"Matthew's Hubcap Trick"
Scully's Bar. The Tenderloin, San Francisco. 1996
Matthew and I were sitting in front of Scully's bar. There was some crappy plastic lawn furniture chained to a pole. This was before Mr. Phillips had the deck built off to the side. Anyways, Frankie Styles and Andie pulled up and parked illegally right in front of us. He was still driving that black station wagon that he thought looked like a hearse. It kind of did look like a hearse in the same way a pony kind of looks like a horse.
"Dan. Ork." He said as he walked up. He always called Matthew, "Ork," but I can't remember why. I think Frankie once said he used to play Dungeons & Dragons and Matthew reminded him of a juvenile Ork. That sounds faintly familiar so let’s go with that. After Andie got her stuff together, she got out of the passenger side and waved as she flashed us a smile.
"What's going on?" Andie said still smiling. She looked like she could be Tori Amos’ younger sister. Brownish red hair, wide mouth with exaggerated lips, and twinkling blue eyes. Which, I might add, always seemed to linger when we made eye contact.
"Go on in, Andie. Let me have a word with the Brothers Slack." Frankie said.
"Sure, see you guys inside." Andie said walking in.
Frankie smiled down on us like a proud father. "Do you fellas see something missing from the bone wagon?"
"You call your station wagon the "bone wagon?"" Matthew said with a chuckle.
"Do you see something missing?" He persisted.
"Yeah, your hubcap." I said.
"Right! Your powers of perception never cease to amaze me. Here's ten bucks, Orc. See if you can find me a match." He held the ten dollar bill and motioned to the garage/body shop next to Scully's with its over filled parking lot of projects and wrecks spilling into Scully's parking lot.
"Sure, Frankie, sure. . .I gotcha covered." Matthew said taking the ten.
Frankie grinned and made a clicking sound in his cheek as he pointed at us both, his fingers simulating two pistols. "I'll catch you two later." And he went into Scully's.
"Can he see us?" Matthew asked thumbing towards the bar’s window behind us.
I looked and could see Frankie talking to Andy Boy as Andie Girl moved behind the bar. "Nope. He’s talking to Andy Boy."
Matthew took out a clunky Swiss Army Knife and pulled out the little screwdriver and ducked around to the rear of the driver's side of Frankie's car. A squeaking metal sound preceded Matthew returning with Frankie's hubcap. He walked around and popped Frankie's rear left hubcap on the vacant front right hubcap.
"There we go." He grinned and sat back down in the plastic chair with a look of immense satisfaction. “Perfect match.”
Andie had apparently put some money in the jukebox before getting behind the bar because someone had just turned on the outside speakers and the music playing was her favorite bar tune, “El Paso” by Marty Robbins. We could hear the few patrons in the bar singing along with the parts they knew.
Matthew softly sang too, “And at last here I am on the hill overlooking El Paso; I can see Rosa's cantina below.” Then looked up and said, “Wanna go to the taqueria and get a burrito?”
My mind immediately pictured a watermelon sized burrito filled with rice, beans, and cheese. “Yeah, that sounds good. The one around the corner?”
“Yeah”
At the same time we were planning on spending the $10, Frankie left Scully’s and after noticing the “new” hubcap said, “Pretty fast, Ork." He walked around to the front of his car as Matthew gave him the thumbs up. Matthew laughed as Frankie drove away oblivious to the fact that he still only had three hubcaps.
No comments:
Post a Comment