I'm, really distracted today and among the things I promised I'd do this summer "starting a blog site" was at the top. Here it is ten weeks into the summer and I haven't really put that much focus on this project. Well, at least I reserved the space a couple of months ago. Yea, really not much of a strain, was it? Ok. How about if I post one of the popular stories I wrote a while back? Let's see how this flies. Comments are welcome.

Why They Should Have Bleacher at the Carwash

Being single in a position of authority over teenagers has sometimes been the butt of a few jokes from bawdy friends. I have no fear, no temptation; I don’t have any predilection for younger guys. Most of the time I can squelch the joke with a cold stare and a deadpan expression. I hate people assuming that I’d share their lechery. You'd think I'd be safe from those minds way out here in the suburban rural area away from the jaded view of the city, the tricks of Lolita and her ilk, but no.

Case in point:

It’s summer so I'm sleeping until the hours I damn well feel like getting up, especially on a Saturday; but for some darn reason there are car horns blaring more often than usual in the street out in front of my building. What is it? A fire? An accident? Was someone hit? This should be exciting!

I shuck off the covers and throw open the window blinds and see that it's nothing more than the car dealership across the street sponsoring a fundraiser carwash for the local high school volleyball teams (both boys and girls). Darn all that noise! I suppose since they practice year ‘round during school and summer they can raise funds whenever they choose. But ya see the difference in this case is that it's mid June in Southern California and it's terribly hot already at this hour in the morning. I mention this only so you'll understand why all the teens are wearing a wide array of bathing suits or battered khaki shorts.

Yup there they are: teenage girls and boys all clad in bathing suits workin' the suds over the cars; walking down the driveway entrance and leaning into car windows to collect cash; and standing in the middle of the street median waving big cardboard signs over their heads. Whenever a car passes by and honks, they're all jigglin' as they jump up and down. Did I mention they are wearing bathing suits? It seems to be pretty effective. Yea, teen sexual exploitation for breakfast. Ah, sigh! Man-oh-man, have I gotta get a streamin' cam. Who'd believe this? I could make money. Every window of my apartment is on the same side of the building so I get the same noisy view from the living room, the kitchen, everywhere. I eat my corn flakes and watch unaffected as two kids smile enthusiastically at the two college guys that pull up in a big dusty Buick. I wonder if it’s a mystery to any of them. I mean, since when do those guys go two at a time in the mom-mobile to a car wash? When I was a college kid I was broke most of the time, and I sure as hell didn’t blow twenty-five tax-deductible dollars for someone else to wash my car. This is so obvious: it’s the cheap dude’s show girl bar.

My friend David calls to remind me we’ve got a tennis court reserved for four o’clock.

“You’re finally up?” he knows I have the summer off and he resents it.

“Yea, well the noise from the kids kinda made it happen.”

“What the hell,” he argues “you don’t have kids.”

“No, it’s from a car wash across the street.”

“Oh, really? They’re that noisy?”

“Not really; it’s all the traffic noise and the car horns.” Almost as soon as I say this I understand the inner workings of the heterosexual perv mind: teen car wash = wet teens; car honking + teen car wash = HOT wet teens. I roll my eyes as I predict what’s going to follow. Dave is just another guy out here, married with two kids and another on the way. His wife’s in her last trimester, and I suppose that and the heat have him a little worked up. I know he’d never cheat on Lauren, but he’s not going to pass up an opportunity to watch a live performance either. Thirteen minutes later, Dave’s at my door.

One of the teen guys has gone out on the road median to encourage more cars into the carwash. Another guy with a giant car washing suds mitten sneaks up and slaps him upside the head with the wet mitten. Hilarity busts out among the teenage car-washing crowd before they return to their work. But the roadway boy still has the sudsy wet mitten and he's now slathering it all over himself and the other guys chest! All this only some twenty-five yards from my own window. Yea, he's workin' it. You can see the guys have gotten savvy to the public response. They're laughing as they horse around but still they continue. Cars are now honking like crazy, the girls are jumping up and down, the guys are puckering and feigning ecstasy as they arch back and let suds run over themselves.

My phone rings again and I leave David in a chair by the window.

“Can you see this?” asks my neighbor Joey from upstairs. Joey’s gay and in his mid-twenties. It doesn’t take a mastermind to figure out what he’s talking about.

“You mean auto-porn? Yea, I can see it. I’ve got six windows that get nothing else except those sluts. My friend Dave is here takin’ lunch in front of one.”

“Damn it, I can only see a quarter of the lot.” Joey’s apartment is shaded by some old oak trees, remaining cooler but with an obstructed view. “I’m coming over.”

“Well, bring something to drink...” I start, but I can already hear that he’s opened the door and started down the hallway. One of the girls over by the car washing area is pressing her chest against the windshield while she washes; thank gawd no one is in the car. That would be a little too much. Dave looks like he’s watching live coverage of Viet Nam. When Joey knocks and enters the door I start to introduce Dave, but Joey’s already in the second armchair, turning it toward the window.

“Nice to meet you” he mumbles, eyes transfixed to the window. Dave mumbles something back. I could be naked and on fire in this room and neither one of them would turn away from the window. It seems like in some tawdry way I’ve fused together the most unlikely of drinking buddies to a medium they can both relate.

“How long has this been going on?” Dave asks.

“Since I got up this morning...noon?”

“I saw them setting up this morning around nine, but I didn’t know what it was all about until I heard all the cars” Joey explains with all the precision of Howie Long on Fox Football Friday. “OH NO! Don’t put on the hoodie-sweater! Damn!” he curses at the window. Most of the effect is lost on me. With the furniture all turned around I take the advantage to do a little vacuuming over the areas where they stood.

I had to leave the room to shower, shave, and get dressed for the day (afternoon? -whatever don’t bug me about it) but when I come back to the living room the whole thing has just ended. Joey and David are moving the furniture back talking about the play-by-play after game stuff. They give each other the courtesy of two sports fans exiting a stadium. Joey leaves and Dave and I go to play tennis.

Since I didn’t really watch much of it, I don’t miss talking about it, but it almost seems weird having seen but not talking about that event shared between Joey and David. It’s like watching two friends enjoy a sport that you have absolutely no interest in doing, but you feel kinda left out for not being included. Weird. Very weird. Or am I making too much of it? Was it just another day in Pleasantville? I wonder what Robert Young would have done on Father Knows Best.