Chapter 10

I still got to be part of shower nights and even got bathed when Nathan and Natalie took showers. At least I got to be cleaned up that summer of 2018 and so were the months after. Mandy got a job because Joel and Claudete were tired of the two not working to help pay for their living in the backyard. Erik refused to get a job and so when Jan got her a job at Just Us Kids, Mandy was working and paying for rent. Mandy was happy working with Jan and she got attatched to the kids there. NO matter how hallow the threats were, Erik still stayed there over the months and didn't move out.

Hallow threat after the other, nothing had changed and I would have suggested a physical action such as calling the police to remove somebody extremely lazy as he is to get off the property, but nothing they said didn't helped. The property kept changing no matter what was happening. If Erik dug a 10 feet deep underground storage room and Claudette and Joel were cpming over, he'd cover it up. Ol' Reliable had already called it a mole hole because he'd elevate himself down to dig more to put a gas line in. Weeks later, Erik started to complain how much hard work he had done and it wasn't fair to be told to get out. I had a term for something like that and it was "sucking his thumbs to stay" or better known as kissing feet to stay. It didn't make any things better for him because he was still a piece of trash, he needed to be thrown away. Then something came up with 1025. Erik was wanting to move up there because he hated his life at 1010. If he thought he would be getting the house up there, he was totally wrong. Grandpa Joe and Carol would never allow him to live there with them. He'd trash the place and never take core of it and the only replacement care for 1025 would be Nathan because he had been to help up there his whole life unlike the trash wad living in a shack. All my thoughts were pushed aside when Nathan and Natalie had driven me into town for the usual places. This time, our first place to go was AutoZone which made me wonder why they needed to stop there, but when we pulled up, I had remembered Tiny needed something for the transmission because it was just about fried. I must have forgotten about it all because Tiny's engine started to stink after being part of our little garage gang since March. It was after Nathan met Natalie or so. He was a little under the weather with transmission problems. I had nothing to say about Ford except that they were weird and had issues with electrical things here and errors with spark plugs there. I was told that I would never understand because I wasn't a Ford and that was true. Ol' Reliable had said the same thing to me once just to try and hurt my feelings. I was hard-headed and I didn't hurt easily and so words just bounced off of me and stuck on him right after I told him "I know"

The things about Tiny were that he had a heart about as big as his eyes and he had a personality all his own rather on the side of being an enjoyable delute just like his big brother Ozzy. They both said they were much more lovable than the other, but when I'm parked next to Ozzy, I get the truth that Tiny was a brag. Ozzy was more of an honest guy than Tiny. When it came to telling someone was showing off, I was pretty smart and suspected the right answer. Ozzy was right for being older about Tiny showing off. Whenever Tiny went to see Ozzy, the two siblings would bicker over who's bragging about who or what. One day, I came up there to spend time with Joe and help out a little. Suddenly Ozzy was asking me about a box that was sealed with tape. He asked me what was inside because it had no label when he pulled it out. I looked at the box, opened it, and noticed it was full of video tapes all labeled under "dad" and so I figured it was all about Joe. I told Ozzy to leave it and I would go through it later.

One day in June 2016, I didn't start for Nathan because he wanted to take me around the block. I had been in a very grumpy mood that day and so I decided to be a pain in the neck to Nathan by not starting up. Nathan got fusterated and called me names, but that didn't get me to work. I didn't care and as Nathan tried to start me up again, I wouldn't stay running. Finally, Nathan gave me a threat to scare me into behaving. If I didn't start up, he would sell me to someone to take care of me. But I didn't care. I'd known Nathan a long time and so I taunted him to dare to try it. Natalie wouldn't be delighted if Nathan did sell me to someone. I knew Nathan would scare each and every one of us cars, but that was just his game to get us to behave. In the future, cars were a lot smarter than humans now with all this self-driving gadgets. I snorted at Nathan as if to say "end of converstation, Bub" and surely that made him shut up. I got to stay home that day as Nathan took Ol' Reliable into town instead. I had been in a pretty bad mood today. I got a headache, upset gasoline tank and achey gears. I didn't feel like going anywhere because I was driven sick and tired of every day of going in town when Ol' Reliable was due for a drive. I have been covering for him for three weeks and I wasn't going to stand by and gain more pain.

I was so enraged by suffering pain, that I started to throw everything around the yard. Then I saw something fly by me and I stopped. I got close to what flew passed me and I looked at it closely. It was a pipe in a Zip-Lock bag containing some kind of green dried stuff and I picked it up. There was a large amount of that green dried stuff and it smelled herbal-like. I started to think it was reefer or something like strawberry blonde but everything was different from each other if you knew the books talking and being written about ganja. That was marajuana for easy reference. There was a lighter in there as well so I thought; 'what a way to send my anger away with a little weed' and right away, I found a private spot, sparked it up, and started feeling mellow. Then I had remembered the good days in the late 60s, smoking some herbal fruity weed like Strawberry Blonde was the best flavor popular around town. Hipsters and hippies loved it all over. My body felt full of air and cold after three sparks. My eyes loosened contently as the anger floated away. I soon forgot what I was mad about and I sat there in the shade for about 2 hours. I didn't know how long I've been whipped out of my hood and boy was I ou of my mind for smoking weed. I hallucinated seeing a game that I was watching a sport called imaginary football, when Ol' Reliable came and found me. He sounded alarmed at first. I told him I was fine in a more lazy tone and there was no need for hostility. He screamed that I had been AWOL for 6 hours on the clock. It was 9:40 PM and Ol' Reliable included that Nathan was worried about me. I still remained calm and knew any other living soul, would've freaked him out. I told him it was cool and I would appear before Nathan could say "abrakadabra". I pulled up to the door and laid down. I had gone from exhausted to dropped energy. Ol' Reliable thought I must have gotten drunk for a moment. Alcohol makes me have nightmares so I couldn't drink it. When Nathan noticed I was here, he, Natalie and Jan took me out to town to get drinks and go to Family Dollar. I fellt like playing games with Nathan and so I gave him a little attitude by sputtering and jerking. It begun to get clear that Nathan gave up on trying to scare me because I was smarter than a human. Whatever Nathan tried, didn't work.

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Then that fall semester, I gave Nathan more attitude all the way up to the college because just to scare him for fun. Ol' Reliable followed me up there. Nathan needed to rebuild my transmission because I slobbered on the dirt and knew I needed it badly. It would take the proper hands to complete it all.

I didn't know how long it would take, but even a semester thus, underoing some heavy nitrus was in order to keep me still and numb. It would be a rickity ride back home. I stayed calm and hummed the song "cool jerk" to help keep the boredom while getting into the doors of the college garage. Then something inside, panicked and I started to panic. I hit my brakes just when I was about to pull up to the ramps. My eyes feasted on all kinds of equiptment that scared me. Nathan was trying to get me onto the ramp, but I glued myself onto the floor. I slid closer and closer to the ramp when I wanted to run away. The concrete was like a slippery ice rink. I kept applying the brakes hard to stop. I was old and just as feeble to break in parts. It was too late to turn back when I got backed into the stall. I was forced to intake a lot of nitrus and after over 7 minutes of nerve gas, I was knocked out. It seemed like seven years when I started to waking up and coming into the conciousness. My sight blurred into sleepiness and I couldn't feel anything. At first, I thought I had been a cripple, and even my mouth was numb extremely. I felt dry even more than feeling swollen. When I was fully awake, I started to feel droopy and confused. As I started to return to clear conciousness, I had no idea what day it was. What month is it? How long was I out?

I pulled out of the stall to get a look at the calender. I could see it was May 9th, 2018. I had some trouble getting over there because the feeling wasn't touching the nerves. The instructor; Jim told Nathan I'd be rockin-n-rippin it up on the road in no time. I overheard that I would develop some flu symptoms later unexpectedly, but not to worry. It was normal for a car to be sick and weak for a month and a half. As Nathan drove me home, I still felt paralized. Nathan made sure I had settled comfortably into Randy's chair with a blanket and pillow over me. When Jan was home from work a few hours later, she fed me soft warm meals since my mouth was swollen stiff. I got to relax andnap in Nathan's bedroom while Velocity played all my favorite shows on air. I missed a few Garage Squad episodes, Fantom Works, Gas Monkey and Chasing Classic Cars seasons because I fell asleep as the nitrus was still wearing off. Nathan kept me company while I was still stiff and wobbly to get to places I wanted to go.

Hours later,, I woke up again noticing there was Mountain Dew drink sitting next to me. It was trying to gain entry into my mouth. Nathan had gotten me a drink to stay hydrated on and it scared me to death that I was dry and thirsty. At many times, I've felt thirsty and dehydrated but that one day in 1978, I took 'shrooms because it was thundering out and I hated storms when they were near. They even drove me nuts, but not anymore. I gave up 'shrooms after how thirstyI had gotten. And now that I had surgury, it took me back to misery lane when I had too much drugged mushrooms to get me high.

I had chugged the whole can down but wasn't satisfied. I wanted something else to drink like water, iced tea, milk, or whatever it was as long as it didn't have to do with another gulp of retched "Mountain Dew" or "Mountain Breeze". Nathan headed into the kitchen, poured me a glass of iced tea, and helped me get it down. Unfortunately, I was still thirsty even though Nathan did his best at bringing me fluids to drink up. This time, he brought me three glasses of water, helped me get them all in my system and took each empty glass to the kitchen sink. I began to notice that I wasn't thirsty antmore, but was still sleepy.

In a few days, I was feeling like my old self again and feeling active. I haven't felt sick and weak yet and I hoped not. I was in too good of a mood to bring that up. Natalie had returned at last from Durango because she wanted a break. I could see she had enough of it all and her whole apartment. I had wished she could move down here to Farmington New Mexico like some couples do. It would save Nathan a lot of trips up there and back. The important thing was, I was feeling healthy to zoom all around town. After I got done at McDonald's that night,I got to have a little fun because Robin swooped by, greeted me with a "where've you been at, you big oaf?" and cruzed with me. I told him I had an idea of blaring up "Cool Jerk" on his radio and shouting out "Ohh YA SMOKEN' FRANKIE" to cars passing by at the top of his voice since his was louder than mine. I haven't hooted in 6 years and was feeling up to it while Ol' Reliable was taking Natalie, Jan and Nathan to town. I lead Robin up Main ST. and blared up "Cool Jerk" up high. When we would see a classic cars from annual car shows, we'd hollar out. "OHHH, YOU'RE COOKIN' FRANKIE" and to females, it would be "YA SMOKE-KEN" in our best Jim-Carry voice from the movie "The Mask"

We'd laugh all the way back to my house and gibber-jabber about how we both had so much fun. I couldn't stop laughing for a clear 26 minutes.