Saddle Up

Jesse James, Cole Younger, George Armstrong Custer, had brothers, friends, cohorts to play off of. Even Pinocchio had a Jiminy Cricket, I got Bob.

Bob is one of those characters, who not only believes there is nothing he can’t or won’t do.  It is because he is the best at everything he does, according to The Book of Bob.

Thinking, even knowing sometimes, doesn’t make a wrong a right, or stupid, smart. Bob ain’t figured that out yet. 

Bob is a used car salesman; he is the patented descriptive nature of a used car salesman. Bob, if one thing, is a good liar. Not because of the lies he tells, because he doesn’t think of them as lies, or the truth for that matter. He always explains when I ask, “What then is the difference between one of your truths, and one of your lies?” 

He always says, cause I asked him stuff like that quite often, cause lots of days it is slow and I’m kind of the fidgety type, “That’s the beauty of it kid. You get to figure that out for yourself.” 

I think on it a bit and then he tells me, there ain’t no difference, “they are one and the same thing.” I don’t see how that can be possible, but I like to play along, be the bait if you will, see how far he can cast his aspersions into my wild blue yonder of the interpretation of his life.

“It’s like this,” he says. He likes to puff himself up like an inflated Christmas Santa and proceed to let the air out slowly as to keep you wondering if he’s answering your question, or thinking up one of his own to spring on you.

“I’m not attempting to tell the people anything they don’t want to here, they may need to hear it, but they don’t want to, so I don’t tell em. It’s Christian of me don’t you think?”

Well, it is a Christian sentiment, no doubt, and I try not to think when he’s talking cause it just confuses me, and I forget what I’m thinking about. So I usually just nod, like I’m getting into it. He usually puts on a little more air about that time, and then puffs on.

“You see Jerome,” he calls me Jerome for some reason I ain’t figured out yet. My name is Jeffry, but you can only tell someone something so many times before you realize it’s easier to change your name, than ask Moses to come down off’n the mountain.

“It’s like this. If you let people lie to themselves, they can’t blame you for the things you forgot to tell them. They don’t want to know the odometer got rolled back fifty thousand miles, or that the car has had nearly every piece of almost metal, replaced by Bondo putty. They don’t want to hear it made it out of the flood, almost as good as new.  That the used engine, although it don’t belong to that model, fit perfect with a bit of tampering. People don’t want to know that kind of stuff. They only want to know that some old lady drove it to church once in a while when she felt up to it, and maybe to bingo night, but that’s it. They don’t want know, and if I tell them, they are going to be disappointed. You see what I’m telling you here Jerome?”

Well I am new at Buffalo Bob’s New Horse Emporium, so learning is what I guess I need to do. As far as doin favors though, I hope he don’t intend to do me any.

“Follow me,” he says.

We stand by the glass door looking out on the lot, and there is an old gentleman standing there with his hands in his pockets, his glasses resting way down on the end of his beaky nose, and wearing one of those golf looking hats that don’t go at all with his gray and pink checkered suit.

Bob opens the door, the bells ring, the man turns towards us and smiles.

“See you lookin at that green beauty there. Great little car. Hardly any miles and runs quiet like a new kitten. Quietist car I believe I ever been in, cept maybe that Mercedes my wife took when she left. But just look at that newly cleaned interior, plush, don’t you think?”

The man just puts his hands in his pockets like he’s feeling for something, but says nothing. Bob doesn’t believe in quiet. He says, “quiet and gone are one and the same.” I don’t know if he was talking about death or losing a potential victim, but I thought maybe best to stary mute. 

Bob goes over, pulls the lever, releases the latch on the hood, and goes up front, lifts the hood, puts the brace under it, steps back smiling, waving his arm over the motor like he was blessing it, and says, “Ain’t it grand!”

The man again, adjusts his cap, puts his hand in his other pocket, and still no whatever. He continues to smile, only more exaggerated like this time. Like he is a clown at a circus or something. Bob of course being the kind of person that don’t believe in being distracted by what people are doing or saying, keeps going on about how clean that engine is, “hardly a miles wear on the newly tuned up parts, and although the warranty has gone missing, how could such a beautiful car be in any jeopardy? Nothing to worry any about, got my word on that.”

The man hikes up his pants exposing these bright red sox, what looks to have penguins on them, and gets on his knees and starts lookin around under the car, as if maybe he’d dropped something under it somehow. Bob not knowing what to think, for I believe the first time in his life, says nothing, just starts smilin like the old man had.

I was getting worried about this time knowing that I might have to help this old dude off’n the ground, and my back hurting like its been since I tried to lift that refrigerator off the porch with only Sammy my dogs help. But Bob steps in as he always does, when he sees a chance everything is not goin according to script.

“Whatcha lookin for there, fella?” he says bending over as far as he dares. The old man looks up, and this time says something, I couldn’t make out, cause this kid who washes cars here shows up on this motorcycle with cancerous mufflers that ain’t been healthy for years; I’m guessin dead, just ain’t been told yet. 

I nodded to Randy, and although my intent was for Randy to see the guy on the ground and help him up, Randy just nods back. Well, that left me feeling like a Randy, so I reach down and offer my hand to the old guy. He looks at me like I was about to adjust him in an improper way, and jumps to his feet. I felt embarrassed of course, and put my hands in my own pockets.

“What you see down there?” Bob having to ask so he could go on adding to the story of how the drive train had just been gone over and an almost new muffler was installed.

The old man says nothing at first, digging in his back pocket with two fingers. “Ah Ha,” he says pulling these keys with a fob that looked like it has a upside down cross on it. I was goin to mention it to him, maybe had it hooked wrong, but then I thought it wasn’t really any of my business what kind of church he believed in.

“Hope you boys don’t mind me parking here. I had to go to the medication store, and there ain’t no place to park there but in that uppity garage the city built with my tax dollars, and is now wanting to charge me two dollars to park in it.” 

I think it was the first time I’d seen Bob at a loss for an amendment to a story. He just grins harder; I can barely watch.

“Just lookin,” the old man starts up again, “to see if the cat that crawled up under there to get warm and got petrified, was still there. That way I can remember it’s my car. Well I’ll be off, and if I would ever be needin a car I won’t be commin here. This old piece a junk ain’t much, but it’s what I got. And if you can’t tell s…, excuse me, stuff from shine Ola, maybe you’d best find something more useful to do with your time.” And he hops around to the drivers door, jumps in, starts her up and squeals off the lot. Don’t know how he could see where he’s goin with the hood still up, but some people are more amenable to distractions than others.

Randy he starts laughin, and Bob, he’s lookin like a burrito turned sideways; so I’m pretty sure Randolph won’t be washing cars here anymore. Me, I learned a lesson from Bob that I will take to my grave, or at least until I no longer work here. “Let them believe they got the deal of a lifetime, and don’t forget to smile!”