Afraid, eh?... I'll tell you about being afraid...
Wrecking Yard Story No. 3: Part 1.
Switch on the time machine, will you?... BRRrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhh... We go back in time to when we were Young and Restless...
We arrive at a time when I wasn't really looking for a job, but when through some peculiar misfortune, a job was looking for me....
I'm just doing some odd-job stuff when I get a call from an old friend.
"Hey, I was wondering if you might like to work for awhile? Earn a few extra bucks?"
"Yeah, OK... what's it all about?"
"Well, this place that I'm working... it's looking for someone to sort of run the office... keep things under control... Gotta be someone who knows cars real well... someone like you". (Please take note of the not-so-subtle appeal to my ego...).
I copied down the directions to the place and drove over that very afternoon.
Now, as I drove down the final stretch of road, a tall fence made of metal roof-sheeting loomed into view. And on it there was all of this weird graffiti... mainly in broad black and red brushstrokes... "Kilroy was here" with some ugly cartoon thing peering over a fence,...cuss words... S.L. loves B.R.... well, basically all kinds of crazy looking stuff... several decades worth of it...
All at once, a little chill went through me as I came to the sudden realization that I knew this place... I mean, I KNEW this place!...
It was The Place of my recurring childhood nightmares.... I had seen this place before. We used to drive by it on our way to the cottage when I was a kid. It was on one of my dad's "shortcuts"... My brother and I used to just HATE it when he came that way... We were both terrifited of this place... this horrible wrecking yard with the high metal fences and the graffiti and the hideous pink stucco house with the white band around it and the black roof...and the packs of mangy wrecking yard dogs roaming around the yard and occasionally trotting out onto the highway to block the traffic... conspiring to stop our car for several horrifying extra seconds in front of The Place.
When we came this way, my brother and I would duck down to the floor of the car and just stick our heads up long enough to take a peek to see if we had passed by the hated and feared place...
And here I was, driving down the final stretch of road... getting ready to turn into the yard of The Place of my childhood nightmares...
Like some bird, mesmerized by the snake about to seize and eat it, I drove up to the old tin can mobile home office... My heart was filled with dread as I stepped out of my truck and walked in to fulfill my appointment with destiny... Little did I know that this ugly old mobile home was to be my home-away-from-home for the next 3 years of my life....
End of Part 1...
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