A True Story As Recounted By G-Man's Brother
My week was over, and Paul's week never really starts. We were off to the beach to relax, smoke too many cigarettes, and eat burgers with patties the size of chicken potpies. The good stuff, at least for us. We got a late start by any normal person's reckoning, but for us, leaving at eight in the evening was incredible, almost unprecedented. When Paul arrived at my apartment, his blue Volvo was filled with dogs, and soon, it was filled with me and my laundry. Paul's beach place is huge and beautiful, with free laundry and food to feed an army, a moocher's heaven. Paul plays patron saint to my friends and me, and a damn fine job he does. Sometimes he keeps roofs over our heads, but he always keeps food and cigarettes in our mouths. Paul told me that we would have to make a stop; he was missing a gas cap. We would have to stop at a Fred Meyer store and find a gas cap.
What a strange thing. Civilization itself falling apart for the sake of a palm-sized piece of plastic. But what the fuck, I suppose? What's ten minutes, what's ten dollars? No goddamn funny shaped car accessory is keeping me down! We shuffled off, Paul driving carefully to prevent gas from spilling out the side of his car.
"What the fuck does a gas cap do, anyway?"
"It keeps the gas in," he told me. "Without it, all the gas comes out".
Neither of us are what you might call "mechanically inclined". Hell, I can't open a can of tuna without a fairly deep cut, so I wasn't going to screw with it. He decided that a rag would be too much incentive for some hooligan to blow us up, and that without a gas cap, we may as well be a hose on wheels, spraying gas behind us for the deer to lick up. Well, then. It's to the first Fred Meyer with an automotive department, right? It's just that easy. It's maybe ten minutes from my house. Paul glanced nervously into his rear view. Luckily, the gas had stayed put, FOR NOW!
So, Fred Meyer it is. Paul looks around the automotive section; I dribble a red rubber ball, and consider giving it a good hard kick, just to piss off the principal of one of my elementary schools. "Don't kick the red rubber balls!" She would yell at the weekly assembly. Her voice would echo off the walls of the auditorium, and then echo from our mouths as we kicked the goddamn hell out of those balls. Gotta give it to her, 'cause years later I'm still thinking about it. What was her name? Mrs. Red Rubber something, I think.
Paul is looking around like at a scavenger hunt, all furtive and peeking around corners. I am torn between a man in an red apron discussing the finer points of grinding keys in one of those big dumb machines, and a morbidly obese woman in a much larger red apron discussing the finer points of raising roly-poly children to another fat lady. Aces...I ask the fat lady, she stares blankly at me. For some reason I feel obligated to apologize for interrupting her. She takes me to another aisle, and helps Paul and I stare into a spot where the gas caps used to be, just a few weeks ago. There are few certainties in life, but one is that Fred Meyer will have what you are looking for. It's right over...oh, that's right, we sold our last one two weeks ago.
Great. Is that in the training manual? But, no bother. There is another Fred Meyer down the road; maybe even a Shucks Auto Supply. But we had better hurry, because it's almost nine o'clock. And the Shucks we just drove by is closed and this trip is starting to look damned. Paul turns to me:
"All right- we're going to the Fred Meyer down the road, and if they don't have gas caps, I want you to steal one."
"Okay, I'll steal one anyway."
He laughs, and we pull into the parking lot. He goes inside, I light a cigarette. Hmmm... thinks I. Look at all these cars, all these cars with their delicious gas caps. And this is the really, really important part, your honor. I'm not always me, you see. There is a mischievous little monkey who lives in my brain that sometimes sends me messages. "Steal!" the monkey says, "There are no consequences in monkeyland!"
So with my better judgment on vacation and the monkey in charge (feel free to give the monkey a name, if it makes you more comfortable), I began to case the joint. Hmm…to our right, lexus. Closed gas tank, opens from the inside. To our right, Volvo. Old, beat up Volvo though. These people need their gas cap, the monkey says. I mean Jesus, he has morals your honor. "Eureka", says the monkey! Look over there! A gigantic, hideous blue SUV, and right in front of the store!" you know what to do, says the monkey". Umm, should I put my cigarette out"? "Quit worrying so much". So I listen to the monkey.
I open the gas tank, put my fingers on the cap, begin to turn it left... "excuse me?" says the female voice of the suburbs. "What are you doing to our car?" - the male voice of the suburbs.
I take a look. They are youngish, clean cut, you know, Atkins-diet republican types. Shit. I never caught either of their names, so I'm going to assume that the fella's name was "Dickhead", and the girl was, well, Girl, I suppose. He repeated, "What are you doing to our car?"
"I'm stealing your gas cap", was all I could get out. My monkey had left me, it was just me, out of my little world where there were no consequences for my actions. I was not nervous or surprised, simply caught, and honesty is occasionally the best course of actions.
"Why are you doing that?"
"Well, we lost ours."
"So you figured you'd take ours?"
"Yeah, that was the plan."
He seemed dumbfounded. Or just dumb. Perhaps even simply founded. He turned to Girl and asked if she has brought her phone. She hadn't. He had. I suppose he had forgotten it in the confusion. Fine by me. He called 911, all the while staring at me, using his piggy eyes to try and intimidate me into confessing whatever it was he supposed I was really up to.
I inventoried my options while he dialed. Kill him? The guy's twice my size. Run? I'm a smoker. I run maybe once or twice a year and hurt for weeks. Not to mention the fact that I would have to somehow get back to Paul's car. That would just make it worse. I saw no way out. It was obvious that Dickhead had no intention of dropping it. Well all right. Believe it or not, I had the audacity to get annoyed.
"Do you remember what I look like? Cause I'm going inside."
"That's fine," said Dickhead. "I'll follow you."
Oh clever piggy eyed Dickhead. I went into the store with my new friend in tow, helping him fill-in the gaps in his story, and correcting details of my appearance (my eyes are green, not blue!). I asked him if he knew where the automotive section was. He responded by telling me that he wasn't going to tell me, but he would follow me there. That kind of circular logic infuriates me.
The cops put him on hold. While we waited, he stared at me. I began to wonder: what exactly, what is the exact punishment for grand theft gas cap? It was clear that he still didn't believe me.
"Are you sure that you weren't trying to steal gas?"
"Positive."
"Well," squinty piggy eyes upon me, "why did you need a gas cap in the first place?"
"We thought that without one all our gas would spill out."
"That's not the way it works, that's stupid."
"I don't think intelligence has anything to do with it."
"Well exactly," he said, and sniggered.
I was at a loss. Despite what you see in the movies, getting caught for a crime does tend to limit your ability to make smartass comments. I found Paul, and what do you know, they are out of gas caps at this location as well. Apparently this is not a growth market. Paul sees Dickhead following me, with the police still on the line.
Who the hell is this?"
"Oh, uh, I was stealing this guy's gas cap and he caught me."
He looked past me, not even laughing at the joke. When Dickhead remained in hot pursuit, he realized I was serious.
"Jake." He said my name the way only someone who has known me for years could. Kind of one of those 'I leave you out of my sight for five minutes' tones that people get when they realize how incapable of taking care of myself I am. He began to speak to the guy, but got as frustrated as I was. I told him to meet me outside. I turned and looked into those piggy eyes. "For God's sake, tell the cops I'll be waiting outside."
It was a short wait. Beaverton's finest were there, three strong. There was officer ex-fullback, officer little guy, and officer I didn't really see. I was pleased that it took three of them. If I was going down, at least I was outnumbered. I presented ID, and accepted a search. "No, I haven't been taking drugs, no I didn't steal those cigarettes, I really just wanted that gas cap." I assumed the ubiquitous COPS search, hands on the wall. Officer ex-fullback decided he felt more comfortable locking the ends of my fingers together, which he seized in one of his hands. I was impressed.
Now, I don't get embarrassed easily, and being searched in front of a busy grocery store didn't bother me. The officer's thorough inspection didn't bother me, even though he touched both of my testicles. What really got to me was the search of my back and rib cage. I am terribly ticklish, and despite all the willpower I could muster, I giggled terribly when he searched me there. The search ended there.
Officer little guy asked me my name, he was very friendly. He seemed amused. Dickhead slinked back to his car, disappointed that he couldn't openly jeer at me through the whole process. Officer ex-fullback suggested that we "cough up the 9.99 for a gas cap", and Paul chimed in "No, they don't have any", proving that he is one of the coolest humans on earth. Officer ex-fullback told us that no charges would be pressed, and I was relieved, but also disappointed. These things always pique my curiosity. Is that a jailable offense? I digress. The officers broke their cars' triangle formation and drove off to save the day somewhere. Paul and I saluted Dickhead as we walked off, and then cut him off in the parking lot. We were able to get a gas cap at a filling station about 100 yards away. Go figure.