noises really asserted themselves again, even louder
than Jack Rabbit Slims Twist contest, and the truck stopped.
Completely.
And with what seemed to me a rather unexpected abruptness.
We called from one of those emergency boxes that California excels at providing on
their freeways. Of course it was the middle of the night again. The tow truck came, we
gave Amanda's mother's AAA card, and rode into Needles with a tow truck river who had a
ZZ Top beard, a hook on his left hand, and a passel of peppermint candies that he didn’t
believe we didn’t want.
We slept in the truck at a truck stop / garage on the edge of needles.
Or perhaps in the eye of Needles?
I didn’t know if Needles has a middle per se.
So now we are in Needles with no money, no credit card, a broken car, and a hatchet.
The hatchet was not very useful at fixing the truck.
Neither was I.
Lacking anyway to pay, neither was the garage.
But we didn’t want to sleep in my truck - his name was Charlie, my poor little truck -
we didn’t want to sleep with Charlie indefinitely, we couldn’t call home, because, hello
my Dad said we would break down and he might still be suffering from the illusion that he was wrong.
So we again had two choices.
You might call it a lemon cookie moment.
Walk from Needles to Flagstaff, or hitchhike with truck drivers.
Walking would definitely make us miss our Monday classes.
And, as I explained multiple times, my Grandpa was a truck driver. And he was a really nice, if slightly racist man. And we had a hatchet.
So we grabbed our backpacks and went up to a pair of drivers - a couple - and told the woman we needed a ride back to Flagstaff. They weren’t going that way, so they got on their radio and put in a plea for us,. She told everyone we were 15. Not 19.
It’s like she really knew me.
This guy, Byran, eventually stopped.
He had a puppy with him, the kind with all the wrinkles.
He was a huge white guy with plenty of ink and lots of stories.
It was snowing again, and he explained to us that if the ice is splashing off the road you can still pretty much go as fast as you want. We made very good time and learned a lot about buying your own sleeper cab.
He dropped us off at Little America, and we went in to buy him Reeses Peanutbutter Cups
to thank him. But by the time we got back outside, he and his truck and the pup were
gone without a trace.
Sam and Funk were there to pick us up.
We dropped Lori off at her dorm, and never saw her again.
Was she busy making better choices, or endless Lemon Cookies?
We may never know.
I. am. dying. I can picture all of you, young and clueless and full of life, because I was once young and clueless and full of life. What an adventure--and wonderfully told.
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