Diego Alejandro Arias

Working in a car wash is a grueling, brutal job. You’d hate it, bro, you truly would. I sometimes run out of the house early in the morning, no shower, no nothing, just a quick brushing of the teeth, and I’m out. I take the No. 46 bus into Elizabeth, and then from there, once I arrive groggy and with half a boner from dozing off somewhere before we reach Morris Avenue, I take the No. 72 bus into Union, which drops me off right in front of Sparkle Plenty Carwash. I work here because I couldn’t get hired anywhere else. I got my papers, it’s not that. I mean my uncle Elkin works here and he’s living in Jersey on an expired visa, but that’s besides the point. I’m legal man, even though I’m sure most people pulling up to wash their cars probably think I’m not. But fuck them. I don’t do this for them, or for anyone else. This is about me, and I don’t really give a damn what the guy handing me ten dollars thinks about my place in society. I work here, at SPCW, because I applied at like fifteen different places and no one ever called me back. Some places I applied in person, and I’m thinking no one wants to hire a 250-pound, six-foot two brown Colombian kid with a fade and a brook. Not sure if you know what a brook or a fade is, but just be rest assured it’s a hairstyle not found in nice neighborhoods, that’s all you need to know, fam.

“Hey, yo, what’s up Jim.”

“Hey, what’s going on Javi?”

“You want me to mix the soap?”

“Yea, get on that, and fill up the buckets while you’re at it. There’s a line of cars outside and I want to get those mothafuckas out of here.”

Jim is an Irish-Italian guy that’s been working at this place since he was about my age. Dude is old now, like in his thirties, but he still works here, so I’m guessing he likes this shit. He’s a good guy, and I like the way he talks to us younger cats. He gives us beer and pizza when we are dead fucking tired from washing almost a thousand cars in thirty-five-degree weather. He actually worked out a deal with the pizza place. They get free washes, and we get free pizza. Yo, that’s a crazy deal, right? Wouldn’t you want to work in a place that gets you free pizza and beer? You save on lunch. I make good money here though, don’t think I don’t. There aren’t many sixteen-year-olds making over two hundred dollars a day in 2001, are there? Man that sort of money usually comes paired up with like little bags of weed or selling stolen shit, and even then, none of that shit is steady. I got a friend that got caught with a stash of weed in his bookbag and that dude’s never coming back to school. Maybe he’ll get sent to those night classes with all those bad kids the administration doesn’t want to see mixing in the daylight with us quiet, noncriminal teenagers, but hey he chose that life, right? No one asked this dumb fuck to come to school with a big bag of weed in his backpack. That’s some dumb shit, I can’t believe my mans did that, but hey, people got to live, right? He doesn’t have dad helping him find jobs at some lawyer’s, or some uncle hooking him with an internship at some politician’s constituent services office. Ah, you thought I didn’t know what that was, I know you. Hey, don’t think because I talk like this that I’m stupid, fam. We speak different languages, that’s all, I know when to sound like you, and I can switch it up. The only difference between me and you is that you can’t do that, even if you tried, people would think you were like a shitty person or something.

“Hey buddy, can you make sure you get the whitewalls? Last time I came, they were dirty as hell, and I drove around like that after paying full price here,” an older man with a wrinkled face but jet-black hair said to me.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that sir. The issue is that last time you didn’t have me washing your car. I’m going to make sure it looks nice and shiny for you and your family. Don’t you worry sir, it’ll be brand new once I’m done scrubbing these tires,” I said.

Dudes with Lincolns always act like they driving a Ferrari or something. I swear no one likes these boxy, pointy old grandpa cars, but these dudes, mostly Italian men that look too much like extras in Casino (the Joe Pesci, Robert DeNiro movie), think they’re like the neighborhood bosses or capos from an unknown, nondescript Union County crime family. They think we think that, it’s weird, I know, but these old guys don’t have much going on for them, so they take what they can, and who I am to deny that to them? So, now, I’m looking at this dude, and he’s sitting there smiling.

“I like you, kid. You got personality. You half-Italian?”

“No, sir. My grandmother is a quarter-German though.”

“Well, would you look at that. That’s where that efficiency comes from, kid.”

I’m not making that up. My great-grandfather was some sort of half-German engineer who taught math and science at some school in Colombia, way before the war forced my family out of Medellin and landed us right here, right in Jersey, where I’m scrubbing Joe Pantaloni’s whitewalls until those motherfuckers shine like the lights at Yankee stadium, bright and white like a burst of fire in the middle of the galaxy. I’mma shine these whitewalls so well this old man is gonna be flying up to the fucking moon.

“Nah, that comes from my dad. My dad is the hardest working man I ever met.”

“What does he do?”

“He works at the docks, in Newark. He’s like Marlon Brando.”

He turns to Jim.

“I like this kid.”

“Yea, you and every teenage girl this side of Union.”

What can I say, that wouldn’t make you think I am a person undeserving of your respect, of your admiration? I’m guessing you think I’m some kind of loud, obnoxious kid you wouldn’t want to have to share a New Jersey Transit seat with if you found yourself sitting next to me heading towards 34th street Manhattan on the Northeast Corridor. I had a guy look at me like that once, like I was going to jack his shit or take his shitty briefcase from him and run off into North Elizabeth or Newark Penn Station with his raggedy, old ass messenger bag. Man, if I’m some old, crusty businessman when I’m in my thirties or forties, yo, just put a gun in my mouth and blow that shit away. I don’t want that life. I don’t want to live like that, all hunched over some desk taking orders from an even balder, grumpier dude who eats old pastrami sandwiches for breakfast and shows up to work with onion and meat breath. Nah man, fuck that. Yo, fuck that dude on the train. I should’ve popped him in smart ass face. But hey, I’m not like that, I’m not that type of person.

“Javi! Jim! Speed it up, you’re slowing down the line!”

That was Chris, the owner. Chris is a cool dude. He comes to work every day with a six pack and just lays it in front of his desk, and just starts knocking back those beers. He smokes weed in there too, but only when his father, Angelo, has left for the day after his daily visit. Angelo is an old school Italian, born in Palermo, and a veteran of the Korean War. I interviewed him for an American History II class where he told me all about how he got sent off to war after living in America for about five years. He’s a little bit of a racist old man, but you get used to him and he’s really nice to me and my uncle, so I can’t really hate him. Chris inherited the carwash, and his two other brothers went on to become a doctor and an accountant. One of them, the accountant, comes around every once in a while, and scrubs down cars with us. They’re all good people, and I’ve learned plenty from them while I’ve been working here.

“Hey, Javi, can you come here, real quick?” Chris asked me. He had come out of his office and was standing near a large tank of soap we used to dip our brushes into and splash them all over the cars as they came in from the street.

“Sure, what’s up?”

We walked over to his office, and I sat down on an older leather couch he had in the side corner, facing away from the entrance. The space was small. There was a computer in the middle of the desk, a chair, and a refrigerator against the wall in between the couch and Chris’s wooden table. No one is allowed behind that desk, let me tell you man. He once caught Joey, a half Italian half Jewish kid who lived down the block, using his computer to download porn while Chris was away with his wife at the beach, and he suspended him for a whole month. Joey cursed him out on his way home the day Chris suspended him. I would’ve fired him. I never liked that dude. He was always saying smart shit and getting in people’s faces looking to start something that didn’t need starting. One time, when we were all out in the back just waiting for cars to show up (during the summer there are some days no one makes money because the cars don’t come, but Chris still gives us thirty bucks for coming in any way), and Joey stretched his arms out and looked over at everyone.

“Yo, you know what I need? I need a spic bitch, I need that shit right now. I could use a spic whore right around now.”

I just looked at this dude. But before I could say anything, Chris stood up and walloped this man right in the jaw, knocked him right on his ass, he fell flat on the floor, screaming.

“You watch your smart-ass mouth! Don’t use that sort of language around here, and certainly don’t use it when the guys are here. What’s wrong with you? I swear that mother of yours dropped on you on your head and drank while she had you in her stomach.”

I told you Chris was a cool dude. I just watched Joey get up from the concrete and dust some pebbles off his shorts. But that was about a year ago, and no one says stuff like that around here anymore. This is a cool place to work; I want you to know that because I think you been judging us here, all of us, not just the Latin guys, you’ve been wondering if Jim, Chris, and Joey are like you, but they’re not, they’re like us, they’ve always been like us. We’re all family, and if someone came to the carwash right now and started some shit with Joey, I would scrap for this dude so hard, I’d catch a charge for this little Italian Jew. I know I can’t stand him, but he’s blood. I don’t think you understand that. This isn’t your world.

“Your uncle, you heard from him?”

“Nah, I thought he was supposed to be here today. He’s not here?”

“No, nothing. I’ve tried calling his phone, but he doesn’t pick up.”

I looked down at my phone, a Motorola V60 I bought and everyone at school was sweating real hard, and I looked for my uncle in my contacts’ list. I never call him, really, he was kind of a loner, always out on his own doing his own thing. The phone rang and rang and rang.

“Nah, he doesn’t pick up. Nada.”

“Look Javi, I like you and your uncle, you’re a special kid, but Elkin’s gotta go. He’s late all the time, drinks a lot on the job, last time he showed up drunk and cut himself on a rusty old antenna from some dude’s car. I can’t have him coming around like that, all beat-up, making a scene every time he comes to work.”

“Yea, I get it. It’s not right.”

“I’m going to ask you, when you get home, if you can let him know he’s not welcomed back here.”

“Sure, I can do that.”

“Hey, and if he asks, I’m not changing my mind.”

I nodded.

“And that’s it, kid. Just give him the message. Thanks.”

“No problem, Chris.”

I went back to washing down the cars and spent a portion of the late afternoon closing up the carwash. Chris trusts me now with closing the whole place up, getting all the cash from the day, putting it together, dividing it up, and handing it out to the guys at work. There’s a lot of dudes here, a real mix of people that you wouldn’t find anywhere else, certainly not at an office or some government building. Joey, Jim, and a redheaded dude named Matt, which everyone just calls Red, are Italian, Irish, and Jewish. There are three Costa Rican guys, Papo, Canela, and Juan, and then two Colombians, me and my uncle. But I guess my uncle won’t be coming back, so it’s just me now. Two months ago, a guy named Willy used to work here, but he went on a coke binge, and last time I saw him, he was asking people for money on the street in Elizabeth. His eyes were bulging out of his face like a damn zombie freak, his lips dry and chapped, his face sunken in like a corpse recently exhumed out of fresh dirt. My man was gone, and there was no way that anyone wanted this man back at Sparkle Plenty. I felt real bad too, cause he’s Colombian, and to have a Colombian get strung out on coke is not a good look for my people. I mean, we’re not really the coke addicts, we’re suppliers, you know, the real coke addicts are the people that wear suits and drive fancy cars and attend good schools and get off on trophy wives and bombing the shit out of brown children in developing countries. Don’t think I don’t know about that shit, I’ve already told you that I am not what you think.

I took the bus back home, covered in grime and soap and my hands were hard and dull from the freezing cold and the lye from the liquids we use all the time. Most Saturdays I go out with my boys to house parties or we chill at someone’s house and smoke weed or drink beers while we talk to girls from around the neighborhood and try to get them to, well, to do you know what man, I don’t need to explain any of that to you. I was walking back home with a big ass stash of dollar bills that came out to like $250 dollars for the day, and I saw some dudes coming up behind the bus stop. They looked real shady, like hoodies and old beat-up sneakers type sneaky, and I thought about that stash in my jeans and I was like, fuck, my man, I’m going to get jumped. These dudes are gonna take my cash. One of these guys walked up to me.

“Yo, what’s good man. You good?”

“Yea man, everything is cool.”

“Man, I need some help to get this train back home, but I need you to lend me twenty bones. Just twenty, I’ll pay you back next week.”

“I don’t know you though, how’re you gonna pay me back?”

“Let me give you my phone. This dude here, his name is Damien. He’ll pay you back when he good. But right now, I need this cash.”

His boy Damien looked like some strungout Boricua with like a hundred pounds worth of body weight on him. I’m not lying, this dude looked like someone I could take down easily, but then I thought about them having like knives or guns in their sweatpants, and I thought twice about some shit Angelo had told me at the carwash a couple of months ago. My Italian sage had told me, “Always keep some wrinkled up bills in one pocket, and your real money in another. If someone comes up asking you for money, you use the pocket with the wrinkled-up bills. Always give them something, otherwise they can rob you, take you for everything you’ve got.” I took that advice very seriously, fam. Angelo was on point with that shit, and I had a small set of three twenties in my left leg, and I reached inside and took them out. Yo, these dudes eyes lit up like I had taken out a twenty-seven-pound gold brick. I swear they were real broke, these guys, but I knew that they wanted all sixty dollars. No way were they just going to go home with a fucking measly little twenty-dollar bill.

“My mans, let me get those bills. I’ll pay you back. Damien is good for it.”

Damien just stood there like a speed freak and had this dumbass smile on his face. I swear I wanted to knock this motherfucker out.

“Aight, let me get that phone number and I can lend you the sixty.”

“Aight, aight, cool.”

And just like that, I got robbed for sixty bucks. So, I ended up getting on the bus with only $190 dollars for a full day’s work. I still made more in one day than most of my friends’ parents made at their jobs, but for all the hard work in that freezing cold, busting my ass to clean these people’s cars, I was so mad I had been jacked for sixty dollars. But, it’s whatever, I knew though, that I couldn’t take that bus anymore. I guess I was going to have to buy like a monthly pass at the train station or something, which would cost me a little more, but at least I wouldn’t get robbed, fam. Police patrol the train stations looking out for men like Damien and that skeezy dude with that old ass Nokia that probably wasn’t even connected to anything, probably used some dead dummy phone to try to get me to believe he was going to pay me back. Yo, I can easily see someone arguing with these type of guys and getting a stick in their throat or stomped on, for real. I’m guessing you would probably be down $250, plus credit cars, plus whatever dumb shit you keep in your wallet. Don’t mind me, though, I’m not mad at you, I’m just pissed I lost my cash.

I got home at around 7:15 and took my boots off before entering the house. My mom hates it when I enter the house with those soggy, dirty boots. I went in once without taking them off and she made me pay for the cleaning on that old blue carpet she vacuums every Saturday. My parents rent this house out, they don’t own. The owner is a younger Portuguese guy who divorced his wife like three years ago when she caught him cheating on her with a Bolivian lady he met somewhere. This Bolivian lady is something else though. She just started dating this guy, he wasn’t even divorced yet, and she moved into the house and started coming by asking my parents for rent money. Like, for real? She’s a rent collector now? She’s like in her early twenties, only like six years older than me, and she comes by asking for rent money, on the dot bro, every first Saturday of the month. I think my parents have been living in this house since this lady was like twelve years old, and now she comes around and stands outside of the door, at like eight in the morning, and holds her hand out in front of my mother asking for the monthly rent. My mom doesn’t like this lady, I think her name is Rose, and she usually writes the check out the night before and curses left and right filling that shit out.

“Hey there.”

“Hey, what’s up mom. How’s everything?”

“Good, how was work?”

“It was aight. Nothing big, just cars. Lots of them. I think we ran through like nine hundred and fifty.”

“Hmmm, a question here, buddy.”

“What’s that?”

“When you’re off to college, what’s going to happen to this job?”

“That’s the idea.”

“What do you mean, ‘that’s the idea’?”

“You’re asking if I’m quitting. I’ve been doing this carwash job for like three years. I’m not going to keep this up once I graduate. Once I’m off to Cornell, I’m good mom. I ain’t working there any longer. But hey, why leave now? Good money, pizza, and, erm, other things that keep the party going on.”

“You’re going out tonight?”

“Yea, why’s that?”

“Your face is burned red. From the wind and the cold. Pareces un indio.”

“Soy mas indio que rubio, mami.”

She smiled and started filling some coffee into a moka. That smell is what’s up, fills up the whole house, which ain’t that big really, and it reminds me of my grandma back in Colombia. She moved out here to the United States when I was a kid, but hated it here and moved back to Medellin. Man, she really didn’t like it here. All she ever said was, ‘this place is cold, no one says hi here, people look angry, the people dress like idiots when they leave their houses’. There was no way that my grandma was going to stay here, bro. She bounced out of here faster than a rabbit gets fucked.

“Hey, by the way, have you seen Elkin?”

“I haven’t, no. He didn’t go to work?”

“No, actually, he’s been fired. Chris said he doesn’t want him back anymore.”

“Poor Elkin, he’s been a mess recently.”

“I should go down there, let him know. Sucks he’s been fired, but I’m sure he’ll be fine. The man always is.” 

So, I’m going down to his apartment in the basement. It’s an illegal dwelling, but the Portuguese guy doesn’t care and he rents it out for like $500 bucks, so my parents rent it out to Elkin for like $950. I mean it’s a big space, they’re not taking advantage of him or nothing. You could fit like three people in there, so the price is worth it. I open the door to the downstairs floor, and I walk up to Elkin’s front door. I knock and knock and knock, but this dude doesn’t answer the door. I start to think something may be wrong, or maybe he’s drunk or straight fucked down there, who knows with this guy, you know? I knock again, just to be sure, and I go upstairs and ask my mom for the extra key to Elkin’s apartment. I go back down and I unlock the door and it’s pitch black down in there, like just real dark and damp like the water’s been running and filling up the air with musk and liquor. I see a light in the back of the apartment, and I walk past the blackness in the living room, kind of feeling weird about going down there, like maybe he’s got a girl in there or he’s doing something in there. I stop and wonder if I should keep going. Maybe I’m stepping on this dude’s privacy or something, and I shouldn’t be inside his space without having asked him or checked with him if it was okay to use his spare key. I start going again, walking to the room. I walk in and the light is turned off. I see him laying there, and I call out to him. “Elkin? Yo, Uncle Elkin, you okay dog?” And he isn’t moving, and I’m watching his body just kind of lay there, but I got such bad eyesight that I can’t see anything unless I turn the lights on, and so I decide it’s worth waking him up if I turn the light on even if he complains and makes a big fucking deal out of it. I flick the switch on, and then I see this shit, and it’s so horrible, and it’s so bad, and I can’t believe he’s there like that, his wrists all slashed open and blood all over the bed, and he’s pale and his lips are blue and the shit is like a nightmare, except it’s right here, right now, and I just lost my fucking uncle, and what the fuck, why?