298 Parker Lane

CHAPTER ONE

HELP WANTED

Summertime and the living should have been easy. And it would have been for Robert Willard, had he not failed geometry.

He blamed a lot on Geometry, a pointless class really! And he blamed Mr. Bookman, most of all, who had to have been the worst teacher he had ever taken. The wearing drone of the man, as he went on about his ‘favorite topic’, and how ‘lucky’ they all were to be taking this journey together. The incessant hum of the old fluorescents in the temporary buildings at the far west end of campus. Temporaries? Here it was 1976, and these old barracks that had been built to house training classes for the Korean War. Or, at least, that was what Robert had been led to believe. They looked like that could be true. They smelt like it, it definitely could be the case. The smell of mold and sweat, baked into the plywood floors, the rotten areas of the floor where the sweat had gotten the upper hand, were boarded over with more plywood. The old desks, had to be twenty-years old. They had been sat in, squirmed in by bored students, and carved into by a nameless parade of zombified-high schoolers waiting for the end of times, or at least the end of class.

Robert’s desk was no exception. He had wanted the one by the door so there would be a breeze, but no, here he was planted dead-center two seats from the front in clear view of T. Ramon Bookman Ph. D.Dr. Bookman - as he wanted the students to call him - was one of the two PLHS teachers to have finished doctoral degrees. Dr. Bookman was living proof that hard work, big debt, and determination, could land you a gig teaching in a Quonset bunker in the central coast to a pack of disinterested brats who couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Geometry.

And, to make matters worse, more worse… Robert’s desk wobbled! One of the legs was slightly shorter than the others and whenever Robert started to doze, and his weight shifted the desk rocked him back into the reality of Geometry class. The carving on his desk had no great lyrics from Pink Floyd positing on the relative aspects of time ‘ticking away’, no, that little bit of pop doggerel charmed the desk of Wendy Glamper, who hated contemporary rock. She loved the old folk movement and was not afraid to tell you about it any chance you gave her. “That music had a point!” She would pontificate and postulate (Her words! The girl was a walking Thesaurus.) about the trite nature of modern rock and how it was bathing us in a plastic fantastic bubble that was dulling our brains. “Where is the protest?” She would beg. And we would protest and beg her to stop. But that wasn’t possible for Wendy once you got her going.

And! To make matters even more worse, she rode the bus home with Robert and would continue her tirade there and expand on the beauty of the East Coast Scene. She was New York bound whenever she got a chance. She was born there, upstate New York, and she would triumphantly return there after her time in Tartarus – the hell of Point Lobos – our little town in the central valley.

She was not far off in her opinions of the place. We all hated it, Robert thought, but we also had an ingrown loyalty to the place that birthed him. So, Robert defended the place as best he could. But it had no verve. No energy. No purpose!

Much like the Geometry class that Robert Willard had most assuredly failed.

Summer school.

This was going to have been Robert’s glory summer. He had a job lined up at Fast Burger. He had the day shift, the best shift. He was going to work with Barbara Jardin. She was on track to be varsity cheerleader this year and this was the year Robert was going to ask her out. It was all part of the grand plan; He would have regular contact with her. He would have a shared experience of hating someplace other than Point Lobos High. He would have money! Almost $2.25 and hour! A king’s fortune! And, while he may not have a car to take her anyplace, he would be working on his driver’s ed training. That was if he could convince the folks to lend him the ol’ Rambler as his brother Tony, was off that summer working the salmon farms in Idaho. “Please?” He would ask them. “Tony doesn’t need it. I’ll have gas money?”

Robert doubted the request would work, but he could always try.

Summer school!

Bummer school!

The class Robert needed to take was four days a week right during the day shift. There was no getting out of it if he was going to try to graduate next year. So, he kissed Fast Burger away. He kissed Barbara Jardin away. He kissed the summer away.

The manager at Fast Burger offered Robert the closing shift but his folks nixed the idea at light speed. “That’s a little late, honey.” His mom determined. His Dad just laughed and walked out of the room, too busy with some other project.

So, no job prospects, no Barbara prospects, and the hell of four days a week taking Geometry awaited.

Robert, woke up early Monday morning. He hadn’t had a chance to shift over to summertime sleeping schedules. He went down to the kitchen and watched his dad kiss his mother on the cheek and head off to work. Sometimes Robert felt bad he didn’t know where his dad worked or what he did, but he realized after a pop quiz one bus ride home that almost no one else on the bus, (Except of course, Wendy Glamper. Of Course!) had the slightest idea what their parents did, except complain. That seemed to be the main employment of parents in Point Lobos. That and drinking.

Robert’s dad scruffed his son’s hair, what there was of it. Robert had been sporting a crew cut – a number two special – for the last three years. His dad had the same do. It, was military holdover he guessed? But every few weeks his dad would haul out the barstool into the backyard plug in the hair trimmer and go at the removal of Robert’s ‘wild main’. “No son of mine was going to go around with long hair!”

Robert’s dad, Dave, was terrible at giving haircuts. It should be the easiest thing, pop on the guard thinger onto the shaver and go at it. But somehow the man always seemed to dig a new groove into poor Robert’s scalp with each cut. Robert wondered if he was trying to carve in his initials up there.

Dave grabbed his thermos and popped out to make it to work on time. Punctuality was king for Dave! For somethings. Work yes, getting home in time for dinner, not so much.

Robert looked through the Westinghouse to see if there were any signs of promise old pizza or maybe Chinese leftovers for breakfast. Robert had, a queasy stomach and was not really into the over-easy eggs his mom loved to make for him. Bacon was OK… but she almost always cooked it too long and then they were fused together into a crispy stick, glistening with grease, sitting on the Desert Pattern China plates.

Robert’s mom was busy on the phone to Becky her best friend in Point Lobos. They talked on the phone all day, or they chatted together at the laundromat, or the church hall, or at the P.T.A..

With mom on the phone, Robert was free to pull out a to-go box of egg foo young and plop it on a plate and dived in before she had a chance to see her son spoil his appetite.

Settled in, with almost an hour to catch the bus for summer school, Robert looked over the Point Lobos Reporter. This was the daily paper that the town lived around. Reports of the comings and goings, the openings of stores, the deaths by accidents, the funnies (Robert’s first stop), the news of the world (with topics to be avoided at the dinner table), and the classifieds.

It was there, in the classifieds, that a little posting circled by his dad, caught Robert’s eyes.

HELP WANTED SHORT TERM

Looking for assistance clearing out years of storage.

Hours flexible, must start soon. Payment on completion.

298 Parker Lane. Inquire in person.

Robert’s dad had circled the ad and wrote a little note to his son, “Honest pay for honest work.” Robert laughed at his dad’s use of aphorisms. It was endless. But the idea was interest, and if the hours could work around school, he still might be able to salvage some of the summer and maybe put away some ‘dating money’.