Coloring People

In a cozy garage, just big enough to fit two cars I am looking at a plush chair sitting next to a small table towards the back of this garage. For some reason there is an unlit fireplace at the back of the garage made of brick with a concrete ledge underneath the opening. The chair and table are differing shades of brown placed side by side towards me. The ground is covered with splatters of oil stains just in front of them. The air reeks in here – smelling of stale tobacco that smoldered in long, cylindrical sticks months ago. I’m looking at a place where it feels like my dad spent much time being secluded.
I contemplate sitting in the chair. I begin to think about how if I sit in that chair the smell will more easily transfer to my clothes. Then the imagination takes over. Maybe his spirit is starting to manipulate my mind. I would sit down in the chair, slide a cigarette out of a pack and put it to my lips and let it dangle while I miraculously found a lighter in my right pocket. Click, Click and inhale deep then exhale a small cloud of fumes that alters minds slightly, numbs my senses. The day dream ends with the cloud of smoke exposing the shape of my father just in front of the chair.

My father’s best friend enters the room. I know him pretty well and I think he’s helped my mom quite a bit since my dad passed away. He hasn’t had much interaction with me though and he sees a moment where he can sit me down and ask me how I feel. He grabs me with one hand in a handshake, then uses the other hand to grab me firmly by the elbow. I might as well be paralyzed. He pulls me to the concrete ledge, sits down and looks at me as my eyes are watering. He takes a second to observe my emotional reaction. Then he says something wise. My emotions stop and I protest the way I was treated. I think without saying that he was a man that didn’t care about much, was rebellious and in that forgot how mortal he was and lamented that fact after getting sick. He changed the wrong things though and exposed how alone he really was in being coerced by my mom and "the one" to carry forward his name largely non-existant and alienated.

 
For some reason that made me think of two other people from Doxon Toyota.
There was this one guy, I forget his name but Rob D. renamed him “Gomer Pile” after the character in “Full Metal Jacket” because he was sort of like that. The guy was a Gemini, that’s all I remember besides the nick-name. He couldn’t make the cut down at the Express Lube. Then he brown nosed the Parts and Service Managers to stay within Doxon Toyota as the Parts Truck driver. That was a mistake. He would back into walls, misjudge distances to the point where the rear bumper was ready to fall off and it had scratches. He was practically blind even with his miniscule, gold framed glasses.

The second guy went by the name of Bryan, and he was a Virgo who was very similar and again dubbed something somewhat special by Rob D, "Comrade." He was a very frustrating, slow technician with aspirations to be a mechanic. He was let go from the Express Lube and adopted by Parts and Service for Courtesy Valets. He was slow at washing cars and had some mishaps with customer vehicles as well. Like Gomer, he was a brown-noser who sold out Rob D. and Rob P. before he was fired. They may have blown the whistle on a few of us, like Chris who had a drug problem (and many of us speculated some lunch hours he would get high if not drink alcohol – and yes, there was threats of drug testing but one was never done even though ALL of us, even the practicing stoners and alcohols were responsible for shuttling dealer and customer cars around the dealership).

Both of them were smokers, too.

 
A couple of colorful people, and my subconscious working out some things remaining from my talk with my mom on Wednesday. It may be obvious, but with the detail I describe some of the above I am not a smoker. I’d have a pretty hard time climbing 200-300 ft on my bike every morning, kayaking for long hours, skiing longer hours. I’ve read a lot of comments, debate, argument between smokers and non-smokers in addition to being around a family that was largely a tobacco-consuming family.