Chapter 2: Stories
About me: the hair on the back of my hands makes them look rugged. They aren’t really. When she slides her fingers through mine and turns my hand over to see how her dark, smooth brown ones look on my long, kind of fat, white ones, mine look exceptionally manly. I got that from my grandpa. He has the same hands I do, except he is a carpenter, a house builder, a handyman, so his not only look sturdy but they actually really are.
OK. So everyone has their story right? I mean, everyone has like one or two great stories, stories that you bring up for them. You are with a group of friends and even though the moment is not at all appropriate, you want to hear it again so you say “hey, tell your story.” It’s so good you feel they must be just ready to explode, like you are, so you try to give them a place to start, which never really works out the way you wish it had.
My story is that I stole a car. On accident. A buddy asked me to pick him up from the airport with another friend’s car. I went to get the car from where he had told me. I parked it in the underground parking and took his bags back to the car while he waited for the other friend. The other friend of course knew the car wasn’t hers, so I called the police and had them come out. I actually was nervous for moment that they might arrest me or something, but I have had the cops called on me three or four times before for things I didn’t do or wasn’t doing, so I knew it would probably be chill. We took a taxi home and left five bucks on the seat for the guy to pay his parking fee (which probably was more like 100 by the time he actually came to get it, but I didn’t stick around to find out).
The story is better than that, but I’ve told it so many times it has gotten a little tired.
What really happened is this: My roommate Chevas went to visit his fiancée in Wisconsin whom he had met only a few weeks before. He had no way of getting back to the dorms from the airport, but he had another friend coming in that day, maybe a half hour later. It worked out for all of us for me to bring her car and pick them both up. A totally different friend ran the keys by my room, and gave me directions. Up on 65th street. We are on 45th. A nice walk. So I make it up there and see two cars like the one she had described: red Ford Acura’s. I try the key on the nicer one, no luck. The older crappy one I hop in, fire her up, and bring her down to the airport.
I get into the temporary parking, grab my ticket, and find Chev. His friend won’t arrive for another half hour, so we go to put the bags in the car. As we walk out into the parking garage, we approach the car. “Where is it?” he asks. “Right here.” He stares and it and says it doesn’t look like hers. I open the door and start the car. He shrugs and I go to open the trunk. The key won’t work. I try and try getting a little nervous. I try the passenger door and it doesn’t work either. Hmm. I furiously get in the car and open the glove compartment. I ask Chev what the girls name is, and it is totally different than the registration. What in the world? I can’t think straight. What is going on?
“OK,” I say. Let’s go find her and bring her back and she’ll fix this whole mess. So we go find her, bring her back, and she says “nope. That’s not my car.”
Beeep!
I think hard, and remember when we were filming a movie one time and we were shooting a fight scene. Someone didn’t see the camera and lights and called the police. They came and we all had a good laugh and they told us just to notify them if next time we are going to do something like that. We asked if we just call 911. They said “yeah, that’s fine.” We laughed about going to rob and bank but first just calling 911 to let them know we are filming a movie there first. They will never show up.
So I walk over to the pay phone and dial 911. The operator comes on and asks me if it is an emergency. I say no. She asks me what the problem is. I say this:
“Ummm………….I think…………” Huge pause. I open my mouth and no words come out. “I think…….. I think I just stole a car.”
“What?”
“Yes. I did. I’m really sorry.”
“You stole a car.”
“Correct. On accident, kind of.” I tell her the story as best I can. She seems incredibly confused. She asks for the license plate and I give it to her. She pauses a minute and says “Ford full size van?” I think “oh great, I stole a stolen car.”
“Um, no, a Ford Acura.”
“Huh. OK, where are you?” I tell her. “Stay by the car. An officer will be there in a little bit.”
Meanwhile Chev and his friend go to call another friend to come get us. Chev is getting a huge kick out of calling people and telling them I stole a car. I sit by the car and wait. About ten minutes later a police car lazily winds up the parking garage ramp. He stops in front and steps out. “A good day to go to jail, huh?” I laugh my best non-nervous, loud laugh but he smiles too so I feel a little better. “Yeah.”
“You stole the car, huh?”
“Yep. First strike.” We take a look through the registration and whatnot, and he runs the plates. Chev comes over to get the details. The officer comes back.
“Well, they don’t have insurance, which I sure report, but let’s just let this one slide since they really haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Do you have their phone number? Should I call them? I could just bring it back if you want. I just am nervous of showing up to a 300 pound man with a shotgun asking me if I enjoyed my joyride in his car.”
“A good point. No, just leave it here. I’ll contact them.”
“OK. Well, some friends are coming for us. Is there anything else I need to do?”
“You might want to leave them some money for parking. It will be a dandy ticket by the time they get here.”
“True. Chev, got any money?” He has none. I have five bucks. I leave the ticket and the five bucks on the seat. I want to leave more money, but I really just want to get out of there.
It turns out the actual car hadn’t even been there at all. Her roommate had taken the extra keys and gone shopping. I have no idea what I would have done if there hadn’t been the other car there to steal. But certainly not ended up with a good story.
That’s what you’re here for, right? I mean, if you are looking for wisdom or insight, you can find it yourself because I just have stories. Some aren’t even mine. Some I adapt to make them better. Some I take from other people and put myself in them because it would be stupid to tell someone else’s story for them. Most I just recount as I remember them, which may be completely inaccurate or maybe or maybe not as someone else may have seen the same incident. I try to keep the events linear, but usually there is something I forget and have to add later. So I guess the stories aren’t linear unless I’m thinking really clearly. It happens. Some stories I have to tell for other people, because they aren’t here to tell them, maybe they don’t speak English, or maybe the details don’t allow me to put myself into them, but they are too good not to tell. Like my friend Lazaro’s story:
“I used to be a world class runner. I ran at the Estadio Azteca when I was 19. A guy tripped me coming out of the blocks. The track was this spongy substance that I had never ran on before. I complained ‘hey, that didn’t count,’ so they let me run in different heat. I won, with a time of 2 minutes and 28 seconds. That was the one kilometer of course. When I won, another guy in the heat said ‘that wasn’t fair. He had a motor.’ Everyone laughed. I had had some gastro intestinal problems that day and as I ran I made a lot of noise coming out of my behind. I guess they heard it too. I had a great time. That was the Olympic qualifying race for the Olympics in Los Angeles, 1984. The first place ran a time of 2 minutes 24 seconds. That was my friend, Carlos Barragon. He is from around here, Atlacomulco, too. He set the world record that year, there is Los Angeles. In the 10K. I came in third in the qualifiers, no more than the alternate, which makes you hope something bad will happen to the other two. Not career ending, but a pulled hamstring or something. I had never run in spiked shoes before that race. It was something I could not have imagined. And the track. I ran like the wind. Whoosh!
Carlos told me ‘you pull for me in the 10K, get out fast and get the group moving. After four or five kilometers I’ll catch up and go from there. Then I’ll pull for you in the 24K. We’ll help each other win.’
There was another winner from around here that year. Alfredo Sea, his name. From Ixtlahuaca. He won the gold medal in handball. Or the world championships. Or something like that. No, not that year. He won it in, let’s see, Barcelona in 1992. I have played him a few times. No, whoo! he’s good, give me a break.
I did get to go with the team to Los Angeles though. They gave us a visa so I stayed after, for almost a year. Did I tell you I almost got married to an American? “Caroline.”
I learned a little English there. I wish I had learned more. I think I want to speak pure English, all the time. I am tired of Spanish. I have worn out the language. It makes me tired to speak in it all the time.
Oh I could run all I wanted. Here it is like 3500 meters above sea level. But there in Los Angeles, I never got tired. I could run until my muscles ached. Run run run run run run run. I ran the marathon, the 10K, the 20K.
I wanted to come back and go to school, but he stayed and trained in the U.S. Carlos. He married an American woman. Soon after the Olympics, they invited him to run in Japan. They paid him 10,000 dollars just to go. And he won, and took home 70,000 more. He won in Las Angeles, Houston, Holland, England, Africa, Asia. Rotterdam, Germany, too. He took maybe 500,000 home just that year. Imagine that! Wow. Every year he invited me to go train with him, but I was in school then. I wanted to finish. Maybe I should have gone. He lives up there now. In Saint Louis.
I ran in Monterrey, the stadium there. Whatever the name of it is. In Puebla too. Pachuca, Guadalajara, Morelia. Many stadiums. All those soccer stadiums and I have never seen a soccer game. I have always felt strange watching someone else participate where I ran. I liked it more when everyone was watching me.”
Of course you have to imagine it with huge thoughtful pauses. After each sentence he would wiggle in his chair, take a drink of coffee, something active. Contemplative, yes, but not silent. He is always doing something, even when he is thinking about what to say next. He wants to train hard for the next few years and go try to win again, in the veterans division. He wants to go run and see if he has a chance. He wants to travel and figures it is the best way, even if he doesn’t win.
OK. So everyone has their story right? I mean, everyone has like one or two great stories, stories that you bring up for them. You are with a group of friends and even though the moment is not at all appropriate, you want to hear it again so you say “hey, tell your story.” It’s so good you feel they must be just ready to explode, like you are, so you try to give them a place to start, which never really works out the way you wish it had.
My story is that I stole a car. On accident. A buddy asked me to pick him up from the airport with another friend’s car. I went to get the car from where he had told me. I parked it in the underground parking and took his bags back to the car while he waited for the other friend. The other friend of course knew the car wasn’t hers, so I called the police and had them come out. I actually was nervous for moment that they might arrest me or something, but I have had the cops called on me three or four times before for things I didn’t do or wasn’t doing, so I knew it would probably be chill. We took a taxi home and left five bucks on the seat for the guy to pay his parking fee (which probably was more like 100 by the time he actually came to get it, but I didn’t stick around to find out).
The story is better than that, but I’ve told it so many times it has gotten a little tired.
What really happened is this: My roommate Chevas went to visit his fiancée in Wisconsin whom he had met only a few weeks before. He had no way of getting back to the dorms from the airport, but he had another friend coming in that day, maybe a half hour later. It worked out for all of us for me to bring her car and pick them both up. A totally different friend ran the keys by my room, and gave me directions. Up on 65th street. We are on 45th. A nice walk. So I make it up there and see two cars like the one she had described: red Ford Acura’s. I try the key on the nicer one, no luck. The older crappy one I hop in, fire her up, and bring her down to the airport.
I get into the temporary parking, grab my ticket, and find Chev. His friend won’t arrive for another half hour, so we go to put the bags in the car. As we walk out into the parking garage, we approach the car. “Where is it?” he asks. “Right here.” He stares and it and says it doesn’t look like hers. I open the door and start the car. He shrugs and I go to open the trunk. The key won’t work. I try and try getting a little nervous. I try the passenger door and it doesn’t work either. Hmm. I furiously get in the car and open the glove compartment. I ask Chev what the girls name is, and it is totally different than the registration. What in the world? I can’t think straight. What is going on?
“OK,” I say. Let’s go find her and bring her back and she’ll fix this whole mess. So we go find her, bring her back, and she says “nope. That’s not my car.”
Beeep!
I think hard, and remember when we were filming a movie one time and we were shooting a fight scene. Someone didn’t see the camera and lights and called the police. They came and we all had a good laugh and they told us just to notify them if next time we are going to do something like that. We asked if we just call 911. They said “yeah, that’s fine.” We laughed about going to rob and bank but first just calling 911 to let them know we are filming a movie there first. They will never show up.
So I walk over to the pay phone and dial 911. The operator comes on and asks me if it is an emergency. I say no. She asks me what the problem is. I say this:
“Ummm………….I think…………” Huge pause. I open my mouth and no words come out. “I think…….. I think I just stole a car.”
“What?”
“Yes. I did. I’m really sorry.”
“You stole a car.”
“Correct. On accident, kind of.” I tell her the story as best I can. She seems incredibly confused. She asks for the license plate and I give it to her. She pauses a minute and says “Ford full size van?” I think “oh great, I stole a stolen car.”
“Um, no, a Ford Acura.”
“Huh. OK, where are you?” I tell her. “Stay by the car. An officer will be there in a little bit.”
Meanwhile Chev and his friend go to call another friend to come get us. Chev is getting a huge kick out of calling people and telling them I stole a car. I sit by the car and wait. About ten minutes later a police car lazily winds up the parking garage ramp. He stops in front and steps out. “A good day to go to jail, huh?” I laugh my best non-nervous, loud laugh but he smiles too so I feel a little better. “Yeah.”
“You stole the car, huh?”
“Yep. First strike.” We take a look through the registration and whatnot, and he runs the plates. Chev comes over to get the details. The officer comes back.
“Well, they don’t have insurance, which I sure report, but let’s just let this one slide since they really haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Do you have their phone number? Should I call them? I could just bring it back if you want. I just am nervous of showing up to a 300 pound man with a shotgun asking me if I enjoyed my joyride in his car.”
“A good point. No, just leave it here. I’ll contact them.”
“OK. Well, some friends are coming for us. Is there anything else I need to do?”
“You might want to leave them some money for parking. It will be a dandy ticket by the time they get here.”
“True. Chev, got any money?” He has none. I have five bucks. I leave the ticket and the five bucks on the seat. I want to leave more money, but I really just want to get out of there.
It turns out the actual car hadn’t even been there at all. Her roommate had taken the extra keys and gone shopping. I have no idea what I would have done if there hadn’t been the other car there to steal. But certainly not ended up with a good story.
That’s what you’re here for, right? I mean, if you are looking for wisdom or insight, you can find it yourself because I just have stories. Some aren’t even mine. Some I adapt to make them better. Some I take from other people and put myself in them because it would be stupid to tell someone else’s story for them. Most I just recount as I remember them, which may be completely inaccurate or maybe or maybe not as someone else may have seen the same incident. I try to keep the events linear, but usually there is something I forget and have to add later. So I guess the stories aren’t linear unless I’m thinking really clearly. It happens. Some stories I have to tell for other people, because they aren’t here to tell them, maybe they don’t speak English, or maybe the details don’t allow me to put myself into them, but they are too good not to tell. Like my friend Lazaro’s story:
“I used to be a world class runner. I ran at the Estadio Azteca when I was 19. A guy tripped me coming out of the blocks. The track was this spongy substance that I had never ran on before. I complained ‘hey, that didn’t count,’ so they let me run in different heat. I won, with a time of 2 minutes and 28 seconds. That was the one kilometer of course. When I won, another guy in the heat said ‘that wasn’t fair. He had a motor.’ Everyone laughed. I had had some gastro intestinal problems that day and as I ran I made a lot of noise coming out of my behind. I guess they heard it too. I had a great time. That was the Olympic qualifying race for the Olympics in Los Angeles, 1984. The first place ran a time of 2 minutes 24 seconds. That was my friend, Carlos Barragon. He is from around here, Atlacomulco, too. He set the world record that year, there is Los Angeles. In the 10K. I came in third in the qualifiers, no more than the alternate, which makes you hope something bad will happen to the other two. Not career ending, but a pulled hamstring or something. I had never run in spiked shoes before that race. It was something I could not have imagined. And the track. I ran like the wind. Whoosh!
Carlos told me ‘you pull for me in the 10K, get out fast and get the group moving. After four or five kilometers I’ll catch up and go from there. Then I’ll pull for you in the 24K. We’ll help each other win.’
There was another winner from around here that year. Alfredo Sea, his name. From Ixtlahuaca. He won the gold medal in handball. Or the world championships. Or something like that. No, not that year. He won it in, let’s see, Barcelona in 1992. I have played him a few times. No, whoo! he’s good, give me a break.
I did get to go with the team to Los Angeles though. They gave us a visa so I stayed after, for almost a year. Did I tell you I almost got married to an American? “Caroline.”
I learned a little English there. I wish I had learned more. I think I want to speak pure English, all the time. I am tired of Spanish. I have worn out the language. It makes me tired to speak in it all the time.
Oh I could run all I wanted. Here it is like 3500 meters above sea level. But there in Los Angeles, I never got tired. I could run until my muscles ached. Run run run run run run run. I ran the marathon, the 10K, the 20K.
I wanted to come back and go to school, but he stayed and trained in the U.S. Carlos. He married an American woman. Soon after the Olympics, they invited him to run in Japan. They paid him 10,000 dollars just to go. And he won, and took home 70,000 more. He won in Las Angeles, Houston, Holland, England, Africa, Asia. Rotterdam, Germany, too. He took maybe 500,000 home just that year. Imagine that! Wow. Every year he invited me to go train with him, but I was in school then. I wanted to finish. Maybe I should have gone. He lives up there now. In Saint Louis.
I ran in Monterrey, the stadium there. Whatever the name of it is. In Puebla too. Pachuca, Guadalajara, Morelia. Many stadiums. All those soccer stadiums and I have never seen a soccer game. I have always felt strange watching someone else participate where I ran. I liked it more when everyone was watching me.”
Of course you have to imagine it with huge thoughtful pauses. After each sentence he would wiggle in his chair, take a drink of coffee, something active. Contemplative, yes, but not silent. He is always doing something, even when he is thinking about what to say next. He wants to train hard for the next few years and go try to win again, in the veterans division. He wants to go run and see if he has a chance. He wants to travel and figures it is the best way, even if he doesn’t win.
posted by Patrick McEvoy at 1:40 PM
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