Why? Hell if I know. It started back in the Babe Ruth League. I don\u2019t think those clowns even know my real name no more. It\u2019s Bowie, right, Bowie Jones, but go ahead and call me that and see if they even have a clue who you\u2019re frigging talking about. Bob Hazel was good for, what, a quarter of a season? His nickname is \u201cHurricane.\u201d I murder the ball for an entire year and they call me Sack. Go figure.<\/p>\n
Listen, say you\u2019re with a bunch of them, right, and you said: \u201cThat Bowie can talk your ear off, huh?” They’d be, like, “Who?” And you\u2019d go, “You know, the kid who pumps gas at O\u2019C\u2019s\u2026.\u201d They’d probably start laughing, “Oh, know who he means? Sack!”<\/p>\n
Ain’t like I’m a snob about it or nothing. Guy doesn\u2019t get to pick his nickname, after all. So I got on base a lot\u2014I mean, I get it. And I know how touchy people get when it comes to their names, trust me. One time this lady called for Mr. O’Connell, right, and I said: “May I ask who’s callin’?” wicked polite and everything, and she’s all: “Missus So-and-so.” So I go and tell Mr. O’Connell this Mrs. So-and-so’s on the phone and he says to tell her he’ll be right there, so I said: “Mr. O’Connell’ll be right with you, Miss So-and-so,” and she gasps, like, all offended, “I beg your pardon, young man, it’s Missus <\/em>So-and-so.”<\/p>\n The way she acted you’d’ve thought I insulted her mother or something. I don’t never make a big deal about being called Sack<\/em> but change your name just a little and you get all bent out of shape? I mean, I said that to myself, of course. Didn’t say nothing to her. Can’t say dick when all you are’s a gas station attendant.<\/p>\n This one guy, right, his ears all, like, I don’t even know how to describe it, they were like all shriveled, he pulls up in this black IROC-Z28. Wants ten dollars and a quart of 10-40. Anyway, I\u2019m busy as fuck. Four pumps going and a line of cars. So, like, by mistake I grab some 10-30. Big whoop. Wasn’t even like I opened it or anything. This guy, holy crap, he jumps out of the IROC: “I said 10-40, you little puke! 10-40!” like that.<\/p>\n I’m all, “Got it, man. 10-40. Just relax.”<\/p>\n “Don\u2019t tell me to relax,\u201d he said. \u201cPut that crap in my car and I\u2019ll choke you the bleep out.”<\/p>\n Mr. O’Connell had to walk out to the pumps. Told the guy to relax, just like I had, except Shriveled Ears listened to Mr. O’Connell.<\/p>\n Seriously, I felt bad\u2014you know, about the guy’s ears and everything\u2014but guess what, if your ears’re that messed up you shouldn\u2019t give a flying sack what kind of oil’s in your car. I mean, isn’t shit like having shriveled up ears supposed to make you realize what’s important in life? What’s the use in having bad stuff happen if you just end up like every other douchebag?<\/p>\n The thing is, getting yelled at, it\u2019s part of the job. You\u2019ll learn. I call it getting \u201cre-tarred and feathered\u201d. Edie, my girlfriend, she hates it when I say that. Re-tarred and feathered. And she doesn\u2019t get why I stand there and take it. She thinks I should stick up for myself, you know? And I won\u2019t lie, it used to really bother me. Like that time with Shriveled Ears. Didn\u2019t have a thick skin like I do now. That\u2019s what happens after four years or however long it\u2019s been since Mr. O\u2019Connell hired me.<\/p>\n About that, right, I\u2019m walking down Main Street one day, I hear somebody calling my name: \u201cJones!”<\/p>\n “Jones!” he yells again.<\/p>\n Mr. O\u2019Connell’s standing at the pumps on the other side of the street, waving for me to come over. This is a guy I don\u2019t even know, right? What do you do? Suddenly, it hits me like a ton of sack. He ain\u2019t just the owner of this gas station, he\u2019s the high school baseball coach. That was the year I hit, I don’t know what, .550 or something in Babe Ruth. Very first year. I figured he wanted to talk shop. I mean, five-hundred hitter. Who wouldn’t want to talk to one of us, right?<\/p>\n So there I was expecting him to say something like, “Heard you busted out the lumber last year,” or some corny coach crap like that, only that’s not even close to what he wanted to talk to me about. He goes, “Any chance you\u2019re lookin\u2019 for work?”<\/p>\n Guy I\u2019d never spoken to in my life asking me if I want a job. Like the thing every fourteen year old in the world wants is a job pumping gas, right? But then I was, like: Wait a minute, Jones. This is the head coach of the varsity baseball team. You don’t say no to a guy like this.<\/p>\n I\u2019m, like, “Why, you hirin’?”<\/p>\n And the rest, as every dumb sack likes to say, is history. And, let me tell you, it ain’t too pleasant a history neither. I was a total tool. I mean, from day frigging one. Know how many times I forgot about the gas caps? Car\u2019d drive off and I\u2019d see the cap sitting on top of the pump. Kept them all in a box in the office in case the people ever came back. Mr. O’Connell had a coronary practically when he counted all the caps inside that box. Eventually I just stuffed them in the pockets of my coveralls and threw them away when I got home. Or if he wasn’t there I\u2019d chuck the things over the wall onto the railroad tracks.<\/p>\n So, anyway, pumping gas ain’t exactly a walk in the park. You\u2019ve probably figured that out by now. It\u2019s dangerous too. There’s static explosions, vapor fires, stuff like that to be aware of. All kinds of hazards. I told Edie that the other day and she rolled her eyes at me. To hear her talk, you’d think pumping gas was a cake walk.<\/p>\n “Like, how difficult can it be?” she said.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, here I am biting my lip. I mean, anything\u2019s difficult when you’ve got a boss throwing looks your way. Not that I would ever say nothing. Like, what’m I going to say, “How about we go grab a couple of Hoodsies, kid? And, oh, by the way, your dad’s the sack to end all sacks.” No, I don’t think so. Do I wish the guy liked me? Course I do. No use crying about it though. There’s not a whole lot you can do when somebody just doesn’t like your face.<\/p>\n The worst though is when customers complain to him about me. Mr. O\u2019Connell\u2019s face twists up like he\u2019s got stomach cancer or something. \u201cThe kid’s a walking lawsuit,\u201d I once heard a regular tell him. \u201cThe moron\u2019s out there with goddam leaves sticking out of his hat, for Christ\u2019s sake!” And if I was him I probably would\u2019ve said the same thing. Why would some sad sack walk around with cabbage leaves under his baseball cap? Thing is that\u2019s exactly what I asked Mr. O\u2019Connell when he told me about the trick in the first place. He said he\u2019d learned about it in Korea or some shit.<\/p>\n I mean, I was like: Get the eff out of here. I was all, \u201cYou\u2019re shittin\u2019 me, right? Serious?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs a heart attack,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Anyway, the fridge in the garage where we keep the Cokes and stuff, in the summertime there\u2019s always a head of cabbage in the freezer. Help yourself. You might not be as cool as a cucumber, kid, but you can be as cool as cabbage<\/em>!<\/p>\n I mean, what do we care, right? So we don\u2019t win any beauty pageants. Being a poor sack in a rich town, and a poor pumping gas sack to boot, it paints a big old strike zone on your back. Getting retard and feathered by shriveled up slobs just comes with the territory. But as Mr. O\u2019Connell likes remind me, the clowns in this town hit below the Mendoza Line. I batted over five hundred in the Babe Ruth League my first year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Seriously, I felt bad\u2014you know, about the guy’s ears and everything\u2014but guess what, if your ears’re that messed up you shouldn\u2019t give a flying sack what kind of oil’s in your car. I mean, isn’t shit like having shriveled up ears supposed to make you realize what’s important in life? What’s the use in having bad stuff happen if you just end up like every other douchebag?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":16871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-john-ward"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16848"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16863,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16848\/revisions\/16863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}